OR! Onomatopoeics!

At the heart of every great piece of pop is a simple combination. A combination of words, a catchphrase, a combination of colors, an iconic image, and sometimes a combination of it all, so perfectly distilled that it sends shockwaves through our collective systems that never stop! Behold, Bat-viewers! It’s the action cards! Those everloving combinations of color and exclamation the likes of which have never been used as effectively before or since! Gotta catch em all, someday, you never know – a good shot is below!

This is a collection of bat-cards used at the point of contact in the Batman live-action television series and bigtime bomb movie! You’ll see combos of 2 and 3 colors as well as singular splashes over the still-moving screen. These kinds of cards of course come from the colorful creations drawn into comics since the dawn of coolness. Keep reading, bat-lovers, because the story doesn’t end there. Nay!

One must attest to the greatness of those who took and take the time to scour the great bat-archive for these images. Those fine folks with the time, effort, and great and holy task of watching every single episode of the Batman show and movie to find these indubitable images, look them up, they’s amazing! These are them: John (A.Pennyworth), Scott Sebring, Shadenfreude!, Bat Mania!, TV Squad!, Batman 66!, M-Rumors!, Cynical-C!, TV Acres!, Graphics Hunt!, Bat Blog!, Museum.TV!, and a bunch o’ random folks on Photobucket!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies comics category.

Surely you’ve heard of the merger that took place a bunch of months ago, the one where Disney corporation purchased Marvel Comics for 4 billion bucks. People cried, people laughed, people put mouse ears on every one of the Marvel Comics superheroes. But what about TRON? Who weeps for the forgotten combo? The best combo. The combo that just can’t happen, but definitely should because it’d be so light bright. I’m speaking of course of TRON meets Iron Man. Yes yes, how pretty the posters would be.

But the rest would be crap! Oh my god how horrible that’d be. But I love that initial image. Such greateness in glowing lines. There’s one more similar image in the gallery below, along with the tiny cross section of successful or mildly successful images created for the first B3TA forum Marvel VS Disney pic creator contest. No prizes, no official winner (I think you know which one it REALLY is though,) and no rules. Lots of crap. A few sassy moments of smarts. Lots of fun.

Fun for everyone! Take a peek through the gallery below, then feel free to show them up by making your own. Blow it up, put it on your wall, and break down, put mouse ears on it. I can tell you wanna, you dirty dogg you.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies bad taste category.

This is the first time World Famous Design Junkies has covered anything made by Little Thunder 門小雷, so there will be some extra details so you know who she is below. In a nutshell, she is a comic-style illustration artist and designer who also does Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Do you know what that means? It means she’s open to doing all sorts of radical things! In today’s post we see Little Thunder 門小雷 at the Hong Kong 2010 International Licensing Show, showing some lovely 3D items including models of her work and some SUPER CUTE pillow creatures!

You may explore the images from the show at the bottom of this post in the gallery, or first do this little bit of reading on Little Thunder 門小雷 right here. It’s a bio:

Little Thunder, international comic artist and illustrator who was born in Hong Kong in 1984. She knew drawing would be her life-time partner since she was a little child.

Having devoted herself into comic and illustration with passion and consistent hard in the past 15 years she has become very experienced and creative in great diversity of styles, elements, ideas and techniques. Over the years, she has her works published in Hong Kong, China and Europe.

At an age of 11, she first submitted her artwork to a comic magazine and got the same published with very much praise. Her art talent was confirmed at the time. Since then, she kept working very hard for her creative work in all spare time after school and got most of them published. This year, the 25 year-old LITTLE THUNDER has become much more famous and internationally recognized. Her first publication in Hong Kong has been published by “Kubrick” in July 2009. In addition, she collaborates with a Belgium publication “Darguard” and has her full colour comic “Kylooe” series published in France.

Apart from illustration and graphic design, she is also an amateur of photography, Chinese medicine and acupuncture.

To attach yourself to a larger, further understanding of the Little Thunder 門小雷 world, feel free to either search Little+Thunder (if this post is old enough for there to be new posts about her in our archives,) or head on over to her Blogbus blog or Flickr account or Facebook account. All are welcome!

Now check out these show photos, as taken by a friend of Thunder.

And beware the Spongebob!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies product design category.

For this occasion I’ve got to offer up this modified/chopped version of words from poet W. H. Auden: “Silence the pianos and with muffled drum. Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead. Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Truly it is an epic moment for the artist who brought us decades of undeniably epic fantasy art, Frank Frazetta, is dead.

This man was a fantasy artist, completely and utterly. He painted and drew, illustrations that cannot be touched now or then or anytime. He worked on cover art for novels, comic books inside and out, movie posters, album covers, and every sort of painting small and large for the sale to the rich.

