Sunshine In A Mag

This time of year I'm always greatly in need of eye-candy, so it was lucky for me that boingboing clued me in to this magazine.

Hi-Fructose is basically a contemporary pop-art mag. It's a little toy heavy for my taste, and they could use someone with a red pen to check things over, but the artwork in there makes it worth several times the cover price. They've introduced me to so many incredible artists that I'm downright giddy with excitement.

The current issue (top right) features the art of Ray Caesar (among many others) with an interview that blew me away. I love looking at pop-surrealist imagery, but I've always felt kind of guilty for it. It's compelling and pretty, but my doubts about the depth of much of it frequently left me feeling cheap and easy. Thankfully, those fears have definitely been put to rest at least as far as Ray Caesar's work is concerned. The story behind why he makes these images is really dark and sad and beautiful.

I read the magazine from cover to cover, and then decided I needed to get the previous issue which featured Mark Ryden, Chris Ware, and ----- wait for it ----- a pop-art View-Master reel! After much searching, I found a copy online and devoured it almost as soon as it arrived. I haven't been this inspired in a long time.

note: Hi-Fructose can be a little hard to come by, at least in these parts. I had good luck ordering from Rotofugi and Last Gasp.