Let's make nightmares together.

I already talked about the books I put near my bed for the summer. Well here is a list of the five books to read this summer in order to live it fully:

1. Murakami Haruki - Kafka on the Shore

A personal favorite of modern Japanese literature. Kafka Tamura, 15, escapes his home and tries to find himself into the great wide world. In the meantime Tanaka, an old man unable to read but capable of cat speech, starts his own quest towards something he doesn't know himself.

Quite a long book, but a real pleasure that never gets to bore the (good) reader!

Kafka on the shore's fanart by KitsuneBara

2. Isaac Asimov - Foundation

Do I really need to present this one? The Foundation series is made of some of Asimov's best-known - and merely best - books. What if only a few men had the power and the mission to create the biggest encyclopedia ever made in order to shorten humanity's darkest age?

A must-read at least once in a life-time!

Said the Emperor at first...

3. Tracy Chevalier - Falling Angels

When two English families with neighbouring graves finally meet at the death of Queen Victoria, their 5 years old daughters become friends, bounding the lives of them all until the end. A beautifully writen book, set in the English Edwardian era, featuring strong woman and traditionnalists fighting for an early 20th century they believe in.

Strong book = soft-looking cover

I'm still wondering why...

4. Neil Gaiman - Stardust

A movie made in 2007 gave this book justice, even though it differed quite much from the original. Both of the movie and the book are more than worth it!

Tristan is born from a poor man living in the little town of Wall and a servant from another world no one should ever enter - that's the whole purpose of Wall... When he tries to impress the sassy lady he fell in love with by telling him he'll bring her back the star they saw falling afar, Tristan, just like his father before, crosses the line of these worlds and begins the questt of his life. Princes, witches, stars and pirates are what makes this fantasy novel a real pearl of the genre!

The book has more pirates. Pirates are good.

The book is good.

5. Victor Hugo - Les Misérables

Because nothing, not even a movie staring a quite cool cast, will ever beat what the romantic master wrote two centuries ago.

You wanted a song? Here's a masterpiece!

And a little teaser regarding next drizzle...

I apologize for being so slow to post. A trip to Paris, where no internet has been provided to me, is the main reason of the delay observed.

So, without wasting any more time, here is this week’s big article!

The interview will come as soon as I’d tame my brand new video editor. Thanks again to the ever-lovely band Between the Zones for their patience, energy and communicative good mood! Even the wind didn’t bother us.

I’ve been talking a lot about online and printed media but almost never about another passion of mine: sewing. I am far from being a pro, but usually, I manage to get quite decent clothes done with my little hands... If enough time is given to me!

So I have taken the whole afternoon to sew a simple, plain black skirt. The easiest type! But it always goes well with almost everything. First, it’s black. Second, I bought expensive, very high quality fabric.

 Sure some things went not as perfect as planned, but here is how to make it, step by step, avoiding panic.

1.Cut a perfect square into the fabric of your choice. The size of the square should be at the very least twice the length of the desired skirt + your waist divided 3.14 + 2cm for the extra sewing.

Easy calculus! For the knee-length skirt I’ve made:

Length: 48cm (waist – knee length)

Waist: 68 / 3.14 = 21.65cm

So these x2 = 139.30cm

+ Extra-sewing security: 2.70cm

Total of one side: 142cm minimum!

 2. Fold the fabric in four equal pieces. With the help of a meter ribbon or anything you feel comfortable with, starting from the common corner (here down left corner), plan the circle you will cut inside by letting, there and then, marks such as needles. You’re now ready to cut a full and perfect circle inside your fabric!

3. So. Your circle is here. You now have to cut it in two.

4. Again, with the help of whatever you took in order to realize step 2, you will create the skirt waist. Fold the semi-circle once or twice (it doesn’t matter, really…). Now take the calculus you’ve made for the inside circle (waist / 3.14) and re-do the needle marking thing in order to know where to cut the waist. So far, so good!

5. Here! You’ve got your skirt skeleton, congratulations! Easy piece of cake, but a damn good one. Before thinking about how to close it, you may consider to sew the sides for them to look nice…

6. Finally, closing the skirt. This time I’ve chosen to do it with a ribbon, but the easiest way it is use a button system: by putting 3 buttons on the left pan and 3 other buttons on the right one, you can even gain or lose one clothes size and things will be fine! Just don’t forget to sew two little button-hangs at both extremities of your skirt waist.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial! Of course guys are encouraged to try it out as well – for yourself or for me, you may even win chocolate cakes for that… :D

I have no idea what the next topic will be but it’ll sure caress awesomeness. Stay tuned!

[Francophones, une version préparée pour vous est disponible ici !]

There are tons of children books. Always been tons. A lot moved me, of course, but the one I cherrish the most remain Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, along with its sequel Through the Looking Glass.

This slightly cruel fairytale, funny and out of time, hadn't change a bit since its first publication in 1865. However, what's noticeable about it is the way illustrators felt about the characters and represented them along the years.

John Tenniel took this role first when the original book came out. His drawings are quite realistic, plain, and even the Mad Hatter seems to lack a bit of madness - although beautifully drawn. While nowadays' trend with children books is to create simple-looking, colorful and sweet drawings, Tenniel offered here illustrations close to stone-engraved pieces.