This past November, a cover art painting he did for Conan the Conquerer sold to an unnamed collector for $1million bucks. This was such big news that WIRED had a flip-out session about it. He did the utterly wild covers of Molly Hatchet albums, covers and insides of Vampirella, and yes, yes! the movie poster for Beastmaster. Plus a whole big batch, nest, mountain of other works.

I only mention the Beastmaster poster because it’s mentioned in the forever-classic graffiti film Style Wars. Frank Frazetta was an influence to shitloads of people, the readers of the fantasy novels he covered to the graffiti artists in this film. Dig it:

Now I’m not going to say much more about the man here, I’ll let his images do the rocking, but just so you know, he died on May 10 in Fort Myers, Fla, and he lived to be 82 years old. Also here I’d like to thank my main homie johnstonamerica for alerting me and the rest of thegiant crew to Frazetta’s passing.

Now devour his greatness!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies ancient category.

Dude. Bounty Hunters? I heard that we probably don’t even need their scum. But today what we’ve got here is a bounty hunter invention competition. Fabulous illustrators from the streets both inventing new bounty hunters and bounty hunting new pictures of the old ones. They’re all just the most excellent such stuffs of the most laser-shooting knife-weirding dirt-wearers in the galaxy.

Of course this competition is Star Wars based, and of course it was first started at the most excellent forums in the pixel universe, Unit 16, which is a forum for discussing illustrations and being an illustrator for those who love to do both things. You should check it out! And bonus! If you like the illustration above, and several of the very similar illustrations below, you’ll be glad to know we just did a whole post on the draw man!

Check him out at Stay Tuned for Scott Van.

Get shot! The following illustrations were done by the following codenames: mish mash with Bobafett, g-rag with Boushh, darkreaver – Baz Bahadur, dougbot – Scroat, asnmdirtehw – Greedo, French Duke – Joe Camel, DamselinDistress – Jawa, Teemu – Eastwood v Skywalker, garbage guts – Horny Babe, submarine captain – Hawley Mantu, submarine captain – Sai Koon-Da’a, DamselinDistress – Lobot, and Pentothal with Lee Van Tuco. Each of those is the name of the illustrator then the name of their hunter. Please love Lobot. He is a special man/robot, and it isn’t his fault that he’s terrible at bounty hunting.

If YOU want to make a bounty hunter, or have a bounty hunter to contribute to this already epic set, please feel free to post it below in the comments, or to contact me or us and email a pic so it can be posted here! It’s just bounty hunter magic.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies ink category.

Since you’re here, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’ve seen the movie Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. In it is one of the most fantastic no-words-speaking little men in the whole world. He is a character named “Feral Boy” in the credits, noone says his name the whole movie. In the movie he is known for throwing a bad-ass boomerang that cuts off the fingers of one of the bad guys and chomping its way into the brain of another. He’s a deadly little fellow. He’s also presented with a fun little music box by Mel Gibson! But this is all beside the point. The pictures you see above and below are by an artist who happens to share the name “Feral Boy” with that character, and his paintings here are unbelievable.

Above and below you will see a collection of 12 works by Feral Boy.

Feral boy employs several methods in making his works, including acrylic, collage (including some rather precise cuts of paper and tape), gouache, watercolor, and probably like a half dozen more. But that covers these. These right here are the newest of the newer pictures, let’s hope for more. Lucky you, you can follow Feral Boy on his own rhythemically updated news feed at http://souvlaki.jp-ar.org/, where you can also see his beautiful works for the covers of the comic Fables. Your eyeballs will melt with pleasure.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies grotesque category.

The United States Government’s collection of fantastic or otherwise hyper-powerful things. Yes! This is what you and I KNOW they’re hiding. Every superhero or strange thing they’ve made a movie of is true! Real stuff, made entertainment to throw us off the track! But now Obama knows, so who knows what’ll happen next! The following is a collection of edited photos conjured up by comic artist Dean Trippe and submitted to us to tell the truth! That truly President Obama has been allowed into the motherload factory of awesome to inspect the weapons and gadgets of the greats. Many more in store.

This set of photos is called “Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things” but it’s quite obviously an AKA to throw us all off the path again! Truly it must be real, photos of Obama’s look into the inner workings of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division aka S.H.I.E.L.D.! What a world we live in!

Below you will find the doorway to Narnia, the Tardis, the Sword of Omens, a proton pack, a friendly little mogwai, Mjonir hammer of Thor, a Mark IV SPARTAN helmet, the Mach 5, Link’s shield, a lightsaber, a hoverboard, the ring of the Green Lantern, the Fortress of Solitude, the shield of Captian America, and a collection of Bat accessories.

