Screen Junkies has a complete recap of season three of Game of Thrones so you can refresh your memory and be ready when season four begins Sunday night. A similar recap for seasons one and two is available, so if you are like me and don’t watch the show, you can still know everything that happens. Yes, three years of HBO can be consumed in about half an hour. Warning: NSFW language, and duh, this contains spoilers if you’re not current on the series. I feel like I’ve just saved myself a lot of time. -via Laughing Squid
Comic book crossovers happen all the time, usually due to fan requests or some major event meant to bring the two universes together in a spectacular way, but the crossover comics on this list aren’t your usual fare. These weird crossovers go beyond 'what if', past 'what the…' and straight to 'WTF?!'
When the Punisher shows up in Riverdale looking for a gangster who bears more than a passing resemblance to Archie things are getting strange, but when the Quik Rabbit battles the Weather Wizard and saves a frozen Superman by deciphering some Egyptian code you know these crossover comic events have truly jumped the shark!
Game of Thrones fans know what they like -and that’s Peter Dinklage. Sure, violence and dragons and bare breasts are appealing, but characters that engage the audience are what keeps a series afloat. Tyrion Lannister, although born into a powerful royal family, encounters unique obstacles. Yet he has the wit and the grit to face them like a true badass. Daniel Koren pays tribute to the actor behind the character in his latest song set to the tune of the Game of Thrones theme. -Thanks, Daniel!
World Conquest Zvezda Plot (Sekai Seifuku: BÅryaku no Zvezda) is a current anime series. You can watch it for free on Crunchyroll. It caught my attention when Richard Eisenbeis, Kotaku's anime critic, recommended it. It's a fun comedy about a mysterious little girl who wants to conquer the world. She's aided by a secret society known as Zvezda. The main character, Asuta Jimon, is a junior high school student who joins her after he runs away from home.
Mayuiki calls the show "by far my favorite anime of the season." She made this chibi-style image of the leading members of Zvezda.
Kate Hoshimiya is our would-be ruler. As leader of Zvezda, she is at the heart of the world conquest plot. DeviantART member nosewhirly drew this image of Kate titled "Your Majesty."
Zvezda is a secret society, so all members wear disguises while operating outside of their ramshackle base. Nathan drew this image of Kate ready for battle. It looks like a watercolor, but is actually a digital rendering.
It's not just a hole in the ground. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole. No, Ashley Yeates built a real hobbit-hole and that means comfort. He's a professional landscape designer. It really shows, as you can see from the above photos. You can see more at his blog, including built photos showing how he built this semi-underground home complete with electricty. Not even Bag End could boast of that!
It all began with a dead apple tree. Yeates dug it up, then excavated a hole beneath it. He built a frame with wood and sheet metal and then added polished wood interior furnishings that any wealthy hobbit would be proud of.
Check out this awesome toaster shaped like Dark Vader’s head! Its heating elements are shaped like Vader’s helmet on one side and the Star Wars logo on the other. Or it might be something like a cattle brand, who knows? The toaster is expected to be available in June and will retail for $50. And with this thing sitting on your kitchen counter, your other appliances will not dare to get out of line. -via mental_floss
Let's discuss “…chivalry and honor and that sort of thing.” George Lucas tells the story of how the light saber was invented for the Star Wars saga. It was a more civilized way of cutting your enemy in two. Or, as the Star Wars YouTube account said when posting this featurette, “the single coolest weapon in the history of the galaxy.” There’s the concept, and then there’s the nuts-and-bolts problem of bringing this fictional wonder to the screen in the mid-'70s. Lucas tells the story (along with Mark Hamill and Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt), but there are also plenty of movie and behind-the-scenes clips to enjoy. -via Boing Boing
Diablo is the kind of video game that has tons of crossover appeal, attracting more than just fans of action role-playing games and dungeon crawlers, and the button mashing, monster smashing frenzied melee fighter has evolved quite a bit since the release of the first Diablo game back in 1996.
But if the game designers had gone with some of their original plans for the game, like using claymation graphics for the characters or giving the whole thing a time limit, would Diablo have as many fans as it does today?
It’s about time they offered a Rosetta Stone set to learn Klingon! And who better to endorse the product than Michael Dorn? (In case you're just joining us, he played Worf in two series of the Star Trek universe.) This set, despite the $269 price tag, is sure to be a hit among geeks of all stripes.
Klingon may be a difficult language for humans to wrap their smooth heads around, but it's made even more complicated by the constant threat that saying the wrong thing might accidentally land you in a battle to the death. And that's why you need the comprehensive Learn to Speak Klingon course from Rosetta Stone.