More recently, French artist LostFish illustrated Through the Looking Glass. Her signature, this little sweetness mixed with macabre and human torments, gave birth to a brand new vision of Alice and her late adventures. Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, small Alice becomes a young woman at the end of Through the Looking Glass. LostFish's work emphasizes this with elegance and a slight touch of cruelty. Her Queens remind of some of her past works about dolls.
Hence this book is a pure delight and I do warmly recommand Carroll's fans to purchase it, for themselves, for their kids, for the beauty it carries.

Leaving Alice's world away, it is clear that traditionnal fairytales (Grimm, Andersen, Perrault...) remain what attract people the most when talking about children stories. Each illustrator has his own way of drawing them, but only a very few played the originality card...

These classics are not what moved me the most within the past few years. When it comes to children books, I have been more interrested in original illustrations books and a few sweet series with cute, unique design carried by a nice tone for the narrative part, far from taking the baby-reader as a dumb one.

It's with pleasure, then, that I've discovered in Finland the lovely canadian series Octonauts (MEOMI). Colors and drawing style always caught me. Stories are simple, well-writen, supported by an aquatic design filled with adorable characters accomplishing different quests. A true pearl to keep at hand...

Just like the young South-French illustrator Papo, an Art (Illustration department) student, whose drawings have always been part of my favorite ones. The way he plays with the colors, the narrative lines... Quite a lot of things made this young man become my current must-see regarding "children" illustrations, more precisely children literature-inspired pieces.

Drawings and projects from Papo can be found here!

As for Asian children books, it's another fairytale I will talk about later...

On another note, at the moment I am very busy with audiovisual works. A shop special project is in-the-making together with the pretty Lindsey M., and I do hope more details about it could be displayed soon.

The books that I will be reading this summer do not have much in common. Still, here is the short list of what is filling my (rare) free time at home.

• Asimov – Foundation
• Murakami – Kafka on the shore
• Delaney – The Spooker Apprentice
• Stendhal – Le Rouge et le Noir
• Merleau-Ponty – L’Œil et l’Esprit

Reviews of some them all will be available later!

A long, full article about children books to come soon! Waiting for it? Here. Share a cookie.

On July 5^th & 7^th I will be shooting artists' interviews as well as directing Music Videos.

Backstages, WIP, FAQ and more to come this week-end!

Here is an interview given in 2011 by the lovely Jorge Cham, creator of the webcomic Piled Higher and Deeper (cf this post).

This is quite a good example about where to find the ideas for a comic, and how things can start unexpectedly. It is indeed always easier to write about situations you know or live on a daily basis than starting from the scratch when it comes to this kind of media.

Unlike in literature, where extensive research can be needed to create the storyline, comics are mostly for relaxation, fun and quick-reading. But knowing the field your comic focuses on can only be very helpful. This is especially true with PhD: the author has been himself in his characters' shoes, from the students' to the teachers'. For example when Cecilia becomes an assistant professor, Jorge Cham was starting his university teacher carrier as well. As for the advisor professor, I am relieved to know that this character does not have any real life model...

The career information about Jorge Cham are present in this interview as well. He is now taking care of PhD almost full-time, still giving conferences (well, mostly about his comic... !) but not working much as a teacher anymore.
Nevertheless, his research papers and a few conferences are available online. I haven't had time to check out the conferences yet but the papers are a very interesting reading!

I also took note that Jorge Cham first posted PhD on phd.stanford.edu before Google launched... It seems like being a PhD student in the mid-1990's really was some kind of fun.

Just a few comics I am reading at the moment…

Jorge Cham – Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD)  |  R e a d   h e r e

Since I entered JAMK in September 2012, I regularly share my sorrows with Cecilia, Mark and the other depressive yet adorable post-grad students of this webcomic. It's funny, original and full of well-known student daily-life situations – essays and thesis, teachers, deadlines, red ink, coffee... Well-known, true characters, very well depicted by Jorge Cham since 1997. The PhD movie was out a few years ago. A little extra-pleasure comes everytime a video or experiment report is out!

The comics, especially after 2006, present very good artistic ans storytelling levels. In between two university essays and future plans, PhD remains my favorite webcomic.

Yuumei – Fisheye Placebo |  R e a d   h e r e

Yuumei finally started FP! After two years of sketches, promo and preparatory drawings, 3D studies… The introduction chapter of Fisheye Placebo launched on DeviantArt on March 16th of this year, quickly followed by the beginning of Chapter 1.

To summarize the story, or at least what's known about it, Vance is a little computer pirate living in a world where cyber-freedom no longer exists. A little pervy, the young man uses his hacking talent to become the university campus roommate of a girl whose best friend, Frey, is also some kind of computer genius. Both of them are members of what seems to be a group cyber-fighting against an ultra-authoritarian government. In order to keep Vance away from the group's aims and plans, Frey decides to take his friend's place at university…

"What does democracy look like?"

Lise Myrhe – Nemi  |  R e a d   h e r e

Nemi can be read in English online from the Metro newspaper's website!

A rock'n'roll, cynical, childish and cruel heroine, in love with Tolkien, fairytales, sugar... Do I need to say more?

Bonus!

Il faut recommencer. Encore. Avec les années je me suis lassée d'écrire çà et là, sans but, sans grande envie. C'est peut-être un peu différent, en ce moment. Alors voici.
Une page toute belle (?), toute neuve. Mésalliance est de retour.

Ce blog parlera donc littérature, comics, outtakes et points culturels en direct de la Finlande. Les processus d'écriture d'un roman, d'un comic et d'oeuvres audiovisuelles seront également abordés. Leurs production et post-production de même.

En attendant la pluie...

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