Soo Much

One thing we have been very good at on this blog is supporting emerging artists.  So now, I’m going to do a bit of shameless self promotion. Those of you who follow me on Tumblr have seen these already, so I apologize.

Now that I have discovered Imagekind, I have gotten brave and added some of my own art on the site. Just a few digital print I’ve had gathering digital dust on my hard drive for a little bit.  They’re now available on Imagekind.

So if you’re as print obsessed as Alex and I are, you need to check out Imagekind.com

Even if you aren’t print obsessed, and just like to support emerging artists, you need to check out this site.

Imagekind, run by the cafepress people, is the perfect place to go if you want amazing art and not pay an arm and a leg.  Or, if you’re an emerging artist (like myself) you can open your own store front (accounts range from free to $11.99/mo or $94.99/year) and put your art up for sale. They also offer high quality prints, canvas or framing of your own art for a very reasonable price, without you having to open up a storefront.

Honestly, this site is amazing!

Below are a few samples of some of mine and Alex’s favorite prints for sale. We’re all for supporting emerging artists! Click the image to learn more.

I should have posted this before the holidays were over, but Alex and I were a bit busy.

With the holidays just past, I’m sure a lot of people had wish lists at their favorite online stores.  Well Kaboodle is a site where you can have one GIANT wish list that includes items from any online store, and it is SOOO addicting!

From Kaboodle’s website:

“Kaboodle is a social shopping community where people discover, recommend and share products. Kaboodle’s powerful shopping tools allow people to organize their shopping through lists, discover new things from people with similar style, get discounts on popular products and find best prices. At the heart of Kaboodle is a fun and engaging community of people who love to shop. Community members create and join groups, share advice, feedback and product suggestions and personalize their profiles with polls and other widgets.”

I would have to say that my favorite part about Kaboodle are the style boards you can create with items from your wishlists.

For example, here’s one I made including all the vinyls from my wish list.

You can view my kaboodle profile here: http://www.kaboodle.com/lovecrafted

And you can view Alex’s kaboodle profile here: http://www.kaboodle.com/alexanderfisk

One of our lovely readers, Carolynne, wrote about how she was doing the 365 Project this year, and thus has inspired alex and myself to do it too.

The 365 Project is where you take one picture a day, for an entire year, and post it in a collection online. Some people use flickr, tumblr, livejournal, blogs.. or 365project.org. It’s fun and amazing to look back at all the pictures you’ve taken, and literally see how your life changed in the course of a year.

Back in 2009 I started and completed a full year of the 365 Project (you can see it here), and I started one for 2010, but didn’t last 2 months.

You can see my 365 project for this year here: http://365project.org/lovecrafted/365
And you can see Alex’s here: http://365project.org/alexfisk/365

It’s not too late to start your own. If you start today, just make sure you end it on Jan 6 2012.

Don’t be shy, it doesn’t tell us who voted for what..

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Today there are a lot of options for a person to get their comics from. Pretty much every art house book / coffee conglomerate offers them. The internet has a smorgasbord of places to buy comics. Certain specialty shops have showed up that carry some as well, such as Burbank’s Blast from the Past and Halo 13 in the Burbank Mall.  While these may be good options depending on what the consumer is looking for, what about your local comic book store? A good comic book store can offer above and beyond what an average comic book fan is looking for.  Say someone is buying an issue or a trade paperback of their favorite comic. Now Amazon might suggest what other people bought, or it might be featured with like items on an endcap at a store. But what about a person who you can have a great conversation with who shares your opinion about that comic, maybe even offer a recommendation  of another comic you might like. You can have a debate or lively discussion of the state of modern comic books. You can browse a vast and varied collection of superheroes and fantastic adventures. There is such a very wide community of different comic book fans out there, one of the most diverse fan groups. This should be celebrated in place where people can have face to face interactions preceded for followed by some comic book shopping. The experiences you can have a comic book store far outweigh the benefits of the alternatives, if you’re passionate about comics that is. And if you are, there is a great place to check out…

