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| Heart of Flames – Digital Art by Beau Tardy |
I did this digital collage as a representation of the East devouring the West. The new subconscious gods of our imagination have been replaced with manufactured made in China detritus. Also Sonic has exactly the same proportions as Mickey and is a blatant copy. Heart of Flames by Beau Tardy 16″x24″ print ready digital art available as an NFT.
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| Early digital art “Short Circuit” & “Cyberpunk” featured in ATOMIKCOMIX Vol.1 |
Just a quick reminder that there are a few copies left of ATOMIKCOMIX Vol.1 which features early undergound comix & digital art dating back to my art school years at Parsons School of Design in New York prior to getting hired at MTV. The book was published in time for a show in 2016 at Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans. All copies are signed for this first print run.
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| ATOMIKCOMIX Vol.1 featuring early work from 1985-1992 prior to getting hired at MTV. Underground comix & early digital art.
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| Papa Smurf Dope McDonalds – ©2018 Beau Tardy Artist Mixed media & acrylic paint on board. |
At Comicpalooza this year, artists were picked to auction off their work to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House Charities which provide shelter, support and resources to families who travel far from home for the medical care their child needs. The art was made live on site during a two hour period and then auctioned off. Here is my entry that was snapped up by a lucky collector.
What a crazy story! In February I painted this piece for Balls Out Burgers a restaurant in Houston Heights and it was stolen from the restaurant along with the cash register!
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| Wimpy by Beau Tardy ©2018 |
The painting was mixed media acrylic, spray paint with stencils on paper 24″x30″. After framing it and delivering it I heard nothing back from Balls Out Burgers. When I had delivered the painting I got a weird vibe from the guy who I handed it to. I was told he was the manager but he just kinda took the painting without even saying thanks! Anyway, after a month with no news I emailed them to see if they even liked the painting. The response was that the painting had been stolen! Apparently someone made off with a bunch of money and the painting. How crazy is that? The nice people from customer service said they did not know that nobody had contacted me to say thanks. They offered me free burgers too, which I will gladly accept.
Beau Tardy. Saturday, September 30, 2017.
America is a very literal country. We say what we mean and we do what we say. Our founding fathers were all men of letters, even newspapermen, all very well read. Our constitution is written on a piece of paper by these same men. The very privilege to write anything and everything is enshrined in our first amendment. We are a country run by writers, whether they be writers of laws, of contracts, of screenplays or of checks. The writers literally run the show. Until now.
The writing on Neo Yokio is the polar opposite of the pedantic, heavy handed, supercilious Rick & Morty whose editorial board is essentially reddit.com. Please deliver us from these sanctimonious, college essay driven writing stylings of today’s bloggers cum screenwriters who populate new media bullpens.
Neo Yokio is refreshingly superficial, light and breezy like a menthol cigarette or a diet 7 up. It’s style is tongue and cheek, self effacing, unpretentious and full of 1990s anime cliches. Neo Yokio is light on the writing, light on the social righteousness and light on the eyes. In short, it’s vaporwave.
The art is where the love is. Here finally is a cartoon that recognizes that this is a visual art, not a puppet theater for frustrated pamphleteers. From the mock 1930s Monaco Grand Prix posters, to the beautiful art deco renderings of the Chrysler Building, to the pink and blue nostalgia vaporwave skies of Neo Yokio, this is a clever pastiche and a clin d’oeil to art history.
Neo Yokio’s absurdist retro futurism, the foppish cocktail parties, the mecha butler, the designer label name calling and the giant toblerones give the whole thing the feeling of an 1980s cocaine and vodka hangover that is just delightful.
I love it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Beau Tardy/
www.tardyartist.com
Neo Yokio is a Netflix original production.
| Created by | Ezra Koenig |
|---|---|
| Written by | Ezra Koenig Nick Weidenfeld Alexander Benaim |
| Directed by | Kazuhiro Furuhashi Junji Nishimura |
| Creative director(s) | Ben Jones |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Ezra Koenig Nick Weidenfeld Hend Baghdady Angela Petrella |
| Producer(s) | Matthew Chadwick Andrew Chittenden Kris Wood |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Studio Deen Production I.G. MOI Animation Infinite Elegance, LLC Friends Night |
| Distributor | Netflix |
Wow, how cool was that? I had no idea this movie would actually be this good! I was totally expecting a sub-par remake of the all time anime classic. After all who could possibly make anything half as brilliant as Mamoru Oshiis’ animated masterpiece? Nobody of course. This redux has a lot going for it all the same.
But first, the weak spots. The biggest fail of all time is the fact that Scarlett Johansson decided not to play this in the buff like the original anime robot. Instead she is fitted with a latex body suit which is a huge let down even if it allows the movie to be rated PG13. Why can’t us adults get to see a movie with a naked robot? Just why?
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| The anime robot was naked. But you knew that! |
Also why on Earth did director Rupert Sanders decide to start the movie with a 5 minute flashback sequence that is slow and bothersome instead of ‘plunging’ right in the way the anime does with Major’s dive from the building roof?
This has the effect of blunting the noir dread that is supposed to infuse this cyberpunk epic. To that point, everything is a little bit too clean and well lit.