Bounce through these photos below and be thankful President Bush was never allowed in! What kind of terrible things kept safe now in the loving arms of Obama might have been let loose under such a Texan! Nay, now these secrets are still safe.

The location is still hidden, the supervillains at bay.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies accessories category.

Oh Snoopy Bones, you’ll never be as funny as regular Snoopy. Cripes. Let’s count a few of the different projects that have done basically this same thing, keeping in mind that I encourage this project to be done as many times as possible: Jason Freeny, Hyungkoo Lee, and Angela Moramarco. The project you’re looking at at the moment is called “Character Study” and it’s by illustrator / designer / artist Michael Paulus.

A few words from our current hero in post:

Animation was the format of choice for children’s television in the 1960s, a decade in which children’s programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive.

I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

These characters have become conventions that are set, defined, and well-known personas in our culture. 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.

Frightening! Perhaps a cross section of every cartoon character ever is in order? I’m sure the skeletal innards of a human being apply to every little thing we can think of, when it comes down to the wire, yes? I believe so.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies deconstruction category.

Hey how much do you know about comics? A lot? Good. Not a lot? S’ok! Right here I’m going to talk about what every comic book really, really comes down to – the single frame in every important comic storyline where everything starts. What I’ve got here is ten of those moments from my own humble comic collection, ten moments that everything comes down to. Take a peek at how these single boxes are constructed – and see how similar they are.

Ten panels that start storms. That’s what we’ve got here. Take note that these aren’t the greatest cross-section as far as producer variety goes, as they’re all from either Marvel or DC comics, but their illustrators and storytellers are basically all different.

See: color, border, size (compared to page, where applicable), and amount of text, amongst other features I’m sure.

1 ) Bishop Sees Juggernaut, flying through the air. As it turns out, the big J’s been smashed from the West Coast all the way over to New Jersey by the being known as Onslaught. This is the first time we hear of the being that’ll later kill a big lot of the Marvel Universe, including, but not limited to (by a longshot), a crapload of Inhumans, the Avengers, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and the Hulk (but not Bruce Banner!)

2 ) Spiderman, aka Peter Parker, gets married. Without a hitch! Peter spends the whole comic worrying about the terrible things that might happen during the ceremony, but wow! It turns out just fine! And not only that, it turns out great! Too bad for the gigantic looming threat that turns out to eventually to be the black costume (see: #4.)

3 ) Professor X accepts Rogue into the X-Men. As you may know, Rogue starts her journey in the Marvel Universe as a bad guy, running around with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but one day she shows up at the mansion, looking for help. And Xavier, being the angel he is, and seeing her awesome potential, accepts her as not only a student, but as a member.

4 ) Spiderman finds the symbiotic entity that eventually becomes Venom. During the series called the “Secret Wars”, Spiderman is in a building with his super-pals with a pile of amazing alien technology. The Hulk and his bud tell Peter he can fix his ripped up costume in a room they’ve just exited using a machine they’d just used. In his excitement, Spiderman happens upon the wrong machine, one containing the Venom! Pop! There it is!

5 ) Superman finds Doomsday, hot on the path of ultimate urban destruction. The battle that ensues causes the death of not only the ultimate destructive power of the alien, but of Superman as well. This storyline is what most consider the only “true” storyline where Superman actually gets killed. The other one involves lots of alternate dimensions and basically sucks! This storyline not only lasts several months, it spans back before Superman’s race was born. Hardcore.

6 ) Upon sending Galactus into another dimension “forever”, the Fantastic Four fortell the future of the Silver Surfer for the first time. Eternally tormented, free and yet trapped, doomed to live amongst mortals while gifted with the powers of the gods. What horror!

7 ) Bane Breaks Batman. This was some crazy crap. This creature Bane snaps Bruce Wayne’s back in two, causing him… well… to not be able to walk anymore. He doesn’t die! But you know, Batman? He’s not really as effective after that point.

8 ) Thor holds up a skyscraper. With the help of Spiderman he fixes it, but it’s that darned Mongoose! Basically one of the fruity villians, Mongoose puts both Spiderman and Thor in a bind by busting down a rather important weight-bearing bit of building and escaping. This isn’t exactly an integral part of the lives of either of these heroes, but it is interesting how a goofball meelee villian beats two undeniably powerful superbeings.

9 ) Spiderman (Peter Parker) discovers his friend Harry Osbourne has taken up the mantel of his dead father, creating one of the most important und longest lasting and most totally amazingly badass yet silly villians in Spiderman history: the Green Goblin.

10 ) Galactus meets Antman. This event never “really” happens, as it takes place in a comedy comic, part of the “What If” series, but it’s basically the best matchup ever.

