Funny postscript — one of the first things I checked in this book was the Wizard of Bras shop (did you know one could shop for ladies’ unmentionables on Main Street?). Sure enough, it’s listed in here. I mistakenly thought the shop itself was called Wizard of Bras, but that was actually the name of a display that was housed inside the more humbly monikered Intimate Apparel store which only operated during the first two years of Disneyland’s existence. You learn something new every day.

Man Hunt (1941). Interesting, somewhat ridiculous WWII propaganda film directed by Fritz Lang. Given the cast and director, I was expecting more than the hokey dramatics presented in this yarn with Walter Pidgeon portraying an Englishman who nearly assassinates Hitler. The film begins as a relatively low-key affair when Pidgeon is chased across Europe by Nazi official George Sanders and his verminlike minion (John Carradine). Then things turn bizarre with the appearance of Joan Bennett as a poor Londonite sporting the worst cockney accent ever committed to film (trust me, it’s dinner theater My Fair Lady production awful). The gullible Bennett falls for Pidgeon, a point that is hammered home by Alfred Newman’s overly obvious musical score. I won’t spoil the rest, but things unspool in a way that makes this more an interesting, hokey beyond belief curio than the lost classic that many fans insist it is.
Moon (2009) and Clonus (1979). Two low budget sci-fi indies which took on cloning as its subject, coincidentally seen in the same week here at chez scrubbles. It goes without saying that Moon is the better of the two, although Clonus has its own interest once you get past the kitschy ’70s trappings. The former concerns an astronaut (Sam Rockwell) who is the sole operator of a mining colony on the dark side of the moon. Readying to complete his three year mission, he is shocked to find a visitor who looks like his exact double. This film does wonders with a small budget, impressively creating a world with one set and several expertly done miniatures. I also liked how they filmed Rockwell playing against himself, which makes up for the implausible story (one guy running an entire moon colony?) and an imposing robot ripped off of 2001. Not an earth shattering film, but thought provoking nonetheless. I’d previously seen Clonus as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, but watching it without the riffing reveals it to be an interesting story brought down by a miniscule budget. I will say this — it kept our attention. The DVD’s added interview with director Robert Fiveson had one anecdote which revealed something I hadn’t noticed in the movie.: he had instructed the actors playing the lobotomized clones to blink a beat longer than usual. It’s a subtle touch that adds a lot to their ’70s blow-dried creepiness.
The Silent Partner (1978). Overlooked crime thriller starring Elliot Gould as a mild-mannered teller who gets into trouble when he secretly absconds with part of a fortune missed by a psychotic bank robber (Christopher Plummer). This was kind of a cool story, well-played with a few scenes of shocking violence which called to mind Dressed to Kill. I enjoyed Susannah York as Gould’s sensible co-worker and love interest, which made up for the weirdly dubbed Céline Lomez as the other woman in his life. This was made in Canada, which has its own strange appeal, but the best part was that much of the film was shot in a brand new shopping mall. These scenes were a gas, and they totally reminded me of the local mall I once knew and loved that also opened around 1978 (yes, I’m a weirdo who loves it when a Swensen’s ice cream parlor pops up in the background of a movie). Add in unknown John Candy doing a non-comedic role and you have something that is worth a peek for the curious.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1998). Did you ever rent something, then after watching a few minutes realize that you’ve already seen it? This happened with us on this PBS documentary. The second helping reveals a few things that have since become clichés for these Ken Burns biodocs (”important” narration, slow panning across b&w photos with ambient sounds on the soundtrack), but it was still good.
Gomorrah (2008). Ambitious film chronicles how the mob affects people of varied social status in a dingy Italian slum. Some were put off by the film’s meandering pace and documentary-style approach; I found it riveting (if a bit overlong). Seemingly random violence and natural performances from an unknown cast upped the realism factor for me.
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. I was a bit leery about this book, hearing how the Schulz family felt betrayed when Michaelis decided to paint Charles M. Schulz as a depressed, unfulfilled soul with a Charlie Brown complex. Most biographers have an agenda, however, and I went into it with an open mind. That said, it is a penetrating, interesting book. Michaelis has such an evocative way of describing I found myself caught up with empathy for Schulz’s early years of being confident in his own abilities, yet feeling alienated from everyone around him. One can fault Michaelis for emphasizing certain things over others (his extramarital affair gets an entire paragraph, while the last 25 years of Schulz’s life gets relatively glossed over), but overall you get a well-rounded and sympathetic portrait of the man within these pages. My favorite sections deal with how his life directly influenced Peanuts, with strips included amongst the text. I never realized how much his first wife Joyce was mirrored in Lucy Van Pelt, for example. This book has been out long enough to hit the remainder bins and can be gotten cheaply — even for casual Snoopy fans I’d recommend it.
Snoopy Come Home (1972). Speaking of Peanuts — I haven’t seen this, the second animated feature film with Charlie Brown and co., since the ’70s and was delighted to find it recently shown on the Family Channel. As a child I remember it being morose and depressing, and feeling upset that Snoopy would uncharacteristically run away like he did. The movie still seems overwhelmingly sad, a slight story padded out to feature length with lots of unnecessary scenes and a shrill score by Richard and Robert Sherman (sorry guys, you’re no Vince Guaraldi). It was an entertaining watch, however, with the same feel as the classic TV specials.

