#comic artists you have my undying love and respect

[accio-bagel]

Poppy and the Puffskeins

Inspired by Josie and the Pussycats original comic cover art Close-ups under the cut

[aion-rsa]

Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen

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How do you bring a comic book to life? It’s a question that studios have been struggling with since they first began making live-action superhero serials in the 1940s. Netflix’s newest comic book series adapts Image Comics’ metatext on the medium, Jupiter’s Legacy. Created by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, the story centers on two generations of heroes. In its quest to bring this story to life, Netflix has enlisted costume designer Lizz Wolf. Though she’s new to the superhero genre, she has plenty of experience with massive actioners—including Rambo, The Expendables, and Pacific Rim: Uprising–and she dived in head-first to create a unique and vibrant visual landscape which respected the comics while bringing the texture and depth needed to translate the archetypal heroes to the small screen. 

In an unusual series of events, Wolf was brought on very early in the production in order to allow her to build the sartorial universe of Jupiter’s Legacy from the ground up. It was a rare chance for the costume designer to truly create something immersive and all-encompassing. “This project was an opportunity that very few costume designers get,” Wolf says. “In order to conquer the Herculean task of bringing the vast universe that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely had created to life, I had to strap myself in for the ride of a lifetime.” 

Seeing that world come to life has been nothing short of a joy for artist and Jupiter’s Legacy co-creator Quitely. While the show does bring plenty of new layers to the costuming and characters, he was blown away by how much inspiration they took from the comics. Even when things were changed he feels it was for the better. 

“Where they have embellished things, it’s not so much that they’ve done their own thing,” Quitely says, “it’s that they’ve taken what we had in the comic, and they’ve added to it and translated it in a way that’s going to work better for television. It’s a very interesting process for me to see.”

So how did Wolf get started on translating such an epic series through the lens of costuming? 

“As this universe is literally littered with superheroes and villains with varying degrees of power, I created a doctrine based on the character depictions in the comic book,” she says. “A platform of their capabilities and back stories. This was the connective tissue to then assemble a visual language and start the design process. This design language was a culmination of the extensive research we did for each of the superheroes and their subgroups. I relied heavily on science and nature to guide me. I was inspired by everything from the natural world, architecture, black line tattoos, ancient symbols, alchemy, microbial photography, atomic ordering, complex life forms, and parametric equations.”

When it came to directly adapting the costumes from the comics, for Wolf it was a balance of respect and inspiration. 

“In the beginning, I focused on the story to inform the design,” she says. “In order to achieve a cinematic feel, we had to extrapolate what was intrinsic to telling the story through an emotional color palette, composition, function, and the capabilities of each member of the Union from the source material. Then, of course, we had to pump them into three-dimensional characters.” 

When Quitely visited the set, he got to explore those three-dimensional reimaginings of his art, something that he calls a privilege. While he visited each and every part of the production, and enjoyed it all, the costume department was something of a highlight for the creator. 

“They were very faithful to all the main costumes,” Quitely explains. “But because there are so many supporting characters, they had basically come up with a lot of costumes that were just inspired by what they’d already found in the comic. That was really great to see.”

Discovering the creators were fans of her designs early on was an unforgettable moment for Wolf. She was keen to talk about their impact on her, and what she called a seminal vision of superheroes. So when Millar, Quitely, and the showrunners came back with good things to say, it was “the catalyst of confidence” for her. “It was truly a professional high point to hear that Mark [Millar] had liked the designs and the direction we were going in.” Wolf says. “That acknowledgment was everything!”

Paying homage to the silhouettes and color schemes of the comics costumes was key to Wolf. But she wanted to amp up the technology and detail. With suits that have to exist over decades, it was vital to make sure that they had durability and that classic Golden Age vibe. “These suits had to travel the expanse of 100-plus years and hold up, as well as remain relevant and be able to inspire generations to come,” she says. “That was a challenge!” 

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Wolf battled through those challenges and found unexpected inspiration in the works of industrial 3D knitters. Diving deep into this new creative process gave Wolf a new insight, and what she called “single thread technology” led to the basis of what she describes as the show’s “suit mythology,” which also shaped the designs of the next generation’s suits. 

Taking inspiration from anatomical artists like George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis, Wolf crafted a musculature for the super suits that was exaggerated yet natural. And she even built the origin of their powers, imbued following an “event,” into the suits. “This muscular structure was a molecular reaction of this event integrated into the suit itself,” she says. 

That level of detail was something that immediately stuck out to Quitely. He was particularly excited by the intricate detailing that Wolf and her team added. Though the costumes might look the same from a distance, up close Quitely found an impressive array of subtle details, including emblems and alien patterns built into the material itself. “They’ve put so much thought and love and enthusiasm into the way they’ve gone about recreating this world, making it bigger and fuller in a way that will work for television,” Quitely says. “It’s been fantastic.”

