Please visit the active Ultrasparky blog to browse the for the content that has accumulated since this all began in 1996.
December 2010
A young Brooklyn family
Diane Arbus — A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C., 1966: “Richard and Marylin Dauria with two of their three children, Richard Jr. and Dawn. They live in the Bronx, New York; they met in school and were married when Marylin was 16. Richard, an Italian immigrant, is a garage mechanic. Marylin, who is 23, says she is often told she looks like Elizabeth Taylor. She is not Irish but she told me she had dyed her hair black to make herself look as if she is. Richard Jr. is mentally retarded, and the family is undeniably close in a painful, heartrending sort of way.” [via fmopa.org]
Pink Mince in exile
Pink Mince is all packed up for our two-month relocation to New York City, including a stack of back issues for any orders that trickle in. Now to think of what to publish while we’re there! Also, invitations to hang out with readers and collaborators would be awesome — wink@pinkmince.com.
From the scrapbook
Great Central Railway - “To and from the Continent - Grimsby to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp” - timetable and map folder
A folder advertising the Great Central Railway’s (GCR) shipping services via Grimsby in 1912.
From the scrapbook
1947 Johnson Line brochure (composite)
*click thru to see images of the interior, passenger areas and accommodations
Johnson Line; Sweden
(Johnsonlinjen - Rederi AB Nordstjernan)
Introducing Copse
I performed a little experiment during the the first two weeks of this month, and designed a typeface called Copse. The design is not very experimental, but the process was. When I realized I would need some freelance projects to tide me over until I secured a new work visa and began a new full-time job in the Spring, I was approached by Google and asked to submit some proposals for their library of web fonts. Since they were hoping for something ready before the end of the year, we thought I should try some display fonts with a focused concept that could be produced rapidly, and expanded later on if they proved to be popular. (That means the more you use it, the more likely you'll get more weights and styles to use at some point.)
Copse is a hybrid of a text face and a typewriter face, meant to hold up well if used at small sizes online, but produce a soft but clear effect at larger sizes. It has low contrast and soft edges, with some kicky ball terminals to provide a splash of color.
You can get it here — right now, for free.
Update: To answer a few questions that have been trickling in, which reminded me that I forgot to mention half the things about this that I intended:
Future fashion
Curt Swan’s model sheet for the Legion circa 1968. Â From the Amazing World of DC Comics#9
What's that name again?
A missed opportunity for rebranding a gay cruise
Australian National Line; Searoad Passenger Ticket
Vintage Indian paperback covers
So exciting! Check out these glorious examples of lettering in various Indic scripts, gathered in this Flickr set, with a bit more info over at the blog A Journey Round My Skull. So pretty! And a bit of a goldmine for my ongoing research about Indic typefaces and how they can be influenced by vernacular sources.
Jack Kirby in the Valley
They call him the king because Jack Kirby rules over the entire medium of superhero comics. It's not that he was the boss, but because he was the best. You may even want to argue that if you're not fond of his style, but you've got to admit that he had style bursting out in all directions. I think he was extraordinary, not only a creative wizard but a truly gifted illustrator who created unbelievably dynamic comic-book images that have burned themselves into my consciousness since I first started paying attention. In fact, if you look around at images that use a certain pop-cultural shorthand for comic books and superheroes, you see a whole lot of Kirby in those dots.
So I was giddy to come across this lengthy article on Kirby from Vice magazine. I haven't had a chance to savor it yet, so I’m mostly writing this to file the link away for future reference and your enjoyment. Nevertheless, all hail the king!
From the scrapbook
T-minus 5 and counting…
The mission clock in the One Mile array control room, showing universal time. This clock proved to be rather important one particular November day in 1967 when a young astronomy student by the name of Jocelyn Bell was looking to confirm a suspected Pulsar signal from the 4 Acre array by comparing the results from this one. Given the slightly different alignments of the two arrays there would be an interval of a certain number of [arc] minutes before the One Mile would pick up the signal… Watching this clock Jocelyn Bell realized this interval had been miscalculated and decided to ‘give it 5 more minutes’… Had she not done so, the discovery of Pulsars would have been written off as a mere aberration of the 4 Acre array, and the history of astronomy would have been very different.
From the scrapbook
Adding N to X
A close-up of one of the many vintage control panels at MRAO. This one for the 4C array. Interestingly, this board relates to Analog > Digital conversion of signal traces… which is reflected in the curious juxtaposition of good old trip switches & comb dials with a digital keypad.
You got it raw!
I’ve wanted to write something about John Waters, and why I respect and adore him so much, and how he's been so influential for so much of my life — I saw him speak last Saturday night, just before I left the UK, and had him autograph my expired visa — but it would be hard to put all that in tow words properly at the best of time, and I’ve been absurdly busy.
Instead, let's just enjoy a few moments from Cry-Baby, shall we? I still remember seeing this with some girls I knew in college, and when Polly Bergen said with some disgust, "Boys with long hair . . . and tattoos . . . who spit on the ground," we all experienced a collective throb of "Oh yes."
Ye Olde Fanboy Forum
Aw, doesn't this take you back? It's a form asking readers to send in their thoughts to be gathered for a future edition of Stan Lee's Soapbox. Back then, it took some serious effort — writing, clipping a page out of a comic, and stamps — to whine about how things didn't live up to your sense of fanboy entitlement, or to praise comic creators for their daring portrayals of super-powered nerds. It took commitment. It was a natural troll deterrent! (Well, that and editors getting to choose whose letters saw the light of day.)
[From Amazing Spider-Man #28, as found at Comics Make No Sense.]
Wonder Woman understands my pain
"Sometimes even Wonder Woman struggles to get a date..." [via Comically Vintage]
Scooter approves
He said you looked hot
Oh, I forgot this photo existed.
I have such a crush on Scooter LaForge.
The Elite
Overall, this Economist article on the legendary Matthew Carter is quite good, but for me this is the bit that stands: "Mr Carter sits near the pinnacle of an elite profession. No more than several thousand type designers ply the trade worldwide, only a few hundred earn their keep by it, and only several dozens — most of them dead — have their names on the lips of discerning aficionados. "
Church house
Oh look! It’s the house next to where I’m staying (on the left, bottom pic) in Utrecht for the next couple of weeks.
Church home for sale in Utrecht-
amazing and surprising minimalistic interior in an old typology…
The Pink Mince mood board
Aw, ain’t that sweet? That’s the awesomely talented Howard Hardiman (and special friend) minding his comics and some issues of Pink Mince at the table he very kindly shared with us at last weekend’s Alternative Press Fair. As always, it’s a lot more fun to sell copies in person, where you get to meet the people who care enough to shell out a pound or two. Also: lots of cute guys wandering about.
