Surf’s Up Dept.
May 7th, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
Happiness is a Warm Carcass Dept. I ran across this on MAD production artist Ryan Flander‘s Facebook page. Like him I think it’s unbelievable: Tauntaun Sleeping Bag My favorite parts are the intestine print on the interior lining and the disemboweling light saber zipper pull…. and the fact that the kid in the picture is smiling pleasantly instead of screaming in terror. Nothing like snuggling your young Jedi up in the simulated stinking carcass of a dead tauntaun at bedtime. Sweet Dreams! In fact it is unbelievable. It’s a April Fools prank. Apparently they do something like this every year on ThinkGeek.com. Brilliant, though. READ MORE
April 28th, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
Embedded video from <a href=”http://www.cnn.com/video” mce_href=”http://www.cnn.com/video”>CNN Video</a> “Alliance, Assemble?” Ummmm. no. You know that silly super-deep voice Christian Bale used in the Batman movies suddenly doesn’t seem so ridiculous. READ MORE
April 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
Interesting video from Wimp.com. The “icons” they cite as evolutionary seem to fluctuate between Batman’s chest emblem from various film/animation incarnations and the logo used on a given comics title, film poster or mini-series cover graphics. It’s not really an “evolution” of the “bat symbol” as much as a collection of different takes on it from different sources in roughly chronological order. Sorry, can’t embed the video so click on the image or this link to see it. Nicely done, although I find it interesting the creator refuses to let you embed the video but has no problem violating U2’s copyrights for the music. Top… READ MORE
March 7th, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETv3NURwLc[/youtube] I have seen this video featuring Louis C.K. on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” around for the last two weeks on the web and Facebook and such. It’s so incredibly true that I finally tracked down an embeddable version to post here. It is amazing how incredibly spoiled people are today, especially young people. Many have a misguided sense of entitlement that boggles my mind… it’s like they are owed whatever it is they want, and don’t think they should be required to earn it or earn money to pay for it. The internet is a prime example. Many people seem to think they… READ MORE
February 21st, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
Frequent reader of The Mad Blog and fellow Minnesotan Marv Sohlo emailed me a link to this video which features a short but informative piece on caricatures and why they resonate so much with people. It’s from the BCC show “The Human Face” narrated by John Cleese. Unfortunately the creators do not allow embedding, but click on the screen capture to go to the YouTube clip: Click on the image for the full clip… it’s less than 2 minutes…. we’ll wait… I’ve always said that a really good caricature looks more like the subject than a photo does, and some of the observations this video… READ MORE
February 17th, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_B5UrI7nAI[/youtube] I’m usually not one to post random YouTube videos no matter how clever, but every once and awhile you find the perfect blend of image, humor and ingenuity and it cannot be resisted. Between the funny design of the character, the fact that this is the actual song and not some redub AND the further fact that someone realized what they were hearing and made the connection, this might be the funniest 20 second video I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Mark Evanier for the link. READ MORE
January 27th, 2009 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
Last night I finished a last minute job for MAD that was probably the toughest deadline they’ve ever given me. Surprisingly I finished two days ahead of schedule. As a result I am frazzled and need a break, so today’s post is just going to be a disturbing Youtube video I ran across on the excellent DRAWN! illustration and cartooning blog. This was an actual commercial for Green Giant canned peas and corn using stop motion animation: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDbKlaWgR3Q[/youtube] That is incredibly frightening. The giant is a leering, psychotic horror… especially terrifying is this final pose where he leans down and thrusts the cans at the… READ MORE
December 29th, 2008 | Posted in Surf's Up Dept.
I’m busy working on a few jobs right now, but here are some tidbits from the last week of interest around the interwebby: Who Blotches the Watchmen Dept. Fox, that’s who. On Christmas Eve Judge Gary Allen Feess issued a ruling in favor of Fox in the rights dispute case over the new Watchmen movie that is supposed to premiere on March 3rd. Fox alleged that they owned the rights to produce and distribute a Watchmen movie, and that producer Larry Gordon was breaking a contract between himself and Fox guaranteeing those rights by producing the Zack Synder film and distributing it through Warner Bros.… READ MORE
