Organizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army Adventure Corps. and Camp Fire were designed to help kids learn how to survive in the wilderness with maximum know-how and minimum supplies, but what if you spent your childhood indoors instead of out?
What sort of skills would you need to make it through an extended stay in the woods, and how do you plan to deal with all that Mother Nature throws at you?
A good place to start is this article by Lifehacker called Wilderness Survival Skills Everyone Should Know, which compiles articles from a bunch of survival experts on important topics like basic first aid techniques, building shelter and foraging for food and drinkable water.
It's full of handy tips and tutorials that might save your life someday, or you can read it and let your mind do the camping if you don't plan on going outside anytime soon...
Comic book publishers are always looking for a new angle to help sell their books, whether it’s a dramatic story arc with a hero’s life hanging in the balance or simply a stylistic makeover that appeals to a new generation of fans, but boy have they come up with some crazy ideas over the years.
Adding animals to the mix as sidekicks and main characters may seem a bit strange, but Billy Ray Cyrus going back in time is the ultimate in comic book kookiness!
The Guardians of the Galaxy soared into the box office and totally cleaned up, proving that a sci-fi/superhero flick based on a relatively obscure group in the Marvel Universe can still rocket to the top…as long as it stars a raccoon.
Sure, Rocket Raccoon is but one of the colorful characters drawing folks to the theater, but there’s no doubt that Guardians is soaring because of the characters in the group, and if Marvel had replaced any one of them the movie might have bombed.
However, it’s a good thing they cut these Guardians of the Galaxy Rejects by Dennis Culver from the movie, because nothing kills a seriously good flick like a half naked Beldar the Conehead, or American Dad’s Roger in drag.
People are always creating new gadgets, gizmos, devices and doohickeys that allow us to solve some of life’s bigger problems, but what about the minor inconveniences we suffer with daily?
What if the spaghetti keeps slipping off the fork, water keeps getting in your baby's eyes when they take a bath, or your pizza slices aren’t the perfect wedges you wish they could be?
Isn’t there some way we can achieve the perfection we so richly deserve in our lives?
It may seem like the Super Mario Bros. are from Italy, but they actually trace their origins back to Japan, so the Italian accent must be some kind of strange speech impediment.
Mario has a lotta love for his hometown of Tokyo, and the citizens still praise him for keeping their pipework clean of gunk and vicious snapping turtles, but even in his hometown he can’t help but run through the streets like he's conquering a level.
This delightful fan film by viz fx artist Dean Wright follows Mario as he makes his way across the Tokyo cityscape to get to the Super Smash Bros. tournament. Itsa fantastico!
Hello, yes this is doge....wait, this isn't a meme?!
This is Shiba the Shiba Inu, and Shiba just loves to greet customers that come to his master's neighborhood tobacco shop by opening the window for them and offering service with a smile.
Shiba enjoys working at the Shimada Cigarette Shop in the Musashi-Koganei railway station in Tokyo, but when all that window opening wears him down he takes a quick power nap, ready to jump into action when the next customer comes calling.
These Ukranian teens found themselves without air conditioning or a fan when the thermometer needle reached 34 degrees celsius, that's 93 degrees to the farenheit folks, so they came up with a brilliant plan to transform their living room into an indoor swimming pool.
The teens used polyethylene film and tape to cover the furniture and the walls up high enough to create a pool several feet deep, which is sure to have gone over swimmingly with their parents.
The big question isn't why they did it, or how they came up with the idea. What we all want to know is- how do they plan to empty out their house pool when they're done swimming across the living room?
Ever since those totally radical heroes in a halfshell climbed out of the sewers and into the hearts of America’s youth their green mugs have been plaster on everythig from merch to movies to their own brand of cereal, but nothing made the fans cheer more than the video game adaptations.
The four player arcade games were a great way to share cowabunga moments with friends, and the Turtles in Time adaptation for the SNES brought the fun home and helped me stash some quarters for the next arcade trip.
But if you're a fan of the TMNT games you'll probably agree with their choices, and if you've never played the games and wanna see what you're missing they've included lots of gameplay videos so you can get a feel for each game.
The recent wave of amazingly good Marvel Comics movies have been following in the footsteps of other geeky franchises by including plenty of easter eggs in their movies for fans to discover- usually when they bring home the DVD and are able to pause and rewind the movie for a better look:
MTV has put together a collection of Every Marvel Easter Egg Explained in One Video, which is an erroneous title because the video is missing the easter eggs found in Captain America: Winter Soldier (which is due to be released on DVD in September) and Guardians of the Galaxy (which is currently in theaters).
Oh well, those would have been far too spoilery to share anyway, and in case you're worried about spoilers there may be a few in this video, so go watch the movie first then come back and see all the easter eggs you may have missed!
Anybody who has played Dungeons & Dragons knows it’s simply a storytelling game, a chance for like-minded fantasy fans to sit down and let their imaginations run wild while telling a story together, and unless your Dungeon Master is a hack-and-slash fanatic who constantly has your party running up against entire goblin armies you know storytelling is the backbone of D&D.
