Marvel has tried to keep the storylines in Spider-Man comics acceptable for a younger audience, since he's one of the heroes they try to keep accessible to the kiddies as an ambassador to the Marvel Universe.

But when Spidey donned the black suit that ended up being the symbiote Venom he let the darkness slip into his life- and his storylines followed suit.

Kraven the Hunter kicked off this dark 90s era by going on his Last Hunt for the Spider-Man so he could prove he's a "superior human specimen" before retiring.

After burying Peter Parker alive Kraven donned the black suit and went around fighting crime to prove his superiority, crushing a villain the real Spidey needed Caps help to defeat and proving he's mightier than Spider-Man once and for all.

And so, with nowhere else to go, Kraven killed himself.

The darkness surrounding Kraven continued as Mrs. Kraven and daughter Kraven kept on Spidey in an attempt to secure some of his blood- so they could bring Kraven back to life.

Upon arrival at Kraven HQ Spidey proved he was in no mood to play with Mrs. Kraven- by using his sticky wall-crawling power to literally rip her face off- and then things got even more sinister:

Afterwards, Mr. Kraven took his family to the Savage Land, murdered Mrs. Kraven and sent one of his children off to hunt the other. Since then, Kraven has become best buddies with Squirrel Girl, the peppy young girl who talks to squirrels, because comics make less than no sense.

See 5 Spider-Man Comics Darker Than Any Batman Story here

When you hear the phrase "cut the deck," you probably think of re-stacking playing cards after shuffling. This is better. Finnish machinist Lauri Vuohensilta of the Hydraulic Press Channel (previously) has a lot of fun smashing and destroying things. In this video, he stacks up ten decks of playing cards -thats 520 cards- and slices through them with a cutting tool attached to his powerful hydraulic press. It's quite satisfying to watch in slow-motion.  

(YouTube link)

After that stunt, you'll want to stay for the cutting of lots of other stuff Vuohensilta has laying around, while he has a cutting tool attached and a high-speed camera to record it. -via Laughing Squid   

Horror Gods by rustenico

People worship pop culture characters as if they're real, living beings worthy of praise, but the gore hounds who worship Leatherface, Jason, Chucky and the rest of the gods of gore are in for a big surprise if they ever meet their monstrous idols! And yet you know there's someone out there who would gladly give their life to meet their horror movie idols, pouring them a cup of their own sacramental wine tapped straight from the vein...

Wear your scary idols on your chest with this Horror Gods t-shirt by Rustenico, featuring terrifying totems constructed for the titans of terror that'll make your fellow horror fans scream with delight!

Visit rustenico's Facebook fan page, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more horrifyingly good designs:

View more designs by rustenico | More Horror T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

(Image Link)

During the Victorian era huge, bushy moustaches were all the rage among guys who wanted to look like proper gentlemen, especially those who served in the British Army, where moustaches were required  from 1860 to 1916.

The Victorian gentlemen used various products like oils, waxes and dyes to keep their lip accessory in proper fighting form, which led to a problem when drinking tea, since these products didn't hold up well when exposed to warm liquids.

So circa 1850-60 an English potter named Harvey Adams came up with a practical yet elegant solution- the moustache cup, a mug with a small semicircular ledge inside the rim that allowed a moustachioed man to sip without messing up his lip hair.

Moustache cups became a big hit with the social elite in England and the U.S., but it's hard to find one with a "Made In America" mark on it because many makers lied and said their mugs were made in England due to the demand for British ceramics.

Read more about The Victorian Moustache Cup at Today I Found Out

Jordan Watson of the How To Dad series usually brings us instructional videos on how he interacts with his adorable daughters. But since he became well-known on the internet, he's come across a lot of folks who assume he is Australian. He is not. He is from New Zealand. In this video, Watson explains the differences.

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Mainly, it's a different country. They don't even share a border. Yet the differences between the US and Canada are still more pronounced from our perspective. You gotta hand it to him, he's doing his best, and he's proud to be a Kiwi. -via reddit 

An adult who is a "late bloomer" is someone who didn't get their "life" together until they're in their mid to late 20s or older, while a young person who's a late bloomer didn't go through puberty until their mid to late teens.

So what do you call a guy who had both kinds of late blooming going on at once, a guy who didn't go through puberty until he was 27 years old?

