It’s Easy To Think The End Is Coming Soon

The Fiery Furnaces “We Got Back The Plague (single version)” – This is the b-side to the new “Tropical Ice-Land” UK single, and like the a-side, it is a totally reworked version of a song from the Gallowsbird’s Bark LP. The new arrangement is like a Scott Joplin/Sonic Youth mash-up gone awry, but it works in spite of itself. The song’s inherant folkiness is foregrounded by the ragtime-y piano, while the noise firmly places the recording in the stylistic present and undercuts any potential modern folky preciousness.

As a change a pace, today I will be offering a full length comic book produced by my good friend John Cei Douglas in lieu of a second mp3. John is a new cartoonist from Leicester, England, and you can download his new comic Sleeping Beauty as a pdf file by clicking on the title.

John is a very promising talent at the young age of 22. Without ever seeing either of their work until after the completion of this comic, he manages to combine elements of Chester Brown’s illustration style with the subtlety and grace of Seth. He has a knack for experimenting with page layout and formal structure without being ostentatious or taking the reader out of his story. He’s capable of drawing some truly elegant and stunning images, most notably the bus departures on pages 13 and 23.

In terms of story, Sleeping Beauty is a bit slight. It’s less of a traditional story than a dreamy, lyrical meditation about young love. The comic works in a way similar to a song or a poem, with John’s words and images coming together as an expression of memories, ambiguous emotions and stray thoughts rather than a conventional narrative.

John Cei Douglas is not currently being published, so if you have an interest in publishing or distributing his work, or hiring him for freelance illustration jobs, please note that his contact information is available on the final page of the pdf.