Fancy Dress - Pin-up of the Month

The Gorgonist is Robin Kaplan, a Pacific Northwest Illustrator, who runs a self-proclaimed monstrously charming sketchblog.

Some of the imagery has an Erte-like ephemera or composition similar to vintage Leonetto Cappiello art deco prints. However, drawing subjects run the gamut of sweet, plucky, strawberry-shortcake reminiscent science fiction (pictured above) to steampunk enguenues, anything from Alice's Robotic Tea Party to a Victorian Lady with a delicately coiffed centipede. Bless her geeky, little heart.

Super bonuses for you: Homages to Doctor Who (with companions) and Firefly (wipes tear).

The whimsical prints can be purchased at her Etsy Shop and io9 has review of her Sci-fi based art at Fancy girls dress up as Droids, Daleks, and Death Stars.

You're welcome.

Nerd Girlfriend

I told you about the spectacle-slinging, sigh-inducing, effortlessly cool clothes magician who brought you Nerd Boyfriend. Well, they have now introduced a website for ladies, Nerd Girlfriend.

There are only a few female-focused images, but I expect that to change. Oh, please, please change. Let there be more. Let the flood gates of female nerdgeist be opened that we may conquor the earth. (Is this what that whole biblical meek prophecy was about? Had they just not invented the word for geek back then?).

Anyhow, I could say more about their dorky but sexy folios from Twin Peaks. I could stand around applauding their choice of dark-horse heroines like Gilda Radnor, Debbie Allen and Jodie Foster, but I am busy. I am very, very busy flicking through those sweet, heart-palpitation inducing images and dreaming of salary increases.

Joan Paper Doll, Mad Men Season 3

Dyna Moe, the talented artist, vintage enthusiast and Mad Men apologist behind the wildly popular Mad Men Illustrations on Flickr came out last Autumn with her Mad Men series 3 Joan Paper Doll kit. Moe has become the official unofficial artist de facto for the series, illustrating calendars, contests, Christmas cards and desktop wallpaper. Unfortunately, though you can download her creations from her "Mad Men Illustrated," page, she is unable to sell prints or merchandise
with any of the images due to a request from the Lionsgate affiliates who own AMC.

There is a lovely "Q & A," with her at the AMC Mad Men website.

PS Notice the blood stains on the "Tractor Dress"

Pig Essence

Fluffy, curvy, wobbly, sqooshy. Rubenesque, gordita, ample-bossomed, pleasantly-plump. I have used so many words in service to the squashier side of humanity (see, I just used another one) but all of them tend to be empty euphemisms skirting around a present state. A state which has been bastardized to indicate sloth, laziness, greediness, unattractiveness with an underlying embarrassment which implies a lack of control or willpower. Very few words, and indeed conversations, discuss the often inevitable state of becoming (shall I say it?) fatter, the fear of becoming fatter and in general the process of adding meat to one's so called bones. Don't know what I'm talking about? Start watching Mad Men and sympathizing with Betty Draper.

Meanwhile, enter pinguescence, for which a mnemonic lies above. It is a rare and nearly out of use word for the process of growing fat. Adding it to conversation lends numerous ways of elucidating your fears of a state demonized throughout female culture, though rarely spoken of openly. For example,

• Even though the scale has gone up since I've started working out, I know, my pinguescence is deteriorating.
• French fries are a notorious catalyst of my pinguescent nature.

And my favorite

• Curse my sudden but inevitable pinguescence!

Take back the language, my friends, take back the language.

Yoshitomo Nara

If you were watching Stage 18 of the recent Tour de France you likely noticed a wide eyed little girl riding along with Lance Armstrong.  His time trial bike was designed by Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara, and featured one of Nara's signature manga inspired tots.

His name may not be familiar, but his work is instantly recognizable.  

Yoshitomo Nara's paintings and sculpture of stylized cartoon children and animals evoke a range of memories from childhood, "both sad and fantastic."  [His] work is influenced by Japanese comic books (manga) but he is unique in the contemporary art scene here for bedeviling his typically cute and vulnerable figures with a horror like image ... Nara's work really instills the viewer with a juxtaposition of the innocence of children and the evil nature of humanity, or the fall from grace.  -- via

Enjoy more examples of his work at the Stephen Friedman Gallery and Zink Galerie sites.

