“This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more like an artist’s creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on September 15, 2006.
On this day, Saturn interceded between the Sun and Cassini, shielding Cassini from the Sun’s glare. As the spacecraft lingered in Saturn’s shadow, it viewed the planet’s rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world. Seen from more than a billion kilometers (almost a billion miles) away, through the ice and dust particles of Saturn’s rings, Earth appears as a tiny, bright dot to the left and slightly behind Saturn.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2007 in Animation
If any of you are in New York City you might want to head out to Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Friday night for this animation event (last year it was quite the party):
Stay Gold Gallery
Friday, May 4th – May 25th 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4th, 7pm-10pm
Special DJ guest: Mikael “DJ Ronny Monstrous” Jorgensen
“Stay Gold Gallery is pleased to present Too Art for TV, Too, the Second Annual Exhibition for New York’s Animation Industry. 35 artists, by way of toys, comics, prints, and paintings, liberate the skills otherwise “owned” by their television networks bosses.
In January of 2006, Too Art for TV opened as the first of this annual event. Drawing in an excited, elbow-to- elbow crowd of artists, illustrators, filmmakers, animators, and gallery goers, Too Art for TV unquestionably demonstrated the wide spread appeal of animation inspired art.
Animation artists are experts in monsters, robots, villains, and the changing genres of pop influence. They are the lusty consumers of graphic novels, toys, video games, art books, and the many incarnations of obsessive geek culture. Their careers make them excellent drafts-people, skilled at drawing and well adapted to the latest design technologies. Loaded with influences and abilities, their works when combined create an umbrella movement for pop surrealism, geek-core, graffiti, low-brow and the finer arts.
Seen above is a detailed RX-93-2 Hi-v Gundam made entirely out of paper. To check out the Japanese website that this is from go here. Found via japanator.com and dannychoo.com.
The above scene was cut from Kill Bill 2, and while it’s not my favorite it does fetaure a fun fighting scene! Below are two cool posters I overlooked from Kill Bill 2, the Japanese posters always look so cool to me:
And yes I’m still in mourning the poor box office that Grindhouse suffered…
What impressed me most about this Kabaya package design (click on the image to see at full size) is the character design of the panda bear which is featured all over the box. I love the primitive joy that the featured character design conveys with a powerful childlike scribble. Sadly the box is a bit too crammed to show off this prized mascot, however the side panel (shown on the far right) is a bit more easy on the eyes. It also always strikes me as odd when we encourage kids (or snack lovers) to save endangered wildlife by eating their chocolate cookie representations.
Upon doing a google search for “Sakusaku Panda” I was also pleasantly surprised to discover I’m not the dweller in Williamsburg Brooklyn who has an interest in Japanese panda cookies:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 29, 2007 in Videogames
In the above clip he BBC explores the underworld of World of Warcraft currency. They have a great interview with outsourced players in China who earn virtual points and sell them to Brits for real cash.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 29, 2007 in Animation
This fan made video features 30 minutes of opening titles from animated tv shows from the 1990s. It’s funny but looking at the animation from Animaniacs (or even TailSpin) I was quite impressed with the quality of the animation itself, it’s a real cut above what kids animation looked like on tv in the 70s and 80s.
Also it’s refreshing to see good old fashion squish and squash in the animation itself, these days with computer graphic rendered films like Shrek, there’s something very stiff about the animation. It may be a bit early to judge the 90s, but it’s good to recall that there was some good work going on. I also guess now that kids from the 90s will start hitting their young adult years that we’ll start to see more nostalgia from the Clinton era.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 28, 2007 in Animation
Shown above are two shots from an interactive online manga game called Makibishi Comic, which is a promo for Makibishi Inc. (a studio that does some nice Flash work). The term makibishi refers to small spiky objects ninjas used to deter pursuit in ancient Japan. The spines were often hooked and coated in poison for maximum non-pursuitedness. There’s a great little interview with Shinnosuke Kumazawa (one of the creators) here:
I guess Transformers is “more than meets the eye”, it’s the ears too:
“Japanese toymaker Tomy Company employee Chie Yamada poses wearing “Transformers Music Label Frenzy & Rumble playing earphone” in Tokyo, April 25, 2007. The earphone can be transformed from into a robot and will go on sale in Japan on July 19, 2007 for 3,950 yen.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 27, 2007 in Science
Professor Stephen Hawking looks pretty darn happy in that photo. It must be a nice reward to experience a taste of outer space after thinking about it for so many years (something I think every fanboy can empathize with).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 27, 2007 in Pulp Fiction
Shown above is an editorial spread (click to see at full size) from ‘The Science Fiction Book: An Illustrated History’ by Franz Rottensteiner, published in 1975. The book went into great detail on almost every major theme that could be found in science fiction, including the more far out authors of the era like J. G. Ballard and Michael Moorcock.
Seen on the left is a photographic illustration to Gretchen Haapennen’s ‘The Pieces of the Game’ in New Worlds #184. Shown on the right are illustrations by R. Glyn Jones (center) superimposed over an illustration for J. G. Ballard’s ‘The Killing Ground’.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 26, 2007 in Comic Books
In this fan made epic Gotham city looks a tad like suburbia, but what this Batman “film”lacks in budget, script, and acting it makes up with good old fashion charm. And if nothing else you’ll enjoy seeing Batman and the Riddler dance scene at the end of the film…
I know it sounds like a long lost cause at this point, but I’ve found myself thinking a few times of late just how much fun Grindhouse was – it’s been a long time were I’ve had that sort of silly fun watching a film. This got me to thinking about Quentin Tarantino’s love of, well let’s just say the low art of cinema.
