Month: June 2015 (Page 3 of 4)

From Cartoon Brew:

Created six years after John Lennon’s assassination in 1980, Yoko Ono and Oscar-winning animator and historian John Canemaker’s cartoon short John Lennon Sketchbook has finally appeared on YouTube. Executive produced by Ono and designed, directed, and animated by Canemaker, it is a poignant peek into the fertile mind of a Beatle whose prodigious talents extended well past creating immortal music.

Thanks to Cartoon Brew and Scott Thill for alerting me to this great cartoon showing up on YouTube. Cartoon Brew is a fantastic source for animation news, updated daily. You should check it out.

The PopCult Toybox

Last Wednesday I told you about how the PopCult and Radio Free Charleston crew stumbled onto this incredible collection of delightfully cheesy, vintage Ben Cooper Halloween Costumes, tucked away in a little room just off from the main hallway at WonderFest USA, the fantasy and SF modelers convention. I posted a video, which will run again at the bottom of this post.

We were actually alerted to this treasure by our friends from JoeLanta, who were also at WonderFest, taking in all the coolness. The video shows almost all of the collection, but these photos show more details. Presented with minimal captions, here is the photo essay of the Ben Cooper Halloween Costume Exhibit at WonderFest USA, 2015.

Jackie and JFK

Continue reading

This week we take you back to 2007, via 2010. Radio Free Charleston’s 13th episode, “World Without Fear Shirt” was sort of unlucky. It had great music and animation in it, but the episode was lost in a hard drive crash and couldn’t be recovered from back-up discs. In 2010, I discovered a file that contained all the elements of the show and was able to reconstruct it with a new introduction. This show feaures Martyranny’s Collective Pulse, The Concept and animation and a short film from Frank Panucci.

The main reason for the new intro was to explain what had happened, but also to correct the horrible mispronounciation of Martyranny’s Collective Pulse, which I butchered throughout the original episode. “Marty-Ranny” remains to this day the worst botched intro in the history of Radio Free Charleston.

You can read the original production notes here, and the reassembled notes here.

The PopCulteer
June 12, 2015

Well, your PopCulteer is on the mend after his sudden bout with a nasty sinus infection. No longer does his head feel like it’s hatching. And it’s all cleared up in time for a quick trip this weekend to our nation’s capitol to see a play about zombies in the White House basement.

That means that, rather than a thought-provoking (or conversation-ending) essay on some well-thought-out topic, you’re just going to get a list of stuff you can do here in town while I’m hobnobbing with zombies and politicians. To start, you theatrically-inclined folks can head to Saint Albans for the show at the head of this post. I saw it last week and it’s swell!

FRIDAY

Free Music and More

The following events have NO COVER CHARGE: Danielle Conard and Steve Himes perform at Taylor Books, starting at 7:30 PM. Marshall Petty takes the stage at The Fifth Quarter beginning at 8 PM. Diablo Blues Band will rock the joint at Bruno’s on Leon Sullivan Way, starting at 9 PM. We have nifty graphics for the rest of tonight’s free stuff…

Continue reading

The PopCult Bookshelf

Back in March I gave you an update about Pix-C, the new subscription webcomics produced by the folks behind Charlton Neo. You may remember that I spent a big chunk of last year praising the Charlton Neo movement. In case you haven’t been keeping up, Charlton Neo is a revival of sorts of Charlton Comics, the lower-tier comic book company that published out of Derby Connecticut from the 1940s into the 1980s. I wrote about in that update back in March.

Pix-C has grown, with new installments of their existing comics being added each week, and five new strips starting in recent weeks. The work is tremendous. These are veteran comic pros, some working with young talent, having fun making comics.

Physical comics from Charlton Neo creators will start appearing again soon, but in the meantime you can keep up with the fun for the remarkably low rate of a dollar a month, donating through Patreon. You can donate at higher levels for hard copy rewards like Charlton Neo comics books, classic reprints and posters.

You can preview the original Pix-C Comics with a Free 38-page comic book right here…

Continue reading

The PopCult Toybox

Recorded May 30, 2015 at WonderFest USA in Louisville, Kentucky. The above video was shot by Melanie Larch and edited by your PopCulteer.

The PopCult and Radio Free Charleston crew stumbled onto this incredible collection of delightfully cheesy, vintage Ben Cooper Halloween Costumes, tucked away in a little room just off from the main hallway at WonderFest USA, the fantasy and SF modelers convention that I wrote about HERE.

Presented by Jeff, this was a fun and surprising little diversion to find just as we were on the way out the door to come home.

We didn’t get much information about Jeff’s collection, but it sure looks cool and has lots of very rare items.

An accompanying photo essay will run in PopCult this coming Saturday.

Once the weekends fill up, the cool events shall wander the rest of the week, or something. In this case it means plenty of music, food, poetry and even a television preview screening.

There’s a bunch of cool things happening Wednesday and Thursday this week, so here it is in handy infographic form…

WEDNESDAY

Continue reading

RFCv3 #30

This week, Radio Free Charleston on New Appalachian Radio presents The Headache Show. Your humble host assembled and recorded this installement of our radio show while suffering from a nasty sinus infection that caused massive headaches. I am on the mend now, but one way I deal with headaches like this is to listen to loud and/or interesting music. We do that his week, and in the second hour we shift gears to bring you loud and/or weird music from musical artists who are either from, or work extensively in, the Appalachian Region, outside of West Virginia.

Each Week you can listen to Radio Free Charleston’s streaming radio incarnation at 10 AM and 10 PM on Tuesdays (and again at midnightThursday) at New Appalachian Radio, part of Voices of Appalachia. If you miss it, check our the archives for previously-aired shows. You can also listen to Radio Free Charleston Saturday at Midnight. Saturday, RFC airs for six hours, starting at midnight.

Continue reading

This week’s art is yet another digital painting based on a photograph of Lavender Menace from last month’s Dr. Sketchy’s session. I went for a Pop Art vibe this time, with high-contrast and fewer painterly elements.  I hope it worked. Click to enlarge.

The June Dr. Sketchy’s happens June 28 at WVSU EDC/DigiSo.

It’s a short video this week to let my readers know that I’m a bit under the weather. For the first time in almost two years, we will go two weeks without a fresh video episode of Radio Free Charleston or The RFC MINI SHOW. I have a massive, nasty sinus infection and that leaves me unable to work at my regular pace. I am taking medication and I already feel a bit better, so things should be back to normal here in PopCult by the end of the week.

The PopCult Toybox video and photo essay I promised for yesterday will show up Wednesday. This week’s radio show will happen on schedule, but it may be a bit headache-centric.

Keep in mind that I have managed to provide at least one post per day in PopCult since August, 2013, and this post keeps that streak alive, if just barely. Thanks for bearing with me, and thanks for being patient.