A few days ago, there was a heated discussion over at copyranter about some new ads which recycle funny student exam answers of the “They Didn’t Study” variety. Meme-tastic scans of such exam answers (“Find X.” “Here it is.”), immortalized by benevolent teachers in public service to the entire Internet long ago, have floated around the web since the Usenet days. In the copyranter thread, some came down on the ad school for “recycling 8-year-old internet jpegs,” while others maintained that all ads repackage old ideas, and that the ads in question did so well.

Stealing old internet memes, that I can forgive. It’s not worth the effort to get all indignant – not when it can be much worse. How bad can it get? Behold! Compare BBDO Athens’ ad for Dexim at the top of this post to an early photo by Jamie Nelson below.

…really? Really?

First of all: BBDO Athens, this is Photoshop Disasters calling. If you’re going to photoshop a model onto a background, at least make sure you get the shadows right. At least Jamie actually put the model on the that background. If you’re going to copy something, at least improve it. The agency lists the photographer, creative director, art director, art buyer, stylist, hair and makeup artist, and photo producer for this shoot. Clayton Cubitt asks, “it takes that many people to rip-off a young photographer’s little editorial shoot?” Why didn’t they just hire Jamie? This is from the same guys who produced that sexist BMW ad, by the way.

It all comes to a full circle so easily on the web. There’s a whole blog devoted to it. How can people think that they won’t get caught, in this day and age?

[via Siege]

This is a courtesy notice to suggest that those of you who bought Issue 1 of Coilhouse take an extra minute to make sure that you gave us the correct shipping address in PayPal. We only bring this up because it seems to be a common mistake: we’ve gotten about five emails now along the lines of “I accidentally forgot to select my new address, is it possible to change this?” If this problem occurs, of course we can fix it. We encourage everyone to find the automated email you received from PayPal after you ordered your copy and verify that the shipping address on there is correct. If you need a correction, please send an note to G., our unstoppable one-woman shipping powerhouse. She will get it straightened out ASAP. Please also note that we’ve been so inundated with an unexpected amount of orders (wow! thanks, guys!) that your magazines are being shipped 1 or 2 days after you place the order. We should be caught up by this weekend. Thank you!

Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 01 is finally here!

Get ready for 96 glossy, full-color pages of art, photography, music, fashion and literature. In this issue, the stark android beauty created by Andy Julia for our cover is counterbalanced inside by his elegant portfolio of vintage-style nudes. Our biggest feature in Issue 01 is an exclusive 10-page showcase and interview with the incredible taxidermy sculptress Jessica Joslin. Also in Issue 01, Coilhouse travels to Ljubljana, Slovenia (literally! we actually went!) to interview Laibach, while singer Jarboe tells war tales from her career post-Swans. Photographer Eugenio Recuenco contributes a lush 10-page portfolio and interview, while Clayton James Cubitt delivers a poignant, visceral spread (again, literally) on the topic of genital origami. Renowned science fiction author Samuel R. Delany shares an exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming novel, “From the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,” while our first installment of “All Yesterday’s Parties” digs up forgotten party photos from eras long gone, starting with London’s Slimelight circa ’95. Fans of WZW and Z!ST will love Zo’s fashion pictorial, in which she reconstructs a Galliano outfit on a budget. Pop-surrealist Travis Louie gives us a glimpse of his inner monster, and cult painter Saturno Butto has some medical fun at the expense of Catholics everywhere. All this, and much more – including supervillain how-to’s, Coilhouse paper dolls, interviews, fashion and art await. Get it now!

Readers of the blog, we have another treat just for you: the fact that the version of the magazine that you are buying here today will not be available in stores. Coilhouse will be in stores this fall, but it won’t be the unique version that’s available here. On this site, and on this site only, you can get the uncensored edition. This version includes a powerful piece that was too risqué for stores to accept without problems due to the graphic (and in our opinion, beautiful) images involved. Only 1000 copies of this very limited version exist – a mere fraction of the entire print run. And that version is only available here, on this site. When we run out, we’ll start selling the censored version that will also be available in stores – so get the limited edition copy that we call the “true version of the magazine” while we still have them!