Squoink!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies outer space category.

Hello ! And welcome to the first limited collection of single cuttout frames right out the comic books! I’m sure you’ve noticed the trend o’ people goin on into their illustrated novels, chopping out single frames and posting them on the interwebs. When they’re by themselves, they mean so much more! Or so much different. Below you’ll find the first bunch of frames I’ve begun harvesting for World Famous Design Junkies. These are all from Spiderman comics. Spiderman web spinning or web spinning related comics for shiznil. Find the greatness in the singular frame right here.

The process is quite simple – open your comic book, find the frames that are uninterrupted by other frames or by conversation text. If the frame can stand on its own, it definitely should be allowed to make that stand. Photograph or scan, and cut out nicely. Allow to spread over the internet, the great machine, for all time.

Good job!

All of these frames come from here, so link back if you’re cool and want to re-post them, but also remember that they’re all ©copyright Marvel Comics and all that too. And even though Stan Lee basically has no rights if what I hear is true, he’ll probably stab you too.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies comics category.

Adam Koford is an illustrator who knows his space. He’s a comic artist who knows where his box is. He knows how important, essential, and healthy it can be to climb around in and cultivate a single culture. His is of these internets. Not just that though, cats. Cats and comics. Koford has a narrative running that contains two cats who are homeless, but know the solids they can do inside a single frame.

One joke each, always conscious of the media.

Look at that comic up there! It’s doin it wrong! It’s amazing! Look below for another selection of Kofords pieces too, then call up your local newspaper and tell them to carry this comic! It goes by the name Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, not to be confused with “LOLCats”, which is an entirely different thing.

The thing is though that these cats have a very similar vernacular to the LOLs. They’ve got quirks of their own, too, like the little one, Pip, he loves leaves! In fact, in one comic, you find out he’s been writing fanfic about them!

The strip this comic reminds me of most, and in fact it probably owes homage to them in spirit, is Megatokyo. The first comic I ever saw that used what they call “L33T SP34K”, that being a slang collection based on internet lingo – one with pretty specific rules and word usages – as a real deal, actual language!

Similar things are going on here. Wonderful things.

Now here’s where it gets extra awesome. Not only did the Laugh-Out-Loud cats exist WAY WAY before LOLCats, it was started by Koford’s great grandfather between 1912 and 1913! How about that! Now hear a bit about this history from Koford himself:

Not many people know this, but my great grandfather Aloysius “Gorilla” Koford, was also a cartoonist (see the video evidence here [*BELOW]). From 1912-1913 he produced a comic strip which was featured in 17 newspapers, including the Philadephia Star-Democrat, the Tampa Telegraph, and the Santa Fe Good-Newser. The strip was entitled “the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats” and featured the exploits of one Meowlin Q. Kitteh (a sort of cat hobo-raconteur) and his young hapless kitten friend, Pip. The strip did not last long due to a run-in my great-grandfather had with none other than William Randolph Hearst.

See, the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats was syndicated by one of Hearst’s competitors, so “Big Willy” (as Hearst was known in his day) used the bully pulpit of his media empire to hound and mock the efforts of my great-grandfather. Hearst scribes insinuated Aloysius was an actual trained gorilla and purported to have evidence in the form of banana shipping statements. (In reality, my great-grandfather was an expert climber and incredibly hirsute, and had earned the nickname in college.) Pressures continued to mount and Aloysius hung up his pen after only a year of working on the strip. He turned to a life of quiet dignity as a steamer captain and part-time walrus hunter.

Here’s the video mentioned in that first paragraph of Koford’s great grandfather doing a drawing of one of his cats around 1912. Kool!

Now thank you for reading up on this fantastic phenomenon! I want you to check out some of the comics below or just go straight on into the archive as whipped up by Koford. He’s also got some stuff for sale and even a tomb of a bunch of the first strips. Koo koo!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies kawaii category.

Being a boy in the late 80′s and early 90′s meant that I played with action figures. Like most the kids I knew, I had TMNTurtles, legos, and all that fun stuff, plus a bunch of He-Man figures. I don’t know where they came from, I never even watched He-Man! But I know the characters because I had the figures. The man who did the poster print you see above and below knew his stuff. He was an AVID He-Man fan. He knows so much about He-Man that he hypothesized the history of He-Man and did this print: “Mr. Villians Class of 1983.”

Classy.

As you might already have guessed, every one of those characters there is a He-Man villain except for He-Man himself. He-Man is of course a dunce in this, he being the only one who does not like evil or killing for fun.

