solid gone

boy blue news has moved, and now shares its digs with the rest of our site. we hope you'll still come by.

.the boy blue county sunday telegraph.

you're looking at a completely-i-swear-to-you unphotoshopped john flansburg performing "don't let's start". and as if life weren't already awesome enough:

:: ephraim rubenstein, beloved client and rumored relation to boy blue enterprises, has an opening thursday night at george billis gallery in chelsea. the show features a number of his haunting used and discarded book paintings, which seem even more impossible in the flesh. further details on his (rather lovely, if we do say so ourselves) site.

:: our old friend and collegiate collaborator "magic" dan "the danimal" kaplan (and if anyone ever warranted two nicknames, this is the chap) rolled into town this week with his new band magnolia to fill the back room at tommy's with his sweet, sleepy, bostonian brand of (highly effective) make-out music. i recommend track 3, especially if you're into whoever occupies the next cubicle over.

:: we launched the bear bones website this week. the "sounds" page hosts one of the best playlists we've ever stumbled across. also, we are rolling in scene points.

superbowl evasion is the biggest sporting event of our year. be strong, people; don't falter, don't fumble.

.snowy days and sundays.

our d-girl at work.

you're looking at a hard-won morning off. it's still in development, but we think we've stumbled upon the next pet rock.

:: we're doing some design work for n.j. punk haven bear bones recording, a job that makes us feel considerably more attractive and better-liked than we in fact are.

the studio was humbly conceived as a way for its founder, darren golda, to help his friends' bands make records, but quickly (and for good reason) became a staple of the jersey punk scene. some of our very favorite bands have dropped albums from bear bones, and rumor has it mike hunchback's new weird fantasy band and it's a tiger shark have been rattling around there of late.

:: we're going to stumptown.

we just got our confirmation e-mail. precedent aside, we're psyched. there will be new comics to read and old friends to impose upon and jeff fucking smith and we're not going to let any sour self-important hipsters spoil our mood this year, so haters to the left.

the festival happens on april 18th and 19th in lovely, nag champa-scented portland, oregon. if you're in the area, you should come say hi. if not, you should go visit, and come say hi.

:: we've been writing a lot of code.

in addition to bear bones and the fine folks over at the green it group (who go live on inauguration day), we got a last-minute call from our friend graham willoughby, who's down in utah for the second year running. [the design is someone else's; we just wound it up and made it go.] graham is a documentary cinematographer whose recent success is decidedly well-deserved, and we're excited to help introduce him to the interworld.

more to come. until then, enjoy the weather systems.

.sunday morning at the boy blue offices.

you're looking at an early prototype for our new dinosaur apple pancakes. they're still in development, but we feel confident that, once they're ready for the marketplace, sunday brunch will never be the same.

in other news, we've got some new sites up and running:

:: ephraim rubenstein's breathtaking paintings and drawings celebrate the art of observation to a degree one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. each one examines the most intimate and exquisite details of objects and environments too often taken for granted. seriously, you've never seen a sexier stack of hardcovers.

eph's got an exhibition of his recent used and discarded books series going up in february at george billis in chelsea that we highly recommend. but don't take our word for it.

:: smash camera! is a friendly little rental house in brooklyn run by two stellar cinematographers, graham willoughby and joseph victorine, both of whom i've had the pleasure to work with. (graham shot the much-lauded h.b.o. documentary the blacklist; joe specializes in music videos, and kindly lent his skills to our recent first foray into that realm.) they've got reasonable rates, experienced support, and an amazing new red camera that you will not believe is digital video.

there's lots in the works over here, and more goodness is on its way.

:: in accordance with one of our many resolutions, we've been doing some new-year's tidying here at headquarters, and you'll never believe what we found: our stack of swag from mocca 2007. (remember then? if not, you aren't missing much; we felt certain we were going to be stuck with our current president forever, and we were all really envious of property owners.)

shortly thereafter, we had quickly and unexpectedly to move ourselves into storage for a while, and we never got around to doing a write-up, or even reading most of the beautiful comics we picked up. expect a better-late-than-never atonement for this transgression to trickle onto these pages in the near future.

in the meantime, enjoy your tea and your christmas comics with the confidence that you have begun a new and better year, when complete sentences will issue from the oval office, gabrielle bell will publish a new book, and dinosaurs will roam the breakfast table.