Christopher Sickels uses puppets to create stark, emotive, and strange illustrations for various publications. It amazes me how surreal these are especially when one considers that the same image, rendered in the normal, two dimensional line drawings found in many magazines, would go largely unnoticed.
Diesel, the clothing company for people who will not wear jeans costing less than $100, has been releasing a number of disturbing videos advertising…clothing? To be honest, I’m not sure. What I can tell you is that their newest short piece, Pete the Meat Puppet is topping this weeks list of weird.
The story follows the life of Pete, created by an overweight, barren butcher out of various meats, who is brought to life through the magical properties of her breast milk. So shocked is she that she promptly dies, sending Pete into the world to find his own way. You’ll follow him as he achieves fame and fortune as a fast food spokesman, eventually entering into a booze, coke, and whore fueled downward spiral that includes bestiality, cannibalism, prostitution, and maggots. Yep, feel-good story of the year right here folks.
A severed puppet head, floating in front of a multicolored disc and shag carpet background, reminisces about his first lovemaking session with his rodeo sleeping bag; describing its pattern of clowns and barrels in the same tones of wistful reverie that one might use to describe the color of their first love’s eyes. Things continue downhill at an astonishing rate once the guru begins recounting a day when, “overwhelmed with humpiness”, he violated his grandmother’s bathroom rug, which to you and me may seem odd but to a man who has spread peanut butter on himself so as to entice his canine companion I’m sure it’s all perfectly normal.
This short film, by Polish stop-motion animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, tells the story of Duffy (known as Fétiche in France). A stuffed animal, Duffy is on a quest to bring his young mistress, sick with scurvy, an orange. It is a quest that will take him through Hell and back. Starewicz was a master of his craft, sometimes employing the use of insect carcasses — their limbs reattached with wax — as puppets. Duffy proved to be one of his most popular creations, and Starewicz featured him in three more films. If you’re a fan of stop-motion animation The Mascot is a must see.
Update: Switched to a YouYube playlist as the original player, located here, kept auto-playing.
I don’t mind telling you, dear readers, that the past few days have been atrocious. Ensconced in a sputum plastered nightmare illness, I have been limping, hunched and oozing, through this week; the phlegm constricting my chest and vocal chords causing me to sound, by all accounts, like a sniffling, hacking Barry White. The rest of the Ectomo staff has quarantined me to my office, leaving me alone and ignoring my melodious, threatening bellows.
What the current plague I suffer from has to do with this mash-up of Sesame Street and M.O.P.’s “Ante Up”, I cannot be sure. Perhaps in my current state I find myself on the same, depraved wavelength as The Tubes; my fever allowing me some sort of expanded Understanding. It may explain why I find this so funny, the image of Bert and Ernie spitting mad, aggressive rhymes sending me into fits of pulmonary convulsions. For those who may not like it, always remember: nothing despises you or your childhood more than the internet.
A little bit of interactivity for your Cthursday afternoon. What better way to while away a rainy day in Arkham than a bit of old fashioned fun? Turn off those 360’s, unplug that TV, and put down that iPod! Then commence to putting on what will likely be the most disturbing puppet show in existence. Click the image for the full size cutouts and your very own personal gateway into searing madness.
After a dozen years of tyrannical Prohibition, the people of our once proud and great nation had finally cracked. I know it sounds far fetched but bear with me, the mental decimation of North America at the hands of 12 years of sobriety at gunpoint and poisonous, bathtub concocted tonics explains everything.
A slightly different format this weekend. Oscar nominations have been announced and while the pithy award show is as much an indication of cinematic excellence as one of Eliza’s massive bowel movements, it does draw attention to films that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. With that in mind Ectomo presents the nominations for Best Short Animated Film. Hit the jump for enough embedded video to make your browser weep.
The punk rock doo wop stylings of King Khan and BBQ. Two puppets wander the long, rolling path of life where, as we all do, they gobble up dirty hamburgers mysteriously left for them on the ground, vomit on each other, then get swallowed by a gigantic worm. Poignant commentary on the human condition, indeed.
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.
