By the Vishanti! It's Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum!

"By the shades of the Seraphim and the hoary hosts of Hoggoth! By the omnipotence of Oshtur and the all-seeing Eye of Agamotto! In the name of the Vishanti three . . . reveal the light of truth to me!"

If you understood any of that, then you're probably well acquainted with Marvel Comics' Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. Dr. Stephen Strange first appeared in Strange Tales #110 in 1963 and has appeared in thousands of comics since.

Despite having read comic books for years, I only first took notice of the Sorcerer Supreme in the early '90s through his trading card and as a key player in The Infinity Gauntlet series. Strange you might say . . . perhaps, but not really when one considers the good Doctor's status as the Master of the Mystic Arts - a mastery that includes astral projection, levitation and other occult powers for protection and camouflage.


Take for example, Strange's abode, the Sanctum Sanctorum (latin for 'holiest of holy places') located at 177a Bleecker St. in New York City. Said to be the "Nexus Of All Realities" within the Marvel Universe (one of several, if that makes any sense), the Greenwich Village apartment house in recent years has been mystically cloaked to appear as a dilapidated revenent with a banner reading Another Neighborhood Starbucks Coming Soon! hanging over the front door.

In our reality, 177 Bleecker St. is the shared address of a Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop, a tattoo parlor and squeezed in between, almost invisible under a white awning, the entrance to the apartments located above. There are a few other online resources that have pointed out this address in relation to the good Doctor, the Strange-dedicated fansite Neilalien.com for example, but I thought I'd share a few photos I'd managed to take during my last visit to NYC:


The building itself (seen here at the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan Sts.) looks to be in remarkably excellent shape, but then New York has enjoyed quite a bit of urban rejuvenation lately, so it had most likely undergone some restoration in recent years.


Here's a shot of the Pinkberry and the white awning over the apartment entrance with "177" on the front.


Deciding to get a little closer, I was rewarded with the sight of this beautiful frosted transom sporting the full street address. While not the Anomaly Rue (the mystic "Window of the Worlds" depicting the Seal of the Vishanti), the bordering banner scrolls immediately reminded me of the voluminous folds of Strange's Cloak of Levitation.


As amazing as that transom was, though, this was the pièce de résistance. Here, finally, was solid evidence of 177a Bleecker St., right there on the first button of the intercom. A button that looks as if it's been pushed by more than one Dr. Strange fan in its day. I was tempted, but decided it was better not to risk distracting the Sorcerer Supreme while he could very well be saving our entire plane of existence from the extra-dimensional depredations of Baron Mordo, Nightmare or even the dread Dormammu himself!

For more information on Doctor Strange, I suggest checking out the excellently written Lesser Book of the Vishanti by Catherine Yronwode and, of course, Marvel Comics.

For more information on 177 Bleecker Street, visit the Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation.

-DE

One down . . . Six Sins Left.

Hell-o DE/VL worshippers!

Here's a blast from the past, some images from the late '90s industrial band that I did work for: Six Sins Left.

