Sticking with the Bettie Page theme for a bit, Inkwell Studios is…
An eclectic graphic arts studio specializing in editorial illustration, poster design, concept art, character development, logos & typography and, well, just about everything else.
Their portfolio includes both a Fun and a Retro section, and the Retro section is a lot of fun indeed.
Go and take a look at Gavin Aung Than’s interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s If on Zen Pencils. Go now. You won’t regret it.
Not long ago, the XKCD Cartoon, So It Has Come To This started a trend, on Identi.ca if nowhere else, of people following the cartoon’s protip.
With today’s XKCD, I see another meme in the making…
… dot tumblr dot com
Today’s Zen Pencils cartoon is based on a Robert Frost quote, and does feel depressingly appropriate.
After a brief photographic interlude, Pin-up Sunday is back to classic and contemporary (non-photographic) art. And where better to return than the incomparable Bettie Page as drawn by the ever reliable Dave Stevens.
Dave Stevens was an American illustrator and comics artist, probably most famous for creating The Rocketeer. This was a pulp-style adventure story in which a down-on-his-luck pilot named Cliff Secord who finds a mysterious rocket pack. The Rocketeer proved to be one of the first crossover successes to emerge from the independent comics movement of the 1980s and was even turned into a film.
One notable strategy employed by Stevens in the Rocketeer was to base the hero’s on-again, off-again girlfriend on Bettie Page. This, combined with Stevens’ undoubted ability to capture Page’s then almost-completely forgotten brand of casual sexuality sparked an underground cultural revival in the model’s life and career.
This image, for a long time, was the basis of my desktop background. I may well use it again.
Zen Pencils is the website of freelance illustrator, Gavin Aung Than. Three times a week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday) he takes an inspirational quote and turns it into a cartoon.
I heard about this site via the Bad Astronomy blog, which linked to a cartoon based on a Carl Sagan quote.
Then I saw what he’d done with the Bene Gesserit Litany against fear and this site went straight into my RSS reader.
I’m not sure how I found this photo by Deviant Art member koukei (aka Australian photographer, Peter Coulson) but it is so striking that it really did stop me in my tracks.
Sinfest is one of the better comics on the web, and today’s instalment is another superb combination of truth and cute.
In 2009 New Zealand photographer Talia Stephens launched Miss T Pinups with a photographic style that celebrates femininity and form with a hint of tease. The Pin-Up Files has a quote:
When I first started out I felt like people didn’t take me seriously because I was fairly young. But it turned out to only be a barrier that I set up for myself. Confidence is key – if you believe you can do it, others will too.
Personally, I just love the jokey tone of this photo.
io9 is a site I visit on occasion, but I hadn’t seen this collection of apocalyptic pin-ups from Russian illustrator, Andrew Tarusov before the Antihippy mentioned them in the comments of last week’s post. I’m grateful, because they are very good indeed.
Apocalypse Tomorrow is a 2012 calendar with a goofy take on the end of the world. It doesn’t look like the calendar is available in print — maybe Tarusov should make desktop wallpaper-sized versions of these images.
Fair warning: a few of the ladies below are NSFW.
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