  This week's media consumption, a look at the media and art diets of our favorite industry personalities, speaks to conceptual artist and Bad Flip founder Ken Christiansen.
Ken has done conceptual art for a variety of games, starting with an internship at Big Bang Software (later Nintendo Software Technology), a stint at Disney Interactive (later Buena Vista Games), and now on a contractual basis.
Titles that Christiansen has been credited on include Ridge Racer 64, Pokémon Puzzle League, Kingdom Hearts, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tron 2.0, among others, and is currently working on a top secret licensed property for Activision. He has also been featured in a Gamasutra Visual Art Gallery (registration required).
We caught up with Christiansen via email to see where his media tastes have been leading him lately:
Sounds: "As always, The Ramones are in constant rotation in the CD player. [Green Day's] 'American Idiot' still gets a lot of play, as do The Gorillaz and The Transplants. So those CDs are always in the office, but in addition to the mainstays, looking through the pile I can see the 'Valley Girl' soundtrack, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, 'The Best of the Go-Gos', Morning Wood, The Donnas (above), and three or four Metallicas. So I guess I fork ‘the Dio’ in the name of rock!"
Moving Pictures: "Well, in the last week, my Stars Wars nerd friend and I broke out the ‘real’ movies, and watched them in their original glory; don’t ever forget kids, Han shoots first. I also finally sat down and watched the Firefly series and movie, and I didn’t love it, but enjoyed it. I also went to see Ultraviolet, and after the potential of the first ten minutes...it sucked.
I liked Equilibrium (above) a lot, and the dude just basically ripped off his own movie. I have Jarhead sitting on the DVD player right now as well. As for TV, I rearrange my life just to see 24, Lost, and The Office. Did you guys see it when the countdown went to ‘0’ and the island sounded like it was going to eat itself like the house in Poltergeist? That was awesome."
Words: "I’m reading [George R. R. Martin's] A Game of Thrones right now, and I might be getting dumberer as I get older, but is there such a thing as too many words? I’m also reading a couple of historical biographies to change it up, you know, for ‘light’ reading. In the world of comics, I read Daredevil, Justice, and Iron Man: Extremis (above). I love Invincible as well. On the net, I check Dave’s Long Box every day, where he reviews all the horrible comics he owns."
Games: "I’m way behind on games, but the wonderful world of Gamefly is helping me catch up. The last few games I played were great; Ultimate Spider-Man, Resident Evil 4, and Lego Star Wars (above). The game I’m working on right now, I’m really looking forward to playing when it’s finished!"
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