The Sleeper&#39;s Den

Thanks for the Ted Naifeh icons, Sigune. I'm not going to snag any because I don't have space, but I DO want to come over and read your comics collection so badly. Your Courtney Crumin and your Hellboys. I think I'm going to buy some on Amazon. Which ones do you recommend as being your favourites?

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artemisiabrisol.livejournal.com

Not snagging any as of yet but I must say that these are just gorgeous. Excellent content selection and I love the cropping.

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Ahhh-- look at that pretty background. Your journal is just getting so very beautiful-- it's like a piece of art of itself. :-)
I nicked 'leaves' and 'marigold' and kept my fingers off the others. I'll copy your idea and make icons out of the art I love the most. Doesn't have to be Snape all the time...

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You're welcome! I'm so glad you like them :).

I was waiting to see who'd pick Jeanne Kéfer's shoes, LOL, and Queen Zenobia's belly is a personal favourite as well. Excellent choice ;). Have fun with them!

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Aww, I'm sorry! The thing is I have to bribe

lunafish because it's taking me ages to draw the picture she commissioned from me :P. You can have my own Zenobia, if you like; but it doesn't have the moon in it...

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I'm so glad you like it! Wheee!

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Well, they're both series, so it's not easy to pick separate tomes... I guess my favourites are, for Courtney, Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics, and for Hellboy, The Chained Coffin and Other Stories.

Chained Coffin is a book of short stories, and I'm one of those people who think that Mignola is at his best in those :). My absolute favourites are "The Corpse" and a Japanese ghost story he did as an in-between. The art is gorgeous as well.

As for Courtney, I think that when you read Coven of Mystics (but all three Courtney stories are worth your while) you will see at once why I like this so much. Underlying Courtney's adventures there is always the theme of good and evil - not just of the good and evil around the main character, but especially within her. Though this is supposed to be a children's series, it's far from childish. Naifeh's approach is simple, but the result is complex and subtle - and the art is of course absolutely gorgeous. Actually, I think I can say that in my humble opinion Courtney Crumrin is better than Potter - perhaps in part because its scale is much smaller and thus it has greater perfection. I think you will also find that it's much easier on your conscience to like Uncle Aloysius (*smooch*) than to like Snape ;). Oh, and Ted Naifeh has an LJ:

tednaifeh.

Oh - another nice thing is Clamp's XXX-Holic, a manga about a boy called Watanuki who gets a job in a very strange shop that turns out to be run by a witch. I wasn't sure how I felt about the first tome, but I've read six now and it keeps getting better and better; I'm quite a fan.

My comics collection isn't that large; I'm so very particular :D. My expert friend Nout (

bettyboopcomics) keeps finding fault with my taste...

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Thank you! I had wonderful material to work with; it would have been hard to ruin it :)...

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Thanks so much for your help, Sylvana! I would never have been able to figure these things out by myself... I tried a lot of different things with my own art, but I couldn't get it to look decent. Now Morris's wallpaper turns out to look just as good on LJs as on walls, so that stays :). You are a Morris fan too, then, by the look of the icons you picked?

I'm looking forward to your art icons!

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I find it difficult. First, I don't have your eye for cropping. Second, my fav art is mostly expressionist, cubist and abstact. It looks so ... confusing if you select a small part from that... But it's a lot of fun.
At the moment I'm on a little Holbein trip, since there's a Holbein exhibition in Basel and I'm rather miffed that I won't have the time to go and look...

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Yes, some things definitely work better than others... Much as I love black and white, it's a lot more difficult to make an attractive b/w icon than to make a coloured one. Then, also, pictures that allow you to zoom in to a detail yield better results than others. If you try (or have to) show too much, it just doesn't look good. You have to 'say' a lot in a small space. Sometimes it doesn't matter that the image isn't recognisable, but at other times it does.

But it's certainly fun to experiment :). The red horse certainly looks good! (Is that Die Brücke? I'm an ignoramus when it comes to Expressionism, though I do like it.)

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stephanie206.livejournal.com

Doesn't have to be Snape all the time...

WHAT?!? I don't believe it. Nope, not for a second! ;D

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stephanie206.livejournal.com

I'm so glad you like them

How could I not? The cropping/selection is perfect. :D

I am in love with the belly like you would not believe. I would say a whole bunch of things about it, but would probably sound very artistically ignorant, so I'll stop here.

Thanks again!

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Wonderful Holbein icon sylvana! I've seen the version of this painting in the Louvre. *icon love*

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Thanks for the comics recommendations, Sigune.

Great Ted Naifeh site http://www.tednaifeh.com/ I think I'm in love with Uncle Aloysius already by his picture. What issue is he in that dressing gown and those furry slippers in? That is wonderful. I want that one.

(Already checking out amazon for delivery, salivating)

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dolabellae.livejournal.com

Oh, they are lovely... The only reason I'm not nicking some/many/all is that I have this weird possessive/originality feeling about my icons - like doing all the choosing & making myself.... Particularly like the Rackhams - a friend and I am in the process of trying to get hold of some Rackham Ring prints for another friend's 30th at the moment!

I second the comment about how beautiful your whole journal is looking, by the way - it makes visiting a truly luxurious and decadent experience. Oscar would approve, I think?

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The dressing gown and slippers are Uncle Aloysius's usual getup when he's inside his spooky mansion :). The picture you mention is from the very first Courtney book, Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things. Isn't it wonderful? I was contemplating asking Sylvana to make me one of her wonderful moving icons, this time with Aloysius Crumrin and saying, "Real Warlocks Wear Fluffy Slippers" :D...

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Hee - thank you! The Morris wallpaper does add an aesthetic touch, doesn't it? :)

I know what you mean about icons... It's fun making your own, though I do snatch other people's from time to time. I can't make animations and I'm bad with placing text where I want to it, so sometimes necessity compels me ;).

I love Rackham. You probably wouldn't say so when you see my current stuff, but I taught myself to draw with his pictures and Goble's. I still get sentimental looking at them - and realising how far away I still am from their skill.

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Real Warlocks Wear Fluffy Slippers
Laugh out loud - really laughed.

Okay, thanks for that recommendation. I am off to buy as many comics as my grubby little conscience will allow at amazon. I was just waiting for your reply, because once I'd seen Uncle Aloysius in fluffy slippers, I knew nothing else would do.

Oooh, I'm so excited.

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Thanks. I so wish I could go to Basel and see the exhibition. It's not too far from where I live.

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Giggle. You mean that's bad for my obsession? ;-)

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It's 'Blaue Reiter' actually. The horse is by Franz Marc. I love his paintings.

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Oh boy. Now that icon...

*dies laughing*

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Heheh. That has been floating in my head for a while. I finally made it over the weekend. Take it if you want it. I think I'll upload it to that icon site, too.

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Just spotted the Snape wig icon too *laughing* That was one hot Texas tango video. Phew! And I've only seen the screencaps.

So you live in Germany? Your Holbein icon prompted me to finally finish some spoof Holbein tribute art that I've been at for 5 years
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/32349099/
*more Holbein love*

What a pity you can't go to see the exhibition. Perhaps you can get hold of the catalogue or something to make up for it. That's what I did when I couldn't get to a Matisse and fabrics exhibition last year in London.

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