London-based film magazine, Little White Lies, commissioned 22 illustrations inspired by classic films from one of cinema’s most aesthetically fruitful eras, the 1970s, all reimagined in the style of Little White Lies cover artwork. Artists involved include David Downton and Autumn Whitehurst, with Australian contributions from Craig Redman, Courtney Brims and We Buy Your Kids.

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Patterns of Creative Aggression presents creative works and the people behind them. It’s a behind-the-scenes look into how the final works are formulated and constructed, peoples’ work patterns, their methods of practice, the techniques utilised and explored, and what happens in between.

In this issue, Kirsten Law speaks with Jason Crombie, editor of Wooooo magazine, about his interview style and publishing projects; Tim Hillier presents two projects undertaken by brothers Andy and Mavie Murphy; British artist Graham Hudson explains the construction process behind his sculptures; Paris/New York-based photographer Justin Guilbert shares his experiences on undertaking a project in Japan; Melbourne-based artists Jen Berean and Pat Foster discuss their work with Kain Picken and Fiona Lau, the collaborative duo behind ffiXXed; and New York-based photographer Moises Saman talks about being on assignment in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and El Salvador.

I don’t have any tattoos, and to be honest, I cannot imagine my life or my skin with one. Maybe that’s all the more reason I find them alluring, enchanting, and so brilliantly self-expressive. Well, except for the dork in high school who thought it would be cool to put the Coor’s Beer logo on his shoulder. Anyway, Sang Bleu, a London-based publication is tipping their hat to modern urban society by fullfilling a wider range of culture and style and mixing the world of tattoos and its sub-tribes to sit next to Art, Fashion, Sociology and Literature in the grand show we call Modern Culture. Come to think of it, didn’t Louis Vuitton just get inked, too?

Our friends over at Cool Material have worked out exactly what the average male would do if he took the reigns at some of the magazine world’s biggest titles: ‘Women get all kinds of advice from magazines from how to dress to how to please a man in the bedroom. And while it’s not all bad, these mags are lacking much needed male insights. For example, we’re actually not that interested in your hair and we definitely don’t care about your shoes. But if women’s magazines were actually written by men, there wouldn’t be so much confusion about what we want. Here are some article titles, written by men that get straight to the point’. Brilliant!

Made-in-Montreal independent art magazine SNAP! brings out its eighth issue this month and gets a little bit gritty and pensive with their SURVIVAL theme. Reflections on war, prison, personal struggle and surviving life in the city are some of what you will find in the Fall issue, alongside a dark warrior aesthetic and a strong photo lineup including an on-location shoot with five of Montreal’s best graffiti artists and a series on indoor office plants. Definitely worth checking out, and featuring a sick ad for Lost At E Minor designed by Montreal mixed-media artist Jeremy Dabrowski (it’s on page 15).

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Bright illustrations and bold designs line the pages of Food + Sex magazine: a new “collage art food” publication that explores how food and its environment are shaped by erotic desires.

Within its pages, artwork and essays — some more beautiful than others, some more shockingly graphic too — woven together in an attempt to ‘seek the cosmic and reflect on the elemental connectedness in life that opens us to new ways of being’. (Whether that makes sense is still unclear to me). However existential or not, contributions are supplied by those in the food ‘underground’, with articles from the more subdued We are All Hopeful Farmers, to the less subtle Tripping Balls on the Magic Penis. What more to say?

Nate Page carves magazines into stunningly tactile and sculptural works that transcend the banal consumer culture from whence they came — they stare back at viewers, almost indicting them in an inversion of the initial seductive intentions of the images.

Colarado photographer Adrian Hanft creates images that are charmingly imperfect, employing a huge collection of vintage cameras that he modifies at home, or occasionally builds from scratch. He recently created a series of solargraphs — exposures that last from hours to months – using pinhole cameras, and in the past has fashioned his own equipment from Lego blocks, with startling results.

The double-exposures, grimy borders and grainy finishes are worlds apart from the glossy pixel-perfect images that pervade magazines and that’s just how he likes it: ‘When I take a picture, I want to smash the subject against the film and squeeze it through the body of my camera, leaving an impression on the film so deep that you hold the print by its edges for fear of getting your hands dirty’.

Fresh from having his iconic image of Barack Obama splashed across the cover of Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year issue, Shepard Fairey — also the creator of the ubiquitous Andre The Giant sticker — has been confirmed as a guest editor of an issue of the free weekly Lost At E Minor publication, to go out in mid-January, in which he will write exclusively for us about his favorite artists right now and talk about the artwork that has excited him most in 2008. It’s going to be a very interesting read, an insight into the inspirations behind the street art of this seminal LA artist, and you can sign up to receive it for free simply by subscribing to our free weekly email publication.

