Curse of the Wolf Girl, by Martin Millar / cover art by John Coulthart

“In London, Kalix is on her way to remedial college to try and improve her reading skills, Vex is going too, and Daniel is still pining over Moonglow. Yum Yum Sugary Snacks are refusing to rehearse, Dominil is getting annoyed and Decembrius is wondering what to do with himself. In Scotland, Markus, now thane of the Werewolf Clan, is wondering if he should tell his girlfriend about his habit of cross-dressing. Malveria, Queen of the Fire Elementals, and Thrix, Werewolf Enchantress, have some important fashion engagements coming up, but the werewolf hunters haven’t forgotten about them, and neither has Princess Kabachetka, Malveria’s deadly rival.”

The above is the author’s  own spirited synopsis of Curse of the Wolf Girl, a follow up to his previous effort Lonely Werewolf Girl, which introduces and follows the tale of  Kalix, the titular lonely werewolf girl, and a cast of gloriously oddball and yet remarkably compelling characters.  Their story – fraught with grunge and gore and violence galore, and underscored by a strange dark humor somehow both sly and ingenuous at once – makes for a gleefully irresistible read.

Martin Millar’s complex series – a veritable lycanthropian soap opera –  features said oddball characters, along with “multiple races, enchanting fashion trappings, business, family dynamics, music, sex, enduring love, romance, business, eating disorders, drug addiction, back-alley fights, epic battles, politics, and, most prominently, the contrary nature of werewolves”.

Millar has also authored The Good Fairies of New York, Suzy Led Zepplin and Me, and The Thraxas series (as Martin Scott) for which he won the World Fantasy Award in 2000.  See after the jump for our Q&A, in which he thoughtfully discusses past and present influences and future endeavors, while hitting The Sex Pistols, Jane Austen and T Rex in between.

Watch this and see if you don’t agree that Luke Geissbühler deserves to win some sort of Coolest Dad of the Year award:

This is footage that Geissbühler edited together after he and his young son Max attached a Go Pro Hero HD video camera to a helium-filled weather balloon “that rose into the upper stratosphere and recorded the blackness of space.”

After months of research, planning, and flight tests, the intrepid duo and their friends traveled from Park Slope, Brooklyn to a remote area of Newburgh in Orange County, NY with their camera and GPS system carefully wrapped in a homemade styrofoam capsule and fitted with a parachute. The balloon that carried this hand-crafted vessel skyward was rated to burst at 19 feet in diameter, and reached a height of nearly 20 miles above the earth before that happened.

This was all done within FAA regulations. This is awesome. Not just in the colloquial sense of the word, but by its dictionary definition: amazing, awe inspiring, and provoking wonderment.

Gaze upon the glory of Krackoon a film about unchecked urban development and political corruption. It may also be about a bloodthirsty raccoon which happens to be addicted to crack cocaine. In fact, it is most definitely about a bloodthirsty raccoon addicted to crack cocaine; a plot perhaps unparalleled in its maniacal greatness. It is unfortunate then that this trailer features only the slightest glimpse of the ring-tailed drug fiend in the form of what appears to be a hand-puppet entangled in offal. Instead, we are treated to a number of gentlemen in varied locales addressing the camera. This strikes me as a grave misjudgment. I realize that a trailer should leave the audience wanting more and it would be a mistake (one filmmakers too often make) to include the best parts of your film only to have little left over for the feature; but for fuck’s sake, your film is about a raccoon that kills people and is addicted to crack. Certainly, it deserves more screen time than what we get here. Still, it’s enough to pique my curiosity in what Bronx Times columnist Fish Altieri has dubbed “[…] an instant cult classic”; a sentiment that I could not agree with more.

Via Videogum

Uncomprehending brainmeats… convulsing…

Desperate, hysterical tears of laughter… streaming…

Do not question why. Or what. Or how. Just… click to behold the conundrum that is Erotic Falconry.

Several months ago, we were joined by an energetic intern named Jacquie, who emailed us out of the blue asking if we needed help. Jacquie ended up helping us with many crucial aspects of Issue 05 production and beyond. She looked over magazine proofs and flagged issues before they went to print, edited down several articles into the pages allotted to them, coordinated the printing of the Dorian Gray postcard playbills that came with Issue 05 when ordered from our site, set up our mailing list, and helped us with a myriad of other tasks.

Now that we’re putting together Issue 06, the time has come for us to once again seek out a self-motivated, creative individual who would be willing to give us 4-6 hours a week to help out with both the magazine and the blog.

