The Danish photographer Emil Schildt has a sublime work of nudes, portraits, still life and dance. Using different techniques, as photopolymergravure, cyanotype, and liquid emulsion, he created marvellous images that look like paintings with an angelical aura. Probably NSFW. (via Art Nudes)

Posted by Bibi at 04:09 PM in Photography, Photography ||

The site Kodomo no kuni shows part of the images of this Japanese picture book magazine during the first decade after its inauguration in 1922. Looking through the vast collection of illustrations, you will notice the influence of Bauhaus' works in the style. The colours, the power of images, the presence of technological developments, all this make the images very contemporary, as Johnny said.

The images in Kodomo no kuni depicting the children in the latest fashions reflected a mingling of reality with dreams and aspirations. This is definitely a must see site for illustration's fans. One last suggestion, if you speak Japanese, or understand just a bit, don't miss the Children's songs.

Posted by Bibi at 03:15 PM in Books, Vintage | Comments (1) ||

Here it is one more suggestion for your list of Christmas presents, and "kids" will love it: Philosophical Powers - The greatest minds of all time now have great bodies to match! That's all that you wanted , no? Now you can let Aristotle kick Saint Thomas Aquinas for what he did with his theories. Or put the two tough philosophers "Hateful" Hegel and his Absolute Spirit Power Meter vs."Killer" Kant with his "Copernican Revolution" Action (his head spins, changing the direction of epistemological fit from mind - world to world - mind!. That's awesome! I almost chose Kant him.

Even not agreeing with his theories and most of his ideas, I chose the "Nefarious" Nietzsche because of his power and his weak: crazy. I don't agree, crazy can be turn in a superpower. "Lethal" Locke is my second choice, because of his invulnerability, super strength and he smells great and has facility with prose.

All this amusing silliness is result of the work of Ian Vandewalker in 2003:

I had a little extra time on my hands the summer after my first year as a graduate student in Indiana University's prestigious philosophy department, so I decided to take on a project that would blend two of my greatest interests - or rather, one of my petty distractions and my greatest interest, which are philosophy and toys, respectively. I wanted to do something that would bring a discipline that is often seen as difficult, esoteric, and even irrelevant, into new light--especially in the eyes of young people.

See? Again too much free time in hands. Now I'm waiting for someone else add more toys to the collection. I would like to see Schopenhauer, Sartre, Voltaire and Rousseau, my favourites. (via ladrilio)

Posted by Bibi at 02:29 PM in Culture, Fun, Fun, Toys ||

This pretty boy is one of the fabulous metal sculptures of birds, frogs, fishes and insects by Edouard Martinet. His sculptures are created using found materials which are fixed without welding.Edouard carefully selects his raw materials found in brocantes and junk yards. (via i-pets)

Posted by Bibi at 12:44 AM in Animals, Sculpture | Comments (1) ||

Can you imagine a better use for 1.44 MB diskettes nowadays than this Diskette Handbag? This is just one of the examples of geek accessories designed by Zelle. Many of their products are made with computer components as diodes, Ethernet strands, microcontrollers, IDE cables and 1.1MΩ resistors. (via Popgadget)

Posted by Bibi at 12:19 AM in Design, Geek ||

Poker Pinups contains 20 images of cards with pin-up illustrations in a classic style. Since I don't know any of the images, I guess they are from some not so know or unknown artist. Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea to find a complete deck with illustrations by George Petty, Gil Elvgren, Rolf Armstrong or Harry Ekman. (via Sex and Blogs)

Posted by Bibi at 10:58 PM in Illustration, Pin-ups, Vintage ||

Best Illustrated Books: a New York Times' slideshow with illustrations taken from the Book Review's choices of the 10 best illustrated children's books of 2006. I hope it gives some ideas for parents, uncles, grandparents, etc. that were searching for some inspiration for Christmas' gifts. The image above is from Mommy? by Maurice Sendak, Arthur Yorinks and Matthew Reinhart.

Posted by Bibi at 10:23 PM in Books, Illustration ||

While I was away from all this blog stuff, the bunnies starred two big new 30 seconds productions that I didn't blog about yet. They re-enacted Fight Club and The Ring. Wow, great (and very funny) animations.

PS.: remember to pass these animations on to other people in up to seven days. That's the rule, right?

Posted by Bibi at 09:30 PM in Animation, Cinema, Fun, Fun ||

Lovecraft is the last graphic novel that I've read, and I liked it a lot. Released by Vertigo, it's a mix of Howard Phillips Lovecraft biography, his stories, the myths created by him and the work of imagination of Hans Rodionoff to join all this elements in a brilliant book. The final version puts together the adaptation of Keith Giffen, based on Rodionoff script, and the great work of illustration of Enrique Breccia.