Wolf was equally as enamoured with the process, describing it as a highlight of her storied career. “Designing the superheroes was an incredible thrill! I’ve experienced nothing like it. I’d have to say overall that Jupiter’s Legacy is my favorite project that I have ever done!” 

Sacred Geometry

Lizz Wolf added a unique costume detail which created its own visual language, much of which was inspired by the concept of “Sacred Geometry.” The term references the idea of ascribing meaning and symbolism to certain geometric shapes and proportions. While usually used in religious buildings and art, Wolf strived to craft a superheroic Sacred Geometry for each of the six Union members using symbolic emblems and totems which were later integrated into their suits. “These were extractions or reflections of each character’s individual journey.” Wolf explains. 

While researching the look of Jupiter’s Legacy, the team discovered amateur micro photography of frozen ice crystals. This naturally occurring phenomenon developed into the overall language of the costumes. “We created a series of these lichen-like formations that represented expressions or glyphs based on an alphabet of sorts,” Wolf says. “It was used on each of the Union’s super suits as an adornment or to create declarations.”

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The Utopian signified a particular challenge as his plain white suit was simple yet iconic. But Wolf built on his archetypal comic book silhouette that she felt represented the mythology of the character. While she didn’t feel like he was particularly formidable at first, once they built in Sheldon’s own Sacred Geometry which was built from “extractions from conjured celestial maps that could have guided Sheldon in his calling” the costume designer reveals, “he emerged to be very intimidating.” 

Dressing Two Generations of Superheroes

Jupiter’s Legacy is a story about family, two generations of distinctly different heroes. The older and more archetypal group known as the Union are shaped by idealistic dreams and Golden Age comics. Then there’s the children of the Union, whose lives have been molded by their parents’ fame, privilege, and celebrity endorsement campaigns. When it comes to costuming, the differences are clear. The Union wear classic superhero suits, making them icons of hope and heroics. But their children rock civilian outfits, still just as recognizable but a clear rejection of the traditions of their family. 

The Utopian 

When it came to designing The Utopian, Quitely looked towards Superman and other classic Golden Age stories. But for costume designer Lizz Wolf, it was all about building only on what already existed in the comics. Keeping his white silhouette was key and Wolf “built on the mythology of the character,” giving him what she calls an “almost archaic, statuesque feel.” She adds that building that texture was key. “This is where the musculature was profound in exhibiting his mortal strength,” she explains. “This brought majesty to his suit, and then Josh Duhamel brought his god-like presence!” 

Skyfox 

One of the most significantly different costumes is that of Skyfox. Gone are his leotard/undies from the comics. Instead, Wolf crafted something with “a rugged sexiness.” The team retained his “iconic color scheme that is certainly a nod to royalty and his social status as George Hutchence.” But rather than drawing directly from the comics, they shifted tactics.

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“His inspiration was part gunslinger, part playboy, 100% badass,” Wolf says. “His equipment is intentionally worn low on hips to provoke that rock star, cowboy vibe. He also has what amounts to the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the Union embedded in his suit. The crowning element is his fractal-like Fox emblem. It’s like a talisman inspired by his fox-themed heirloom jewelry pieces from the 1920s.”

Brainwave 

Another slight shift was Brainwave. In the comics, his suit evolves in the modern age. But Wolf decided to keep his iconic early look for the entire series. “This allowed us to really make his suit beam and keep his natural swagger evident. I love his suit and his veining motif. He just lights up in it and it appears to be actively circulating.”

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Wolf reveals that a strange mistake ended up playing a vital part. “That fabrication was one of those divine accidents. During our R&D period, a run of printed fabric went in an unintentional direction. That material mysteriously became more radiant when stretched over his muscular structure. That mistake became the end result.”

The Union

For artist Frank Quitely and writer Mark Millar, the Union’s costumes were key, as were their influences.

“We went right back to Superman and Batman. The early Marvel and DC heroes. The heroes from the mid 1930s through the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s,” Quitely says. The older generation wear traditional suits making them easily identifiable as heroes. “We were looking at everything that had gone before. We were wanting things that were recognizable and reminiscent of classic superheroes, even for people that weren’t immersed in comic book culture. Most people have got a rough idea of what Superman and Spider-Man are about. We wanted to deal with archetypes and representations of superheroes that would still strike some kind of chord with people that only had a passing interest.”

The Next Generation 

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Growing up in Scotland shaped Quitely’s choice to make the younger generation’s uniforms their everyday outfits. “I read a lot of comics when I was younger. Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace, The Broons. The characters tend to wear the same clothes,” he explains. “It’s the same with your Saturday morning cartoons like Scooby-Doo. Their costumes are part of the aesthetic of each character. They wear the same clothes and colors all the time because it makes them more recognizable. To some extent we did that with the characters in Jupiter’s Legacy that didn’t have a superhero costume. Even if the clothes change, they have a recognizable style. And it’s important to try to stick with that because it helps build the character and it helps make the visual storytelling easy to follow.”