So it should come as no surprise that playing D&D, or pretty much any roleplaying game, will make you a better storyteller, especially if you’re the Dungeon/Game Master.
Only in fairytales could a fair maiden lay unconscious for years and still look as pretty as the day they first lay her down to rest, in real life bedsores, bugs and a layer of filth would have made poor Sleeping Beauty look a fright!
Even more frightful is the possibility that the spell placed upon her didn’t actually preserve her in any way, so if Aurora actually died when she pricked her finger on the spinning wheel spindle then she’s probably just laying there biding her time until a healthy meal comes along…
Poor Prince Phillip, who knew that sleeping princess would take the fact that you’re a slice of beefcake literally?!
Take it from DeviantARTist Shira-Chan (Sarah White)- Let sleeping zombies lie, no matter how beautiful they might be!
Those who choose to work in porcelain are generally trying to preserve classical techniques, add an antiquated twist to their ultra-modern work or, in the case of Maria Rubinke, trying to create a juxtaposition between what is acceptable now in the world of art and the simpler, more innocent forms of the past.
Maria's sculptures are lightheartedly morbid, featuring unfortunate kids with cute faces struggling through all sorts of strange maladies, from splitting headaches to what can only be called "kettle ear":
The characters in Maria's sculptures would get along well with Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, they could share woeful tales about their various maladies and misfortunes!
Plushie lovers generally collect toys because they’re shaped like their favorite characters, or because they’re made by major brands like Gund and Steiff, but the plush works of Wood Splitter Lee are so cool looking they're sure to appeal to any and all plush collectors:
Lee calls her creations plush sculptures for a reason- each one is meticulously hand crafted, with poseable skeletons and super realistic yet utterly adorable faces, and as you would expect each soft sculpture costs a pretty penny (from $180 to over $900).
However, plush collectors who are looking for hand crafted, and incredibly realistic looking, plush critters to add to their collection are sure to go gaga over Lee Cross’s adorably awesome creations.
Cartoon universes are about to collide in Springfield as both Family Guy and Futurama are set to make appearances in the land of the Flaming Moe.
We all know Family Guy "borrowed" a lot from The Simpsons, like the fact that they both star a fat, oafy father, and they're both satirical takes on the average American family, just to name a few similarities, but these two iconic cartoon families have never come together for a full episode...until now.
Here's a sneak peek at the episode entitled "The Simpsons Guy", which will air on September 28th:
And after the Griffins pay a visit to Springfield the Planet Express crew is set to come back from the grave for a one episode appearance in Springfield, thanks to a rift between Groening dimensions that really should have been opened years ago:
Simpsorama will feature Bender and Bart colliding in a battle of the bad boys sure to make cartoon history! Is this crossover Futurama's official return to the small screen?
Your guess is as good as mine, but if you want to see these Groening dimensions collide the episode will air on November 9th.
San Diego Comic-Con 2014 was bigger than ever in terms of attendance, and yet it was lacking the large Hollywood presence that has made the last few years unbearably crowded in the exhibit hall, which means there was plenty of room for independent artists to set up and share their graphic creations.
As usual SDCC rolled out the red carpet for indie artists trying to share their passion with fans on a personal level, and whether they were veteran exhibitors, or it was their first year on the floor, they all had one thing in common- a love of illustration, art and, of course, comic books.
I had the pleasure of speaking with some of the independent artists exhibiting at Comic-Con 2014, and even though a few of the artists I missed in last year's coverage weren't in attendance those who were nice enough to share a few minutes with me about their art showed that independent art is alive and well at Comic-Con.
Jeremy Bernstein
After speaking to Jeremy Bernstein for just a few minutes it became clear that he is extremely passionate about animation and illustration, and his passion was shared by those who stopped by his booth to check out his works.
Jeremy is a BFA graduate of Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts) who started out working for Dreamworks as an animator on features such as Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, but he soon found his desire to draw impossible to ignore, so he went to work on his own projects. So far he has illustrated seven books, many of which are self published, and like all of Jeremy’s art these books are extremely diverse in subject matter and target audience.
He’s currently developing his own animated series for Nickelodeon, where he works as a storyboard artist on the series Breadwinners, and he’s looking forward to bringing more of his creations to life in the future both on screen and in print.
Jeremy’s passion is evident in everything he creates, and he’s a shining example of what an independent artist can achieve if they continue to work on projects they find personally fulfilling.
Street art comes alive in the hand drawn works of Erwin Haya, who is now considered a Comic-Con veteran since he has been exhibiting at the Con for the last twelve years.
Erwin attended the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, California and began his creative career working for companies such as Barra, a financial software company, and Booyah Games before he decided to go independent and work on his own artistic creations full time.
In 2003 he began publishing web comics under the name OneSickIndividual, and he continues to create street art influenced illustrative works as an independent freelancer for companies such as Mattel, Scholastic and Simon & Schuster.
Erwin’s currently working on his own graphic novel, and by the look of the works he had on display at Comic-Con fans of graffiti and animation are sure to find something they love in Erwin’s upcoming comics.
