Download the media kit here!

After weeks of streamlining, updating, researching and grooming, our media kit is finally done. We’re so proud of it, comrades! It might seem a little strange to get the warm fuzzies over something intended for cold, hard commerce, but we feel that this is a respectful and elegant representation of Coilhouse and its readers. We’re excited. Especially when we think back to 2007 and realize just how far this good ship has traveled. For those interested in learning more about advertising in Issue 05, as well as in future issues, the 2010 Coilhouse Media Kit is available for download here. In addition to that reveal, we have three more bits of very interesting information to share:

1. Our biggest news is that we’re dropping the magazine’s price to $12.99 in stores. We’re doing this to give back to all the readers who’ve supported us through the years, and for everyone who wishes the magazine was slightly more affordable. The quality of the magazine (number of pages, paper stock) will remain the same. In fact, the overall quality of Issue #05 is going up, as we’ll be trying out a dazzling special effect on the cover, and including a large fold-out poster inside. For the time being, the mag will remain at $15 in our online shop and will include a special surprise (to be divulged at a later date), for those readers who buy directly from us. We’re committed to making the magazine more affordable both in stores and on the web, but we need to take it one step at a time. This is the first step.
2. We’re more than tripling our distribution in Barnes & Noble stores across the country. It will be in more stores than ever before! A list of locations will be posted. In addition, Issue 05 has been accepted into the Barnes & Noble Endcap Display Case – you know, the one that you see when you first walk into the magazine aisle, under the heading “Featured Titles” or “Just Arrived.” Issue 05 will be there for four whole weeks. This is a huge win for us, as we hope that we’ll be able to introduce more readers to Coilhouse than ever. Especially with such an intense cover, which we can’t wait to reveal to you. Eeee! We’re sitting on our hands to keep from spilling the beans. Soon. SOON.
3. Issue 05 will be appear in more independently-owned shops than ever before. We just got picked for distribution by Last Gasp, a respected distributor of all things alt, who recently celebrated their 40th birthday. They’re amazing. In addition to its history of publishing underground comix, Last Gasp is known for distributing items such as the RE/Search books, the Gothic & Lolita Bible, Hi-Fructose, Fantagraphics titles, and a lot of other more obscure counter-culture stuff. They can get us into a lot of cool mom and pop shops that other distributors don’t have access to.

Issue 05 will have more reach than any issue we’ve ever done, and it’s our most ambitious, colorful output to date. It’s so hard to keep the content of this issue under our hats! We’re sitting on our hands again. But there’s some beautiful stuff. You already know about the Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer piece, and some of you may have heard online whispers of Chet Zar and Zoë Keating and Gibbous Fashions and Crabapple illustrations… babies, that’s barely the tip of the iceberg. Just you wait.

For small businesses looking to advertise in Coilhouse, this is the issue. We considered putting that sentence in flashing, grunting, neon porno marquee lights for emphasis, but we are classy ladies. (Besides, we couldn’t figure out the HTML coding.) If you’ve been on the fence about taking out an ad, please note that this is probably the best issue to start. With the lower cover price, more people who haven’t heard of the magazine will be inclined to buy it. Combine that with special display promotion at Barnes & Noble, and it’s a guarantee that more folks will be picking up and leafing though it than our previous issues, which were often relegated to the back shelves of periodical purgatory.

We’d much, much, muchly much rather survive with the help of small independent businesses than large corporate sponsors. We cannot overstate that. Which is why we’ve kept the Small-Business Ad Format rates the same as they were before. It’s still possible to advertise in Coilhouse for as low as $99 per issue. We’ve hired a kick-ass Ad Manager, longtime Coilhouse reader Samantha Chin-Wolner, to help small businesses get their ads squared away. Sam will assist you with every step of the process, and she’s a total sweetheart.

For those interested, please contact Samantha for details.

For everyone else, thank you, as always, for your support and kinship on this journey. We remain gratefully and giddily yours. Up, up and away we go!

A sneak peek at some original artwork by Greg Broadmore, created expressly for Coilhouse #05.