Jupiter’s Legacy premieres on Netflix on May 7. Read more about the series in our special edition magazine!

The post Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[the-cryptographer]

DOUJIN POST~!

Sponsored by eyepatch Kaiba, and the indomitable @rainstormcolors. Who was very kind and sent (most) of these to me for my b-day a while back~ Thank you <3 <3

So bear with me. There are quite a few, and I’m saving my two favourites for last.

This first one is called, Happy Trigger, and it’s mostly cutesy character stuff. A lot of costume play, lol. You get to see things like-

Kaiba in a gym uniform.

And Kaiba in a maid outfit.

He seems kind of desperate for Yuugi’s attention here, lol. There’s a pretty cute comic near the end about his birthday. On the one hand, I wonder that two of the doujinshi on this list have a birthday theme. Otoh, is it really surprising considering how much art and fic people churned out for Kaiba’s b-day here on tumblr? Aaaah, I didn’t have anything to finish for Mai’s b-day this week. Mea culpa.

He’s kind of having a normal day full of kindness and irritations.

I especially like his annoyance with Pegasus calling to wish him a good day.

And then Yuugi texts him and he completely flips out, heh~

So this one - Love Fool is kind of nice slice-of-school-life type stuff. You’ve got these good pictures of Yuugi getting his sneakers on before he heads home.

And good pictures of stick figure Yuugi arguing with stick figure Kaiba.

In any case, the kind of premise of this doujinshi involves Kaiba coming to Yuugi’s place to watch a videotape. Yes. One of those videotapes. Courtesy of Jounouchi. I’m not entirely sure Kaiba’s in the know about what’s going on but-

He barges into Yuugi’s room like he owns the place.

And Yuugi freaks out bc his undies are hanging up. Bc Yuugi has the luxury to worry about these kinds of petty concerns (it’s okay, ilu, yuugi~)

He makes a run for them to take them down, heh~

Anyhow, the videocassette or the VCR isn’t working, properly. So Yuugi and Seto get to talking instead. About angsty things like his company and his dad and Mokuba.

And then hugs happen.

And then things are finally getting steamy.

And then-

Right then the VCR finally starts working and interrupts them with breathy, busty porn star moans.

We see Jou and Honda get the video back later.

And it looks like it kind of killed the mood judging by Yuugi’s reaction, lol. I know- I know- I have all the tools to translate this but I’m lazy and don’t want to :p

And this is tabby tail’s work. I don’t have much to comment about it- it’s cute and porny. But I really like how this circle draw’s Kaiba emoting.

Look at him. He’s one second away from kissing his bf and he looks completely joyless, like his cat just died. This is super on point and I love it.

Also bonus Jou expression for you. Bc you know I like Jou.

Ahhh, I really love aquarium aesthetic. I’m pretty sure an aquarium theme automatically boosts my enjoyment of something regardless of what it is. Considering I’ve enjoyed all the aquarium prideship and JouKai I’ve run across.

This whole doujin has that kind of watery blurry surrealism to it, though. And it seems to be playing around with age and memory.

We see this backdrop with Kaiba and Mokuba in the aftermath of the deaths of their biological parents. This is always something I’m skittish about exploring - bc i’m always afraid it will undermine who Seto is and what his influences have been - but it’s interesting thing to see others delve into. Anyhow-

Aww, Yuugi hugs baby Seto. To comfort him.

And then baby Seto turns into adult Seto.

And then we play Magic & Wizards. Because that’s what ygo is all about.

The only pride one rscs sent me. It’s titled THE PITH AND THE PENDULUM, which is either a play on Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, or a misspelling of it. Either way, it’s apt. It’s kind of a highly aesthetic dark, distorted presentation, with a gothic style. Very lovely.

A stark introduction. A good coat.

You have these kinds of moments of sleeping and wakefulness with the characters. (Yes, it seems Kaiba dreams up Atem in the panel up there).

And this dark shot of a speeding car at night.

And a lavish dinner with these strange patterned curtains.

And- agh-! The artist caught me. Meaningful hand grabs! My weakness! How did they know?!

Here’s more of the art just bc pretty~

Alright. These next couple are things that I purchased myself.

One of veryroll’s older works. sfw guardshipping.

They really outdid themselves with the backgrounds. They’re full of people and scenery and silly signs - TOKYO HANDS!!

EXCELSIX-CAFE!!

(Also Isono looks great here.)

They go to the cafe and there are 5Ds characters in the background and Seto makes friends with little kids and it’s cute. And, wow, I think I’ve said before but I love baby-face Seto in veryroll’s work. I feel like, yes, he must look so adolescent to Isono. Bc he looks very adolescent to me. I watch him in canon and go, god, what a child.

Angry child.

And I finally managed to get the doujinshi that was lost. The wish one, at least, still working on the polar ones.

Here’s some adorable pinup.

I also got these buttons. From a circle I bought Dark Magician/Dark Magician Girl doujinshi from. What can I say. Angry Jou and Enemy Controller and JouKai. What’s not to love?

