Clifford Smith

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Adrian Tomine is one of the finest cartoonists and illustrators of this generation, alongside the iconic Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. He began his career Xeroxing copies of his comics for distribution, and stubbornly chooses to work in a medium as deliberately obscure as independent comics. While he continues to develop his ongoing series Optic Nerve (currently entering its fifteenth year of publication), he’s also the illustrator of choice for the New Yorker.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

A colonial-style fishing village on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, San Juan Del Sur is becoming a popular tourist location but has remained largely unspoiled by the tourist dollar. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

With her collection of Skinover gloves, Rotterdam-based artist and sculptor Silvia B has taken a somewhat natural approach to the task of keeping hands warm — warts and all.

WE'RE THINKING

Sculptor Richard Stipl creates disturbing, gothic, vaguely religious tableaus using hyper-realistic, resin casted figures that quite often are engaged in some bizarre behavior, covered in blood, leaking gore, or otherwise frozen in some horrific pose. A friend of mine said, ‘If you’re going to develop that level of skill, why would you use it to make such ugly things?’ I kind of like gross things, though, so it doesn’t bother me. Read more

WE'RE READING

We’ve just launched a new Bullet Web Studio designed website to complement our new weekly email publication, My Secret Playlist, in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs or albums right now. The latest band to do a Secret Playlist for us is Washington-based indie rockers, Jukebox The Ghost. Check it out, and check them out below.

Artist David Shrigley’s animated music video for Blur is so simple, so sweet, so perfect. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it, yet it still makes me cry every time.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

There’s something quite attractively kitsch about the Lucky Dragons’ latest release, Dream Island Laughing Language. It’s undoubtedly unusual, and not too friendly on the ears, but something warm and fuzzy keeps creeping out of the broken drum rhythms and looped vocals. It’s a mish-mash of jangly folk licks, Squarepusher-style drum ‘n bass with a few Coco Rosie-esque experimental sound effects thrown in: intriguing, original, and fairly hard to describe!