Self-taught graphic designer Courtney Riot is celebrating her whelping day. At 24, she’s the baby of the Coilhouse family.

Rascally Riot.

Courtney joined us on Issue 02 as the magazine’s Creative Director, and she’s been rocking our world ever since. Normally, someone in this position oversees a full staff of graphic designers. When she set about to work on Issue 02, Courtney handled everything from the overall design themes to the minutia of kerning and tracking on every single page. She didn’t just lay the magazine out; she gave it a personality. Suddenly, each article had a life of its own: hand-drawn lettering, intricate scrapbook-style collages, angular Soviet poster sensibilities, layouts constructed from cityscapes and mushroom clouds, type overgrown with weeds or shrouded in smoke… an article that looked like a pharmacy… an article that tasted like sugar skulls. Courtney brought them all to life.

This woman has become the invaluable fourth core member of Coilhouse’s editorial team. She’s a vital force in our production, and our evolution. As we head into the final production weeks of our next print issue, we want to shout something from the rooftops: THANK YOU, COURTNEY RIOT.

Photo by Lou O’Bedlam.

Our secret weapon. Our powerhouse. You never cease to amaze us. Without you, we were a knock-kneed, three-legged endtable that wasn’t quite sure of its aesthetic, or direction. With you, we’ve become an elegant, streamlined, galloping banquet table. We can’t wait to share what you’re working on right now for #05. Jaws are gonna drop.

Happy birthday, beautiful.

If the internet has taught me anything it’s that, from the right perspective, anything can become fascinating. It’s a particular sort of alchemy comprised of varying parts talent, ingenuity, and obsession. Blogs are full of such inanities turned art projects; thousands of words devoted to even the most banal activities. Sites like YouTube are littered with such exercises in elevating the everyday, such as the one shown here in which gentleman goes about shining a shoe. Never uttering a word, the viewer is instead treated to a series of precise movements set to a soundtrack of clinking, tapping, rattling, and scratching. It is almost disturbingly riveting.

via Dark Roasted Blend

In 1993 a movie titled CB4 starring Chris Rock was released. A parody of the “gangsta rap” phenomenon of the 90s it was met with mediocre reviews and went on to gross 17 million dollars domestically. A little over one year later another movie in the same vein appeared. Written, directed, and co-starring one Rusty Cundieff it was released to critical acclaim and went on to make a total of $238,000.00. In other words, like many good movies, no one saw it.

If you, dear reader, are one of the many who have not seen Fear of a Black Hat the FAM is giving you an opportunity right now to remedy this situation. Filmed in the mockumentary style popularized by Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap, Fear of a Black Hat treats its subject as a real entity; and the members of N.W.H. (Niggaz With Hats) — Ice Cold, Tasty Taste, and Tone Def — go about the business of being a headwear-centric rap trio as they normally would under the gaze of sociologist Nina Blackburn’s camera.

What ensues is an almost pitch-perfect satirical time capsule of early 90s hip-hop. References abound from the internal feuding of N.W.A., to the ubiquitous “Ice” moniker and the hippy weirdness of P.M Dawn. Cundieff manages to tick off an entire checklist of well-worn rap tropes with hilarious consistency. It’s a movie that never fails to make me laugh, no matter how many times I see it. Rather than running the risk of talking this film up too much, I will simply leave you with one of my favorite exchanges, in which the boys explain just what N.W.H. is all about:

Nina Blackburn: So, guys, what’s the deal with the hats?

Ice Cold: That’s what NWH is all about. We got a whole hat philosophy, you know what I’m saying? I mean, see, back in the days when there was slaves and stuff, they would work in the hot sun all day, you know, with the sun beating down them. Hatless. I mean, not even a babushka.

Tone Def: Word. Heads totally exposed to the sun.

Ice Cold: You know, so by the time they got back to the plantation from being in all the heat, they was too tired to rebel against their masters, right? So what we saying with Niggaz With Hats is, “Yo, we got some hats now, muh-fuckers.”