And a surprising favourite!! I wasn’t quite sure about buying this one, bc of how Yuugi was drawn on the cover and because I didn’t have any sample pages to go off of. But it ended up being really great.

bc lip balm.

And rival cuddles.

And rival kisses.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY PEOPLE FEEDING SETO FOOD!!!

Heh. It seems several different artists worked on this - but there’s a kind of through-line with the stories. Most of them are kind of lazy bumming around Kaiba’s manor with sex and Kaiba never taking off his bathrobe. Anyhow, going off of that, the doujinshi got better in the best way possible:

It’s Kaiba’s birthday, and Yuugi calls in to get pizza (and cake?) delivered. And Jounouchi’s the delivery boy. And Jounouchi is worst delivery boy. Who just walks into the room - ignoring that Seto’s naked under the covers - and sits on the bed and helps himself to the pizza he himself delivered. And, aw- aw- aw- battleship friendship vibes are my favourite. This really was super cute~ I’m glad you had a good b-day, Kaiba~

And this one is the last one from rscs. Because we were saving it for the end. Rosario Bianco’s rivalshipping is a gift to us all.

Idk, the drawings are crisp and cute and expressive. Everyone is cute.

So Kaiba follows Yuugi home, and bows to Yuugi’s mom all respectful-like. And Mama Mutou is immediately charmed. And Yuugi’s kind of ??? about it. And I want to be upset about it, lol, but how can I hold it against Kaiba for managing to make a good first impression on someone for once in his life~

So Kaiba is studying the pictures Yuugi has left on his cork board. Heh~ For a second I thought that the one with Anzu and Honda was literally the one from the anime - with all of them doing the peace sign - except Kaiba’s brain had tactfully edited Jounouchi out bc UNWANTED, lol. It does seem like it’s a different picture tho.

Anyhow, so Yuugi walks in with the fan and THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF ADORABLE PONYTAIL YUUGI!!!

The important part, though, is that Yuugi has a newspaper cutout of the Grand Opening of Kaiba Land next to his other pictures on the cork board. I guess how nice and not-fucked-up this gesture is depends a lot on whether or not this was the cutout for the Grand Opening of Death-T.

Kaiba also gets his hair tied up.

EARS! BOBBY PIN!

More PONYTAIL YUUGI! BC I CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH. PONYTAIL BLUSHING YUUGI!!!

Kaiba says I thought at the time (these?) feelings were bad. At least I think that’s what he says - I’m no pro translator gdi.

Text say something about happiness and something about crying. IDK. But Yuugi WITH THE PONYTAIL, CRYING, AND BLUSHING ALL AT ONCE. It’s too much. So good.

And then they have sex and work out their issues, idk- NSFW image below

↓ ↓ ↓

↓ ↓ ↓

↓ ↓ ↓ 

↓ ↓ ↓

It’s just Yuugi’s expression is too funny not to share, okay?

[batbros-before-hoes]

Ship

From:

Anonymous

Ask:

Can I have a ship please? I'm 5'0 (friends/fam often tease me about it, don't mind). Pale skin, med length slight wavy brown hair. Very quiet, sassy, very loyal and supportive. Blue-gray eyes, but appear dark blue. Love jokes (puns) and pranks. Mega nerd (anime, fantasy, sci-fi, marvel etc) but not an in-your-face fan. Night owl. Love all music, photography, walks/hikes. often keep things to myself, especially bullshit, until get fed up. Merciless in Uno, Spoons, Sorry. Pisces, 22 yr old female

Author’s note:

Okay, so you’re in luck because the Sens won so now I’m in a good mood even though it’s kinda late and I should be sleeping.

My response:

I ship you with Jason.

Jay is the tallest batboy standing an entire foot above you. He teases you about it all the time! But WON’T let ANYBODY else tease you. At times (always), Jason is overprotective of you.

He likes to keep a secret stash of junk food hidden away on the top shelf where you can’t see it. Sometimes he’ll leave everyday items (such as your cellphone) on high shelves just to annoy you. The cost for Jason to reach for items high up in the isles at the grocery store is a kiss.

You like to sleep in Jay’s old dark gray t-shirt that’s about 3 sizes too big because it smells like him. Plus, when you’re up late at night waiting for him to come home from patrol it reminds you of him and minimizes the stress associated with having a vigilante boyfriend. Jason absolutely LOVES the way you look in his clothes so he lets you borrow his stuff all the time.

When he finally gets back from missions he likes to scoop you off the ground spinning you around while giving you a long passionate kiss. Jaybird’s hugs are the BEST because his entire body wraps around you like a big teddy bear. However, when you sleep you’re the big spoon. Those cuddles are kind of silly since he could literally cover you with his body. Instead, he chooses to curl up in a ball. He does this because you make him feel safe. This tactic has proven to be extremely effective in diminishing the severe night terrors he has thanks to the Joker.