If you’re interested in magazine publishing, apply within. The tasks you’ll be doing are varied, but we can tell you now that there’s going to be a lot of writing. Other tasks include: checking of Issue 06 proofs, research and maintenance of older blog posts (fixing YouTube links that no longer work, for example). Photoshop, graphic design and FTP skills are a plus, but at this time, we mainly need someone who excels at writing and communication. The internship is unpaid, but will leave you with valuable insight on the triumphs and tribulations of independent magazine publishing. You will have a title on the masthead of Issue 06, and we’ll be happy to write recommendation letters to employers.

You can be based anywhere in the world. If you’re interested, please contact us with a short cover letter, include a resume if you have one, and most importantly, send us a link to at least one sample of your writing (blog posts are good). The internship lasts from now until the end of the year. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Deadline for applying is 11:59 PM PST on Friday, October 1st.

Mona Shores High School student Oakleigh Reed.

Here’s an incredible story about Oak Reed, a transgender high school homecoming king candidate who would have won by a landslide had the school board not disqualified him, and the ensuing outcry from his majesty’s peers. These kids are NOT having it, and now the story’s getting national attention. Via the Daily Kos:

If the kids of Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Michigan are a harbinger of the future…I have some hopes that our world is going to get geometrically better and more sane with each passing generation. They had elected one of their friends to be homecoming king, a fellow who happens to be registered as a female with the school system. A transgender teen, honor roll student, and well liked guy was elected by the school body to the honor… which of course was stripped away by the school:

Then, last Monday, the principal called him into her office.

“They told me that they took me off, because they had to invalidate all of my votes because I’m enrolled at Mona Shores as a female,” Reed said.

Asst. Superintendent Todd Geerlings said the ballot gave two choices: Vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen.

And now the kids are raising holy hell.

Right. Freaking. ON. Oak’s friends and family have started a Facebook page, Oak Is My King, and they’re selling shirts internationally to raise money for his upcoming sex reassignment surgery. The SF Chronicle has picked up the story, and now the ACLU wants to get involved. Way to go, y’all! Huge love and support is heading your way.

I have only a rudimentary grasp of the work of Benoît B. Mandelbrot. In fact, what I know is basically that through the use of complex mathematical formulas it is possible to create some kick-ass desktop wallpaper. This does, no doubt, a great injustice to the man’s work, but there it is. Krzysztof Marczak, obviously, understands the aforementioned mathematics better than me and has, with the help of a program called Mandelbulber, produced a hypnotic rendering of a flight through a fractal cube. It’s really great and you should go to the YouTube page to watch it in high def. I bet it would make a kick-ass screensaver.

Via Dark Roasted Blend

Japanese photography studio Neon O’Clockworks, previously mentioned on Coilhouse, recently released a short film titled Déjà Vu. The film features an assortment of complex, theatrical headgear crafted by London-based designer Tomihiro Kono. Influenced by 1920-30s, Dada, Surrealism and Assemblage, the hairpieces are constructed from found objects and vintage materials.

More images of Kono’s intricate hairpieces, wigs, masks and other “head props” can be found at Kono’s site and blog. At the latter, you can find full credits and behind-the-scenes stills from Déjà Vu. Full video, after the jump. [via TwistedLamb]

See also:

• Yaso Magazine
• Manuel Albarran Redux
• I Blame Pierrot For Everything
• Once Upon a Time With Sarah Moon

Hurrrrr, neuTRON dance… geddit? (Via BarbieHead, reigning Coilhouse clan queen of Disney trivia/ephemera.)

It’s 1985. It’s Disneyland. It’s the Main Street Electrical Parade. It’s the Pointer Sisters performing their hit single “Neutron Dance”. It’s two dozen exuberant jazz dancers in Tron leotards. It’s a gargantuan glowing mushroom. It’s a spinning, leering, ten-foot-tall bumblebee thingummer about to annihilate the Pointer sister furthest to the right (look closely– you can see the terror in her eyes). It’s a blinking, zigzagging caterpillar conga line. It’s Pete’s friggin’ Dragon farting up the joint. It’s… it’s full of stars? No, wait, it’s just another Monday morning cultural acid flashback, and we all head off to work singin’ “I’m on fiiiiiighYAH!” (Woo hoo!)

via Jon Ascher

Mike Flores, a photographer and filmmaker from North County, San Diego, sets his state-of-the-art HD camera on a dolly that scoots it along at a snail’s pace, shooting time lapse imagery. The resulting footage –particularly that of natural desert landscapes and skies– is stunningly beautiful.

Soundtrack supplied by Hans Zimmer’s bombastic (and highly effective) Inception score. Visit Flores’ Vimeo account for more videos. Be sure to watch them all full screen.