My personal blog as a 'grown-up' Goth and Romantic living in the Highlands of Scotland. I write about the places I go, the things I see and my thoughts on life as a Goth and the subculture, and things in the broader realm of the Gothic and darkly Romantic. Sometimes I write about music I like and sometimes I review things. This blog often includes architectural photography, graveyards and other images from the darker side of life.

Goth is not just about imitating each other, it is a creative movement and subculture that grew out of post-punk and is based on seeing beauty in the dark places of the world, the expression of that in Goth rock. It looks back to the various ways throughout history in which people have confronted and explored the macabre, the dark and the taboo, and as such I'm going to post about more than the just the standards of the subculture (Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, et al) and look at things by people who might not consider themselves anything to do with the subculture, but have eyes for the dark places. The Gothic should not be limited by what is already within it; inspiration comes from all places, the key is to look with open eyes, listen carefully and think with an open mind..

Monday 26 March 2012

Cartoons, South Park Style and Boredom

I got bored yesterday, and went on the ::South Park Studio:: character creator on the internet. It's basically an internet dress-up game. I was really very bored indeed.


I don't particularly like South Park as a TV show - I find the humour too coarse, leaning too much towards slapstick, toilet humour and sexual references. It isn't my sort of thing at all. However, I do love the art style and also have a soft-spot for the South Park Goth Kids (My favourite is the tall male one with the white shirt) and their hiss of "Conformissssstsssss".


Anyway, I started off with portraits of myself and Raven, and then moved on to stock horror movie characters. These started off as done in the online character creator, and then were edited in Photoshop.

⚜Raven: 
Raven Is A Rivethead/Cyber. 
Raven, Casual & Out Taking Photographs


⚜Me:
A HouseCat in the Wild

A HouseCat in its favourite habitat, missing camera.

Getting Overenthusiastic About Swords
⚜Monsters: 

Missing her eyeballs, but not her tear-ducts.

Expect a fake Romanian accent

The Devil has his own KISS tribute band. 
Waking up after this night out will involve more than a hangover.

5 comments:

  1. Fantastic! And loads more creative than anything I'd ever manage if I was bored!

    I never used to watch South Park because of the rather cheap vulgarity, but I've recently found that if you can get beyond all the superficial filthy, schoolboy-humour, there's plenty of really quite clever satire.

    In your '11 Questions circular' post, I read that your first language is French. Do you have any Goth Francophone recommendations: music, blogs, etc.? I only know of very few musical artists and with varying degrees of familiarity: Rosa Crux, Blessure Grave, Mylène Farmer (occasionally dark), Claire Pelletier (very occasionally dark), Celine Dion (never dark but I love her anyway because of her powerful voice, and her French language songs are much better than those in English, so there!)

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    Replies
    1. My French is terribly rusty... I should probably put it to more use and look up more Francophone blogs and use blog-reading as French practice! I have been pretty much an English speaker since I was about 5... School forbade me from speaking French in an effort to improve my poor English, but it's now meant I have poor French, though I'm sure if I went to visit my family for a bit, it would soon improve! I can read French still, so there's no excuse for me not to read French blogs.

      As to Francophone bands, I like Asylum Party, and they're bilingual, and IndoChine, but they might not quite be your thing. After failing to find French language Goth bands for ages, I only recently realised that I should have been looking for French language Coldwave bands instead... Oops. I think Michelle, one of my more regular commenters, might be someone who knows of some French-language bands. Her knowledge of bands is far more comprehensive than mine.

      The first CD I ever had was a present from my French cousin Laure, who sent me an all-French Celine Dion CD, I can't remember the name of the album, but it had "Dans un Autre Monde" and "Terre" which I loved as a teen... Secret confessions of a pre-Goth HouseCat :P

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    2. Et j'aime On ne change pas extrait de l'album même, « S'il suffisait d'aimer »
      C'est cela, et D'eux sont les albums les plus populaires.
      OK, assez parlé de Céline Dion avant l'heure vient que toute crédibilité du Gothique est perdu!

      Unfortunately Claire Pelletier's more interesting stuff is not available at YouTube, but you might like to hear these by Mylène Farmer:
      Fuck Them All
      Nobody Knows

      Thanks for the suggestions of Indochine and Asylum Party, and to search instead for "Coldwave".
      I went on a YouTube odyssey and listened to:
      Indochine - Marilyn
      Indochine with Melissa Auf Der Maur - Le Grand Secret
      Asylum Party - La Nuit
      Opéra de Nuit - Boris Transylvania Camp
      Opéra de nuit - Ami-Amant
      Lucie Cries - Alcôves, Sérénades et Lumière

      and finally finished up with this masterpiece from circa 1980:
      Ruth - Mots
      which believe it or not is available as an MP3 download from Amazon
      or on the album Des Jeunes Gens Modernes 1978-1983.

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  2. i love it !!!
    I think its looks very nice.... and now i want to go to that South Park Studio character creator you found on internet... just to try

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  3. Very creative and well done!

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