Whenever you two go for hikes Jason ends up carrying you up and down the trail claiming that your short legs can’t keep up with his long strides. He only puts you down when you’re taking pictures. You like to photograph the beauty within nature. Jason, on the other hand, seems to only be interested in photography that involves you. He loves the way the natural light reflects off your soft wavy brown hair, fair skin, and bluish-gray eyes.

Jason doesn’t understand your nerdy side. While you enjoy anime, fantasy, sci-fi and comics Jaybird prefers classic literature. Though you have grown to appreciate his taste in books. He has in return learned to enjoy your taste in music.

Your relationship is mainly built on terrible (yet totally awesomely funny) puns and pranks. Jay is the King of Pranks and you have been deemed the Queen of Puns. Damian thinks that it’s absurd and that the pair of you shouldn’t be allowed to be together in his presence but everyone knows that he secretly loves your dynamic as a couple. You’re one of the few people in the world who has the nerves to sass Damian and he damn well knows it and respects you for it. That’s another thing that he’d never tell you.

Tim loves having you as his “sister-in-law” even though you’re only dating his adoptive brother. At times, you were the only one who believed in him. You saw something in that boy that no one else envisioned. The potential you foresaw was even beyond what he could see for himself. Therefore, you’re always willing to support Tim no matter what anyone else thinks.

You earned Dick’s approval with your undying loyalty. He knows that he can always come to you when he needs someone to talk to. Whether it’s about his Nightwing business or concerning a love interest, Dick knows that he can count on you. He trusts you 100%.

Naturally, you’re a very quiet person. Nonetheless, ALL BETS ARE OFF THE TABLE on game nights. Once upon a time, in a land far far away.  You attempted to host a board game night with Jason, his three brothers, Steph, Cass and Barbs. And nobody lived happily ever after. It was complete mayhem. That night, you made a mental note never to gather a group of trained martial artists and weapons specialists for a round of Monopoly. Without Alfred or Bruce to defuse the tension, your small apartment fell into anarchy.

Jason knows that you like to keep things bottled up until they explode like a ticking time bomb but is very understanding. He himself has been down that same path before. He just wants to avoid (at all cost) you becoming as reckless as he once was. Having gone down a similar path he knows all the do’s and don’ts of your situation. Whenever it’s possible, he simply waits until you open up to him willingly instead of harassing you until you completely shut him out. This strategy works quite well since you’re relationship with Jay is strong.

[theconservativebrief]

I’m standing in a piteous rain, in front of an auto garage on Flushing Avenue, staring across the street at a line of people that stretches back at least two full avenues. The mechanics standing behind me are idly curious: “What the hell is going on over there?”

I kind of think that if I started to try to explain it, I’d grow old and die on this street corner.

Hypefest, which takes place the same weekend as the New Yorker Festival and New York Comic Con, is a two-day streetwear celebration featuring art, music, food, and, of course, shopping. Hosted throughout several large, vaguely fish-scented buildings in the currently hip Brooklyn Navy Yard, it’s the first large-scale festival organized by the Hong Kong-based media and e-commerce giant Hypebeast, founded by Kevin Ma in 2005. And it’s an answer to ComplexCon, the glorified mall and music festival hosted by the “youth culture” media monolith Complex in Long Beach, California, every November.

Both celebrate the ever-growing online “hype” culture around anything exciting — Elon Musk and the modern commercial space race; basketball sneakers and a handful of famous men in hip-hop; startup streetwear brands and the legendary fashion houses that embrace them. Surprise and unlikeliness are key, which is why this crew loves loose-cannon tech CEOs as much as they love Kanye West, and also as much as they love bizarre collaborations like Balenciaga and Crocs or Louis Vuitton and Supreme.

Note a tiny hypebeast in an Adidas tracksuit. And, in the distance, a yacht Hypefest attendees can sign up to stand on. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

Hypefest was barely announced, save for some Instagram posts last month and an 800-word New York Times preview titled “If you hype it, will they come?” Tickets weren’t made available until three weeks in advance, at which time Ma wrote on his Instagram, “Culture and learning shouldn’t have a price attached to it. I will personally cover the cost of tickets to make Hypefest a free experience for all.”

He gave out 10,000 free tickets in a matter of minutes.

The location of the festival was kept a secret until two days before, at which time it was announced only to ticket holders. The requisite Hypefest app, also usable only to ticket holders, hosted an elaborate digital store, which was the only way to buy anything you saw at the event. There was no cash allowed — even food trucks and the several enormous Ciroc stations weren’t permitted to take anything but credit cards or Apple Pay.

All these measures seem dramatic but were presumably necessary, given that the culture we’re talking about is one literally named for its excess energy and known for ambitious, flagrantly ridiculous resale scams. Also its high percentage of young male fans.

The location of Hypefest was kept a secret until two days before

Of the many things available for sale at Hypefest, a $1,700 suitcase is the most coveted. It’s making an exclusive debut at the festival, and it’s the reason many of these people got out of bed this morning.