This image was made for an art show called “We’ll Be Right Back…After These Messages” that pays homage to the classic cartoons of the 80′s and early 90′s. Friggin neat. The poster print is an edition of 50 printed in the giclée fashion. You could even buy it I bet if you headed on over to the artist’s shop: Christopher Lee (The Beast is Back). I believe he has just a few left!

Print details:
Edition of 50, hand signed and numbered
Paper Size: 13″ x 19″
Image Size: 11″ x 17″
Paper Type: Hahnemuhle Torchon, 285gsm
Printed with archival inks

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies posters category.

Should you ever find yourself in feudal Japan, you’re gonna need, NEED!, to know what symbols are what. And I’m not talking about signs for the bathroom and the sword hut, I mean crests. Badges that express heraldry in Japan since 900 A.D., peaking in production and diversity in the feudal age. Lots of badges made right around there in time. In this post there are over a hundred unique crests, each of them marked and categorized, each of them reproduced faithfully from the greatest book in the world, Ernst Lehner’s long out of print hard and soft cover symbologists dream book “Symbols, Signs, & Signets.”

Some of y’all might remember earlier this month when we took a look at a different part of this same book for some Hobo Symbologies. Really excellent stuff. The symbols you’re about to take a look at are from a completely different part of the universe – Japan.

Worn on garments on the back of the neck, the shoulders, and on each breast. Worn on everything, fighting uniforms, skateboard gear, birthday suits, figure skating costumes, everything except wedding robes, mourning robes, and hara-kiri garments.

Below you’ll find symbols from basically every wild category you’d ever want to symbolize about: flowers, fruits, vegetables, canopies, umbrellas, fans, ships, sails, weapons, helmets, butterflies, insects, birds, fish, mammals, scrolls, and dragons. There’s also a few illustrations of some folks from that era by artist Totoya Hokkei. – and on that note, if anyone has any Hokkei prints just lying around their house, they can feel free to send em on over!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies museum category.

The stash is here. Cliff Chiang‘s sent us in a box of fabulous flats. Prints from the streets of comicdom. Everything we need to start our insane Cliff Chiang collection! First, a set of Atomic Bombshells postcard-sized prints. Then, an insanely colorful signed print of the whole gang from Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Mortality (fear the Nazi ape.) Next, two more brilliant prints: Batman over Gotham and a totally bad warrior woman battling a minotaur that even if you don’t recognize, you’ll have to love. And the crowning jewels: prints of both the Electra/Flashdance record cover AND my favorite Batgirl/Purple Rain.

Holy crap these are fantastic.

If you’ll remember right, you’ll know we covered the 12″ series a few days ago, and it promptly exploded all over the internets face. [Batgirl Is Now Prince]

Now check them, and the friggin rest of the riggin in the gallery below. Notice the most excellent printing on these prints. I’m a screenprint man, so I’m pretty harsh on the giclée prints, but these, these, holy crap they are finely done. They’re bright, they’re correct (the colors are very TRUE), and the quality is quite fine. The Batman and the Minotaur prints both have a chop, which ads a whole other level of quality.

Makes them look real pro, if you know what I mean.

A “chop” is sort of like a stamp, but instead of laying down ink, it’s got two parts, both metal, that when pressed together on paper, make a 3D mark. The paper is pushed outward in whatever design the artist has chosen. In this case, it’s Chiang’s box signature. Super!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies printing category.

And the Teen Titans are now the Brat Pack?! Well that’s just silly. Silly beyond belief! Delve in, if you dare, at the small but fabulously enjoyable collection of comic book hero-to-album cover conversions of illustrator Cliff Chiang. Inside I think you’ll find at least several of your vinyl album and comic book fantasies come to fruition at long last.

When you are a comic illustrator (or inker, or any of those sorts of artists involved in the whole comic process,) you’ve got to do more than just work on the book to make your way. You’ve got to go to comic conventions. Lots of them! And when you do go there, and sit at a booth and hope someone comes up hoping for an autograph, you’ve got to have something sitting around for sale for them to buy so you can sign it!

This isn’t always true, in fact many artists are swamped by people wishing for them to sign their favorite comics, and there’s always the people who want body parts signed. But for those who come empty handed, there’s projects like these! Creative ways for artists to create a fun and unique bit of simplicity to sign for their adoring fans.

In this case, quite unique indeed.

Cliff Chiang’s taken several classic 12″ album covers, converting them into what’s very obviously their comic-world-counterpart. Electra is Flashdancing, Vampirella has the fashion sense of Duran Duran! Obviously. Explore this set and cross your fingers that this trend continues in Chiang’s work.

“Dear Batman: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in Bat-detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an archer, and a speedster, and a swimmer, a princess, and an acrobat. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Teen Titans.”

