It’s winter, and despite living in “sunny” California, it’s actually pretty bloody cold and damp in San Francisco. This means that two things have happened. 1) I’ve had a couple of really nasty colds (or really mild flu, depending on which doctor I ask), and 2) I’ve been staying in a lot more, where it’s warm and cosy. The upshot of all of this hibernating behavior is that I’ve been looking at more fun stuff online, and since it’s nearly six months since I last posted some links for you, I thought you might like some more.
Lichtenstein Make-Up
Make-up done to echo a comic book from the 60’s, or (more recognizably) a Roy Lichtenstein painting of one of those comic book panels from the 60’s. It’s so fabulously weird. She looks so eerie and strange, particularly when the make-up is only partially applied. Apparently it was a Halloween costume created by a professional make-up artist, but I think it’s just an interesting thing to do with cosmetics at any time of the year. Definitely veering into the arena of art here.
Cartoon Backgrounds
A lot of cartoons have used a very different style of art for their animated elements than they do in the backgrounds, relying on the static background art to create atmosphere and depth. Here is a site which catalogs tons of this beautiful cartoon background art.
Cartoon avatars
There are loads of places to do this, some are better than others, and personally, I find the fad for switching avatars confusing (how do I know who you are on Twitter if your picture changes each week?). But it’s fun to make them, and see what you’d look like if you were a character in some cartoon, so here are some places to do just that:
Mad Men
Manga
Simpsons
South Park
Portrait Illustration Maker
Weemee
The Onion: Barack Obama Names Alan Moore Official White House Biographer
This pretend article made me stupidly happy, particularly the line: “As evidenced by his epic run on Swamp Thing #21-64, Moore’s deft hand with both sociopolitical commentary and metaphysical violence makes him an ideal choice to chronicle my time in office,” I can’t think of anything I’d like to read more than a biography of Obama, written by Alan Moore. Now if only we could get Bill Sienkiewicz to draw it…
German Superhero Cosplay
What could be more of a cliche than a Brit laughing at Germans? Someone went to a convention and took some rather surreal video of these terribly enthusiastic Germans in full superhero getup.
Batman interrogates the Joker (poorly)
This is a strange one, because for quite a while I thought that the Dark Knight was a perfect movie. I loved it, and enjoyed watching it again and again. Then someone pointed out that in addition to his overly gravelly voice, Bale didn’t seem to be able to breathe through this nose. Once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t ignore it. Suddenly nearly everything he said sounded slightly comical. This spoof provides a great (exaggerated) illustration of one of the niggling problems I have with an otherwise damn good film.
“Real Life” Superhero Equipment
This is crazy, and I mean that literally, I think the person who made this is a bit nuts. I mean, it’s clearly hard to use, and I’d be worried about hurting myself. But still, it’s damn fun to watch a man who is able to shoot flames from his hands, outside of a comic book or a movie.
Sonia Harris lives, works, and spends too much time on the internet. Please post any and all decent links in the comments, since she’s still got tons of valuable time to waste here. You can also mail her at sonia@ifanboy.com.
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Definitely love that Batman video.
Can we talk about the problems that movie had? Like EVERYTHING besides the Joker was bad!
Two Face’s motivation for becoming Two Face was lame, because that was "His old nickname." Random, out of nowhere. He says to Harvey "Say it…SAY IT!!" "Two Face." "Heh heh heh, Two Face!"
Batman had no character development. The fights were lame.
Everybody couldnt get enough of that Mad Men avatar site.
Great links Sonia.
That last guy is a Goa’uld.
Also I would add this musical spoof of Batman to your list o’ links
That Dark Knight spoof is awesome and it’s all acted by the one guy!
LOL. I immediately went on Ebay to find that Prometheus Device.
Fortunately for me, I did not find one.
The Cartoon Backgrounds will come in handy for one of my daughter’s school projects. Thanks!
I loved the german DC Young Justice Post it’s hillarious!
Cool I made all the avatars of myself now! That old timey comic book make up is amazing.
@Unoob -Build it yourself.
Here are the schematics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Everett.Bradford/Prometheus#
Dark Knight – ‘Greatest Movie EVER’
@ Amircat
I was thinking about trying it, and then this popped into my head.
"In the lighter side of the news today, a comic book fan in Milford Connecticut, burned himself to death today in an effort to fabricate a "Super Hero type" gadget that he saw on the internet. It turns out that after unsuccessfully trying to purchase the device on Ebay, he was actually sent the plans for the device by a fellow member of the Internet Comic Book Fan site known as Ifanboy.com. The author of the article that highlighted the device, Sonia Harris, was not available for comment."
The atman one is very funny.:~)
My favorite of the Dark Knight parodies are the PSAs done by these chaps: http://www.funnyordie.com/hamtramyk/playlists/170958?item=7
Ain’t geek culture grand? Love this stuff!
@kickass-Sure, his motivation for becoming Two Face was bad and came from out of nowhere.
OR, it came from 1) having that as his old name, 2) matching up with his disfigurements, 3) matching up with his favorite piece of personal property, 4) his new view on the seemingly capricious and inconsistant nature of ‘cosmic’ justice, 5) how he is now ‘flipping’ to be a force of evil rather than good, or 6) his new view on the implications of random chance.
But you are more likely right, it came from out of nowhere.
and Batman’s character development was his recognition of what his role in Gotham truly is. He tried to avoid it for the entire movie, but had to embrace it in the end.
Sorry for streaming off topic
Cool links!! This is something I found earlier in the year and was a bit of fun. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/11-sites-to-create-cartoon-characters-of-yourself/
There’s also a superhero creator thing at UGO, which has been around for a few years, where you can make all kinds of superhero types. I work in an auction house so I made one of my boss holding mjolnir like a gavel as ‘the auctioneer’ or something