No Mod Required

Check out the owner of one of Boston’s all-time great hand styles profiled on eMusic:

eMusic Spotlight - Taster’s Choice: Gilles Peterson and Kon and Amir

There is no lone American equivalent to Peterson’s multi-platform reach, but the East Coast DJ duo of Kon and Amir probably come close in terms of record collections. They first became
known for their On Track tapes throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, hip-hop-influenced mixes of little-known singles and breakbeats and recently discovered samples that entranced generations of record collectors. They recently put out Off Track, a three-hour mix of their best gems, including Quest’s highly sought-after disco cut “Boy Scouts” — it pays soaring tribute to the Boy Scouts of America, and must be heard to be believed — Le Stim’s pepped-up, percussive “Tribute to Muhammad Ali” and Jacqueline Dee and Johnnie Wal’s charmingly titled “Farewell to Welfare.” When even the tracklisting looks cool, that’s when you know you have untouchable taste.

Much more later. For now, here’s a VAULT hand I caught in Florence…

@comics.com : Secret Asian Man. It’s only a couple weeks in, you can catch up in no time.

For folks near me, it is in the Patriot Ledger so once you catch up you can follow the strip the old school way- MASS. ARTISTS ADD NEW VOICES TO LEDGER’S COMICS PAGE.

Go Tak go.

Local illustrator Shea Justice has new site online. Shea is crazy talented and is a really nice guy, so please make with the clicking and check his site out.

Go Tak go!

I’ve obviously known about this for a while, but it’s still nice to have it be all official with the press releases and all…

Press release action:

“Secret Asian Man,” by Tak Toyoshima, is the First-Ever Nationally
Syndicated Comic Strip Featuring an Asian American Leading Character

NEW YORK, June 11, 2007 – Secret Asian Man by Tak Toyoshima brings a
new face to the newspaper comics page. Osamu “SAM” Takahashi is a
struggling comic strip artist who dreams of hitting the big time. A second
generation Japanese American who grew up in a big city surrounded by people
from all walks of life, SAM is fascinated by what makes us the same as well as
different. SAM is a laid-back guy who has a wife and young son. Although secure
with his identity, he is a member of a frequently marginalized group and is
therefore reminded by the world around him of the many unresolved issues
regarding race, gender and orientation. SAM navigates through this cultural
minefield with wit and humor and through it all remains an optimistic dreamer.
Secret Asian Man starts in newspapers worldwide and on the Web at
www.comics.com on July 16, 2007.

“Asian Americans have been an integral part of American society for centuries
but have only recently begun making inroads into our popular culture,” said Ted
Rall, Acquisitions and Development Editor for United Feature Syndicate. “What
Margaret Cho did for stand-up comedy and ‘Harold and Kumar Go To White
Castle’ did for the movies, Secret Asian Man—the first Asian-themed strip—
does for the comics page. A brilliant artist and wonderfully succinct writer, Tak
Toyoshima opens a window on topics that the comics have ignored until now.
Most importantly, you don’t have to be Asian to love Secret Asian Man!”
“You’d think the audience for Secret Asian Man wouldn’t extend much beyond
the Asian American community but nothing could be further from the truth,” says
SAM creator Tak Toyoshima. “Over the years I’ve developed an audience that is
diverse, intelligent, boisterous and active. Of particular importance are the
college-aged readers. I do a good deal of public speaking at college conferences
and get students excited about newspaper comics again. I think it’s vital to get
that crowd back into reading newspapers.”

Secret Asian Man is loosely based on the life of its creator, Japanese American
freelance illustrator and cartoonist Tak Toyoshima. Toyoshima was born and
raised in the TriBeCa section of New York City, which borders SoHo, Chinatown,
and Little Italy. This breeding ground for creativity and multicultural experiences
provided a solid foundation for Toyoshima’s personal, thoughtful and humorous
reflections on the experiences of Asian Americans in the United States. Since its
first appearance in 1998, Secret Asian Man has gone from a monthly two-page
comic in a Boston arts magazine with a circulation of about 5,000 to a weekly
comic strip published across the country with a total circulation of over a quarter
of a million, to the first-ever nationally syndicated comic strip featuring an Asian
American leading character. An illustrator trapped in a designer’s body,
Toyoshima graduated from Boston University with a degree in advertising. He
lives in Dorchester, MA with his wife and son and is the art director for Boston’s
Weekly Dig.

I just realized I hadn’t seen any mention of this out there on the Internet, so I figured I might as well play town crier for updates to this story.

As I’ve mentioned (briefly) before (and as has been mentioned in several other places) , in September, 2006 Thomas O’Keefe filed a lawsuit against American Express, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, and Digitas, Inc. claiming, among other things, copyright and trademark infringement.

Here’s an illustration getting to the heart of the matter:

The update is this- the Defendants (aka Goliath x 3) moved to dismiss the claims and the Judge denied their motion. Which means the suit continues on to the discovery phase. Which is, I’m lead to believe, a good thing (if you’re Tom- it’s not so good if you’re the other guys.)

Someone whose legal expertise goes beyond Law and Order reruns might be able to shed some light on how significant that next step really is…

Another interesting note is that right around the same time the judge denied their motion, American Express announced they were phasing out “My Life, My Card” and were replacing it with “Are You a Cardmember?” Which is news, even if it has nothing at all to do with the lawsuit, because they basically had three campaigns (”Do you know me?”,”Membership has its privileges”, “Do more”) over thirty years and have now switched this one up after only three.

On a related note… Tom is now blogging pretty regularly.

Untitled Show

Some highlights:

Ghost

Claw Money

Old friend Jahmal Williams

MIKE GIANT

NOAH

IMOK represent:

CYCLE

SKETONE

CYCLE, EROS and JIVE also represent the IMOK contingent amongst a sea of other luminaries (COPE2, MUCK, etc.)

Vinyl Pulse: Seen: Getting Over @ Channel 1

Target’s train is fresh. Yes it is:

It’s where all the cool kids are, don’t you know:

Pete!