For example: Axel, 15, and Chris, 14, a pair of incredibly polite friends who drove up from Washington, DC, with their parents. They are wearing Comme des Garçons Nikes and 2011 Jordan 1s, respectively; they tell me they came to Hypefest for the experience, and to buy two of the suitcases.

Other stuff sells out — notably, freeze-dried flowers preserved in glass blocks by Japanese artist Azuma Makoto (ranging from $260 to $600), and tactical vests from Pharrell Williams’s Billionaire Boys Club, which go for $1,100 each. But it’s the suitcase, a collaboration between Off-White (the Italian brand founded by Kanye West creative director Virgil Abloh) and Rimowa (a fancy German luggage company, majority-owned by LVMH), that’s the talk of the party.

The suitcase sells out immediately, but no worries — every couple of hours, it gets restocked, which festivalgoers are alerted to by a push notification. Each time, it sells out again about two minutes later. This happens at least five times.

The setting for Hypebeast’s first festival was a smattering of fish-scented buildings owned by the Brooklyn Fish Transfer. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

Before I asked if I could go to Hypefest, I told my editor, “I think I love the hypebeasts. At least they’re getting excited. At least someone’s having an adrenaline rush.” If that’s true, it must be a behind-the-computer state of play. Everyone in line for the first round of shuttle buses to the navy yard on Saturday looks like they’d rather chew gravel than smile. (The buses are also effectively crowd control, serving no real crucial transportation purpose, as each group travels about 800 feet in them and there are no return buses.)

My first order of business upon disembarking the “shuttle bus” is not buying a $1,700 suitcase, but waiting in a small corral in order to meet the extremely famous young person Jaden Smith, who is announcing a denim line made in collaboration with the Dutch brand G-Star. Standing in the corral for 40 minutes, I am not permitted to leave to go to the bathroom, but I am permitted to look around my immediate vicinity.

Everybody is tall and wearing all black, except a baby wearing a camouflage Bape hoodie. Lots of people are pausing to take a picture of the back of a bald guy’s neck as he peruses Lacoste polos — probably because he has a tattoo there, of a pair of eyes, that looks suspiciously similar to Zayn Malik’s tattoo of Gigi Hadid’s eyes. All clothes are designer, unless they’re Scarface T-shirts or hoodies from the famed Atlanta strip club Magic City. It doesn’t immediately seem like anyone’s that cool, but I can concede they’re all cooler than me.

A fashion reporter, also stationed in the corral, looks down at my chunky white sneakers — relatively new but already slightly scuffed, modeled extremely vaguely after the current trend of designing shoes to look like swollen lips — and asks, “So what are those?”

“They’re from Target!” I say, throwing my arms wide like I’m Betty Draper about to show off a serving tray of Heineken. I hope it will be funnier than it is.

Ten minutes later, Jaden Smith — son of Will Smith, star of Netflix’s Neo Yokio, general presence in hip-hop — arrives to introduce his denim collection wearing what I can only guess is about 50 pounds of (mostly denim) clothing. Denim jacket, denim pants. He has both a fanny pack and a tactical vest, and though I can’t really get close enough to see, it seems like he’s not using all this storage space for anything in particular.

Outside our admittedly not-very-private corral, dozens of teens and 20-somethings press in and reach for his hand. Smith gives it. He smiles a glittery famous person smile. “We got floating mannequins inside; it’s gonna be awesome,” he tells the general air, seeming genuinely friendly and enthused, bouncing either because he is happy or because that is how you have to move if you are a tiny boy-wire inside enough fabric to cover a grizzly bear.

Jaden Smith poses with a fan at Hypefest, inside the G-Star booth. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

He leads us into a conical structure I am hoping is not actually supposed to be a teepee and points up at three headless mannequins, suspended by invisible cords. They are wearing denim. The denim, it is explained, is sustainable. Some of it is undyed; some of it is dyed with indigo that doesn’t use salt; all of it uses less water than other denim.

“We have floating mannequins that are flying, because we want them to fly,” Smith explains. “G-Star clothes give you superpowers.” He turns to someone from G-Star and says, “The floating’s great. The floating’s great.” He explains that sustainability is important to him, and I believe him. I look at him for a few minutes longer than I feel I want to, because it just seems like what you should do if there’s a celebrity a few feet away and he’s thanked you for coming.

After I’ve touched raw denim, I wander outside, past the main stage where about two dozen boys are attempting to mosh to a DJ playing the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and talk to a man waiting in line for empanadas. He points suddenly to my chest and says, “What is that?” That is a 3-inch-tall teddy bear holding an orange leaf. I remember that I bought it for 50 cents at the flea market in Avon, New York, last weekend, and that I pinned to the lapel of my stained Topshop jacket more or less as a joke.