Thank you, John Hughes. Rest in peace.

-Cliff Chiang

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies custom culture category.

Yo! And behold! An amazing accomplishment from a simple fellow looking to have a little fun! This right here is the newest collection of characters illustrated by designer Dean T Fraser for his project “Springfield Punx!” He’s been at this for little over a year drawing these characters strictly as a personal adventure. What Dean does is take celebrities as well as fantasy characters of fame, transforming them into residents of the Simpsons’ Springfield! This newest set of his is just what the comic nerd ordered: Marvel Comics!

Dig on the common denominator.

The yellowness!

The round noses!

In this fabulous set from Dean, you’ll get all your favorites! The Fantastic Four, Deadpool, X-Men, Blade (Wesley Snipes version,) Iron Fist, Spider Man, Dare Devil, Silver Surfer, The Hulk (including She Hulk!,) Ghost Rider, Punisher, Ms. Marvel(?!,) Thor, Luke Cage, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, Captian America, and everyone inbetween – 58 illustrations of 50+ individual superheroes and superheroins!

And bonus! I added an older set of his from his blog: the one and only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (including Shredder, of course.)

Springfield Punx is a little pet project of mine. The idea of doing fan art parodying some of my favorite characters and stars in such a fun and simple style got me hooked immediately. Some of these guys and gals have appeared on the Simpsons and I could just work from that, but most I had to do from scratch.

Lemme re-note here that this is a personal project of Dean’s called Springfield Punx and it’s not officially affiliated with Marvel Comics, Mirage (TMNT,) or the Simpsons in any way other than in friendly parody.

Just for the taste of it!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies custom culture category.

Enlarge your mind with these vague old testament references. You Noah’s Ark wannabe. These are brand new, made for a meat market / deli in Toronto. A bunch of people worked together to bring this together, including a designer, a creative director, an art director, an illustrator, and to the most important degree(?), the client. Maybe the Bible had a little bit to do with it.

If you’re looking for a source, or some direction in the world, you’d me smart to peek at some of the most gorgeous religious illustrations in history: the Lindisfarne Gospels of northern England. I’ve included a couple down there in the gallery, take a peek at the full pages and a little bit of detail. Of course nothing is compared to seeing them irl.

The illustrations done for this Caplansky’s triad are by Toronto resident illustrator Geoff Donovan. He’s currently got a twitter account but no portfolio site. What a crime!

Design: Bensimon Byrne, Toronto
Creative Director: David Rosenberg
Art Director: Glen D’souza
Illustrator: Geoff Donovan
Client: Caplansky’s
Date: 2009

The tip for these illustrations came from none other than that best resource for Canadian design, the Canadian Design Resource. This post you’re looking at is part of the World Famous Design Junkies food category.

Let me tell you what’s in. Dead, hilarious things. Zombies are hilarious. Not always, but most of the time. Monster mash – thats the dance you should be doing if you want to be totally hot right now. That’s what the one called Kristian Hammerstad is up on. Dead things. Eyeballs falling out and skin burning off. Frightening wildness. All illustrated, color, nice lines.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Zombies are terrifying. Everyone knows that it’s important to either face your fears or find a way to avoid them entirely your entire life. I’d wager that most of the people who deal with zombies in their line of work don’t fit the mold of an ambulothanatophobic.* But the people who deal with zombies allow the people who have to face their fear face it in comfort. With a smile on their face!

*The irrational fear of the walking dead. [term coined by Rob Friesel]

Kristian Hammerstad

Sagene
Oslo
Norway
Europe
Earth
Sol system
Milkyway
Universe

info@kristianhammerstad.com
(+47) 97686002

Copyright 2009 Kristian Hammerstad. All rights reserved.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies illustration category.

Yes there are some times when its appropriate to draw sports figures, believe it or not! The golden, romantic age of sports heros is over – Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson do not play sports anymore. But here’s a couple of women who love sports men so much they draw them with felt pens & markers to this day! These illustrators are named Sandra & Annika and they go by the team name YAWN.

YAWN means YEAH! AWESOME! WOW! NICE! What a weird thing. Yawn is like a yawn, boring, crappy, tired, but then it means something amazing here.

It’s just totally clever, isn’t it?! It is!

An ongoing project. There are times when we tend to like certain stuff and then draw it almost obsessively. This is obviously a time when we liked sports guys. It all started when Annika wanted to get a football helmet…

Look around! Find a few sports figures! My favorite drawing is of the USA swimmers from the Beijing winter olympics MICHAEL PHELPS FOREVER.

This post is from the World Famous Design Junkies pizza party category.

