Mike Mills is one of my favorite multi-hyphenate creative people, and has been for a long time. Back in the era of my tidal obsession with Air’s Moon Safari, I read up everything I could on the band, and Mills– the designer who’d crafted their rad cover art. I watched as many of his music videos as I could track down with the middling assistance of dial-up internet and my primary pre-YouTube rad video source, the late great RES Magazine. Ever since then, Mike Mills’ creations– in print, feature filmmaking, documentary, graphic design and music video have only grown successively more and more awesome.

His latest endeavor is his most intimate and most emotionally evocative work yet, the film Beginners. It tells the story of a sad graphic designer (Ewan McGreggor) learning to love (Melanie Laurent) late in life, and his elderly father (Christopher Plumer) who comes out of the closet in the twilight of his life. It’s a simple story but its scope is epic: it’s about mortality, growing up, the unchangeable nature of historical circumstance and seeking connection in a disconnected family. As heavy Beginners‘ themes are, Mills juggles story and concepts with significant grace, blending melancholy and humor in a way that somehow manages to reveal the intimate inner lives of his characters.

Beginners is in theaters now, and I strongly urge you to check it out on the big screen. And luckily, since Mike Mills can’t be confined to one medium, he’s released a companion book to the film called Drawings From the Film Beginners. It’s full of funny and charming sketches that relate to the Ewan McGregor’s character in the film, who also designs album covers for a living.

Thanks to Focus Features, I’m stoked to announce that we’re giving away a copy of the book, as well as a dropcard that will let you to download the Beginners soundtrack for free. Comment with your favorite work by Mike Mills and we’ll choose a winner at random this Friday!

When you were eight, nine years old, did you love Dilbert or The Far Side or Cathy? Jump Start? For Better or For Worse (if you were a total dork)? Those were simpler, blissfully ignorant times, before the veil of childhood was lifted and the funnies quickly lost their luster. Grown-up comics gave way to the operatic brooding of superheroes, or alternately, the navel-gazing existential musings of indie comics. Neither genre is widely known for its guffaws and belly laughs. Lucky for us, we’ve still got weirdos like Robert Crumb, Matt Furie, and Johnny Ryan running about, producing deliriously funny cartoons.

Add to that list another comedian undercover as an artist: Lisa Hanawalt. Hanawalt’s formal artistic skill is unparalleled, suave and refined– so graceful and gorgeous, it’s doubly fun to watch her gleefully defecate upon it with an array of dizzyingly crude subject matter. Hanawalt’s work is the perfect mixture of adorable animals, gentle bon moths, and beyond the pale dead baby jokes, poop jokes and/or dick jokes. I can almost picture her as a happy little kid, obsessed with drawing majestic stallions, before something deliciously insidious crept into her mind and persuaded her to draw deeply unsettling, even nauseating images of anthorpomorphized creeps and unstable human bodies from beyond the uncanny valley.

Check out pictures from the second issue of her excellent comic book I Want You, below. The Fan Mail page is especially awesome, and paints a picture of Hanawalt as the type of person who’d be more than just a little bit fun to hang out with. Don’t miss her fantastic new series for The Hairpin, “Rumors I’ve Heard About Anna Wintour.”

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It’s an important question to ask an artist: “Why do you make stuff?” At its core, the answer I’d always love to hear an artist say is, “I make stuff for myself.” It seems to me that those are the artists that show genuine talent. So, what happens when you ask two people– partners in life and art– to try and describe the force that drives them, and the things in life that got them to that point?

Victor Cayro and Becca Kacanda are a couple, and they’re both incredibly prolific and inspiring artists. I first began my working relationship with Victor and Becca when they participated in a show that took place at Synchronicity Space, under the moniker Big Apple Graphicxz. Since then, I’ve received epic, epic emails and occasionally a phone call that leaves me in awe of their superhuman character.

Here, Victor Cayro and Becca Kacanda on the question of: Why do you make stuff?

