Library of Congress' Flickr page

I'll have more cartoons later this afternoon, but for now, check this out. It's a photo from the Library of Congress's flickr page. There are over 3000 photos in two sets, 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s. The photo above is by Buck Hezog taken for the Bain News Service, taken way back in 1911. Awesome.

Check out the collection here.

Hat tip to Gawker.

Rudy for President, or we're all going to DIE!!!

Mike Huckabee thinks Canada's capital is an igloo

From Boing Boing:

Mike Huckabee may have won the Iowa primary, but does he really think that Canada's Parliament resides in a "national igloo?" Rick Mercer's comedic Canadian TV show "Talking to Americans" (asking people on the streets of US cities nonsensical questions about Canada to see if they call shenanigans or whether they become genuinely alarmed at the idea that, say, the Canadian elderly are set adrift on ice floes instead of being sent to retirement homes) caught Huckabee on video during his days as governor of Arkansas and asked him to send a message of support to Canada and its struggling "national igloo," a notional ice-sculpture scale replica of the White House in which the Canadian Parliament meets and debates.

View the video here.

Public Service Announcement

Phew! Luckily, I received the following email from an anonymous well-wisher who just wanted to make sure my genitals aren't mistreated:

Choosing your penis enlargement method you should remember that some widely advertised methods are either ineffective or dangerous. Some advertisements are based on lies, lack of medical knowledge or are just frauds. Choose ExpressHerbals penis enlargement device to achieve penis size you dream of in a safe and medically approved way.

To reach your dream penis size you have just to order ExpressHerbals. It will be shipped quickly and discreetly and delivered just on time. Your life is going to change from then on.

I can't wait to reach my 'dream penis size!!!' But my favorite line is at the end of the email. My only question is why haven't we seen this on a billboard somewhere?

Make large penis your recipe for success.

Zuda Comics

On October 30, 2007, DC Comics, the popular comic book publisher behind the Zudacomics.com imprint, will post 10 web comic entries for public view and invite people to vote for their favorite. Editors may also declare as many as six submissions to be instant winners during the calendar year.

Zudacomics.com is designed to allow aspiring cartoonists to register at its web site and submit an eight-panel sample of their work.

Now, not all of the cartoonists on the first list of 10 are aspiring artists. I see Howard Shum, creator of the Image series Gun Fu (inspired now doubt by that crappy Christian Bale movie where they're karate-chopping each other with guns...unemotionally. Can't remember the title...) I also see Pop Mhan's name, as well as...Fernando Ruiz?!?!

That's right Kubert students and Arcie fans...Fernando Ruiz is behind one of the strips. So that means once the 10 strips are posted, sign up and start voting. Here's a description of Fernando's title. To view a description of the other nine, click here:

Leprenomicon
Writer/Artist: Greg DelCurla/Fernando Ruiz
Summary: In old Ireland, when the banshee sings for you it means that your time on this Earth is coming to an end. But American Michael O’Connor refuses to take this news lying down. With the (forced) help of a kidnapped Leprechaun, he intends to solve the mystery of his own death even if it turns the world of faeries, gods, and plain old normal folk upside down.

First 10 Zuda Contestants Named
DC Comics

An Escape From the Slush Pile: A Web Site Tries Out New Comics
The New York Times

Hat tip to: K. Rian Miller

Want to see an X-Ray of Hello Kitty?

Here's something strange and wonderful. Oregon illustrator Michael Paulus has done a series of 22 skeletal studies of present and past cartoon characters, ranging from Charlie Brown to Shmoo, a bizarre character shaped like a plump bowling pin with legs, but no arms that originated in Al Capp's Li'l Abner, but eventually went on to gain its own animated series in the late 1970s, as part of the animated series Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo.

Paulus describes it this way:

These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects - trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.

Hat tip to Boing Boing

The Unethicist

Today's brilliant item from the web comes from the gossip rag (can that term be used for online media?) Gawker. I've just stumbled across it, but apparently it's been going on for a while.