Brand flippin new works from the design / art collective FAILE. The works contained in this post are dubbed (by Faile) to be the Wood Paintings set and will be formally introduced next week at FIAC art fair in Paris with Perry Rubenstein Gallery. Faile’s going to be represented by Perry Rubenstein in the United States from now on, their first show to be some time mid-2010. This set of fine art pieces is the first bunch to be produced and shown in corroboration with PRG. And they’re HUGE.

As you can see, these pieces are made out of blocks. The insane amount of work that’s gone into each little tiny big of these constructions is staggering from a craftsman’s point of view, then there’s the lovely look of it all. Absolutely museum-grade. These are so giant and so fantastic I’d feel terrible owning them outside of a gallery situation. These amalgamations need to be seen by as many eyes as there are type-loving minds in the world.

First things first, we are proud to announce Perry Rubenstein Gallery will be representing Faile here in the US. We have plans to do a solo show with the gallery in mid-2010. We will be debuting new works with Perry Rubenstein at FIAC in Paris next week. The fair opens on the 22nd of October and runs through the 25th of October. They can be found at booth D01 in the Cour Carree.

Size and medium of each piece is as follows – Match the name of the piece up with the title of the image in the gallery. If you don’t know, ask! One of our friendly associates will help you out if you have any questions!

Giant Jackpot Dreams
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
48.25in x 42.25in (122cm x 107cm)

Fantasy Within Me
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
20in x 24in (50cm x 70cm)

Choose Your Pleasure
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
20in x 24in (50cm x 70cm)

The Supreme Ultimate Fantasy
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
48.25in x 42.25in (122cm x 107cm)

Genuine Gold Caps
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
40.5in x 24.5in (102cm x 62cm)

Burning Brave
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
40.5in x 24.5in (102cm x 62cm)

Wicked Faile
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
64.5in x 40.5in (163cm x 102cm)

Beyond the World of Faile
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
24in x 36in (70cm x 91cm)

Sacred Fantasy
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
24in x 36in (70cm x 91cm)

Select Hardcore Faile
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
24in x 36in (70cm x 91cm)

Forever Brooklyn
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
48.25in x 42.25in (122cm x 107cm)

Faile Wonderland
Acrylic & Silkscreen Ink on Wood, Steel Frame
64.5in x 40.5in (163cm x 102cm)

Or you could probably contact Sean Anderson for more information.

HERO: a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. Typically caped. I just made that up. I stole a little bit from the Apple dictionary. But it’s all true. What we’ve got here is a project on heroes by photographer Dulce Pinzon. This project projects the fantastic nature of the Mexican Immigrant Worker as a true hero. What makes the project spectacular is the costumes (duh), but more importantly: attached to each photo of a hero is their occupation and the amount of money they send back home each week (from the USA to their family in Mexico.)

Above: Bernabe Mendez from the state of Guerrero works as a professional window cleaner in New York. He sends 500 dollars a month.

This is a super amazing set. Pinzon hits the nail on the head with the perfectly direct message. Her original inspiration came way back in 2001 after the WTC attacks in NYC – it took a while to come to fruition, but she’s got it right: heroes are working all the time. In events of catastrophe as well as in events of long, drawn out hardship.

Big ups for those who do well for others.

SUPERHEROES

This project consists of 20 color photographs of Mexican and Latino immigrants dressed in the costumes of popular American and Mexican superheroes. Each photo pictures the worker/superhero in their work environment, and is accompanied by a short text including the worker’s name, their hometown, the number of years they have been working in New York, and the amount of money they send to their families each week. — Full Statement

This post bursts through brick walls and flips over giant buildings in the World Famous Design Junkies photography category.

OSCAR GONZALEZ from the state of Oaxaca works as a cook in New York. He Sends 350 dollars a week.

ALVARO CRUZ from the state of Mexico works as a cook and runs with Los Compadres team. He Sends 300 dollars a month.

LUIS HERNANDEZ from the State of Veracruz works in demolition in New York. He sends 200 dollars a week.

What up bluefaces! Here’s a couple new images from the Burlesque Design and Printmaking group. Yes oh yes the content’s the finest: Smurfs getting generally pretty much inappropriate, and Gargamel doing a neat kickflip trick on his skateboard machine! It’s amazing how much free stuff – in terms of humour – you can get from classic cartoons that tended to have odd, unsettling subtexts. These particular images are made for Minneapolis’s single skateboard-only shop Familia. Get on the board and push with two hot spankin new screenprint posters!

FAMILIA SMURFS PRINTS
Our friends over at Familia Skateshop (Minnesota’s only all-skateboard shop) know how to get down. They’ve enlisted the help of the one and only Todd Bratrud to get themselves Smurfed into the party zone. We have TWO new posters for you – one featuring a rowdy famiilia of Smurfs and another featuring badman Gargamel pon di kickflip.