“So you’d be making a 10,000 percent profit if you sold it to me right now for $5?” the man says. I think he’s joking, so I laugh, and then he says he’ll also buy me an empanada. I say something weird about how I’m “just getting acquainted” with my bear, I’ve only had him for one week, I don’t know if I need $5 that badly. “I mean, I know I’m a journalist, but it’s not that dire today,” I tell him, and he says the empanadas are really good. His friend, who is wearing an Endxiety hat reading “Our Lord & Savior Elon Musk,” tells him to please give up, I’m not parting with it.

It will take me close to 48 hours to realize that I wrote the man’s name down wrong and he’s Rhuigi Villaseñor, the 26-year-old owner of Rhude, an (extremely expensive!) LA streetwear label best known for the fact that Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, and LeBron James wear it.

Anyway, he is really nice. He’s here to help launch a new sneaker with Puma. He tells me, “It’s great for the culture to be social, because it’s an Instagram world. It’s good for kids to be socializing who are, in one way or another, a little awkward.” I say, “Do you think they’re socializing?”

He says, “No.”

Rhude designer Rhuigi Villaseñor drinking a Sprite at Hypefest. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox Adidas’s booth at Hypfest, where attendees could sign up to create their own “never built” shoe. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

It’s sort of a rhetorical question, as I can already see that they mostly aren’t. The thing about an event designed to educate you about expensive goods, I reason, is that the expensive goods are the education in and of themselves. You don’t need to hear explanations of them. You don’t need to hear outside opinions. A pair of sneakers being sold for $350 is worth $350, and probably more once there aren’t any left. I’m happy enough with this explanation — who doesn’t want a hobby that’s as simple as arithmetic and supply and demand?

Hypefest is a beautiful mall, essentially two dozen Instagram-ready stations for brands that don’t often appear outside of Instagram. Everybody is a walking price tag, and doing the math is as easy as a Google search on the free, ubiquitous wifi. The air is thick with humidity and money: Women wear ground-length Opening Ceremony raincoats, Prada fanny packs, Helmut Lang sweatshirts, Balenciaga sneakers, and vintage Apple employee jackets that go for around $400 on eBay. Men are in Off-White Nikes with the tags still on, Supreme hoodies, Anti-Social Social Club windbreakers, and Advisory Board Crystals beanies that are about $200 each on the popular resale app Grailed.

Jake Woloshin, 23, is wearing Ava Nirui’s Marc Jacobs hoodie (advertised as an “official bootleg,” which … okay), which means he is currently wearing $125 on his torso. But he tells me he couldn’t resist the new Heron Preston hoodies he saw today, so he picked one up; tomorrow, his torso will be worth $475.

As for his feet, they’re in relatively modest Timberlands, and he tells me he’s glad he’s not wearing the same Travis Scott Air Jordan 4s everyone else is wearing. This is a point reiterated by nearly everyone I speak to. They are mortified by the amount of Travis Scott merch. “You’d think he was performing,” says a New Jersey podcast host, smiling kind of, but mostly rolling his eyes.

Marc Jacobs set up a photo booth where Hypefest attendees could pose in Marc Jacobs-branded surgical masks. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

I have a lot of time to wander around, as I can’t get drunk and I can’t buy anything and I can’t even really merit anyone’s attention because good lord, look at my outfit.

I wander past a car completely covered in packets of $100 bills, which is apparently an ad for a hotel in Los Angeles. I pass the Marc Jacobs booth, which is advertising a collaboration with Instagram artist @Hey_Reilly by giving out surgical masks with teeth printed on the front, with “Marc Jacobs” printed on the teeth. They’re really scary, and I don’t like them. I stop into a booth stylized to look like a convenience store (T-shirts sold in soda bottles, hoodies sold in chip bags); it belongs to the Japanese brand Conveni, which has never been to New York before. I like that one; they’re selling bandanas in triangular sandwich packaging, and the owner is kind enough to offer me a snack.

Back outside, Charlie Mejia, a 19-year-old New Yorker who came to Hypefest by himself, tells me he came specifically to buy a Pikachu sweatshirt designed by a brand called Fragment, which typically stylizes its name as “.” It sold out, so he bought a limited-edition calendar designed by manga artist Katsuhiro Otomo, and is mostly looking forward to a talk called “The Female Is Present,” hosted by Sporty and Rich founder Emily Oberg and Kendrick Lamar stylist Aleali May.

“I really want to hear women’s thoughts,” he tells me. “We don’t hear their perspectives as much.”

“I really want to hear women’s thoughts. We don’t hear their perspectives as much.”

I run into a kid named Aidan Parker, who is wearing a black denim jacket designed by Nick Holiday, the creator of the hip-hop collective Brockhampton’s early merch. I’m happy to recognize something, and ask Parker to tell me about his day and his thoughts on the Brockhampton sexual misconduct scandal, which he calls simply “uh, crazy.” He’s there with his friend A.J. Nurse, who is on the phone trying to coordinate with the rest of their friends. They run a group chat called The Stoop, sourced from the subreddit r/streetwear, made up of more than 50 people ages 16 to 34, who first met up in Union Square in June 2016. They hang out in SoHo; they are here to buy $1,700 suitcases.