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TIME magazine’s annual Person of the Year issue is coming out this week. I illustrated one of the runner-ups, but of course, I have to keep my mouth completely shut. I don’t know who is the winner though. On TIME’s website, you can see all the past covers of this most talked about issue of each year. It’s a good time to look back history and learn from it anyway, don’t you think?

Google recently demonstrated their ability to predict flu outbreaks across America weeks in advance of the outbreaks themselves. It would seem that they are more than just a pretty search engine. And as if that wasn’t enough, they’ve now teamed up with Life Magazine, what was the cornerstone of photojournalism for the Twentieth Century, to digitize 95 per cent of their image bank that never saw the light of day. Now millions of photos stretching from the 1750s to the present day are available on Google Images at the click of a button.

Our friends over at SNAP!, Montreal’s only free and independent arts and lifestyle magazine have just released their fourth issue in which they look back and celebrate the faded beauty of past eras, grandmas and grandpas, Polaroids, antique finds, old wisdom and vintage style. Yeeha! They also remember the best of 2008 in Montreal arts, with a variety of writers and photographers giving their take on their favourite cultural discoveries.

In a marketplace oversaturated with photoprints, Finnish illustrator and designer Inka Jarvinen has managed to make it look new. Her up-andpcoming label, Girls Of Boredom, showcases her photo cut and paste style, while her client work sees her creating record covers, fashion show identities, and magazine covers.

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The latest issue of the excellent Australian-based literary publication, Torpedo, is out and is packed — as always — with elegantly written ficton from some of the world’s finest emerging writers. The issue was designed by Eirian Chapman and features fiction from Ben Jahn, Kris Allison, Eric Hanson, Obelia Modjeska, Neil Boyack, Peter Orner, Garth Risk Hallberg, Natalie Johnson, Paul Mitchell, Karl Smith, Mark Halloran, Keya Mitra & Ryan Crawford. There is also a bumper 50 page graphic fiction section featuring the likes of Walter Newton, Dylan Horrocks, Paul O’Connell, Tim Molloy and Stephanie von Reiswitz. And it all comes with a beautiful wraparound art deco cover from Jordan Clarke. All that for $25, including one tree planted through Eco-Libris. For those interested, they are looking for great fiction to fill Volume 5 and beyond. Short stories between 1000 and 7000 words and full colour comics. Submissions can be made via the FalconvsMonkey website. We have five yearly subscriptions to Torpedo magazine to give away to the first five Lost At E Minor subscribers to leave a comment under this post telling us why you really, really want one. Winners can be based anywhere in the world.

Montreal’s only free independent arts and lifestyle magazine — SNAP! — recently launched their third issue for September and October. Titled Bookish, the issue celebrates, among other things, the beauty of books, the charm of geeks, poetry, blogging, artists and their workspaces and a cafe guide for students trying to get their study on in any of Montreal’s stylish neighbourhoods. As you do.

The latest issue of the German magazine Me is out. The issue — titled Strange Fabulous — contains the works of Bendix Bauer, Christiane Haid, Joerg Klaus, Ksenia Kovaleva, Mads Dinesen, Michael Byrd, Nada Lottermann, Olivier Tossan, Sabine Comper, Stefan Grütter and Thorsten Weiss.

Whether you’re a sequential artist, fine artist, illustrator, or a fan, the Swedish anthology C’est Bon will definitely light a fire in any creative spirit in need of some inspiration. The latest issue, Vol. 5, exhibits amazing talents from around the world, talents that I am humbly honored to be rubbing elbows with. They include Andrea Bruno, Emeilie Ostergren, and Marko Turunen, to name a few.

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Though most know Max Bode as an art director over at the ubiquitous New Yorker, he is in fact quite an illustrator. Creating bright, clean illustrations, in a style at times reminiscent of old video games and cartoons, Bode work is a real treat, especially when stumbling across one of his illustrations in the New Yorker.

Returning to Hong Kong after graduating from The Royal College of Art inspired artist Mimi Leung to create the series The Hope and Struggle. Motifs such as disease, mutation and vomit help convey the tensions of life in Hong Kong and the need for self-expression. Her graphic style naturally lends itself to collaborations with musicians and has landed her work with Vice magazine. If that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she co-founded an artists collective called ‘what they could do, they did‘. With an upcoming show in Edinburgh Festival, it’s well worth looking into.

Atomic Ranch magazine celebrates mid-century houses — from 1940s ranch tracts to 1960s architect-designed modernist homes — with an emphasis on affordable solutions and homeowner renovations.