Bonsai Treehouses by Takanori Aiba
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2012 (26 comments)

So a Persian writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor walk into a room…
Zahra's Paradise is a webcomic inspired by the work of the late Zahra Kazemi (previously) and based on reports by Iranian bloggers. The author and publisher describe their experiences here.
posted to MetaFilter by Joe in Australia at 6:22 PM on February 13, 2012 (6 comments)

The Composites - Literary characters imagned using police composition software
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 1:30 PM on February 9, 2012 (42 comments)

"Portia Simpson Miller, the former and newly re-elected Prime Minister of Jamaica and representative of the People's National Party, recently took an historically significant position by openly supporting GLBT legal protection in Jamaica, a country internationally notorious for a "culture of homophobia." Miller's statements come at a time of great cultural change in both Jamaica and dancehall music. This is for her." This is a mixtape of dancehall music and some of it is NSFW.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:04 PM on February 8, 2012 (8 comments)

Hey remember when DC killed off Superman in '92? Max Landis does and spends 15 minutes trying to explain just what the hell happened during that storyline with the help of costumes, props, re-creations and Elijah Wood. (NSFW audio)
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 10:31 AM on February 4, 2012 (81 comments)

PhyloPic is an open database of life form silhouettes. All images are available for reuse under a Public Domain or Creative Commons license.
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 7:47 PM on February 4, 2012 (20 comments)

WAT. - A lightning talk by Gary Bernhardt from CodeMash 2012, on the peculiarities of some popular scripting languages. (Single video link, around 4 minutes in length.)
posted to MetaFilter by Slap*Happy at 2:12 PM on February 2, 2012 (35 comments)

Shit Scientists Say (SLYT) via
posted to MetaFilter by Danf at 4:05 PM on February 2, 2012 (44 comments)

Back in December, Fox News attacked the Muppets for the supposed "anti-coprorate" and "anti-capitalist" themes they saw in the movie The Muppets. Kermit and Miss Piggy are, finally, fighting back.
posted to MetaFilter by cerebus19 at 9:22 AM on January 30, 2012 (61 comments)

It took the graphic novelist Craig Thompson seven years to complete Habibi, his epic exploration of child slavery and sexual awakening in an imaginary Middle-Eastern kingdom. Here he charts its creation from first thoughts to finished pages.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 3:00 PM on January 28, 2012 (23 comments)

Sarah and the Seed - a 5-part comic about hope and babies by Ryan A.
posted to MetaFilter by heatherann at 7:31 AM on January 29, 2012 (20 comments)

Someone worked out when Ice Cube had his 'good day.'
posted to MetaFilter by secretdark at 1:29 PM on January 27, 2012 (156 comments)

One Hour Per Second - "In 1 minute 50 seconds of uploads to YouTube, an unlucky person falling through a bottomless pit travels 12,000 miles."
posted to MetaFilter by Memo at 7:11 PM on January 23, 2012 (33 comments)

Back in 09', Star Wars Uncut (previously) asked people to recreate 15 second chunks of Star Wars: A New Hope however they wanted, using live action, animation, text adventure screens, SCUMM interfaces, costumed pets, and more. Now they've been edited together to recreate the entire movie as a homemade, constantly shifting media experiment. (Vimeo link)
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 2:08 PM on January 20, 2012 (131 comments)

What were you raised by wolves? by Vera Brosgol. Cartoonist Vera Brosgol has posted her startling, wordless mini-comic online. [Previously] [Previously]
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 2:26 PM on January 18, 2012 (32 comments)

Gesture drawing from home: a convenient tool for practising figure drawing
posted to MetaFilter by rollick at 10:07 AM on January 17, 2012 (16 comments)

"After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago, my wife and I decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto. Everything you see here can be purchased at Type Books."
posted to MetaFilter by Toekneesan at 5:04 PM on January 9, 2012 (38 comments)

Don Hong-Oai (1929 - 2004), was a master of creating artwork which appeared to be Chinese ink illustrations, but were actually photographs. [gallery]
posted to MetaFilter by quin at 8:24 PM on January 6, 2012 (18 comments)

We've all seen variations on the personal time-lapse video -- a snapshot every day for six years, or a look at a young girl's first decade. But nobody's done it quite like Sam Klemke. For thirty-five years the itinerant freelance cartoonist has documented his life in short year-end reviews, a funny, weary, eccentric, and hopeful record dating all the way back to 1977. Recently optioned for documentary treatment by the government of Australia, you can skim Sam's opus in reverse in the striking video "35 Years Backwards Thru Time with Sam Klemke," an ever-evolving home movie montage that grows grainier and grainier as it tracks Sam "from a paunchy middle aged white bearded self deprecating schluby old fart, to a svelt, full haired, clean shaven, self-important but clueless 20 year old."
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:05 PM on December 31, 2011 (7 comments)

