To mark the 75th anniversary of the birth of Batman, the Mexican division of Warner Home Entertainment and the Mexican Museum of Design gave plain white plastic busts of Batman to 30 Mexican artists. They encouraged the artists to do whatever they wanted with them.

One of the artists, Kimbal, responded with this Pre-Columbian Batman inspired by Maya art and mythology. Appropriately, it references Camazotz, a Maya god that looked like a vampire bat.

In the current DC continuity, Batman has appeared in paleolithic Gotham, 17th Century Gotham, and the Old West. Perhaps DC should make a comic about Batman in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

-via Technabob

Okay, adults, back to school time, and you will be timed on this. A year before the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock came out, he was featured in a math problem in a 1983 issue of the journal Mathematics Teacher. Students were instructed to use a compass and a straightedge to solve the puzzle. Can you find Spock? Students were given 50 minutes to complete the task. No, you won’t see him in the image, but you might find it a challenge to figure it out. The ten steps of instructions are at at io9. Will he Bonus: Can you find the glaring anachronism in the image? -via Digg

So Britain isn't an option for Emperor Palpatine. But maybe he should stay and enjoy some kidney pie and haggis while he's visiting.

-via Tastefully Offensive | Images: unknown, Lucasfilm

Children’s books are full of large, illustrated pages oozing with visual appeal, and fun stories crafted to captivate young minds, and when we're all grown up we look back fondly on the times when our parents read our favorite books to us before bed. 

So what could have possibly made those beloved children's books even more memorable? 

How about gritty covers, with catchy titles like Mummy's Breaking Point, The Futility of Existence, or that all-time classic Lassie Gets Even:

Photoshop funster Bag of Delights created these delightfully dark children's book covers, adding madcap titles to the original artwork to ensure that these twisted tales leave their mark on impressionable young minds.

These twisted cover creations aren't going to make their way onto store shelves anytime soon, but the idea of a kid reading a book about Episcopalian pirates or Death Cults is a bit of a knee slapper!

-Via Boing Boing

Most of Norman Rockwell's paintings are considered lighthearted and fun, rendered with an incredible degree of realism that really sets the scene in each of his artworks.

Nowadays, artists apply the Rockwell name to any artwork rendered in a similar style, or with similar character staging, even if there's nothing Norman about the piece.

The digital paintings of OnlyMilo (Ruiz Burgos) deserve to be compared to Rockwell's works, and his realistic treatments of DC Comics heroes and villains make you feel like you’re on the scene, watching something spectacular happen right before your eyes.

Warning- Fall is in the air, and it has wreaked havoc on Poison Ivy's wardrobe, so if illustrated bums offend you then don't click on the links! You've been warned, cheeky monkey...

-Via GeekTyrant

Image Credit: DC Comics

To Batman's credit, he has been a versatile hero through the ages. While some of his henchmen and rogues gallery are well-known and beloved (and feared) bad guys, some of the situations Batman found himself in during his golden age could best be desrcibed as "insane". From situations like the above scenaio which has him fighting apes AND gangsters, to covers that would never be made now due to the changes in societies feelings towards certain issues, sometimes you just wish someone would put together a gallery of some of Batman's weirdest covers. Then you remember that this is the internet, and someone has.

Vulture Carefully assembled this list of the 25 weirdest Batman covers for us all to look over in awe and amazement. Some of them will make you laugh, some of them will make you scratch your head, but most of them will just remind you that Batman is one of the coolest (and easily most insane) heroes and comics out there.

A new article at io9 reveals some interesting stories from These Are the Voyages. According to its promotional copy, this hardcover book is a collection of memories "from actors, directors, producers, and production crew, capturing what went on from every perspective, including memos dictated by Roddenberry while reading drafts of the series scripts." It sounds like a fascinating read which, io9 reports, details a surprisingly high number of conflicts surrounding the scriptwriting, filming and everything in between.
 
Here's an amusing bit of trivia: Gene Rodenberry's vision of the future included men who had no chest hair. Thus, William Shatner was required to be shaved by a studio barber prior to any scenes in which he had to show his naked chest. According to These Are the Voyages, Roddenberry hoped that the men of the future would have "little or no body hair." Quite the visionary. 

Read nine more facts about the original Star Trek here. 

 

(Fowl Language/Brian Gordon)

Part of good parenting is protecting the innocence of your children. There's a lot of ugliness in the world. Someday, your children will have to face it. But that can be done in an age-appropriate manner at the right time. There's no need for frighten them before they can emotionally handle traumas that adults have to grapple with.

(Fowl Language/Brian Gordon)

The Hurdy Gurdy is an instrument that was used in medieval times to make people get jiggy. The instrument itself was made of wood and stringed, as you can see, but how you play it is what sets it apart from most other musical instrument. Well, that and the odd droning sounds it makes while you crank/play it. Not only do most people not know what a Hurdy Gurdy is, most people have never seen one or even heard one (that they are aware of, anyway). Just think, by the end of this video, you could know how to play one. Now you just need to find a Hurdy Gurdy.