• $15.00 plus S/H
• We ship internationally
• We ship immediately
• We accept credit cards and PayPal
• You do not need to have a PayPal Account to use a credit card

We’ll keep this post short, because otherwise it’ll turn giddy. We just want to ask all our readers, everywhere in the world, to visit this site tomorrow (Wednesday) and be part of the biggest day on this blog since it first launched: the unveiling of Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 01. You’ll know what’s inside, and you’ll be able to get your own copy, right here on the site – no matter where you live in the world.

For those just tuning in, the magazine is a print incarnation of the blog: a glossy, 96-page distillation of all the weirdness that we’ve obsessed over together with you in the past 10 months. But it’s not a rehash of the blog. Far from it! Self-quote: experiencing the web version of Coilhouse is like munching on an endless supply of assorted Halloween candy, and reading the print version will be like savoring a richly-decorated French dessert that took hours to prepare.

Okay, so it took almost a year to prepare. It’s a good dessert. There were many, many ingredients. And tomorrow, you’ll get to sample them all.

Your hosts: Zo, Nadya & Mer by Andrew Yoon

That’s us up there, around 2am on Sunday morning, jaws stiff from smiling all night. We have you to thank, really – we couldn’t have expected a better turnout. An estimated 300+ people showed up throughout the evening. Familiar faces mixed with new ones, we welcomed several Issue 01 contributors and were delighted to finally meet some of you, as well.

Of course the night wasn’t without its challenges. Mer’s theremin got possessed during setup, Zoetica lost some skin executing parkour moves while jumping 12 feet from her roof onto a balcony during a lock jam emergency, Nadya’s hair interfered with the wireless connection, briefly. No matter, it was all ultimately worth it. The lemonade flowed electric, theremin music filled the air, the strawberries and meringues were sweet, the guests were plenty.

As promised, one of the chief attractions was our photo booth. Filled with Zo and Mer’s prized instruments, toys and inexplicable objects, it attracted a steady stream of thrill-seekers. Light-master Drew and soul-portraitist Lou, our esteemed photo-agents, put forth a herculean effort, the abundant results of which are on display on Flickr for your viewing pleasure.

A sampling of Lou’s gorgeous Polaroids:

• Click here to be taken to Lou O’Bedlam‘s Polaroid set.
• Click here to see Lou’s First Ever digital set
• Click here for Andrew Yoon‘s photobooth set
• Additional photos by Bill Cunningham & Vivacious G
• Short clip of Mer playing the theremin
• LastNightsParty.com: Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (the rest are not from the party & NSFW)

If your picture’s up here, feel free to identify yourself in the comments! Likewise, if you took or know of any other images from the evening, do share. Beyond the jump, just a few of our favorite portraits.

Prepare to do the Hippopotamus Polka this Saturday night.

It’s past midnight on Friday. Tomorrow, Saturday, is the Big Day – the launch party for Coilhouse, Issue 1 here in LA. Every muscle aches from scrubbing, sweeping, lifting, polishing, arranging. If my co-editors are awake, most likely they’re like me: an exhausted bundle of nerves, awaiting a night that we’ll all remember for the rest of our lives.

As much as tomorrow’s party is for us to celebrate finishing Issue 1, at its heart, it’s really a party for you, dear readers. We built you guys a photo booth that looks like a set from the kind of film we’d blog about. There are special-made bottles of Coilhouse-flavored wine. On the stage, a theremin awaits.

We’ll be short on blog posts this weekend as we run around making last-minute preparations, but we did want to answer some common questions that have popped up under various posts in the past week.

Is there a cover charge for the launch party?
Nope, it’s free. Wine/cheese/fruit/sweets will be free, too. There will be a charge for hard liquor, though.

Will magazines be sold at the launch party?
Yes – we’ll be able to take credit cards (note: the bar will only take cash).

I can’t make it to the party. Boo! How will I be able to get an issue of Coilhouse?
It will soon be available to buy here on this site, and we’ll ship to anywhere in the world. It will also be in stores, but we don’t have the full list of store locations yet.

Very, very soon, all will be revealed! There are a lot of surprises ahead – like the fact that there are actually two different versions of the magazine (and no, it’s not an alternate cover). But more about that later. For now, it’s party time.

Hope to see many of you tomorrow. Dress in your finest, bring friends, and let this be our treat!

122 Glendale Blvd. LA, 90026.
Party starts: 8:00.

It is time! We’re happy to announce Coilhouse Magazine’s Launch Party and Art Exhibit.