Previously on Coilhouse:

Credence was given to the supposition that Werner Herzog, or someone who may sound only somewhat like Werner Herzog, can add tremendous weight to even the most mundane and innocent of children’s tales; his intonation imbuing the words with a profound sense of existential navel-gazing.

Ramin Bahrani understands this all to well and therefore enlisted the talent of Mr. Herzog to give voice to the titular protagonist of his short film, Plastic Bag; a film described thus:

Struggling with its immortality, a discarded plastic bag ventures through the environmentally barren remains of America as it searches for its maker.

I like to imagine that whenever a script like this arrives at his mountain-top fortress, he reads the script and, upon finishing it, bolts upright. Standing there, arms akimbo, he exclaims “This is a job for…WERNER HERZOG!” to the chagrin of his ever-faithful manservant who can do nothing but go ready the Herzogmobile.

via kottke

These cookies first made a cameo appearance (YOU SEE WHAT I DID THAR?) over at our now-closed Tea & Cookies with Coilhouse Q&A session at Whitechapel, prescription but I feel that they deserve to be immortalized on the blog as well. The cookies are crafted by Chicago-based Amber Spiegel. Amber sometimes sells batches of her cookies at her SweetAmbs shop on Etsy, but currently, her shop is on hiatus. However, you can still see the cookies in full glory over at her blog! Monogrammed cookies. Brush embroidery cookies. Edible cameos. Tea set, antique shoe, ballet slipper, Houndstooth pattern and polka dot button cookies. In addition to the cookies, Amber chronicles her experiments in cake decorating and occasionally shares recipes, such as this one for cocoa meringues. A sight for sore eyes!

Um. Other than Zobot’s hubbatron Ales, does anybody around here understand Czech? No? Me neither. You know what? Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t matter. Just watch this, WATCH IT RIGHT NOW:

My old chum Gooby shows me the bestest things. Thanks, Goo.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

“KOOKY´S RETURN (Kuky se vrací) is a combined puppet and live action feature based on a 
child’s fantasy. A seven year old boy whose teddy bear Kooky has been 
thrown away wonders what his toy is up to in the big world out there, imagining 
[that] Kooky [is trying] to find his way back home.
”

It’s written and directed by Oscar-winning Czech director Jan Svěrák. If the film’s style/feel seems oddly familiar, it’s because Jakub Dvorský of Amanita Design (creators of Samorost, Machinarium) is the production designer. The film’s been scheduled for a May 20, 2010 release in Czech cinemas. If there is any goodness left in this cruel world, subtitled/dubbed versions in other languages will soon become available to the rest of us. But even without a translated version, nothing’s gonna stop us from seeing this, right? I mean, just look at this widdle guy:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

What would you like to see/hear on this cheery Spring Equinox? How about a beautiful, fey boy named Jón Þór Birgisson who cuddles with birdies and sings like one, too, in an Arni & Kinski video that looks very much like something Selene Gibbous & Peter Hinson might shoot if they got into the business of making music videos? Swooning yet? Here ya go…

“Go Do” is the first single from the Sigur Rós singer/guitarist’s upcoming solo record, Go, which comes out on April 5th. Eeee, Jónsi! Can’t wait!

Today the FAM presents David Lynch’s 1970 short film, The Grandmother. The heart warming story of a boy who — neglected and abused by his family — grows a kindly old lady to provide with the affection he craves. A silent film, the characters interact with abstract soundtrack cues. It’s strange and undeniably artsy; artsy enough to be mistaken as a parody of an artsy movie. And yet, whether for its brevity or Lynch’s youth, it is most certainly one of his most straightforwardly discernible films, devoid of the extraneous imagery woven throughout his later films, confounding and misdirecting the audience at every opportunity. Whether that is counted as being a good thing or not depends, I suppose, on how much of a David Lynch fan you are.

Graham Annable’s work exemplifies the best in animation. Devoid of dialogue, his films rely solely on the ability of their characters to convey emotion; their stories told with moving images, sometimes in conjunction with music. It’s animation distilled down to its most basic elements, devoid of the extra trappings that at best get in the way of story and at worst promotes plain old laziness.

In other words, Annable’s work is really good. You should take a look.