You never want to find yourself in a position where you're flipping through a copy of Introduction to Klingon Grammar, trying to sound fluent in front of a group of native speakers with photon torpedoes. This complete Klingon software package will enable you to express your thoughts safely and effectively in Klingon and master the conversational skills required to conduct negotiations, request medical assistance, and partake in the rich Klingon culture.
Get yours today ("today" being an important word) from Think Geek. So far, the response is pretty much “Please, be real!” and “Shut up and take my money!” Think Geek may have gotten themselves into a worm hole of development that will suck up a lot of time the rest of the year. After all, when an idea is this good, they’ve moved heaven and earth to make it happen for real on severaloccasions. -via Metafilter
The computer has become a powerful tool for the artist over the last twenty years, and CGI has reached a level of realism that makes it possible to bring anything you can imagine to life, but digital artists who choose classical works of art as their inspiration really have their work cut out for them!
Farkas Zsolt has created a 3D masterpiece that brings Benczur Gyula’s classical painting Budavar visszavetele to life with hi-res models, and unless you can see the three dimensional contours of each subject it looks exactly like the original painting.
The entire scene weighs in at a whopping 8.5 million polygons, which means it's more poly rich than your average still shot from a Pixar movie, and Farkas was kind enough to include a breakdown of his entire process so both the curious and those brave enough to attempt such a feat for themselves can give it a shot.
Did you know Quentin Tarantino’s birthday was last week? While we’re a little late to the party, we couldn’t miss the chance to honor one of the most celebrated directors of our time, so here’s a roundup of some absolutely delightful fan art based on Mr. Tarantino’s fantastic films.
Grand Tarantino
Quentin has brought a number of memorable characters to life and everyone has their favorites. Here is a small selection of artist Paul Mason’s favorites from different films.
The Briefcases of Quentin
If you ever find yourself in a Quentin Tarantino film and happen to see a briefcase, you might want to just turn away as soon as you see it. Yes, it will probably provide you with the most valuable thing you’ve ever come across in your life, but simply touching the case could probably get you killed before you even have a chance to open it. This minimalist poster by GGGDesign reminds us that sometimes it’s better to look and not touch.
The Square
This great piece showing some of Tarantino’s best characters playing as young children is in our own NeatoShop, which means you can even get it in tee shirt form to show your support for Theduc’s tribute to Tarantino.
The Shepherd
One of the most famous and most beloved characters of all Tarantino’s films is Jules Winnfield, the bible-quoting, God-fearing thug from Marsellus Wallace’s crew. This painting by Alice X. Zhang shows that Jules is cool like Fonzie even while wearing a baby blue shirt with cartoon characters on it.
This Is A Tasty Burger
For a movie with such an incredible amount of violence, Pulp Fiction has a whole lot of food references. This cool poster set by Pierre-Alain Dubois emphasizes what great American foods are featured in the film.
From Dusk Till Dawn
If you’ve ever wondered what Tarantino’s take on vampires would look like as an animation you might see on Adult Swim, this illustration by Jordi Peters can answer your question. Personally though, seeing this image makes me long to see the whole story in cartoon form.
The Muppets are (arguably) the most famous puppet troupe in the world, and their fans like them fleece and foamy with their original, iconic look and style.
But since many of the characters are humanoids, and their distinct personalities really bring them to life, it makes sense that illustrators like Nick Hoffman would begin to wonder what the Muppets would look like as human beings.
All of the humanoid characters, like Bunsen Honeydew, Statler and Waldorf and Dr. Teeth, look pretty much the same, but Kermit is unrecognizable as a man in a dorky green suit, and Gonzo now looks like more of a creep than a weirdo.
Images of this mysterious statue are circulating the internet. It appears to be a huge stone sculpture of a Gundam from the anime franchise of the same name. It lies next to traditional gave markers at a tomb-making business in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.
If you can afford it, why not have your own huge anime-themed tombstone? Rocket News 24 writes:
One particular use of the Gundam grave photo came when a netizen mused that in 30 years when fans of the original series start dying off, you’ll be bound to see Gundam themed graves turning up everywhere. Someone answered by posting the top photo to everyone’s amazement. Another reader commented “in 40 years the Gundam era of anime’s fans will die off, 50 years later the Evangelion era’s will perish, and in 60 years we will see the demise of K-On! fans.”
Paper art comes in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of complexity, but for my money the most fun papercraft creations are based on video games.
Artist and avid gamer Steph Caskenette has created a series of papercraft artworks called NEStalgia, featuring “screenshots” from classic Nintendo Entertainment System games like Contra, Kirby's Adventure and Castlevania.
Steph combines papercraft and digital art techniques to create her 8-bit inspired works, but instead of perfectly replicating the look of each game she gives them a wrinkly makeover and uses layered effects to give each piece a three dimensional look that most 2D side scrolling games were missing in the early days of console gaming.