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Dirty Dishes, a book of illustrations and paintings by outstanding Canadian animator Amy Lockhart. We share her love of angry ladies and the sheer terror of human bodies. Published earlier this year by Drawn & Quarterly.

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Brilliant graphic designer Mike Perry and his photographer girlfriend Anna Wolf, talking about art and facial hair for the non-profit organization Movember which fights cancer and shaving, two of society’s greatest ills.

Via Matt Rubin!

Every winter around this time, Giant Robot invites a boatload of marvelous artists to make original pieces on the unsung canvas of the Post-It. Hundreds of these tiny pieces are currently plastered on the walls of GR2, going for just $20 each– a bargain-basement price for many of these artists.

Last year and this year, I volunteered to assist in the intricate process of hanging this massive show. My reward was a sneak peek at the smörgåsbord of miniature masterpieces, which led me to determine with laser-point precision exactly which Post-Its I needed in my life. The three above were my selections from this year’s collection, crafted by (clockwise from upper left) Christina Song, Greg Clarke and James Chong– three artists I didn’t know from adam before this show, but to whom I now feel a deep-running affection.

Stop by Post-It Show 6 before it closes on January 12th! Below, check out the Post-Its I picked up at last year’s show, from three of my favorite artists (and one dude whose name escapes me).

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Mysterious corridors, chutes and ladders, and endless reflections in infinite video screens: these are the dark, delicious tropes of Belgian art collective Hell’o Monsters. Somewhere between Geoff McFetridge and M.C. Escher, the creepy creatures and architectural compositions crafted by Hell’o Monsters confound and enchant with a style all their own. I wish I could get an entire wall in my apartment painted by the clever folk behind Hell’o Monsters. I would just stare at it forever!

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I ran into the supremely charming artist Ryan De La Hoz at APE last month, and quickly fell in love with his awesome zine, Residual Energy. It’s easy to digest, and yet somehow haunting– filled with mysterious illustrations, grainy photos, and clever nostalgia for those 8-bit afternoons of childhood yore. Ryan’s wonder-filled personality really comes across in their glossy pages. Take a look at both issues of Residual Energy below, along with a gorgeously shot video interview by Paul Nguyen.

If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, don’t miss Ryan’s latest work at Heist Gallery on Saturday night!

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Unless you’re having a seizure right now, you’re looking at a GIF of a sculpture by Matt Furie. Furie’s first sculpture since art school was heralded by a barrage of flashing lights at Show Cave’s Corn on the Macabre III. The Halloween show also featured the talents of fellow Future Colors of America collaborators Aiyana Udesen and Albert Reyes, spooky new works by Leslie Winchester and Ariana Papademetropoulos, and a projector plugged into Furie’s Return of the Quack. Pictures below!

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Future Colors of America is a terrific artistic triad comprised of troublemaking superfriends Matt Furie (Boys Club and Return of the Quack), Aiyana Udesen (an ace at drawing Whorf, Britney Spears, and penguins), and Albert Reyes (whose haunted maze I helped bring to Mastodon Mesa last spring). It’s always a pleasure to see these three artists working together. Their distinct visual sensibilities and senses of humor weave effortlessly in their collaborations and crossovers. They take delight in both both intensifying and obscuring the symbols, fixations and refrains of each others’ canons.

Though the group has been collaborating for years, Future Colors of America made their eponymous debut when Matt and Aiyana brought Albert up to San Francisco last year for a show at GRSF. So Albert returned the favor by inviting them to show in his east L.A. neighborhood, El Sereno, on the eve of Halloween. Bouquet of Death, which also includes work from Monique “MAC” Contreras, Leslie Winchester and Aaron Martinez, marked the debut of the brand new DOA (Dose of Art) Gallery.

Like the rock stars they are, Future Colors of America opened another show in L.A. on the same night– Corn on the Macabre III at Show Cave. Pictures from that opening will be up shortly!

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