Experts
Mark Frauenfelder
Weblogger; Editor In Chief , MAKE Magazine
Recent Activity
American Born Chinese -- excellent graphic novel
Last night I finally got around to reading American Born Chinese, a 240-page color graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. This 2006 National Book Award Finalist is about a kid, born of Chinese parents, who must learn how to deal with being one of the few Asian students in a school attended mostly by caucasians who are either bullies or blithely rude and ignorant towards him. What takes this interesting loss-of-innocence story and kicks it to a higher level is the way Yang intertwines two other stories into it. One is a mythical story of the Monkey King who aspires to be a god, and the other is a nightmarish sitcom about a extreme stereotype of a Chinese kid who torments his caucasian cousin with yearly disruptive visits. In the end, all three stories merge satisfyingly. I'm a sucker for a clean line, and Yang's drawing style fits my predilection to a T. It's bold, economical, yet warm and very expressive. Link
January 24, 2008, 7:42 AM
Overladen pickup on the 101, Los Angeles
(Click on thumbnails for enlargement) Spotted this pickup driving down the 101 near Van Nuys, California. There's an entire house packed on it.
August 16, 2007, 7:18 AM
Tim Biskup's Jackson 500 Volume 3
This is the fifth of Tim Biskup's books of his tiny paintings. Jackson 500 Volume Three has 100 business-card sized paintings in it, reproduced at full size. It's my favorite so far, because he is moving in new and interesting directions. Away from flatness and towards form. Away from simple emotions towards more complex ones. In his introduction, Biskup writes that "things fell apart" in his life recently and that he's "let a lot of anger and sadness into my work in the last year, but there is aslso a certain kind of joy to it that is new as well." $10.17 on Amazon (Click on thumbnails for enlargement)
August 15, 2007, 12:42 PM
Whenever a new issue of Hi-Fructose shows up in my mailbox, I climb on my roof and genuflect in the direction of Arcturus to pay homage to master Zogg for allowing such beauty to exist in this lowly mortal plane. Volume 5 of the best art magazine in the Universe has articles about Travis Louie, Parskid, Lori Early, Amy Sol, Mark Jenkins, Aaron Noble, Mars-1, Friends With You's Rainbow Valley, Brendan Danielson, Josh Keyes, and other artists. There's a lifetime of material to study in these pages. Now that I have this, I may stop buying books and magazines altogether. Link
August 14, 2007, 4:19 PM
Short video of cliff diving at Topanga State Park
(Click on thumbnails for enlargement) I went with my wife and kids to Topanga State Park a couple of weeks ago. It offers wonderful hiking, rock climbing, and pond swimming. The best part of the day was watching the brave souls jump from the 40 or 50 foot cliffs into a swimming hole. I shot a video of the divers, which you can see here: Link
August 14, 2007, 11:12 AM
Mark Frauenfelder is a weblogger, illustrator, and journalist. He is editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and co-editor of the collaborative weblog Boing Boing. Along with Carla Sinclair, he founded the bOING bOING print zine in 1988, were he acted as editor until he left in 1993. Following his departure from bOing bOing, Frauenfelder became an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and the "Living Online" columnist for Playboy magazine from 1998 to 2002. He is the co-editor of The Happy Mutant Handbook (1995, Riverhead Books), and was the author and illustrator of Mad Professor (2002, Chronicle Books). He is the author and illustrator of World's Worst (2005, Chronicle Books) and The Computer: An Illustrated History (2005, Carlton Books). On June 21, 2003, Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair, along with their two young daughters, decided to move from Los Angeles to Rarotonga, an idyllic island in the South Pacific, where they lived for five months. The Island Chronicles is a website about the adventures.