If Pasadena isn’t too far of a drive for you, then you will find a great store. With an amazing selection and a knowledgable and helpful staff Comics Factory is one helluva find.  Even if your tastes are a little off the beaten path, their inventory of comics seem to satisfy even a discerning costumer. A Marvel, DC, or Image fan can find something to tickle their fancy here. A great collection of art books can also be found here from art from films to the collects from people like Mark Ryden. What makes this store something to rave about though about it is excellent atmosphere created. As you browse you feel immersed in an environment where you can talk about the wonderfully diverse universe of comics available out there. Whether you are a big American Vampire or Atomic Robo fan or if you are more interested in Brightest Day you can find someone knowledgable and more importantly, the comic you seek. Being able to speak with people and get different opinions or people who agree with you is an irreplaceable experience that one can find here.  The staff is not only willing to speak to you about what you are looking for but each and every employee encountered has an interesting point of view on comics. Each conversation had with them can be found to be friendly, enlightening, and very helpful. Places like this have almost went extinct and it is up to us to keep them open and operating. We can hope we never live in a world where online is the only way we can find and interact with fans of these artistic marvels (pun intended). With the economy in the state it’s in it’s understandable to want to save money on what we spend our “fun money” on. BUT when it comes to pricing on issues and trades Comics Factory is more than competitive. There really isn’t enough positive things to say about this store, there does have to be an end to this article.

All in all we have yet to encounter another store quite like Comics Factory. It is the very standard for what a comic book store should be in our opinion. Truly an amazing accomplishment for a fans of comic books. With Christmas coming up this is a great place for a person you know. No matter what the reason is, you really should check this place out.

You can view them on Yelp here, or on Facebook here.

They are located at
1298 East Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, CA, 91106

I’m not sure if it is something we will out grow with age, but Alex and I have this almost obsession with decorating our apartment with items that pertain to our interests.  I think most people, when decorating their places, will stick to a certain color scheme or “look”, but Alex and I see something like my Tardis cookie jar, or his legendary edition Halo Reach statue and this “That would look awesome in the apartment!”

But the one item we obsess over more than anything is art and prints.  We already own more art than we can display in our tiny apartment, but some how we always find ourselves buying (or wanting to buy) more. Below you will find some of our favorites (that we either own, or want to own).

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For those of you who are unaware, this will be my first Halloween that I have my own place to decorate as I please.  I know it’s not even October yet, but I like to prepare early!  So tonight I will take you on a tour of how I’ve decorated my first apartment for Halloween. *I apologize for the quality of the pictures. The lighting in my apartment isn’t great and I don’t have a working digital camera, so these were taken with my phone and/or Alex’s iPod.

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This weeks site we love is Eric Tan’s blog :   The Art (and Random Adventures) of Eric Tan

Yesterday Alex and I visited Disneyland for the first time in months.  One of our favorite things to do there is visit the gallery and look through all the prints they have for sale.  While we were doing so, I noticed a number of prints by Eric Tan, thus why he came to mind today while we were trying to figure out what to make this week’s “Site we love”.

Alex and I are both huge fans of retro style art, and if you apply that to pop culture, we’re in love.  Eric Tan does this beautifully, probably more beautifully than almost anyone else I know. So be sure to visit his blog and scroll through his posts. He’s got some great ones from Wall-E, The Incredibles and Indiana Jones!

In attempts to start updating more regularly, I’m starting up a new weekly topic.. Sites We Love. So, for our first site we chose TeeFury.

Teefury is a t-shirt webstore that sells a new shirt every 24 hours, for only $9.  It’s quite a brilliant idea if you think about it.  Each day a different shirt, 24 hours and it’s gone. So if they’re selling a shirt you like.. you have to decide if you really want the shirt, or if you can live with out it.  It just sucks if they’re selling a shirt you want and you are broke, or if you go a day without checking the site and miss a shirt you wanted.  This has happened to me a few times.

Shirts Alex and I have ordered from TeeFury:

Shirts we’ve missed out on (due to lack of money or forgetting to check the site):