Mr. Zero Punctuation

I was a little late in catching onto Mr. Zero Punctuation [Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw], an English video game reviewer for The Escapist magazine. A few scant months back, a co-worker of mine played Croshaw’s review of The Orange Box for me (knowing that I was a huge fan of the game) – and I found myself really not only bowled over by the quality of the review itself, but in the funny and unique presentation. Obviously, the guy gets his moniker from his verbal delivery… he snarkilytalksreallyfastandgetsinalotinaveryshortamountoftime – but the accompanying minimalist / information graphics-style animations are so simple, subversive, and friggin’ fast that you NEED to be paying very close attention to be getting all the jokes, cross-references, jabs, and barbs.

Hell, I’m even not the world’s biggest gamer (in fact, I remain blissfully unaware of most of the games he reviews), but whatever… I could watch this guy review breakfast cereal.

Check him out either via The Escapist or his blog.

Channel 4 Finds Max Headroom in a Nursing Home

If you were a geek, or a budding geek, back in the 80s, then you knew about Max Headroom. He not only hawked C-c-c-coke in commercials, but in 1987, for one short year, he had his own dystopian television show that felt like a cyberpunk rendition of Brazil.

Channel 4 in the UK has brought Maximum Headroom back, sort of. He’s a rambling geriatric, being wheeled around in an old television set by a large, British caregiver. Max continuously babbles in stuttered samples as he is bathed, taken on slow-moving tours, and wheeled to the beach to stare at the sea.

The premise: Max Headroom was ready for all things digital 20 years ago, and now Channel 4 is going the same route. The ad is a bit jarring and abrasive, but then again, wasn’t Max Headroom always that way?

Kidrobot Creates Yo Gabba Gabba Toys, Apparel

UPDATE: This article has been moved to 1over100.com

Yo Gabba Gabba, described by Nick Jr. as “life lessons with a beat”, could more accurately be described as H.R. Pufnstuf, Sesame Street animations, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and The Friendly Giant put through a psychedelic-indie-techno-retro-west-coast blender. Here’s the intro:

And here’s a song to help kids eat their veggies.

It only makes sense that Kidrobot, purvayers of all things quirky and vinyl, would provide geek parents with another excuse to buy more toys. Come November 21st of 2007, look for Kidrobot [hearts] Yo Gabba Gabba figures, as well as some kiddie hoodies. Just in time for your (or your kids’) Christmas list.

Zombie Survival Explained in Plain English

From the good folks at commoncraft.com who brought you convenient and simple explanations like Social Bookmarking in Plain English, Wikis in Plain English, and RSS in Plain English comes the soon-to-be Halloween paper-presentation classic Zombies in Plain English.

Sketchcast or Slothcast?

Yes, I’m probably being unfair. I bumped into Sketchcast’s offering and was intrigued. It is a really good idea. It’s also so remarkably basic that it’s doomed to failure I fear (Doomed! Doomed!). sigh. Anything that says I can draw a blog and post it sounds great. A simple tool to spice up our picture + words offering. Unfortunately it’s so slow. There is no option to double, triple or quadruple speed your drawing. It plays back at the speed that you made it. Which is slow. We write slowly if it’s going to legible with their chunky pen. It’s slow if you have make sure the line is processed smoothly and not like a heroine addict withdrawing while drawing. I couldn’t even be bothered sitting through the whole playback of my quick blog test video (see incomplete above).

And another thing, WordPress don’t support the embedding of their video! C’mon WordPress. Lighten up a bit. It’s not java. Or anything malicious. It’s just slow.

Play with it, discard it and then maybe the developers will make it better.

Sketchcast

ps. Don’t get me started on Virb’s slow poke development cycle!

Durex Performa – Take it slow :)

The Politically Incorrect Alphabet

Inspired by Dick Bruna’s Miffy, The Politically Incorrect Alphabet was supposed to just be a cute little one-off creative joke created by one Mark Jones to taunt his wife (who just happens to be a kindergarten teacher). Of course, ‘project creep’ sunk in and the effort snowballed.

As an online alphabetic flash-card set, it’s equally offensive, cute, fun, inspiring, stupid, useless, awesome, and completely politically incorrect (hence the name, duh). Most of the illustrations were inspired by suggestions culled from the site’s various forums (one for each letter).

It doesn’t look like it’s been updated in about a year, but I guess that’s what happens to weird stuff like this on the web – sooner or later, anyone can discover and ‘explode’ it.

