John and Jana

The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. There I was traipsing around the jolly DownStreet Art event when the news came down in whispers and snickers that Michael Jackson was dead. For many, it was a reason to say, “What? Really? How weird!” and then go on with their evening...

With its origins as an experimental noise band, Blonde Redhead, playing at Mass MoCA this Saturday, has stepped up the rhythm and melody while retaining the spirit and invention of its older work...

Film anthology “Experiments in Terror 3” takes viewers to the stylistic and psychological core of horror by offering images and scenarios that aren’t standard or cliched — many of these are investigations of the genre more than part of it...

Contrary to popular legend, an intelligent, literary liberal newspaper comic strip did exist before “Doonesbury” — Jules Feiffer’s “Sick, Sick, Sick.” Feiffer would never received the same kind of popular culture accolades as Gary Trudeau — largely because his strip did not build on...

Harry Kakoulli, The Humans, Lydia Lunch, Bruce Wooley and the Camera Club, Cristina

20/20, Simple Minds, Sparks, Fingerprintz, The Tubes

As Kyle Baker explains in the new soft-cover collection of his “Nat Turner” graphic biography, the focus of his work exists, for so many, on the fringes of history...

Through her acclaimed two volume memoir “Persepolis” — and the beautiful film adaptation she made from it — Iranian author and illustrator Marjane Satrapi showed a talent for taking the wider issues of Iranian society and revolution, Islam and the ways in which children require experience...

As is so often the case, yesterday’s bawdiness has become today’s curiosity and, in the eyes of some, lost genius...

When I speak of “Land of the Lost” I don’t mean a really awful movie starring Will Ferrell, nor a likable but dull-witted Saturday morning show from the early 1990s. What I refer to is a little Saturday morning television series from the 1970s aimed at 10-year-olds...

On the heels of Shaun Tan’s widely acclaimed book “The Arrival” comes “Tales from Outer Suburbia,” a kaleidoscope of dark absurdity aimed at kids. Tan mixes up a surreal brew that at some points resemble Rod Serling, other times Franz Kafka — and still others Edward Lear...

That the human voice and its phrasing of language and sound is as musical as any actual bonafide instrument is not a revolutionary statement by any measure...

The result of a collaboration between French cartooning force of nature Lewis Trondheim and fellow countryman, animator Fabrica Parme, “Tiny Tyrant” offers a simple set-up that makes the most of itself with laugh out loud results...

With the new film version of the old television series “Star Trek,” director J.J. Abrams revisits the original characters. I’m no purist, though, and the enormous problems with the film aren’t the revisions it makes to the established “Star Trek” story — I say change away, who cares...

Seizing the moment for one of the best authors of graphic short fiction, Gabrielle Bell’s collection “Cecil And Jordan In New York Stories” moves beyond the clichés of generational slacker comics and imbues the tales of the under the radar generation with an understanding and context that...

But am perfectly content to accept it as harmless fluff. 1 Dropping the realistic military stuff that was the backbone of the original series - the original was a very orderly place, where people were assigned to posts and positions and there was a respect for the organization of Star Fleet...

While reading about the idea that the big bang was a rift in a 10 dimensional universe that caused it to become our 4th dimensional universe and our sibling 6th dimensional universe - ahhh, reading Michio Kaku again at my weekly allergy shot - I came across the concept of phase transitions in...

Documentaries portraying the downfall of two dying species show this weekend at the Berkshire International Film Festival...

One part “Chinatown” and one part Paul Auster, the British detective graphic novel “Britten and Brulightly” by Hannah Berry follows a particularly tough whodunnit of the familial variety, wherein a detective burdened by the larger picture of his work and his trusty tea-bag companion must...

In Robert Beaucage’s new film “Spike,” fairy tales mesh with reality to create a netherworld between the two where memory explodes full force into the present, cementing personal myths with a dangerous fury...

I think the main reason the Bible has endured is that it doesn’t spell everything out but leaves plenty of room for the reader to make his own interpretation the stories - and the sweeping epic as a whole. It does not spoon feed. Since I’m not religious in any way, I’ve always thought of

T-Bone Burnett, Leroy Carr, Lila Downs, Tones on Tail, Duke Ellington

Alexandra Westmeier’s stunningly filmed documentary film examines the lives of young Russian boys confined to state reform schools for a variety of crimes — from petty theft of jelly jars to multiple, brutal murders — with an elegance that is unexpected and a dignity that never panders...

The opportunity to catch an Indie art film from Greece is not a standard occurrence and “Correction” is the sort of work that demands some attention aside from the novelty...

Like some netherworld combining Grimm’s fairy tales and childhood fear, “Spike” comes on like one kind of horror movie and soon becomes another...

In the pantheon of singular film geniuses, Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky seems to be of such a cult that it barely registers against the more splashy personalities that cinema has had to offer...

“I Live Here” is an innovative package — innovative in both content and form — features four short works depicting life for refugees in different parts of the world...

Helen Love, Frank Black, The Monkees, The Wannadies, Beulah

Camper Van Beethoven, Toma, New York Ska Jazz Ensemble, The Wolfmen,nbsp; Balkan Beat Box,

In the dark and funny graphic operetta “Baloney,” Quebecois illustrator Pascal Blanchet crafts a wonderful picture book for grown-ups...

Japanese society is a continual mystery to Westerners, with any possible aspect that is brought to light only adding to the curiosity. The film “Bashing” continues this tradition with its alternately affecting and alien premise...

There are many unusual aspects to the Iraq War, and most of them are well discussed in public, but one that is not dealt with so commonly is the conflict’s importance to the changing role of women in combat...

Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco gained fame in the early ‘90s with her very direct musical style forged from folk roots and wrapped around blunt political and personal lyrics, as well as an influential vocal style...

All it took was a momentary lapse in my brain to cause me to forget that “The Class” is a staged film, a work of semi-fiction, adapted from a memoir. For the first two-thirds of the film, I viewed it as a documentary, thanks to the filmmaking cues that presented it in documentary style...

Every cloud has a silver lining, so the story goes — but does every earthquake, typhoon or financial meltdown? Artist Chris Doyle thinks so, despite the horror and misfortune wrought from any of those scenarios...

It’s an exciting time for kids and comics — well, not the genre of comics, but definitely the medium...

When the media screams about the new Depression, so much of the coverage focus on market forces, economists and the banks, with only dribs and drabs of stories addressing how the downturn affects real, individual people...

Kaspar Hauser was a mysterious creature, a teenage boy with limited verbal skills, found on the streets of Nuremberg, Germany, in 1828. The boy carried two letters offering some background — he was kept in a house all his life — and some future desires...

Artist Chris Doyle thinks so, despite the horror and misfortune wrought from any of those scenarios. Doyle’s animated installation at Mass MoCA, “Apocalypse Management” (telling about being one being living), addresses the nature of disaster in the behavior of human beings...

Saul Landau’s 1969 documentary “Fidel!” takes the viewer into a world that is not only lost but quite unknown...

Kaspar Hauser was a mysterious creature, a teenage boy with limited verbal skills, found on the streets of Nuremberg, Germany, in 1828. The boy carried two letters offering some background — he was kept in a house all his life — and some future desires...

I have a story in the North County Perp with an illustration by Jana - it can be downloaded as a PDF at http://www.northcountyperp.com/ It's a local publication from Howard Cruse - some old timers might recognize the character of Brooksie Parrish from the short story "Very Vicky and the Secret of...

Greylock Arts is pleased to announce two online exhibitions, featuring the work of both national and local comics artists...