Update — they are still being made.

By the way, the original self-published edition is still for sale at Amazon.com.

This was such a cool book to page through, and oddly comforting in a way. Its centerpiece is the sixty printer’s specimens, each generally getting its own page with a nifty paragraph or two of background info on the opposite page. The specimens cover a gamut from the best of their kind to the run-of-the-mill and tacky. Many have a masturbatory “look at what I can do” bravado (in graphic design, some things never change), but the finest examples leave me breathless as to the care and craftsmanship good letter press printing requires. Sure, they may be as subtle as a lady’s hat festooned with a dead bird, but even the worst samples have a giddy exuberance. This book is the kind of effort that has inspiration on every page, right down to the weird and wonderful 1800s fonts reprinted in the back. One small complaint: in contrast to the lively and informative specimen descriptions, the text in the opening and closing chapters is very dryly written and academic (interesting and comprehensive, but still dry).

The odd thing about this particular trend is that it never fully disappeared. Printers’ ornaments of the era fell into the public domain, eventually getting re-published by the likes of Dover for new generations of designers to explore. As noted in Artistic Printing’s concluding chapter, this style is no more immune from other graphic styles for revival, preferably with a postmodern twist. For a good example, check out the cover story layout in the paper edition of the August 2009 Wired magazine — retro ornamentation everywhere!

The Handy Book of Artistic Printing comes from Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon.com here.

P.S. Of all the mags we looked at, one of the few that left a favorable impression was Illustration Magazine. Perhaps expensive is the wave of the future?

Incidentally, Ward’s first illustrated children’s book has just been published — How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals by Michael Phelps and Alan Abrahamson. Congrats to him!

This is one cool book. Most of its 262 pages are just what the title says: images, one to a page or spread, with annotations confined to the back few pages. Everything is grouped thematically in topics such as war, food, fashion and sex. There’s also the occasional oddball subject, such as a series of Mexican Wrestler pieces Chwast did in 2002. Although the art dates from as early as the 1960s and encompasses a wide variety of media (dig the cut sheet metal plates of food), certain things have remained constant in his work. A sense of whimsy is first and foremost. The re-purposing of various early 20th century design styles is also ever-present. Chwast also seems to have a constant fascination with exploring humankind’s frailties in a lighthearted way. The uselessness of war and the attraction of consumption are themes that come up over and over again in his work. The biggest impression I get here is that the man is a non-stop art machine. The introductory essay by famed Push Pin designer (and Mrs. Chwast) Paula Scher confirms it. I wonder if he ever has times when he turns the creativity switch “off.”

Seymour: The Obsessive Images Of Seymour Chwast is published by Chronicle. Buy at Amazon.com here.

I got 16 of 25 logos correct. Some of these look completely foreign, cropped and rotated beyond recognition.