The story starts in Chicago, 1895, when Lovecraft's father "got crazy" by supernatural reasons. After that, the young Lovecraft becomes the reluctant guardian of the Necronomicon, an accursed book that is the doorway to the beyond, his life veers into strange territory. The books shows the influence of his grandfather in his education, encouraging him to reading and presenting the classics, specially the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The story goes to the years of his professional works to the magazine Weird Tales and his married. It finish with Lovecraft going back to Providence.

The city of Arkham, the Cthulhu and other monsters appear through the story, as components of Lovecraft's nightmares, stories and parallel reality. The book presents his life as a horror story, the kind of he would like, as John Carpenter says in the introduction of the book.

I didn't read many Lovecraft's short-stories, but after having read this book I really want to read much more. That's why I'm suggesting it to fans of horror, of comics and specially fans of H.P. Lovecraft. The American edition is available in paperback and hardcover edition. The Brazilian version, which one I read, was published by Devir as paperback, in a very good quality and coloured, as the original. Below, a sample of the Brazilian edition:

If you've never heard about Howard Phillips Lovecraft, that Wikipedia article gives you a panorama of his huge importance to the modern horror fiction and the films of his gender. Follow the links for more information about him, or try one of those:

- Project Gutenberg of Australia: the site has two collections with his works: Collected Stories and Supernatural Horror in Literature;

- The H.P. Lovecraft Archive: the place where you should start. It has a complete list of his work, the description of them, covers, his creation, study and, my favourite, Lovecraft in the popular culture. Unfortunately there are some links to external pages broken.

- The Temple of Dagon: H.P. Lovecraft and The Cthulhu Mythos. Many links, news, interviews, studies and art. BTW, don't miss the Featured Artists page, with great works, like this one, by Jeff Remmer:

- The Works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft For Palm OS devices like the Palm. It has an impressive list of his works, what made me want a better palm.

- Weird Tales: post about a collection of covers of this magazine.

Posted by Bibi at 08:47 PM in Books, Comics | Comments (1) ||

I have been "busy" in the last few months watching a lot of films and reading many books, specially comics. However that doesn't mean that I lost interest in other stuff, like vintage images. Actually they still are part of my favorite kind of images. That's why I knew that I must post about Box of Apples when I saw it. This charming site has a lot of pretty vintage images of vintage crate labels and interesting info about them to keep you busy enough until I finish a post about comics. Enjoy. (via Exclamation Mark)

More vintage labels at Antique Produce Crate Labels, Pot Stickers Labels Collection and Cheese Labels.

Posted by Bibi at 01:29 PM in Food, Food, Vintage | Comments (2) ||

Professional bloggers, or those who want to win something other than "fame" while blogging have a new good option, beyond ad banners: ReviewMe. It's a new web site whose idea is to join bloggers and advertisers to reach their goals.

And how does it work? Well, that's very easy. Go to site of ReviewMe and choose whether you are a blogger or advertiser. The forms are easy to fill out, or at least the blogger's form. If you are an advertiser, just choose one, or more, blogs available in the categories that best fit your product - the reviews pays from $40.00.

However, I know that most readers will want to know how it works for bloggers, so let's do it. First: add your blog or blogs in one of the categories available - unfortunately there is no art category. Ad also up to six tags that best describe your blog. And, if it will be approve, wait for the clients to purchase reviews from you. And you decide to accept the review or not - you don't need to review about something that you don't trust or didn't like.

We do not allow advertisers to require a positive review. The vast majority of reviews are measuredly positive, although many do contain constructive criticism. We view this as a bonus: how else can you quickly and cheaply get feedback on a product or service from influences?

Sounds fair, doesn't it? Now, how much do they pay for a review? Well, all reviews that I wrote until today where for free - and I think that will keep being so for a long time, but I write exactly what I think, not more, not less. So, I have no idea whether their price is fair or not: you tell me. For bloggers the reviews will be paid $20.00 to $200.00 for each completed review that you post on your site. Let me explain how they get the price of the review for each blog: it's an average of your's blog punctuation/position in Alexa, Technorati, RSS and ranking (Google I think). It could be better, because I never liked Alexa, but it could be worst too, like just Alexa.

The idea is good, the site design is pretty and very intuitive. Is this going to work? For now I think that the things are going to be slow, since the two parts must know about it and have trust in it. However, this is a great alternative to connect bloggers and advertisers, and we know that blogs are a new growing media, with a bright future, so I bet in a happy end.

Posted by Bibi at 11:43 AM in Blogging, Internet ||