Things of note for the week ending Friday September 18th, 2015.
Morning. It’s 6:36am on Saturday Sept 19th and I’m writing this to you from my bed. It has been a HELL of a week but as Churchill said ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ – we kept going this week and we made it through.
If you’ve had a tough week/fortnight/month (delete where appropriate), I salute you. Take solace in the thought that you are not alone and that you are, at least I hope you are, enjoying the respite of the weekend.
In last week’s edition, web readers may of caught an amendment. Item one in FTOF 141 was supposed to be a provocative look at the truth behind online video (and now is so if you missed it, go read it). Newsletter readers however would’ve seen item one read something like ‘Paperdashery, do this on Thursday’ – congrats/apologies to those of you that caught that.
In short, I had made a note to myself to do a thing as item – and then work got crazy so I couldn’t do the thing. Then I forgot about the note to myself about the thing and then the next thing I know I’d hit send and well, the rest is history. Three people unsubscribed.
Costly costly mistakes…
Here’s what item one should’ve looked like 😉
1. PAPERDASHERY
It’s quite nice being a blogger / newsletter writer with a blog/newsletter that people read. People send you stuff. Pancakes to eat, muffins to try, phones to review (although that takes place on the podcast these days). And this past week something new turned up at the office…
(I work at Ogilvy London, wanna send me something? Send it there – it’ll get to me).
Check this out:
That’s right, it’s an ORIGAMI BATMAN.
Oh heeeeeeey…
Anyway, this arrived on my desk from the lovely Gude from Paperdashery, a new service for all things super pretty. And the reason Gude was getting in touch is because…
I have to tell you to go check it out – and to keep it front of mind when you’re next on the hunt for something a bit different for that someone special BECAUSE GUDE SENT ME A PAPER BATMAN.
Amazing.
2. HAN SOLO POP TARTS, ANYONE?
3. PRIME JOURNALISTIC DUTY
Probably my best/favourite read of the week. Glenn Greenwald over on The Intercept discussing the BBC’s continual scrutiny of ‘one’s own side’.
Excerpt:
That event for me demonstrated a critical point: It’s so fun — and so easy — to highlight and protest the bad acts done by the countries declared to be the Bad Ones by your own government. It’s not quite as fun or easy to highlight and protest the bad acts done by your own government itself or its closest allies. Yet as O’Brien pointed out, journalism is far more valuable, and the public interest served far more, by doing the latter rather than the former.
Go read the whole thing.
4. SCREW YOU, SCALPERS
Oh you want to buy the latest shoes/games/gig tickets only to then sell them on again on ebay? Well, some people have had enough.
Want to purchase a pair of uber limited edition OVO x Air Jordan 10s? That’s FINE. They just have to be on your feet when you leave the store.
I’m not so much of a shoe nut that this would bother me but I know that some of you are. What do you think? Good thing or bad thing?
I’m landing in the former…
5. WOOING MR GAIMAN
Joe Quesada is one of the world’s most famous comic book people. Editor, writer, and artist, Quesada has had his hand in many of the biggest and best comic books of recent history.
Now enjoying his retirement, Quesada’s blog is an absolutely joy.
This week he wrote about ‘that time we tried to get Neil Gaiman to come write for Marvel’ – and not only is it awesome. But he also drops some never before seen Wolverine art with it.
What a guy.
“Here’s a never before seen sequence that was never meant for publication.
Sometime around 2001-2002 we were in secret conversations with Neil to do a project or two for us at Marvel. Neil is a dear friend and around that time we were tossing around the idea of a possible X-Men story that he would write and I would draw.Â
In my zeal to try to land one the best comic writers of all time, I wrote and drew this three page vignette, had it inked (Danny Miki), colored and lettered and sent it off to Neil to let him know how badly we wanted him at the House Of Ideas. What can I say, I was excited. Unfortunately the lettered version and the original script have been lost, and I barely remember what I wrote, but I believe the basic gist of the story was…Â
Wolverine addresses Neil directly. He points out how blank the panels are and how empty his world is and that Neil needs to stop dawdling and get to work because those panels aren’t going to fill themselves. Wolvie continues harassing Neil, goes to light his cigar, realizes it’s a nasty habit and that there’s no smoking in Marvel Comics and stomps it out. He then holds up a Marvel Comic, makes references to the Editor in Chief being a big loser, unwraps his hands, pops the claws and then says something snarky as he leaves the scene.
Regrettably the timing didn’t work out for either of us on the X-Men project but Neil later came up with 1602, which was outstanding and he ended up with a much better artist in the process, Andy Kubert.”
I’ve got 1602 and it’s ACE – so this just makes me beam from ear to ear.
Oh, and the art work is mint.
What a guy.
_________________
Bonuses this week are as follows:
- Physical to Digital: the future of paper (short but good links elsewhere).
- These Drive-In Movie paintings took my breath away.
- A few weeks ago, I wrote about the amazing work Ogilvy had done with Converse for Chuck II. The person who appointed us to do that work is a woman called Rebecca Williams. This week, Beckie and I spoke together at Social Media Week London at a talk we called ‘A Series of Provocative Statements (and all the dragons that await therein)’ – and the video is available to watch right now [sidenote – full write up (including slide uploads plus presenter notes) coming soon/later this weekend].
Testimonials – got any? send ’em my way.
Finally, one last thing…
Guys.
Guys.
(and girls)
But guys.
All of you…
IT’S. THE. WEEKEND.
Until next time.
Love ya,
Whatley out.