Modern Family, the Horror Movie remix. Finally, the dark truth about Alex Dunphy is revealed. [via]
posted to MetaFilter by quin at 1:21 PM on December 29, 2011 (15 comments)

Here is Dungeon Squad! A simple, free role-playing game intended for younger players (but enjoyable by older ones), with lots of dice rolling and action. Here's a couple of adventures for it, here's an expansion, and here's a more complex version. Here's the expansion Adventure Squad, in three PDFs: Core - Abilities - D&D 3E Classes. Here's yet another expansion.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 8:28 PM on December 24, 2011 (21 comments)

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous animated GIF reindeer of all?
posted to MetaFilter by brownpau at 3:50 PM on December 18, 2011 (22 comments)

In 1999 MTV launched Downtown, an animated slice of life show about young people in Manhattan's Lower East Side based on interviews with non-actors (Pilot part 2 part 3 ) created by animator Chris Prynoski (Daria, Beavis And Butt-head, Metalocalypse). Despite an Emmy nomination, the show was cancelled after one season (with one unaired episode). Like so many MTV shows, licensing complications prevented it from reaching DVD, meaning the only way to watch the show was to e-mail Chris directly. Until someone uploaded the entire series to Youtube.
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 8:38 AM on December 16, 2011 (18 comments)

Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (previous)
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 10:04 AM on December 16, 2011 (89 comments)

Feel-good SLYT of the day: "So tell me what it's going to be like now that you two are going to be grandpas."
posted to MetaFilter by roger ackroyd at 1:03 PM on December 15, 2011 (41 comments)

The Single Lane Superhighway is a simple website that lets you draw a car and join the parade of other drawn cars already on the road. Simple, yet sweetly engaging. Another interesting art project from Aaron Koblin, who has done several other notable social/data art projects (some of this, some of that, and some other things). Via waxy.
posted to MetaFilter by lubujackson at 7:34 PM on December 13, 2011 (37 comments)

On 13 October, Red Bull Music Academy went to London for Revolutions in Sound, filling each pod of the London Eye with a different musical act. One of them was Benji B with special guests The Deviation String Quartet and MC Judah. Here's a video of an hour of mixing UK garage and hip hop with live strings.
posted to MetaFilter by sveskemus at 7:26 AM on December 9, 2011 (12 comments)

A hive plot (slides) is a beautiful and compelling way to visualize multiple, complex networks, without resorting to "hairball" graphs that are often difficult to qualitatively compare and contrast.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 2:07 AM on December 4, 2011 (14 comments)

Need a hug? Take a visit to the nicest place on the internet.
posted to MetaFilter by to sir with millipedes at 4:12 PM on December 2, 2011 (69 comments)

Like many of the ibex farms sprouting up across the northeastern United States, Yael offers an intensive Chinese-language immersion course. The most emailed New York Times article ever.
posted to MetaFilter by gottabefunky at 10:43 AM on January 20, 2011 (59 comments)

Black Sun is a meticulously choreographed projection of motiongraphics onto dance, combining traditional and modern elements of Japanese culture and martial arts. Artist Nobuyuki Hanabusa and dancer Katsumi Sakakura, together known as Kagemu, have since been widely imitated by others, including Beyoncé.
posted to MetaFilter by klausman at 4:37 PM on December 1, 2011 (7 comments)

Animator James Curran has created an unofficial title sequence for Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin, "featuring elements from each of the 24 books." Evidently Spielberg likes the work and has offered Curran a job on a future film.
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 11:51 AM on November 29, 2011 (44 comments)

What happens when you stop time in a cartoon universe? You get animation smears. (single-serving Tumblr)
posted to MetaFilter by theodolite at 8:31 AM on November 28, 2011 (24 comments)

Back in 2006, a red sketch book started a journey around the world, traveling not through the mail, but from artist to artist. The idea came from Dice Tsutsumi and Gérald Guerlais, two animators at Blue Sky Studios. They compiled a list of 71 artists, personal friends and influential people they would like to have involved in their traveling sketch book. Dice and Gérald thought they could get it done in a year, but the book is now full, five years later. Another component of the project was to auction off the completed book and 9 reproductions, which was done in October, 2011, collecting more than 76,000 euros (100,000 US$) for the Room to Read international library-building organization. You can browse through the past travels on the Sketchtravel blog, view the participants by name or location on Sketchtravel.tv, along with video interviews and clips with 15 of the 71 artists. There are even more videos in Curio's Vimeo collection, and two informative interviews with Gérald Guerlais on NoWatch.net.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 11:02 AM on November 26, 2011 (1 comment)