Be sure to check out the additional downloads and look for animated easter eggs.

A Quick Art Culture Catch Up

A friend asked to see some art that I reckon is fairly decent at the moment. Instead of hiding it in an e-mail, let me share with everyone. I’ve blogged about most of these people or sites before but there’s no substitute for an easy to click blog post to get motivated to look again. So, in no particular order, here’s some food for thought:

Serious Painting

Painting removed by artist’s request

John Copeland – Probably my favourite painter at the moment.

Slightly Different Painters

Jim Woodring – A great contemporary Surrealist

Jeff Soto – Giant robots and rainbows never looked this good. Jeff’s work has been translated into a short film by 3 Legged Legs. It’s amazing to see this fine-art-street-type style in motion.

Ashley Wood – Famous for concept art, comic books and being a “little” brash at times. He paints on real boards and sells the original pieces to collectors. He qualifies as a real artist.

Interactive Media

Hoogerbrugge – A Netherlands artist who uses drawings of himself to lay waste to the repititions of modern culture. Or something like that. This music video is the quick sampler of his work but check out the website for classic focussed Hoogerbrugge.

Kooky

Michel Gagne – This is his 6th book, Frenzied Fauna: From A to Z.

ICanHasCheezBurger -The meme called Lolcats is something that many would not consider to be art, but it has been accepted adopted by the masses and shares some of the traits of art: visual aesthetic, an underlying theory, self-imposed executional rules, a sense of history. Is it -ism or is it -crapism? Will people in 100 years time have retrospectives of Lolcats? And in case you think I’m writing total rubbish look up the definition of Art.

Where to find more

Artshole – A UK listing for art
Art Krush – The e-mail publication and this list will see you right.
Drawn! – All about Drawers!

Viral Video Gets A Theme Song: Internet People

Remember Dramatic Chipmunk? Or Star Wars Kid? Or how about Numa Numa, Napster Bad, Swearing Winnebago Guy, Bert Is Evil, Goatse, Jib Jab This Land, G.I. Joe PSA Body Massage, Your The Man Now Dog, Sponge Monkeys- We Like Tha Moon, Ask A Ninja, lonelygirl15, Chad Vader, Ze Frank, Lazy Sunday, Whistle Tips with Bubb Rubb, George Lucas In Love, Kramer Meltdown at the Laugh Factory, MySpace The Movie, The Chuck Norris List, Mahir The I Kiss You Guy, Leroy Jenkins WOW, Homestar Runner, Grape Stomping Face-Plant, Paris Hilton Sex Tape, All Your Base Are Belong To Us, Coke and Mentos, OK Go On Treadmills Video, The Shining Trailer Remix, Sneezing Baby Panda, Dick In A Box, Rocketboom, Snakes On A Plane Early Auditions , Angry German Kid, Otters Holding Hands, Bridezilla, Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Little Superstar, Tom Cruise Kills Oprah, White and Nerdy, K-Fed Playing Popo Zao, Boom Goes The Dynamite, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Christmas Lights Gone Wild, William Shatner does Rocketman, Evolution of Dance, or Chocolate Rain? All of these and a few others are covered briefly.

The Simpsons Star Wars Intro

UPDATE: This article has been moved to 1over100.com

While we all wait for the Star Wars version of Family Guy to come out, along comes this surprisingly authentic-looking Star Wars introduction to the Simpsons. It’s actually a homemade parody by illustrator ‘dude’ Rich Cando. First he’s going to get a big cease and desist from Lukas Arts and Fox. Then he’s going to get a big juicy job offer. On the internet that’s known as a win-win scenario.

SPOILER ALERT!
Here are some screengrabs for when the video gets pulled:

Bart Skywalker and Yoggie

Darth Homer

Ned Solo and Chewbarney

Abe Kenobi

Moe’s Cantina

No Droids

Bart Skywalker’s Speeder Bike

Darth Homer Runs Past Ned Solo Frozen In Carbonite

Darth Homer, Queen Margeidala, Bart Skywalker, Princess Lisa, Yoggie, Rush For Couch. (Note homage to George Lukas’ first movie, THX 1138)

Simpsons Star Wars Family

Please don’t sue me!

Possibly Related Posts: Simpsons and Futurama Make Good Anime, The Simpsons Movie Personal Avatars, The Real Simpsons