(YouTube Link)

Fact is, you bust out a Hurdy Gurdy people will just genuinely have their mind blown that someone actually has one, nevermind if they can play it. That is, the three people who actually know what one is. Regardless, it is good to know everything, so now you can add the Hurdy Gurdy to your vast base of knowledge.

-via Ballista

Comics creator and historian Trina Robbins recently published Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists, 1896-2013, and an art exhibit from Robbins’ collection, inspired by the book, is on display at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Robbins tells us about the history of the women who write and illustrate comics, including her own experiences in the 1970s.    

The underground comix scene was taking root in San Francisco, in part, because the Print Mint, a publisher in San Francisco and Berkeley, California, that started out making psychedelic rock posters, regularly published these comix, such as their anthology called “Yellow Dog,” which Robbins contributed to, and Robert Crumb’s “Zap Comix.”

“The underground comix movement grew as more and more people said, ‘Oh, yeah, we can do our own comics. They don’t have to be superhero comics. We can do comics about the life we relate to as hippies in the counterculture,’” Robbins says. “And it seemed like the exciting stuff was coming out of San Francisco. Underground cartoonists on the Lower East Side moved to San Francisco, and so did I. But then, when I got to San Francisco in 1970, that was when I discovered that maybe it was the mecca of underground comix for the guys, but not for the girls. To start with, there was only me and one other woman there, Willy Mendes, drawing comics, and we were left out of the scene.

“The guys would call each other up and say, ‘Hi, I’m going to put together a comic. Would you like to contribute?’” she continues. “But nobody ever called me. However, both Willy and I were good enough. Both of us eventually did our own comics with the Print Mint because the male cartoonists wouldn’t put us in their comics.”

The entire post at Collectors Weekly is a fascinating look at the history of comics, and how women have always been a part of it.

Image Credit: Billy the Butcher

Can we imagine, for just one simple moment, that superhero's had beer brands? Can I live in a world where Deadpool can have his own lager that I can go buy at the local package store after a long shift of writing stuff? I mean, imagine how good a beer brewed by Wolverine would be? The dude loves the stuff. Lives off it, even.

Alas, I cannot live in that world. You see, that world does not exist.

What is great, though, is I can live in a world where artist Billy Butcher can illustrate faux beer labels as if they were the beers of superheroes, and that's a pretty good world to live in, too. I would say Hellboy's "HellBeer" wins for catchiest name. You can see why these would never be made, as they could very much appeal to children. Or grown men who think they are children, like me.

Either way, great concept and slick execution.

Unreality

When I first found the YouTube channel for Cinema Sins I was both excited and a little crushed. Excited because I love film and love the deep examination and dissection of it as an art form. The crushed part came from the fact that I knew the channel would probably show me some flaws in some movies I really enjoyed. A good example of a polarizing movie choice is the following: Frozen.

A beloved Disney movie that somehow took on legs of its own and became the most successful animated movie of all time is one you have to be slightly careful when you decided to pick apart, piece by piece. Luckily, the guys behind the site clearly know what they are doing, and how to do it. So though most of us may have enjoyed it, take a moment to check out everything wrong with Frozen. It is not a cruel or as painful as it sounds.

(YouTube Link)

Don't worry if they point out something that really bothers you. The trick is, you just got to let it go. Sorry folks, that was low hanging fruit and I had to go for it.

When cartoon shows go off the air the animated stars of those shows react just like real life celebrities- they hit rock bottom.

Some turn to food for comfort, others find themselves working menial jobs for far less pay, and a few actually find a new career outside of showbiz and end up living quite fabulously.

(Vimeo Link)

Sick and twisted animator Steve Cutts created this rather colorful short called “Where Are They Now?”, which reveals the sad lives of cartoon characters past their prime.

It's a gritty look at how those who once ruled Toon Town find themselves around thirty years later, and lemme tell ya- it ain't a pretty sight!

(May contain content considered NSFW)

-Via Nerd Approved

I would think that most of you know about the amazing series of Ted Talks that have become more and more popular over the last few years. Amazing forward-thinking, life changers telling us how we can do the same.

In this particular entry, eco-entrepreneur Shubhendu Sharma explains to us all how we can help grow a mini-forest anywhere. And how by doing so, we are doing a huge part in helping to save the environment, which we all know could use some help right now. It is a remarkably simple plan we can all take part in, and it will only take you a little over four minutes to learn how to do this. Take the time, your planet will thank you for it (just not literally, because that would be weird).

(YouTube Link)

Sometimes, as humans, we don't realize the small and simple things we can do to make life here last a little longer and to make the quality of it better for all.

Wimp

Classic movies often become classics because they feature scenes that stick with the viewer, scripts that really speak to the audience, and a mood that moviegoers find moving.

However, every good movie’s appeal ultimately comes down to visual interest, which means most classic movies can be identified solely by visual elements contained in the film.

(YouTube Link)

Dissolve created this fun movie quiz called Scenes You've Seen, featuring stock footage videos clipped together to represent blockbuster movies, tune in and see if you can name all fourteen films!

-Via Cheezburger