Bjorin Hurri

Formed online in 2006, Gorilla Artfare is a collection of 100 artists "chained to their drawing boards" around the globe and connected to an underground network of over ten thousand more "bridging international boundaries and defying artistic definition".

Bjorin Hurri is one of their family whose created a delightful collection of "Steampunk Star Wars" character designs (make sure you scroll down). They are so worth drooling over and perhaps using as my ipod screen saver.

The Sleazy, the Noir, and the Science Fiction

My current obsession with American Pin-ups has run amuck to encompass pulp fiction novel covers from the 40's through the 70's. Not surprisingly, many of these lurid and fantastically seedy covers were penned by the same great illustrators that made pin-up and glamour calendars a national religion in the 50's. Because of my natural inclination, I find my favorites are the sleazy, the noir and the science fiction (not necessarily in that order). On sharing my secret shame with my Sister, the Older, she remembered a few covers that we owned in our childhood.

"Remember, Casca the Eternal Mercenary?" she asked (a delightfully trashy set of tales of military daring-do discovered on my Brother's bedroom floor). It's true, I not only picked up these pulp-tastic tidbits but I read them from cover to cover, as if I could find something within the words that matched the rapacious illustrations on front.

"Did you ever read any Gor novels?" I screeched in approval. Under my direction, she directly read the short story, "Houseplants of Gor" which succinctly captures all three of the above qualities, ardently displayed by the stilted, laughable, and all together entertaining works of dubious literary merit scribed by John Norman.

Now, so should you.

Pin-up What?

Christmas was a wonderful time for CandyBuffet. Among other things, Santa brought me an all inclusive book about the history of "The Great American Pin-up", which reminded me of all of you commenters who have been frickin' begging me to add a discussion section to the "Pin-up of the Month".

So here you go, just in time for Christmas (well not really, but in time for the New Year). The new section links to the comment thread for this post, which is now the home for Pin-up discussions in the Candy Machine. You can also find the new link just under the Pin-up for the month.

Candies of the Glaucous Witch

Anyone who was at my last birthday party will know that I have an absurd fascination with Death in the Afternoon (No, not the Hemmingway novel, you ninnys). Well, like minders may finally be able to throw out their disgusting bottles of Pernod for the real thing (which didn't have to be smuggled from Amsterdam like mine). Read the New York Times Article, "the Glass Half Full of Mystique and Misery" for a look at Absinthe's triumphant return.

Ryan Jacobs

Earlier I blogged about Mississippi based Amy C. Evans. Her fantastic blog, Made in Mississippi led me to Ryan Jacobs a quirky artist who mixes silhouettes and watercolors with pop art organics and anatomical correctness. The above painting reminds me of a candied Mandelbrot set.

The simple lines and unspoken violence of this summer bike below (entitled "Accident prone") remind me of the "Menaced Objects" series by Edward Gorey. I'd really love to see more of him. Jacobs art reminds of old lithographs one could come across in a forgotten thrift store on a sunny day. The lithographs feel worn to the eye, their subject remains intriguing and much of the art is heavily influenced by politics and national culture. See for yourself at

http://www.ryanjacobsmith.com/menu_01.html

Amy C. Evans

I first heard about this artist in "Eating Around" a quick little foodie and restaurant freak column in Thursday's Express. I visited her website on a whim. Evans's art is whimsical, colorful and food-based, like a gastronomical Griffin and Sabine cover. Her Blog, Made in Mississippi is even better with clever side trips into print making, adventurers in home gardening, yummy foodstuffs and quirky photography. She even has a painting of the week similar to my pin-up of the week (but of course her painting are original and gastronomically titillating). Cashion's (in Adams Morgan) has at least two of her paintings and now Johnny's Half Shell (of Dupont Circle fame, but now alas near union Station) has acquired one. A little food worship never hurts.

Hepburn would have been proud

Nymph-like, erotic with a sixties bent, the paintings of Audrey Kawasaki are refreshingly stylized and faintly hypnotic. Plus they make bitchin' Wallpaper. Her painting Yuuwaku is a homage to the Naughty Librarian. I struggled with the above image as my new pin-up of the month, being as this weekend I am going to a Bryn Mawr Reunion in Philly. Owls and crossdressing probably striking a chord with Mawrters everywhere. Alas, she may still show up in November. Anassa Kata!

Learn more about Audrey Kawasaki at her website.