A little back story for those not in the know: The band that would ultimately come to be known as Six Sins Left started out as a heavy metal cover band named Requiem, the brain child of guitarist Ian Heath - who would remain the only constant member of the band's various name and lineup changes - and drummer Rich Schweitzer. Kris Becke eventually secured the lead guitarist slot for Requiem and provided the band's rehearsal space in his father's basement, Cara Stafford played guitar in a number of other bands (one of which included Rich on drums, but the group's name escapes me right now), Paul LaBonte was the final, longest lasting and best remembered vocalist for Requiem before the band decided on a name change (having discovered another band using the name Requiem). Thus was born Grindog (pronounced Grind-dog), which despite the ever-continuing lineup changes did enjoy some moderate local success (I remember everyone being excited about the news of outselling Malhavoc at the Burlington nightclub "Manhattan Rocks"). When Grindog finally imploded, State Of Grace rose from those ashes, shedding the heavy metal influence and focusing on the industrial elements that Grindog had incorporated into the group's sound. Ian switched to bass when Cara was recruited as guitarist and Kris tackled vocals. Drums were programmed at first, but when it was clear the live act needed a drummer, Paul was tapped to keep the beat during shows. State of Grace had a reasonable level of success as well; reaching the top spot for indie sales at HMV 333 Yonge St. with the 1996 CD release Some, but once again, the band was faced with a necessary name change. From this, Six Sins Left was finally born. SSL played shows in and around the Greater Toronto Area for several years, struck up a professional friendship with members of the Jim Rose Circus, The Misfits and Powerman 5000, but shortly after the close of the '90s, Six Sins Left seemed to quickly unravel as everyone began to pursue other interests. Cara would go on to enjoy further success as guitarist for the all-female cover band Rocket-tits, and eventually both her and Ian (now married to one another) would switch gears and become involved in music management and representation.

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This group shot was taken by me, but I have nearly no memory of the shoot at all, the banner in the background was part of the stage set, but I'm pretty sure the photo was taken in the place where most things Six Sins Left-y happened: Kris' basement.


. . . as for the Ouija circle sticker, I distinctly remember going with Ian to the print house to set these up, but other than that my input on the design might have included a discussion as to how to place the type. One thing's for sure, I stuck those things on anything I could reach out and plaster; including one drunken night at Bovine Sex Club when I stuck one to a broken mirror and drew back a bloody hand for my efforts!

The logo image was designed by Ian and later modified by him and I for the website - first a Geocities page I cobbled together and later one with an actual registered domain name - The reason for the blue mod as I recall was to try and match it to images for the seven deadly sins that I'd swiped from the official SE7EN movie website (tsk, tsk, tsk . . . such a naughty little net pirate I was.)

I'd put quite a few images (flyers, photos, original artwork, etc.) up on those sites and kept the originals packed up, but now - like so many things - it's all been misplaced somewhere. If/when I ever uncover the lost Six Sins Left artwork, I'll be sure to update!

-DE

We Love Typography

In college I had a great typography teacher - his motto was "type rules!!" and he was right - type does rule!


If you ever need inspiration, We Love Typography is great.

-VL

Things change

It's been a while. Things changed pretty quickly for us in 2010: Vegas, got a house, getting used to the 'burbs, and getting used to all the expenses of a house & working on making it a home. It feels like we're starting over.

I also quit a job that I had been loathing for many, many years. Sadly, I now work a very non-creative job and I really need to get back into design, art, and creating again.

Coming soon, we'll be updating the blog again soon and getting to work on DEVL Design.

Hang in there, regular posts and updates are on the way.

-VL

Celebrating two years of DE/VL-ish love . . . in the DEAD ZONE!

November is here and that means Halloween is over for yet another year, but there's still the great memories of a really fine Halloween season to enjoy!

First and foremost, to the one who makes sense of all my insanity, my best friend, my love, my wife: Happy Anniversary! It's been two years since we swaggered down to Las Vegas and had ourselves a kick ass wedding on Halloween. There have been great times and times that have pushed us both to the edge of reason, but I wouldn't want to spend it with anyone else in this world or any other.
This year we proved just how perfect we are for one another in the simplest way possible, by unknowingly getting each other the same card for our anniversary!

After the necessary evil that is re-caulking the bathtub two months ago, I was inspired to redo the bathroom Psycho-style as my anniversary gift to Niki. I'd been hanging onto a mini poster of the 1998 remake (not a great version of the movie, but a pretty cool poster) for a while now and Niki had shown me a bloody shower curtain/bathmat combo that just looked amazing, so after acquiring said combo and grabbing some matching towels and a frame for the poster, it all came together real nice and spooky.

I'd played around with the faucet while cleaning the bathroom one day and had the idea to install hot and cold running poison. Turns out it wasn't really that hard to do. Now our spooky ducks have got a creepy little lagoon of their own!

Since both Niki and I have an obsession with finding haunted houses and cool movie shoot locations and I'm a fiend for Stephen King related locales particularly, it was fitting that we spent time on Halloween in Niagara-On-The-Lake spotting scenes from the 1983 version of The Dead Zone directed by David Cronenberg.

First up was the famous murder scene gazebo built for the movie shoot and afterwards presented to the town as a gift.

Situated right at the north-east corner of town on King St. and looking out over Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River, the gazebo gives a fantastic view of Fort Niagara on the U.S. side.

It was only a block down King St. that we came upon the house used as Johnny Smith's apartment in the movie.

Located at 17 Byron St. and used as the rectory for the Anglican church next door, tales of ghosts haunting the house (as well as many of the other houses in town) abound.

A little further down King St. and making a left on John St. we came upon another famous Dead Zone location. The fictional Weizak Clinic is where Johnny Smith first woke up from his five year coma with the power of second sight.


Located directly across from an area called Butler's Barracks (well known for several ghostly sightings of soldiers from the War of 1812) and once the home of The Niagara Institute, the building used as the Weizak Clinic is now a private residence known as Randwood.

Continuing our adventure through both The Dead Zone and N-O-T-L's own local haunted legends, we made our way further south to the infamous Screaming Tunnel on Warner Road.

The scene of Johnny Smith and Sheriff Bannerman's psychic investigation before discovering the last victim in the gazebo, the tunnel provided the movie with some of it's most famous imagery. The spiderweb-like brickwork has been used for various international poster art for the movie over the years.

According to local legend, if you light a wooden match in the very centre of the tunnel you'll hear an unearthly screaming and the match will blow out, purportedly the spirit of a young girl caught in a fire in the tunnel. It was pretty windy, and Niki claims to have heard some creepy sounds as I investigated within (I'd forgot my wooden matches, though).

After all that time spent lost in the Dead Zone, Niki and I decided to get our Tommyknocker on and headed down to The Flying Saucer on Lundy's Lane in Niagara Falls for lunch.

My Favourite Martian.

Chillin' out somewhere near Mars.

A little souvenir I left behind for the folks at the Saucer in honour of our Dead Zone day and as thanks for a delicious lunch.

Happy Halloween DE/VL fans! I hope everyone out there enjoyed our little photo tour of the Dead Zo . . . er, Niagara-On-The-Lake.

DE

Happy Halloweek DE/VL worshippers!

Greetings to all of DE/VL's legion of followers,

Halloween is soon to be upon us, but the fun has already started. This past weekend saw the 2009 Toronto Zombie Walk lurch through the streets and DE/VL was there keeping it creepy! Over 3,000 shuffling corpses were in attendance and everyone had a great time. A big thanks to the organizers for making it happen and congrats to founder/organizer Thea Munster who was attacked by a ring-bearing zombie wanting her hand . . . in marriage, that is. Here's to hoping their after-life together will be full of joy, happiness and, of course, braaaiiinnnsss.

Here's some of our favorite zombies that we saw:




For more photos, check out The Official Toronto Zombie Walk Group on Facebook.

DE

October = Busy!

Greetings l'il DEVL's,

October has always been a busy month, this October is no exception. Between full-time jobs, designing, custom jackets, baking and family gathering there's still so much still to come.

Both of us are looking forward to the Toronto Zombie Walk on October 24th, a friend's wedding on Devil's Night and (of course) Halloween!! However, as much as we feel overwhelmed with all the upcoming events, we're still looking forward to everything that's coming up.

Hopefully November will slow down a little - mostly so I can fit in more time to bake and paint. I've already received a few requests to bake some things for xmas - & we're only in October!

Since Toronto has been plagued with cold, rainy weather - we've been hiding from the outside world. Today is sunny and kind of warm (13 celsius), we should really enjoy the day.

Happy Turkey Weekend!

VL