At the beginning of this interview Nick Cave, being interrogated by a seemingly clueless young woman about his new musical endeavor Grinderman, pithily remarks that “a man without a moustache is rather like a woman with one”, or so sayeth the sardonic songster whose wife apparently “made” him grow one, in what seems to be an attempt to make him look more like a crazed, back woods rapist. The rest of the clip is, well, a waste really unless you wish to hear the interviewer comment that she loves their new album because, “it’s hard but it’s also soft at the same time.” Insightful!
Four Red Bulls, twenty hours, and a bag of squid chips later, it is done. The very first Ectoplamosis print broadside is ready for distribution.
But soft, ye say, what in blazes am I talking about? I’ll let Warren Ellis, Big Daddy to Ectomo’s Little Sister, explain:
The broadside has a centuries-long history as a device for disseminating news and ideas. I mean, flyers go up on the web to be printed off, sure. But it’s not quite the same thing. Getting an idea, or a piece of writing, on a single sheet and saying, yes, print this off, copy it and distribute it wherever you like — that’d be interesting.
In short, a single-page guerilla publication, distributed by xerox and zealous reader in coffee shops, cubicle farms, club bathrooms, 24-hour greasy spoon diners, on telephone poles, shoved under windshield wipers, wiped under windshield shovers, safety-pinned on unsuspecting hobos, and fluttering in a comet tail behind us, wherever we may roam.
The first episode of ECTOPLASMOSIS! is offered in three editions:
This broadside is formatted specifically for easy printing and xeroxing, and features original artwork, an updated version of my famous Toxoplasmosis article, vintage illustrations, and an octobee coloring contest! Those of you who wish to curry our excellent favor, print and distribute with zest and enthusiasm! You will be rewarded in this life, and the next.
Stay tuned for more information about the coloring contest, a distribution contest, and other blunt mutterings from Brownlee.
Brownlee and I are in the offical Tokyo Games Show Press Room, enjoying delicious cold tea and even colder stares of disgust and condemnation from our game-journalisming peers.
Gather round, dear readers, and you will hear of a time when “giant negroes” roamed the earth. These giants committed shocking crimes. Newspapers from sea to shining sea documented their foul deeds.
Especially the New York Times.
The Times first acknowledged the existence of these fearsome creatures on August 5, 1897. The headline was “Insane Negro Giant in Newark.”
Over the next four decades, the New York Times provided all the news that was fit to print about “giant negroes.”
As a journalist myself, I’m sympathetic: “Giant Chinaman”, “Monstrous Eskimo” and “Colossal Polynesian” just don’t conjure the same mental image.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