Maybe we should refer to him as a late late bloomer, but in this case his name is Ken Baker and he had the extreme displeasure of being one of the only people who ever went through puberty in their late 20s.

However, Ken's reason for being a late bloomer had nothing to do with stunted growth, radiation or "something in the water"- his late onset puberty was caused by a tumor sitting a few inches behind his right eye...

Read I Didn't Go Through Puberty Until I Was 27 here

Traditionally, the most difficult part of producing the Academy Awards ceremony every year is keeping it on schedule, with the show ending at midnight. Winners' acceptance speeches often run too long, and cutting them off seems mean-spirited. Last night, they were expected to contain statements about representation, diversity, and sexual harassment, so host Jimmy Kimmel made keeping speeches short into a competition of sorts.

The meme-worthy moment happened after Kimmel encouraged nominees to give passionate, but short speeches at the awards show. He joked that whoever gave the shortest acceptance speech would also go home with a $17,999 jet ski which legendary actress Helen Mirren modeled onstage.

Whoever gives the shortest speech at tonight's #Oscars goes home with a brand new jet ski. Sam Rockwell has already given it a shot. https://t.co/exBwXiE7dz pic.twitter.com/2H3wzFXVbk

— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018

 
At the end of the broadcast, the jet ski was given to Mark Bridges, who won the Oscar for Best Costume Design (for Phantom Thread) and gave a speech of only 36 seconds. That also came with a free stay at a Days Inn in Lake Havasu, and a life vest.

Costume designer Mark Bridges wins the jet ski for the shortest speech of the evening. https://t.co/lJd891ISOk #Oscars pic.twitter.com/HQI5x8TuOa

— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018

You'll see jokes passed around about this everywhere in the next few days. -via Mashable

The moment in Scarface when Tony Montana screams "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" then starts blasting guys with his assault rifle is one of the most iconic moments in movie history.

But imagine if Tony had pulled out a puppy dog instead of an assault rifle after uttering that iconic line, now that would have changed the movie entirely!

Of course, if the puppy then pulled out an assault rifle of its own like it does in this strip from Quarter Turn comics then Scarface would have gone from Crime Drama to Surreal Slapstick Comedy!

-Via Geeks Are Sexy

The Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab at the University of Haifa conducted an experiment in which romantically linked heterosexual couple were recruited to study pain. It was the woman feeling pain, and the man was either holding her hand, together but not touching, or in another room. Meanwhile, their brains were being scanned. 

So the hypothesis was that touch would increase brain coupling between members of the couple and the extent of coupling would be associated with the degree of pain reduction. It would also be linked to the degree of empathy in the man. And this is, in fact, just what was found.

EEG recordings of alpha waves revealed an “interbrain coupling network” in the touch + pain scenario that exceeded the brain coupling seen in any of the other scenarios. The alpha-mu band of brain waves was primarily examined because it has known roles in pain perception, empathy, and interbrain synchronization; beta waves were examined as well, since interbrain coupling has been seen there, too, but none was found in this case.

In other words, holding hands reduced the women' pain more than other scenarios. One should hope that the women were compensated appropriately for their willingness to experience pain for this experiment. The study does not jump to conclusions about cause and effect, but offers some possibilities that should be studied further. Pain alleviation could be due to the touch itself, the appreciation of the partner's empathy, a feeling of general support, or other factors. Read about the experiment at Ars Technica. 

(Image credit: Flickr user ccbarr)

Handshakes can be handed out like hellos or they can be seen as an act of sealing a contract between two people, they can be no big deal or they can be an intimate exchange of skin cells and body heat.

It's really up to the person involved in the handshake to decide whether it's a nod or a bond, intimate or totally devoid of feeling, but when the shaker finds the act to be a bit too intimate they may feel like they're stuck in a sticky situation.

(YouTube Link)

Handshake is a shaky animated short by Patrick Smith that has an eye-pleasing comic strip feel and a silly storyline that seems like a nightmare a germophobe or introvert would have.

Isn't this a pretty castle? You'd think it would be a well-known tourist attraction, and it is, but mainly among Eastern European fans of a certain magical children's book series.