A few years ago one of the cable channels (maybe it was Ovation or IFC?) gave Tarantino an entire block of time for his own film marathon of sorts. And one of the films he dragged out was none other than Navajo Joe!
Before this I had never heard of the film before, but for some odd reason it’s stuck in my mind when I think of Tarantino. It’s a 1966 Italian/Spanish Spaghetti Western, directed by Sergio Corbucci. But the kicker is that it stars Burt Reynolds, playing a Native American! The film features a very campy soundtrack and goes on forever, and of course the focus is good old fashioned revenge Here’s the trailer:
Seen above (click to see at full size) are two tin robot toys which I spotted sitting in a Soho storefront window in New York City. Even though the robots shown are based on a very old school design that was a bit before my day, seeing these two always brings me back to my childhood (and an appeciation of a sense of wonder and play).
Photographed by Michael Pinto on February 17, 2007
Yujin’s Time Capsule series features a variety of well known characters like Astroboy and Disney characters, and now they’ve added a Spiderman series to their collection:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 25, 2007 in Science
You know I’m half starting to think that while we may never meet alien lifeforms in my lifetime, that there may still be a shot at finding out where a few of them are hanging out:
“Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface. The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.
They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life. “We have estimated that the mean temperature of this ‘super-Earth’ lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.”
…by the way the potential planet is only 20 light years away, so start designing your warp drives now!
There’s some sad news for a poor fanboy in Japan, it seems his local tax dept. has decided to make him (and his valued toy figurine collection) an example:
“A tax office here has put a set of figures of young girls seized from a tax delinquent up for auction on the Internet “to deepen understanding about the prefectural government’s tax collection,” taxation officials said.
The figures, which were put up for auction by the prefectural government’s Otaru tax office, included characters from a love simulation game marketed in the 1990s. The figures are no longer produced and are considered valuable collectors’ items.
“Our aim isn’t to sell them for a high price, but to deepen understanding about tax collection in Hokkaido. We want to draw people’s attention,” an official from the tax office said.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 24, 2007 in Science
In Star Trek they’re always using deflector shields to protect themselves from hostile Klingon fire, but it seems that scientists may start to add deflector shields to protect astronauts from dangerous radiation in outer space:
“Magnetic “deflector shields” could one day guard astronauts against dangerous space radiation, if experiments now underway pay off. Exposure to energetic charged particles could put astronauts on lengthy missions at increased risk of cancer and even cognitive problems (see Future mars astronauts have radiation on their minds). The particles come from the solar wind and also from supernovae and still-unidentified sources outside the solar system.
The Earth’s magnetic field protects spacecraft in low-Earth orbits, such as the space shuttle and International Space Station, from such particles. But astronauts journeying to Mars or living on the Moon would benefit from no such protection. Now, US and European plans for long-term missions to the Moon and Mars have sparked renewed interest in the problem of radiation shielding.
One group at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, has just completed a round of experiments investigating one possible approach, using a bubble of charged particles, or plasma, as a deflector shield. Now, a second team has begun deflector shield experiments of their own. The team, led by Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, hopes to eventually fly a test satellite surrounded by a cloud of plasma in space.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 23, 2007 in Star Wars
With the 30th anniversary of Star Wars fast approaching (May 25th), it ‘s time to begin celebrating the galaxy far, far away all over again. Images from ‘The Making of Star Wars, the Definitive Story Behind the Original Film’, to be released by Ballantine Books on April 24. Check out an amazing sneak peak at the book here:
Seen above is an amazing model dollhouse based on Lord of the Rings. I love the sheer amount of detail and loving craftsmanship that went into this project:
Shown above is the Supergirl vinyl statue designed by the Japanese manufacturer Kotobukiya. If you want to do the Ken/Barbie thing Kotobukiya also has a Superman statue too! For more details check out this article at Toy News International.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 22, 2007 in Comic Books
Here’s yet another example how everyone in Hollywood needs to feel “creative” so they need to “improve” things, like the color the Incredible Hulk which will now go from green to gray:
“ust earlier this week the news hit the internet that Edward Norton would be taking on the role of Bruce Banner aka Hulk in the 2008 “redo” titled simply The Incredible Hulk. Some news has been creeping out about the film, which will hopefully be a better comic book adaptation than the 2003 Ang Lee movie, and it deserves to be mention since everything so far sounds like it’s going in the right directon. Marvel ex-CEO Avi Arad, who now heads up production on almost all major Marvel films and is currently out promoting Spider-Man 3 due out in a few weeks (another awesome Marvel adaptation that you should be excited to see), spoke earlier today and hinted that he may not be the same color as we saw previously. Although he wouldn’t confirm officially, the rumor is out that the Hulk may be grey this time.”
…I mean it’s not like the reason the last movie did so poorly had anything to do with the color of the Hulk!
UPDATE: Sorry campers! This internet rumor turned out not to be true, the Hulk stays green…
