Excellent Comics and Artists

Well, I could not in good conscience go without recomending some excellent "comic" book artists and their work to you.

When most of you think of comics you think of either juvenile super-hero nonsense or something like Archie. There are comics and graphic novels, however, that are intelligent, witty and excellent.

My first reomendation for the day is Zach Weiner. He's a brilliant artist who originates the sharp and witty single-panel comic "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal". He is also working as the author, with other artists, on the excellent web-comics "Captain Excelsior" and "Grumps".

The last two are roughly narrative, the former being about a "jerk" superhero and his family (think Increadibles gone horribly wrong) and the latter is about about some senior citizens in a nursing home who have not yet stopped living it up, but have ceased to have anything resembling balance, not that anyone else has any in their world!

Here's a link to get you started on Zach Weiner:

SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/

Grumps: http://www.grumps.ca/

The second comic that I want to recomend is a really nice Australian one created by Trudy Cooper and a few of her cohorts. It's excellent because of the aesthetically pleasiing, mildly realistic and sexy art style as well as the slightly strange humour.

Here where to get started:

http://www.platinumgrit.com/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Grit#Creators

Do look these up! They deserve your attention!

Listen to Lissie!

Well, I've discovered a new voice out there that I love! I wonder how many of you have heard of Lissie? She's a relatively new independent musician. She is brilliant.

She may live in California, but she is not the typical new female voice you find American music producing. I've been sick to the point of nausea at seeing new female "talents" who offered nothing more than the typical mixture of sacharine-pop and R&B-lite ulation.

Lissie is different. She's sounds deep, different and intelligent. She's intense yet mellow, and not overly sweet. She's a true artist, and though she is as unique as someone like Amy Winehouse, thugh she seems like a more reasonable and likeable person.

How can I describe her voice? Slightly velvety, slighty country-ish, a bit pop-like (but she does not scream or yell in cliched and unnecessary endings to stanzas or songs), and spiritual, yet simple and independent. Her spirituality is due to a vague and hard to quantify quality, not any heavy handed new-age pretensions. She has melody, but in a slightly strange sense of the word. And she manipulates her voice and accent in a way that is subtle and new to me. She feels independent and strong, with a subtly implied strength of character.

As I said, she's a true artist. You only need to listen to her songs "The Longest Road" (both the original and the Deadmau5 remix) as well as "All my Life" which is particularly beautiful and brilliant. Her simpler songs are sweet but not overly and tritely so. She also happens to write most of her own music and lyrics.

Besides this, in her written and video blogs she has a nice habit of addressing her audience as "friends" rather than "peeps" or "hey everyone!" or something more typical all the time. I found that somehow endearing.

Here are some essential links to get you started:

http://www.indie911.com/index.php?cID=7603

http://www.youtube.com/user/lissiemusic

Check her out! She's brilliant!