I‘m not really sure where to start with Mozna Castle. The middle of old nowhere would probably be quite accurate, but to be more specific, this Baroque behemoth lies in old Bohemia, otherwise known as Upper Silesia, Poland. The castle has 365 rooms and 99 spires. Its historical records only date back to the 17th century but excavations in the 20th century revealed medieval burial crypts and remnants of a presumed Templar stronghold. Curious to know more about the site featured on numerous lists for “the most beautiful castles in the world“, I discovered that not only can you stay overnight in its rather peculiar brand of luxury hotel accommodation, but the historic building is also home to a real-life Hogwarts school of wizardry…

Yes, you can enroll in the Quatronum, if you can read Polish. Otherwise, you might want to step over to Messy Nessy Chic to take a tour and see what this castle looks like inside.

(Image credit: Bochnaank)

Despite being very favorably reviewed by fans and having 98% and 100% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes both Paddington and Paddington 2 were snubbed by the Academy, receiving zero Oscar nominations. But who cares, right?

They're cute, family friendly movies and don't take themselves too seriously, and I'm sure Paddington isn't sad about being snubbed considering he's a CGI character and therefore has nowhere to store a real life award.

And speaking of CGI- watching these scenes from Paddington 2 with the little digi-bear removed are not only absurdly hilarious at times- they're a primer on how many of these digital effects are created.

And after watching this VFX breakdown video shared by Framestore you'll know more about how practical and CGI effects come together in a modern film. 

(YouTube Link)

-Via io9

The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.

When PBS executives started planning a new science show in the early 1970s, people in the TV business were baffled. A show about…science? Were they crazy? Audiences wanted Happy Days and M*A*S*H*, not educational shows! Luckily for us, they were wrong.

IN THE BEGINNING…

In 1971 an American television producer named Michael Ambrosino was in London and happened to see some episodes of a science-based British TV show. Ambrosino worked at Boston’s legendary public television station WGBH, and he’d been there since 1956 -just a year after it went on the air.

WGBH was a pioneer in the American public television business and by 1971 had produced several groundbreaking shows, including The French Chef (1963), the cooking show hosted by Julia Child; Evening at Pops (1970); and Masterpiece Theatre (1971). In 1970 the station had become part of the brand-new, government-backed Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), with new funding that allowed WGBH to begin thinking bigger. That’s why Ambrosino was in London: The 40-year-old was taking part in a yearlong fellowship program with the BBC -the British equivalent of PBS- to learn production techniques. There he observed the making of several episodes of Horizon, an educational science-based series that, to the surprise of BBC officials, was actually pretty popular with viewers.

SUPRA-NOVA

Horizon was a groundbreaking series of its own, having proven that television shows based on scholarly subjects could make for riveting TV. First airing in 1964, and roughly twice a month since then, Horizon covered a wide array of subjects. The 1969–70 season alone featured episodes on the science of insanity, the psychological and physical effects of alcohol consumption, the history and science of bread, an examination of wolves (and werewolves), and the role of expert scientific witnesses in the courtroom. The format employed a narrator who spoke over footage taken mostly in the field, and regularly included appearances by some of the era’s leading thinkers, who spoke directly into the camera in a loose, informal setting. It was nothing like a dull classroom session -and audiences liked it.

The Spinal Fab by Captain RibMan

As a rule the members of Spinal Tap have remained drug free for decades, choosing only to drink and smoke grass before, during and after gigs. But when they were given the chance to party and play with their favorite Beatles cover band Tangerine Submarine they took it even though they knew the Tangerine were notorious drug eaters. The Tap showed up thirsty to play some rock n roll, but they should have had a few drinks before the show- because Tangerine Submarine handed them drinks spiked with LSD....

Add some rock n roll fantasy to your geeky wardrobe with this The Spinal Fab t-shirt by Captain RibMan, it's one tripped out design that'll blow people's minds wherever you go!

Visit Captain RibMan's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more fantastically far out designs:

View more designs by Captain RibMan | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Russian artist Vera Shimunia creates small embroidered landscapes with colors that pop. The varied stitchery also give a sense of depth and a feeling of movement in places. In this one, the sunbeams and shadows put you right into the scene, even though it's only a few inches wide.

See a gallery of of Shimunia's embroidery at at Bored Panda. You can follow her art at Instagram.