City dwellers with snarky humor

Interview with Robert Tritthardt, the artist behind Writhe & Shine and Overcast with a Chance of Doom

Writhe and Shine was a web comic that started out in the late 90s, featuring the life of a DJ and his friends at the 'Bastille', a Goth club in New Orleans. The strips evolved along with the characters, but after over 100 of them, made an abrupt stop. Where is the artist now? He's moved onto brand new projects and, in addition to this, began reposting his old work on writheandshine.com. Yep, that's right! Robert Tritthardt is back. Read all about his journey and future aspirations below:

Stickazine Tumblr

Yep, we're in social media territory now. Check out the Stickazine's Tumblr at stickazine.tumblr.com.  A little clarification: we do not intend on joining Twitter, Facebook or any of the like but you can connect with us via this blog about a blog.

For any questions feel free to contact the zine or Stick Men creation.

"In many ways the physical world is disappearing" 

Harry Allen - designer

Dealing with the heat

So, in most countries it's really hot right now, and unless you're located far up North, you're probably battling the weather. Now I don't know about you guys, but this has basically rendered my emotions down to one giant cluster of sluggishness. What do you say we all just hibernate? I'm going to take this moment to share a series of hibernating occupations with you:

• Listening to Killing Joke
• Reading Stephen King short stories (Everything's Eventual and Skeleton Crew)
• Watching Spongebob the Movie and The Day After
• Eating too much fruit
• Writing wit typos evrywere
• Cringing at old work
• Going on a Halloween (franchise) marathon
• Counting down the days until Halloween
• Laying around doing nothing, but thinking about doing something
• Being redundant
• Being redundant
• Eating ice-cream
• The usual inking, researching and typing

Cheers,

The Editor

Designer Workspace (Lighting and seats)

The continuation to Designer Workspace (Desks). We are now going to take a look at two other essential elements in the work area: lighting and seats.

The B&B Italia line of chairs offers some confortable, yet modern choices of furniture, that basically say "I am the boss". The above seems to be of the most ergonomically structured, but keep in mind that many high-end contemporary designers are primarily after aesthetics.

Computer History

The rise of the PC industry has influenced just about every move we make today. A nostalgic 1996 documentary, "Triumph of the Nerds", brings us back to this era, into the world of IBM, Microsoft and Apple, when personal computers started out as a myth.

Heads up

You may have noticed the new "layout" (more along the lines of color scheme and description), and would like to inform all viewers that the little spot of yellow you once saw is now black. Perhaps you have an opinion regarding this minor change? If so, comment away.

"In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable, and help to change it."

                                 Ernst Fischer - writer

Designer Workspace (Desks)

Work areas don't necessarily have to be a means of ostentatiously expressing your taste in design, but sometimes it's nice to walk into your office (if you have one) and think "Hey, this place looks pretty damned good!". Now, there is plenty of  furniture and miscellaneous house objects out there, some more useful than others. Here's a selection of designer artifacts:

DESKS:
More than just a plank of wood with legs - although, considering design these days, it might as well be - a desk is just one of those things you want to get right, especially if you're sitting at it most of the day. It's pretty much the central piece in your space, so be picky (picky, not fickle), and choose well.

PONTI by Claesson Koivisto Rune - 2010

Simple, minimalistic, esthetically stark, but an original shape nonetheless... we all know the drill: it's a cool desk despite the lack of much storage space. For those who work on the computer, this is probably a good choice.

Here's your bizarre video for the day

Chances are if you don't know Xavier Renegade from Adult Swim, you're probably not aware as to how weird this is. Now, I've seen a lot of strange things, but this is seriously trippy. How does this even fit correctly in the blog? I don't know, it doesn't really seem to fit under anything at all. Well, have fun watching, kids (unless your sensitive to nonsense. Also, epilepsy warning):

Cheers,

The Editor

The Information Age

What Is Your Dangerous Idea? edited by John Brockman (editor of What We Believe but Cannot Prove) provides us with a series of great scientist's, and thinker's, gut-wrenching hypotheses on our world's past, present and future.

As the book was first published four years ago, it is possible that some of these ideas have, in fact, become truths. A mere four years may not sound like much, but in this day and age, life in general goes way past the speed limit. With everything due by yesterday, it seems that the tools used to create no longer adapt to us, but make us adapt to them. Let's have a look at a brief section from the book: