Fashion
Luella Bartley
Hui-Hui
Peter Jensen
Katie Gallagher

Entertainment
Alan Ball
Summer Bishil
Dr. Dog
Nima Nourizadeh
Chuck Palahniuk
Anthology Recodrings
Marina Zenovich
Zimmerman/Berg

Artists
Desireé Holman
Corndawg
Matt Furie
Molly Landreth
Matthew Lock
Nikolay Saveliev
Christopher Schulz
Darren Sylvester

Fiction
24 Hours on L16
Nobody Eats Oranges...
Some Mornings

Imagine a world of decaying summer camp cabins and foggy Icelandic canyons, where long-haired metal dudes fraternize at Renaissance Faires and gnomish road warriors in handmade robes attend their sisters’ Satanic school plays. Space aliens and homesick hobos litter post-apocalyptic burlesque houses where Slayer-loving ladies of the night dance with zebras and sport Cthulhu tattoos. This is Matthew Lock’s world– a dark daydream empire where Atreyu may have ended up in his teenage years, sick of peaceful flights on Falkor’s back, searching for something a little more dark, lonely, or nostalgic– a place both hilarious and unnerving.

It was his LiveJournal, Koalas in Love, that first sucked me in. Casually littered with some of the most mind-blowingly bizarre and quietly romantic found photography I’ve ever seen, Koalas in Love tells two stories. First, in his written words, Lock’s personal observations tell the story of a young man who’s mad as hell with the status quo, and overwhelmed by the nauseating widespread side effects of American capitalism. Second, through his found images as well as his own artwork, Lock spins a tale of what could be, using his keen aesthetic sensibilities to project his societal frustration into something altogether transcendent.

Lock’s brilliant notebook-style drawings and vividly saturated paintings have been hung on gallery walls from Portland to Sweden, printed on record covers, and bound into zines for uber-cool art book publishers Nieves and Cederteg. A handful of his illustrations are currently on display at the Junc Gallery in Silver Lake for the “Chimera Fronteria” show, which continues through May 11th. The artist was kind enough to answer a bevy of inane questions about irony, Homer Simpson and the apocalypse.

Hobos and Homer Simpson seem to pop up frequently in your work. What fascinates you about homeless vagabonds and Matt Groening’s lethargic father figure?
I find hobos to be great drawing subjects because they can be such interesting and comical characters. I think that they represent finding pleasure in many of the simpler things or perhaps represent living outside the system. Of course, in real life, this often isn’t true– but that classic hobo with the bag on the stick slung over his shoulder, wandering throughout the country without any ties… it’s nice to fantasize about. Homer Simpson is the quintessential American person in many ways. He is almost passionately ignorant, lazy, totally out of shape, and dependent on Duff’s and bad entertainment to keep his tiny mind busy. I sometimes feel surrounded by Homer Simpsons. I also think he looks funny.