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| A little too clean. |
Last but not least this movie is lacking a proper kick ass soundtrack. I mean Tron Legacy has Daft Punk, man! The original anime has a beautiful eerie theme song by Kenji Kawai but this film relegates it to the end credits… bad move. They should’ve gotten Deadmau5 to score this film!
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| Scarlett kicks ass! |
Now on to the good bits! Scarlett Johansson looks freaking perfect as Major. She plays it well in a stiff human-machine hybrid way. (I still think she should have been naked – I mean just think of the publicity! Built-in ad campaign! Chickens, the lot of them… )
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The evil Geisha robot is dope. I want that thing as a body guard!
Batou played by Pilou Asbaek is awesome rad too.
In the original anime his look was inspired by the Italian comic book character RanXerox who was another cyberpunk icon of the 80s.
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| RanXerox classic 80s cyberpunk icon by Italian artist Liberatore. |
Cyberpunk is a product of the 80s and Ghost In The Shell took a lot of cues from Blade Runner and Akira. The 80s were not a clean decade and the future looked grimy and dark. Millenials are too used to the sleek rounded corners and shiny surfaces of their asepticized iphones. Anyone remember using a pay phone on 42nd street in 1985? Any way I digress.
I saved the best part for last which are the awesome sfx and glitch tricks. I mean folks, augmented reality is coming and we better get used to navigating the third layer of VR holographic ads. Not to mention naked robots!
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| The new book ‘AtomikComix’ by Beau Tardy. Coming out Feb. 2016 |
AtomikComix presents never before seen early work by Beau Tardy. With roots in the East Village mid-80s post punk sub-culture this book spans the evolution from underground comix to computer graphix for TV.
After dropping out of art school in 1985 Beau focused on digital art and broadcast design ultimately ending up in the famed MTV animation department where he did graphix for MTV News with Kurt Loder, Yo! MTV Raps and The Real World.
Beau will be signing copies of his new book at Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans on Feb. 13, 2016.
For an American audience, Charlie Hebdo is like a crossover between Mad Magazine and underground comix from the 60s, full of satire and sex. It’s as if Robert Crumb and Jon Stewart had just been gunned down during a board meeting at Comedy Central.
I lived in France and read Charlie Hebdo throughout my teens. So I am using the hashtags #JeSuisCharlie #IAmCharlieHebdo to show my support for fellow cartoonists and express my utter sadness at their brutal murders.
However this hashtag, while well intentioned, is misleading. For if everyone is ‘Charlie Hebdo’ then everyone is a victim, which is exactly what the terrorists want. But if ‘being Charlie’ means having the guts to stand up to censorship in ALL its forms, including having the right to poke islamic fanaticism in the eye, then I’m all for it. Unfortunately, I feel the opposite is beginning to happen.
London imam Anjem Choudary correctly said in defense of the Paris shootings: “If freedom of expression can be sacrificed for criminalising incitement & hatred, Why not for insulting the Prophet of Allah? #ParisShooting — Anjem Choudary (@anjemchoudary)”
His ironclad logic is unassailable in this world of political correctness and ‘tolerance’. When you outlaw ONE WORD, you potentially outlaw them all. When freedom of expression, WHATEVER IT MAY BE gets threatened, freedom of thought gets censored too.
People are already being jailed for saying something stupid on Facebook or posting videos. Professionals are being fired for their political or religious views. ‘Hate speech’ is a criminal offense. But who gets to determine what qualifies as hate speech? Does Anjem Choudary get to make that call? And if not, why not?
If it is NOT OK to use certain words, whichever they may be, whatever the context, then censorship has already begun. Cartoonists, writers, artists, thinkers will begin to self-censure in the name of tolerance to disguise their fear. This is already happening.
Certain thoughts and opinions become taboo and mental repression sets in, whether it be coerced or self-inflicted. History is littered with entire civilizations being brainwashed this way, ie: Nazism or Communism. This is not something new.
What is new is that our generation, from the mid 20th century until now, has never had to face a true war on the Western homeland. We have enjoyed over 65 years of peace, with no major disruption to our modern way of life.
It felt natural for me as a kid and a teenager to dream of becoming a professional cartoonist. In fact, I have based my whole life on believing that being an artist was a valid, useful and worthwhile profession. I went to art school, got jobs doing illustrations, TV graphics, magazine layouts, paintings, video installations, music concerts and my childhood dream: cartoons. Even though I have had to navigate economic ups and downs, I always believed being an artist was a good thing.
Now art has been weaponized. Artists are at the forefront of a cultural war.
Every artist is going to ask themselves if their art will offend. Some will seek out controversy as a shortcut to publicity but most others cower away and end up erasing their ‘provocative’ drawings. The net effect, I fear in the long run will be that fewer and fewer people will stand up for those who are genuine champions of free speech, like Charlie Hebdo.
So while it’s great to say #IAmCharlieHebdo, especially when everyone else is doing it, who will in the end be bold enough to risk everything to say something that is politically incorrect, or offensive to some, or ‘hate speech’?
I am an artist and I can’t answer that question.
Beau Tardy