Held this Saturday at Hans Haveron Studios this event will be stuffed full of excellence. Look forward to:

• Art, photography & fashion exhibit
• Refreshments, with Mer’s “special” Electric Lemonade
• Incredibly strange music
• Photo booth with weird medical props, straight from Zo’s cave
• Wall projections of Issue 01 art
• Your first glimpse at the actual magazine!

Enjoy art. Become art via expert lenses of Polaroid superstar Lou O’ Bedlam and Zo! Style Technician’s own Andrew Yoon. Dress your snazziest and bring your friends. Everyone’s invited!

Venture below the jump to see work by the exhibiting artists.

This here’s a scan of a wet proof of the cover of Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 1. What is a wet proof, you ask? It’s a magazine prototype made using offset printing plates, with exactly the same inks, on paper with exactly the same thickness and finish as your entire print run. We didn’t know this term when we jumped into the process of printing. There were many such new terms – exotic publishing/typographic words like “ozalids” and “boustrophedon”. But we learned them all, and much more, in the process of putting together Issue 1. There were epiphanies, mistakes (to our high-school readership: math and geometry class are important), and magical 3:00 a.m. moments when it all came together.

Until the launch date, our lips are sealed regarding Issue 1’s content. The number of pages, the design, the art, the stories, the texture… all will be revealed. For now, we offer but a sneak peek in this “Behind the Scenes” post. Take a stroll through the hot dog factory with us!

Nadya works closely with an illustrator on a concept for a music feature.

When we first began this process, the entire staff sat down over milkshakes and batted around various ideas for Issue 1. Sifting through one another’s proposed articles, we gradually determined what to keep and what to discard or save for a future issue. After that meeting, we worked independently to develop the content, collaborating closely with our contributors.

Zoetica rescues an unfinished layout in the 11th hour.

We hit a snag when our original designer jumped ship. To the venerable List of Craig we went! Our search for a replacement – wherein we naively inquired after fellow lovers of Tschichold and Lissitzky – nearly induced epilepsy as we were forced to endure one blinking Flash website after another. Finally, we found a diamond in the rough: Cecilia Melli, a stylish Italian who understood what we were doing and was willing to work for what were, in retrospect, slave wages considering the amount of work that she did. In the end, even she couldn’t finish all the layouts, and in certain cases we were forced to take matters into our own hands.

In just a few weeks, Issue 1 of Coilhouse Magazine goes off to the printers! We can’t believe that these final weeks are here already. To make sure that Issue 1 gets done properly, we are going to pause blogging until the end of this month. The next two weeks are going to be a completely grueling process for the entire staff as we proofread, color-correct, proofread again, finish the design, overdose on Jolt Cola, realize that we forgot something important at the last minute, panic, revise and finally send it off to the printer. Wish us luck. We can’t reveal the contents of Issue 1 just yet, but it’s going to be amazing. You just wait.

We’ll miss you guys in the next two weeks. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to watch our community bloom so much in such a brief span of time, and take part in the vibrant and inclusive discussions. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and respond to the blog, and no worries, it’s not going anywhere! We love the immediacy and the camaraderie far too much. Everyone’s excited to bring in more new writers and features over the coming months. Still, it’s human nature to try for the brass ring.

See you in May!

EDIT: Actually, it’s highly likely we’ll see you before that. (Let’s face it. We’re not going to be able to keep radio silence for two full weeks!)

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What a year it’s been! New posts go up on this site, older ones recede into the past. Gone, but not forgotten. This New Year’s Eve, we’re resurrecting the Greatest Hits of 2007 in seven different categories: culture, music, style, art, film, literature and opinion. In selecting which posts to include, we realized that much of a post’s brilliance lies in the responses. From beverage-through-the-nose laughter to stroke-our-imaginary-beard contemplation (or, in Mildred’s case, her actual beard), your responses have informed/inspired/infected us as much as we hope we’ve done the same for you. Thank you for sharing in our obsessions.

What’s ahead for Coilhouse in 2008? More blog posts, of course, but perhaps even more exciting will be the publication of Coilhouse Magazine, Issue 1, which will be available on this site. What’s in the magazine, you ask? It’s a surprise! There will be lots of art and interviews, fun pieces that you can cut out and play with, and original, thought-provoking articles that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.

More news on the print magazine soon! And now, without further ado, the Greatest Hits of 2007. Hit “reload” on your browser to see random articles load each time:

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