The Wonderful World Of Bill Ward - King Of Glamour Girls

Bill Ward's long, prolific pin-up career began during World War II when he created a curvy distraction named Torchy for his fellow soldiers. His taste for impossibly buxom blondes—teetering on stiletto heels, legs encased in black nylon, torsos packed into satin gowns—precisely suited America`s collective postwar sex fantasy, and the late 50s men`s magazine boom made him the most popular girlie artist in the country. Through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, Ward broadened his range to embrace a variety of fetish subjects, but he never varied from his template of the Ultimate Woman—except to make her breasts a little bigger, her heels a little higher, or the satin and leather encasing her a little glossier.

For a previous Little-Pumpkins post on Bill Ward click here.

Available at Taschen for US$29.99

The New Bond Girls

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth, Penguin UK has revealed these new sizzling James Bond hardcover designs sketched by San Francisco (via Wales) based artist Michael Gillette. Love it!

Via The Publics

Cool Threadless T-Shirts

I just can't get enough of these GREAT Threadless T-shirts!! Besides being simply awesome they are also very affordable at US$15.00 for guys tees and US$17.00 for the girl's, as 50+ bucks for a graphic tee is soooo not cool. There are dozens and dozens styles to choose from and I picked a few that are right up my alley, shown above.

Available at Threadless

Eboy Wrapping Paper @ Nineteenseventythree

My fellow blogger pal Deemer at Paki Pop Tart sent me this really cool link that he thought I would enjoy and he was so right!

UK-based design company Nineteenseventythree sells the most amazing wrapping paper and gift cards that I have seen in a long time, through collaborations with up-to-the-minute artists and illustrators. They are also a "green company" using recycled papers and aiding in reforestation programs, that adds many points in my book.

One of my favorite designs was Eboy's printed wrapping papers that are good enough to frame in my opinion. They feature really cool pixellated colorful cityscapes and funky characters, retailing for £1.80 per silk paper sheet. Love it!

Tim Biskup's Lucky Stack Poker Cards

This is a casino quality poker deck of 52 playing cards by artist Tim Biskup. Every card has a terrific reproduction of one of his neato paintings. The Lucky Stack is sure to bless you with good fortune on your next poker night. Each and every card has a unique face, rendered in Biskup's colorful and whimsical style. This brand-new tin boxed edition features the original deck plus three bonus oversized novelty cards with all-new artwork! US$14.99



Available at My Plastic Heart

Persepolis

Sunday night I went to see Persepolis at my local megaplex. I had read about the movie many weeks ago but it was not playing anywhere around where I live, until this past Friday when it seemed to have opened nationwide, probably because of it's Oscar nomination for best animated movie. A brief resume of the movie:

Persepolis - the movie - is based on a French-language autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi that describes her childhood in Iran after the revolution. The title is a reference to the historical town of Persepolis, an ancient ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.

The film tells the story of of little Marjane Satrapi growing up in politically-unstable Iran. With the fall of the Shah's regime when she was ten years old, her world changed overnight. Girls and boys had to use different doors to enter the school. She had to cover herself with a long dark robe and head veil. Grownups around her began to disappear, including close relatives and family friends. Marjane is a rebel at heart and has several close encounters with the country's morality police and with her strict teachers at school. The Iran-Iraq war comes to her doorsteps as Iraqi bombs fall on the street where she lives. Eventually her parents hoping for a better future for Marjane send her abroad to receive a European education, but she is miserable: she loves her family and country, despite their flaws, too much to stay away for long. She feels like a misfit in Austria for being Iranian but she realizes that she isn't the same Marjane anymore as she returns to her home country.

The movie grabbed me from the beginning with it's stunning (mostly) black & white visuals. After living here in the US for many many years I grew unaccustomed to subtitles in movies, specially when trying to read English subtitles to a French-language animated film. The b&w screen does not help the type either - when trying to take it all in all at once it took me several minutes to get comfortable with it again. Though I wanted to say I loved the whole movie I must confess that I peeked at my watch a couple of times towards the end. This is no cheery Disney-fare - as war, torture, religious oppression and murder don't get much down play throughout the film. This movie won't make you leave the theater a happy camper or humming to some cute critter's sing-along. I was kind of bummed as this was not the uplifting fare that I was expecting. I knew the thematic would involve Iran/religion/politics but I was hoping for a more feel-good ending and that it's not what Persepolis is all about.

Ruben Toledo For Nordstrom

Nordstrom has teamed up with fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo for their Spring/Summer 2007 ad campaign. Toledo painted 20-by-30 foot walls to serve as a backdrop for the models which were shot by fashion photographer Ruven Afanador. These images are breath taking and very inspirational. I also love the fact that Toledo also painted on the models themselves, adding a surrealist touch to the whole photo shoot. I was in Paris once and while visiting the much-hyped boutique Colette I saw this great Ruben Toledo mural that they had leading up to the second level.

Click images to enlarge and get the full detail

Via NOTcot

Carnival Exploitation Billboards

These exploitative carnival attractions were found on my wanderings around Florida and they are creepy and sad at the same time. I did not have the heart to pay a US$1.00 (!) to gawk at the "World's Smallest Woman" or "Snake Girl" because I actually felt bad for them, wondering how they must feel being on display as freaks of nature. The billboards are kind of cool though, so are most carnival visual grabbers - cool in a crude and unsophisticated way - right up my alley! The carnival world is filled with hyperboles as everywhere you look you seem to find "the word's smallest this or biggest that" and all for the low US$1.00 price of admission.

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The Pin-Up Art Of Gil Elvgren

Gil Elvgren has joined the ranks of Petty and Alberto Vargas as one of the premiere American pin-up artists...the Norman Rockwell of cheese-cake. His heroines are often caught in humorous but distressing situations. His exquisite oils of gorgeous girls-next door their skirts often blowing up to reveal lovely nylon-clad limbs rival his mentor Haddon Sundblom's "Coca-Cola" Santas for sheer nostalgic pleasure.

Elvgren looked for models with vitality and personality, and chose young girls who were new to the modelling business. He felt the ideal pin-up was a fifteen-year-old face on a twenty-year-old body, so he combined the two. An Elvgren model was never portrayed as a femme fatale. She is, rather, the girl next door whose charms are revealed in that fleeting instant when she's been caught unaware in what might be an embarrassing situation. Gusting winds and playful plants grab at her lovely, long legs. She is intruded upon as she takes a bath. Her skirts get caught in elevator doors, hung up on taps, and entangled with dog leashes. The elements conspire in divesting her of her clothing.

Via The Pin-Up Files