Basically, they take the questions from Randy Cohen's brilliant advice column, The Ethicist, and have Gabriel Delahaye answer them, making him "The Unethicist." In addition to his Gawker column, Gabriel writes the website Corporate-Casual, and is a staff writer for the soon-to-be-launched comedy news website, 23/6.

Mixed Emotions

Over at the New York Times, there is an excellent blog post by Rutu Modan as part of their visual column series Sightlines. This is the first time I've ever seen something like this, and I'm so jealous that I hadn't thought of it first!

Rutu Modan created Exit Wounds, a graphic novel about Koby Franco, a 20-something cab driver working in Tel Aviv. It's a great read, and really dig her loose, simple drawing style, which I think is tremendously evocative and lends itself well to sequential storytelling.

Out of his secret garden in New Jersey...

...it's CAPTAIN VEGETABLE!!!!

Sunday Strips

Over on the Strippers Guide, Allan Holtz, a comic strip historian, covers the changing (and quickly dwindling size) of Sunday comic strips in American newspapers. It's a really interesting read.

Hat tip to: The Comics Reporter

Photosynth Prototype

Found this on the Crazy Leaf Design Blog. I find all of these new applications and the experimental interactivity that goes with them really fascinating. I'm not sure if any of them will ever be marketable or user friendly on a global scale, but it is incredibly interesting to watch this ever-changing technology grow right in front of us.

How cool is this rocking chair?

Hat tip to: MoCo Loco

But is it CSS compliant?

This has got to be the most ridiculious thing I've seen today. Some douch-bag has posted this video that shows some Japanese bunny-girl being created using thousands of lines of HTML code to individually create and color table cells as pixels. Luckily for us, the video has been sped up considerably, because this probably took an insane amount of time to do.

Hat tip to Wired

Tomine on The New Yorker

I don't know how many of you read The New Yorker, but this week's cover was done by one of my favorite artists, Adrian Tomine. Tomine produces one of the best comic books around for Drawn & Quarterly Publishing called Optic Nerve. His much awaited graphic novel (at least by me) called Shortcomings.

A note on the cover: A blogger analyzed the illustration, as well as the book the girl is reading, and put together a cool post here.

24 new species found in Suriname

According to a story today posted by Reuters, a purple fluorescent frog is just one of 24 new species found in Suriname, a country in the northern part of South Africa.

According to Leeanne Alonso of Conservation International, which led the expedition that found the new species, "When you go to these places that are so unexplored and so remote, we do tend to find new species ... but most of them are insects. What's really exciting here is we found a lot of new species of frogs and fish as well."

To view the article, click here.

Animation vs Animator

A guy at work just show this to me. Anyone that does Flash animation will find this hilarious!

What does $456 billion buy?

Over at The Boston Globe, Ana Rivas brings us a fresh take on the rising costs of the Iraq War. What Does $456 billion Buy? shows us alternatives on how that much money could be spend right here at home.

And this is only 10 possible alternatives. $456 billions is a LOT of money, and I think most of us just see it as a number, and don't understand what a huge sum of money really means.

Hat tip to Jon Marshall's News Gems

101 Dalmatians Color Keys by Walt Peregoy

Over on Cartoon Modern, Amid Amidi has posted a collection of color keys by Walt Peregoy from Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. They are amazing, and you should definitely check them out. And make sure you link to Cartoon Modern; it's a treasue trove of character designs and sketches from the best era of Disney cartoons.

Hat tip to Cartoon Brew.

Great Moments in Presidential History

Photo Referencing: The Debate Continues

Over on Comic Book Resources, Stuart Immonen has recently written an article on the use of tool and reference material to help make the process of drawing comics as efficient as it can be. And in response to people who think he is "cheating," he says:

"Picasso (a macho artist if there ever was one) said, “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.”"

Check out the article for yourself. Read it here.

Tip of the hat to Drawn.