Jed Alexander

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• Commented on To do in NYC: Shepard Fairey + Lawrence Lessig + Steven Johnson on copyright, fair use, and AP shitstorm around Obama poster
  It's an old debate--Campbells threatened to sue Warhol but thought better of it. Now they hang Warhol's original in their corporate offices. The question is: is the new work original enough or unique enough in comparison to the work from...
• Commented on To do in NYC: Shepard Fairey + Lawrence Lessig + Steven Johnson on copyright, fair use, and AP shitstorm around Obama poster
  SENNA1: There's no trick in doing something in the style of someone else. I'm sure you could also do a real bang-up Warhol style portrait. True, Fairey didn't invent the style, but for whatever reason, the image he made stuck....
• Commented on Mark Dery on JG Ballard's memoir
  Ok, last clarification here, if anyone is still reading. You took my quote out of context. I didn't say: bipolar disorder isn't really bipolar in a comparable way to a philosophical dichotomy" because "bipolar disorder describes two distinct and separate...
• Commented on To do in NYC: Shepard Fairey + Lawrence Lessig + Steven Johnson on copyright, fair use, and AP shitstorm around Obama poster
  "You could turn Mr. Fairey's colorization technique into a Photoshop filter and apply it to any photograph at all. Would you sign it and sell it or give it away with the claim that it's a new artwork because you...
• Commented on To do in NYC: Shepard Fairey + Lawrence Lessig + Steven Johnson on copyright, fair use, and AP shitstorm around Obama poster
  I did a blog post about this subject here: http://jedalexander.blogspot.com/2009/02/shepard-fairey-controversy-aesthetics.html Something I mention in response to one of the comments to my blog entry is the fact that illustrators who do portraits of popular figures for print media almost ALWAYS...
• Commented on Mark Dery on JG Ballard's memoir
  You're made certain assumptions about my ability to grasp metaphor that I don't feel are merited, but I can see how you might have such a reaction. You're using "in a very real sense" to mean, "in a profound sense"....
• Commented on Mark Dery on JG Ballard's memoir
  You're made certain assumptions about my ability to grasp metaphor that I don't feel are merited, but I can see how you might have such a reaction. You're using "in a very real sense" to mean, "in a profound sense"....
• Commented on Mark Dery on JG Ballard's memoir
  "In a very real sense, Ballard did become a psychiatrist, albeit a dryly ironic one, at ease with his philosophical bipolar disorder — now profoundly moralistic, now exuberantly amoral, now both." In a very real sense, according to this article,...
• Commented on Gallery: BBG readers' laptop art
  Did someone say: Obama stickers? http://jedalexander.com/store/product/yes-we-can-sticker/...
• Commented on Frank Frazetta: Rough Work
  I always preferred Frazetta's black and white line art to his paintings--he had such a delicate line. I'm not sure if he got that feathered look with brushes or pens, but it was gorgeous. He's a great craftsman, though like...
• Commented on La Pequeña Sarah Palin (Thank you Jesus)
  I prefer the little guy to the Swiftboat McCain cartoon. He throws these crates overboard that say, "Principles" and "Integrity". That's about as funny as a sledgehammer. La Pequeña Sarah Palin is much more subtle and relevant....
• Commented on Buzzball human hamster toy
  This is described as an "interactive" vehicle. Aren't most vehicles interactive? I mean, pretty much all vehicles? Even escalators? Aren't you required to interact with them to use them as part of the vehicular process? Even unmanned vehicles usually require...
• Commented on Devo sues McDonalds
  "McDonalds toys are garbage." "Seriously, though... my toddler HATES it. With a passion. If I hand it to him,make it play the little music, he throws it angrily across the room." Ok, they're not really good toys, per se. I...
• Commented on Devo sues McDonalds
  Seriously though: http://bp3.blogger.com/_julY3XAJ89c/SBiULHNpjOI/AAAAAAAAAMs/plrDXtd136U/s1600-h/idols.jpg How can you not love these? Especially the one with the purple fro. There is the fact that the American Idol logo is indescriminately slapped on, but these are great toys!...
• Commented on Devo sues McDonalds
  For whatever it's worth, I love those Happy Meal toys. I own the whole set. The Devo one doesn't give you a sense of the clever design reflected in the whole set, but they're really great looking toys. My guess...
• Commented on Syd Mead dreams the future of Doha, Qatar
  Every image of the future doesn't have to be a dystopia. Consumerism isn't necessarily a bad thing. While corporate consumerism is dehumanizing and a danger to our social and environmental ecology, a new kind of consumerism is being developed through...
• Commented on Syd Mead dreams the future of Doha, Qatar
  I don't think Mead should change, or anyone who has a retro conception of the future needs to update their approach. Mead is Mead. But in trying to visualize our future in a literal and practical sense we tend to...
• Commented on Syd Mead dreams the future of Doha, Qatar
  The martini glass skypark design seems really impractical on a basic level. They're butted up against one another, but there's no obvious or convenient way to get from one skypark to the other. And what's inside those martini glasses? I...
• Commented on Goodbye, George Carlin
  I think the first Carlin stand-up I saw was on a VHS tape of one of his live concerts when I was about 9. The 7 dirty words thing is even more hilarious and subversive when you're 9. Carlin was...
• Commented on Cody's Books of Berkeley, RIP
  I'm kind of amazed that there are any negative comments at all. Cody's and Green Apple Books in San Francisco were the best book stores in the bay area. I'm not going to attempt some sort of online shopping vs....
• Commented on Review of Jack Kirby's OMAC
  "Saying that Jack Kirby wrote clunky dialogue really is the equivalent of complaining that Rembrandt couldn't draw feet." I didn't say clunky, I said odd, though I wouldn't rule out "clunky". But clunky might describe most of the comics writing...
• Commented on Review of Jack Kirby's OMAC
  I have a few of these and will be anxious to get the collection. Kirby's dialogue is some of the most odd I've ever read. It wasn't as if he wrote dialogue that was any better or worse than other...
• Commented on AIDES safe sex posters
  Ok. This is a little confusing. Yuko Shimizu: http://www.yukoart.com/news/sex.html (see upper left hand corner thumbnail) Apparently did an illustration nearly identical to Jean's. I mean, the exact same composition. The interesting thing is: Yuko is a friend of Jean's and...
• Commented on Shangri-las: "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" (1965)
  The only thing more painful to listen to than My Boyfriend's Back is that anthem of codependancy, I Will Follow Him. But these girls rock....
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  "Fine art is insular and the criteria can be extremely difficult and narrow. Comix are insular. It's had to break into skate graphics, costume design, or tattooing. Each category has it's own set of criteria. Sometimes the categories cross-pollinate and...
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  It's not the "wrong" or "right" set of values, but academia does tend to make exclusive distinctions based on what academia considers educated vs. naive. Thus the whole outsider art phenomenon. Calling something "outsider art" isn't a qualitative evaluation of...
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  It's not whether or not the folks that make it call it "street level" but your making a value distinction between it and the serious stuff, or the stuff that in some way explores art theory and so forth. Or...
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  Let me revise that: it's not "fine-art" that's elitist, but the people that established the convention of fine-art vs. other kinds of art....
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  "Illustration versus art is a "function over form" kind of discussion. Illustrators are typically charged with translating an idea into visual information for the purpose of advertisement. Illustrators usually need to deliver that message as effectively as possible in...
• Commented on Coop's "Smoking Devil" painting
  "coop has the skills of any good comic book artist, but i think he is less original than just about any comic artist" This might've sounded better in your head than it could possibly be true. "just about ANY comic...