SMURF PRINT
19 x 19″
8 color print on Cougar White paper

GARGAMEL PRINT
12 x 25″
5 color print on French Speckletone Cream or Relic Gold paper

I bet you’ve never seen Gargamel rip the sky a new one like that. He’s kind of been shy about his skills before now, but he got convinced to come out of the coping closet once he saw his blue-footed adversaries having a totally fun night partying hard. I’m hoping for a special edition Azrael “Smurfy Breakfast” print. Until then!

This post is in the World Famous Design Junkies bad taste category for debauchery.

[audio:http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/gargamel.mp3]

Also two minutes for high sticking.

So guess what. I posted the comic you see above on a sort of “hidden” part of the site a few weeks ago on a bit of a whim, and it’s been getting hits every single day since then. More than a couple, shall we say. So I was all like “orly” and I did some fabulous investimagating with my magnifying glass (it’s got a tiny web address on it and I found the man who did it, he did it all: Phil Selby. He’s a cartoonographer. Or a cartooner?

Oh yes he is an illustrator. I don’t know what else I’d call a person like this. No, nothing else comes to mind. This guy, Phil, is a Type Conscious artist. He is a Type Conscious person. That makes him 50% stronger in life and in professionalism in the world than everyone who isn’t Type Conscious, and 100% stronger than everyone who isn’t conscious at all.

PS. All cartoons on this website © Phil Selby 2007-2009 – http://bigeyedeer.wordpress.com

Contact me at pselby@tpg.com.au

Cheers!

Phil

He’s a totally rad guy! Email him and talk to him and such! Below I’m sure you’ll find a spattering of his more hilarious comics (and so say all of us.)

This post is straight from the World Famous Design Junkies Bad Taste category, which incidentally might be the best tasting category of them all.

Have you been on these internets the past few days? I bet you have been. I wonder if you’ve seen this lovely cartoon conglomeration rolling around? I sure did. It’s been places like ffffound, ffffacebook, and Dropular! All over the place, bringing on hecka smiles and nods “yes, that is excellent,” except there was one thing missing!

The artist!

Who designed and drew this perfect combo breaker?

Here’s how it went down, basically: first and foremost, Felickey was designed and executed.* Soon after that, Brazillian artist and publisher De Proposito made it pop unto the great internet machine. Next, someone picked it up with ffffound, then of course it went on over to the eyes of Sticker Robot, who posted it in the Sticker Robot facebook. It was on vi.sualize.us, it was on imgfav, Friend Feed, und more than likely a ton of a bunch of more sites that didn’t label our cartoon friend at all!

But don’t worry! He’s been tracked down by the World Famous Design Junkies Super Internet Adventure Crew and Sleuthing Department!

*Edward Lenzi. He’s a graphic designer! He tells us he’s working on getting another portfolio together but for now, feel free to peek out at his flickr conglomeration.

Hi, Chris

I’m glad u contacted me.
Yeah, I made Felickey. Then a friend of mine, also a brazilian graphic artist, posted it on her blog and after a while they ffffound it. Never had some of my works published there.I liked it very much.
I hope soon I can make posters or some Felickey tee shirts.

Edward

UPDATE Also props to my stumbleupon pal Tabby1471 for the tips that lead to the find!

Social media powers activate!

During the search and beyond, the World Famous Design Junkies icon on facebook and on twitter is the “Felickey D!”

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies Unnatural Nature category!

Get wild!

Oh my goodness Goopymart. They’ve got Goopy comic illustrations that are just lovely, and here’s a set. Here’s a set of illustrations from Goopymart that are sure to set you giggling, and they’re designed real nice too. The ever-fabulous old man at the door yelling at the peoples on his property, multiplied. Beware the gorilla apes.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies comics section.

Oh ja! I love eBoy so much! They (eBoy group) have made my favorite conglomeration of pixel-made world scenes and vehicles and people and everything ever! Their pixels are absolutely lovely. This week, they’ve been commissioned to do the cover of DER SPIEGEL magazine. The commission includes a giant stop sign being constructed amidst internet signs of the most popular and wild sites for the headline “warum das internet neue regeln braucht” aka “why the internet needs new rules.”

Look at that thing! It’s very similar in content to another quite-recent work from eBoy for the Maker Faire. Internets signs galore! In this new one, see if you can find the following: flickr, skype, Google, YouTube, The Pirate Bay (exploding), Sex.com (retro!), del.icio.us, YouPorn, Yahoo, and look right below the S on the STOP sign, that’s the Spiegel bird, so cute!

Also watch out for nude pixel people!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies pixels category.