There are so many boys like them — expected, and at the same time hyperreal because of how expected they are. It’s nice, I guess, that they are friends who met online.

There are also VIPs hanging out in a secluded plastic garden, and a yacht you can sign up to stand on. There’s a huge Adidas station where you can design your own shirts and sneakers or watch someone named Jack the Ripper put together shoes inside a glass box for hours on end. There is an adorable 4-year-old in a high-visibility-workwear yellow baseball cap, sucking his thumb. There is a slightly younger child waddling around all day in a full Adidas tracksuit, and I am obligated to write down that even the toddlers at Hypefest are rich and beautiful.

Axel and Chris, polite teenage friends at Hypefest Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

There is a teenager in Balenciaga’s Triple S sneakers and a UPenn baseball cap who drops, with zero warning, to his knees, in front of an unexplained covered wagon. He holds Drake’s favored squat pose for about 20 seconds, while his mom, wearing a navy cardigan and green Adidas Stan Smiths, waits for him without a change in expression. I don’t think anyone took his picture.

What I love about Hypefest is that even an untrained eye like mine can pick out a logo and look up how much something cost. The barrier to access for this event was just proximity to it, and the barrier to access for a community in which shopping becomes an art form in itself is just money — a lot of it.

When I sit down and force myself to find something redeeming about it all, it is the same thing that redeems anything noxious: The people are nice when addressed directly. The attendees imagined that the culture they love on the internet might represent community in real life, and for a handful of them, maybe it does — if you put your face in front of someone, they will mostly respond with warmth.

These are just people, like me, here to buy something that will make them feel better, or, barring that, to look at things they can’t afford, which will make them feel like they have a reason to try harder. All we can really dream of in America is a chance to buy something that will change our lives.

Also, for no obvious reason and with no explanation: Travis Scott did show up at Hypefest on Sunday afternoon. Sometimes faith is rewarded.

Original Source -> At Hypebeast’s new streetwear festival, even the toddlers are cool and rich

via The Conservative Brief

[barnsyink]

Prince, an irreplaceable talent that found immortality through his music and undying passion. His most memorable videos and music still are played quite frequently and was announced recently that Prince's final songs will begin to be released to the public in the upcoming future. A fitting tribute I believe.

What was great about Prince's work was the subject matter. He did not just come out and sing about prejudice, injustice or unrest, he created worlds within his songs. Start to finish, a complete story.

The heart beat was always the melody, the instrumental which breathed life into those lyrics. A lot of songs were obviously therapy for his own personal pains. His struggles, disappointments and loses were so apparent but made us relate to him on new levels. He said the things we needed to hear, knowing that we were not alone. And sometimes, it was not until hearing the same songs over and over again that we found what were looking for.

The videos to his songs, were sometimes really good but otherwise I think it would have been better without the visuals. The visuals were in the music naturally and were easy to see from any point a view. Might look slightly different, but the feeling was universal. He was an artist, and I am not only speaking of his time known as "The Artist" due to his unpronounceable symbol, I am speaking of his morals and ethics. Prince wanted to show that he stood for something and he did. He wanted respect and he wanted independence. Never did he deny his fans music, but still made a point by peacefully protesting record companies from trying to abuse, control and steal his God given talent. He took his name away from the record corporates, so they own him. I respect that principle.

Along time ago, I had the opportunity to sell my character, "Barnsy", to a comic press, which no longer exists, for $3,000. My family needed the money but Banrsy will not be mind anymore. I chose to keep my work and use it in the way I felt comfortable in producing. The comic press, I can no longer remember the name, wanted to make Barnsy very adult and I could not do that. My wife, Kelly, and what Prince did, showed me a better way

Of course, Prince was rich, but somehow I do not think money made him happy. His wealth seemed like a door price then the point of his job. More then a job, his passion.

Some really good dance music was made by him, namely "Bat Dance" from the 1989 "Batman film, but it was his R and B mixed with soul that I totally loved. It was the 80s and the 80s was awesome time for music.

Back in the 80s, life was a struggle for my family and we made it through but a song I will always remember cause it meant so many things all at the same time to me, was "Purple Rain". The film by the same name was good, but it was definitely the music that sold that  project. "Purple Rain", the song, took that concern a way from for a while. The fear that my family would fall apart or that I would loose everything I loved.

That song, in part, encouraged me somehow. Life could be better in spite of the hurt, answers could would be found to make things better then they were.The best part was the instrumental at the end , which goes for about 4 minutes or so which tends to be cut off when played on the radio. That is so not cool.

For whatever reason it helped me believe that life was good and had so much to offer me. Maybe I reading too much onto it but I'm thankful for that song. I'm thankful for God cause he gave it to us through the Artist known as Prince.

Catch you next time and God Bless.