The creators of Italian Spiderman were hired by Australia's multicultural TV network, SBS, to produce Danger 5: "Set in a bizarre, 1960s inspired version of World War II, action comedy series DANGER 5 follows a team of five spies on a mission to kill Adolf Hitler." The six-part TV series will air in February 2012, but the trailer and the first instalment of a promotional web-series are now playing.
posted to MetaFilter by robcorr at 2:29 PM on November 24, 2011 (30 comments)

Address is Approximate. "A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View."
posted to MetaFilter by BoringPostcards at 7:54 AM on November 23, 2011 (12 comments)

Korehira Watanabe, one of Japan's last swordsmiths (SLYT).
posted to MetaFilter by mahershalal at 2:09 PM on November 23, 2011 (27 comments)

Irina Werning has once again recreated the scenes from old photographs in a similar fashion as last time. (slightly NSFW)
posted to MetaFilter by gman at 2:13 PM on November 17, 2011 (44 comments)

With only about as much effort as manufacturing one’s own Great Pyramid of Giza, Atlanta prop-builder Harrison Krix designs and constructs his own Daft Punk–style helmet, complete with 320 red LEDs along the visor and twin cooling fans. (Delightful time-lapse making-of video [YouTube]. Design process: Part 1 ¶ Part 2 ¶ Part 3.) Now, what are you supposed to do with a prop like that? Pop it on and pose next to a DeLorean, obviously.
posted to MetaFilter by joeclark at 1:16 PM on November 12, 2011 (17 comments)

In February, DC Comics imprint Vertigo will finally reprint Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Vertigo unveiled a new piece of artwork by Quitely that will serve as the cover to the new deluxe edition. Long regarded as one of the finest superhero comics ever published, heavily annotated online, and subject of much study, the work has been out of print since its initial publication in 1996 due to a lawsuit with bodybuilder Charles Atlas's company. Atlas claimed that the title character infringed on his image, but DC successfully argued that Flex Mentallo's origin was a parody of Atlas's famous print ad, "The Insult That Made a Man Out of Mac". Despite its victory, DC had decided not to reprint the book and original issues of it often go for $30 or more each on eBay, though most who've read it at this point have done so via scanned copies from BitTorrent. When the new deluxe edition is finally published in February, it will leave Alan Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman as one of the last great superhero stories still waiting to be reprinted (though Marvel is clearly working on that, too).
posted to MetaFilter by davextreme at 2:59 PM on November 1, 2011 (108 comments)

Ian Hex writes about the features that make for a good UI typeface by comparing and contrasting five different fonts (Segoe UI, Lucida Grande, Ubuntu, Helvetica Neue, and Droid Sans) . He also links to a great post on the making of Azuro. Left out of the race was Nokia Pure.
posted to MetaFilter by dst at 10:23 AM on October 29, 2011 (25 comments)

Armstrong is an online graphic novel in 3 parts (with more potentially to come), each on a long-scrolling 'infinite canvas'. 1, 2, 3. It has everything, Superheroes, Zombies, Pirates, Cowboys and Cooties. Cooties? Well, it is set in a playground full of 4th graders.
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 4:03 PM on October 28, 2011 (7 comments)

Realistic portraits of the women of animated Disney films
posted to MetaFilter by boygeorge at 6:29 AM on October 23, 2011 (90 comments)

Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It
posted to MetaFilter by spacewaitress at 3:54 PM on October 18, 2011 (378 comments)

Now available for online viewing: the first episode of the new webseries by Felicia Day and her production company Knights Of Good, in association with Bioware -- Dragon Age: Redemption.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 5:46 PM on October 15, 2011 (38 comments)

The Ladder of Abstraction does an amazing, Tuftian job of illustrating the convergence of science, engineering, and intuition that is involved in tackling the difficult problems of today's systems and software.
posted to MetaFilter by rsanheim at 4:33 PM on October 11, 2011 (31 comments)

John Carpenter's THE THING: THE MUSICAL (slyt)
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 2:08 PM on October 10, 2011 (27 comments)

Fuck Yeah Chinese Myths is a more sober, Chinese-centric version of Myths RETOLD (previously).
posted to MetaFilter by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:26 PM on October 9, 2011 (14 comments)

In 1992, MicroProse published their first and only CRPG: Darklands. Set in medieval Germany, the game gives a lot of immersion, from its innovative lifepath system for character generation, to its use of period music, to the importance of knowing your saints, to tatzelwurms, quite fearsome dragons and raubritters. The game play is good, with lots of different ways of handling any conflict and a semi-realtime combat system. The game is also fundamentally open-ended; while there is a main plot (spoilers), it's possible to ignore that thread and keep playing for years.
posted to MetaFilter by jiawen at 9:58 AM on October 9, 2011 (35 comments)

Poop Splash Elimination
posted to MetaFilter by nam3d at 4:32 PM on October 8, 2011 (62 comments)