Shadowy Men on Shadowy Planet’s 1988 tribute to the Ventures Christmas album.

"Faster Santa Claus, Ho! Ho! Ho!"

A page from Laura Park’s sketchbook.

Based on this flickr feed and her two 'Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream' minis, I am predicting great, great things. Very reminiscent of pages from the Acme Novelty Datebooks in both quality and density.

Interesting holiday video that uses the bells, buzzers and tones of microwave ovens to play a christmas tune.

The syncopation is a little weird, so I couldn't tell what it was that was being played until I read the tags.

A central repository for images of an insane set of 50 handmade ‘mystery boxes,’ sent out as promotional items for the film ‘Coraline.’

The boxes were sent to websites appreciated by the animation crew behind the film; images of each unique box are being posted here as they surface.

The third panel of this strip PERFECTLY captures my experience with well-intentioned familial efforts to give the gift of comics.

I cannot adequately communicate how much I am loving Kate Beaton's strips as they appear online.

NYT on the sorry state of Michigan’s economy.

Post-college, my career trajectory pointed right into the engineering department of some sort of auto supplier, who (statistically speaking) would have already laid me off by now. I'm glad I stubbornly stuck with web stuff, and I was very lucky to have found the job I did.

The New York Times Measure for Measure Blog continues to be great, this time focusing on a flop that the songwriter still believes was a hit.

This post handles it perfectly, documenting the song's path from creation to market, but the concept is a dangerous precedent, doesn't "flop that songwriter believes was a hit" describe most songs?

The Onion weighs in on the Bazooka Joe gang.

A pitch-perfect parody.

Amazing 1989 internal Marvel Comics proposal from editor Dwane McDuffie, sarcastically addressing the portrayal of Race within the Marvel Universe.

McDuffie has long been a champion of multiculturalism in comics, and is responsible for 'Damage Control' – one of my favorite Marvel series ever. The 'Have I made my point?' at the end is the best part.

Andrew Bird and Yo Yo Ma improvise a bit of music together.

This reads to me as a very genuine moment, with just the right balance of sincerity and awkwardness between them. If the aesthetic of this piece of video could be expanded into a longer form series of interesting musical pairings, I would be ALL OVER that.

Great, great, great step by step walkthrough of the creation of an elaborate agency promo piece.

Contains hand trimming, hand collation, and printing errors (the primary ingredients of an independent record label).

Looks like they’re starting early.

For coincidental errors, these voting malfunctions have a funny way of always leaning right.

Comically named candidate to run for newly-vacant Detroit mayor position.

Mayor McPhail. Perfect.

Nice interview with Fantagraphics staff designer Jacob Covey on his work for the recent Thimble Theatre / Popeye collections.

I've often felt Covey's incredibly tasteful book designs are sadly overshadowed by the subjects of the volumes, so it's nice to see some recognition coming his way.

Archie Comics Tackles Emo.

"Emo is a current look between goth and rock — it means EMOTIONAL!"

The all-time most popular one-sentence stories on Onesentance.org.

Awesome. Reminds me of the similar length/poignancy ratio found in the Paul Auster-edited collection "I thought My Father Was God."

Great visual deconstruction of the newly-revealed Oklahoma Thunder Logo.

I love commentary like this, presented in a visually non-linear way.

Sammy Harkham on this Fall’s new issue of Comics Anthology ‘Kramer’s Ergot.’

An all-star contributor list, all presenting three 16" x 21" pages.

Rob Kenna – known to many as ‘the good DJ’ at Windsor’s Loop has passed away.

As usual, someone else said it better already: "I always felt like The Loop was a timeless place where no matter what, the same guys would be there — spinning Blur, The Pixies and Bowie on that fabulously blinding dance floor."

Nice crossfading of the most recent batch of Watchmen movie posters with the original artwork that inspired the shots.

The attention to detail in these is encouraging.

Some truly insane crunching of NBA statistics to visually represent playing styles.

It's an interesting illustration of the relative name recognition of well rounded players vs. role-players. Also: Joe Dumars – the outlier in the scorer / perimeter scorer blend area.

Interesting: recently deceased ‘Anthrax letter’ author Bruce Ivins is indirectly responsible for eliminating the means to reprint Cracked magazine.

All of the films for issues from 1958 through 2000 were stored in a building where one of the anthrax-laced letters was received and had to be destroyed for fear of contamination. The magazine published work for John Severin, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, Bill Ward, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan and many other notables.

Great step by step process walkthrough on the drawing / painting of a ‘lil Gotham group shot.

Apparently artist Dustin Nguyen was selling prints of this at SDCC.

Insanely thorough review of the new Dark Knight pinball machine from Stern.

New pinball vocab learned as a direct result of this article: biff bar, bangback.

Amazingly well-presented interactive infographic of 2008 US movie box office results.

I can't get over how well this visually captures so many variables.

The Wall Street Journal on the 42% rebate Michigan offers to film productions that shoot in the state.

Michael Cera, Drew Barrymore, Clint Eastwood, Zach Galifianakis, Ellen Page, Eve, Jimmy Fallon and Juliette Lewis are among the initial crop of 'names' currently infesting the state, as parts of at least three separate productions.

A brief tour of Chip Kidd’s museumesque Apartment walls.

"Have you ever wondered where all the great comic art goes? It turns out that most of it is owned by Chip Kidd."

Great interview with Sub Pop’s founders on the ups and downs of running a label for 20 years.

Includes yet another mention of the phantom third Zumpano record. Come on, Newman.

Trailer for a documentary on Showbiz Pizza’s Animatronic Rockafire Explosion Band.

Looks like they have vintage factory/testing footage. Animatronic drummers is a topic near and dear to me (it's what originally got me writing on the internet, though I never finished the article) so I'm ALL OVER this.

A good article on joke thievery among stand up comics.

The first page or so rehashes the standard Robin Williams stories, but expands into a number of modern feuds, with quotes from some of those involved.

The story of a New York home laden with secret compartments and coded messages.

This would be my dream-home.

Coldplay on Jimmy Kimmel.

Mr. Zach Curd pointed out that at 1:00 and 1:49, there are some pretty blatant pitch correction artifacts on the vocal. Good job guys.

Jeffrey Brown designed a transforming vinyl toy based on his ‘Change Bots’ book.

You don't see too many independent transformer designers.

The Whitburn Project Analysis.

Waxy discusses and mines an obsessively detailed dump of pop chart metadata. Unhealthily time-intensive coding ideas: sparked.

Emitt Rhodes’ Self-titled 1970 LP posted in full.

One of my favorites, not currently in print.

Chris Ware and animator John Kuramoto’s second short for the TV version of This American Life has made it online.

The short premiered at TAL's distributed 'live event' in movie theaters nationwide last week. The story is told by Radio Lab's Robert Krulwich.

Instant Album Party ‘08 bears fruit.

The results of randomly selected groups of four people tasked with writing and recording a song in an hour.

Nintendo DS game that transfers user-created levels via sound files.

The DS has wifi so this method seems like an unnecessary gimmick until you take into account sharing the sound files online. Only out in Japan thus far, but there's already some level-swap activity on youtube.

An antique precursor to those annoying children’s books with push-button sound effects.

The sounds are produced via miniature bellows and paper cones. I had no idea such things existed.

The odds of my reacting positively to works of art involving both the words ‘poetry’ and ’solstice’ are usually extremely low. This is the exception.

Sculpture with carefully placed perferations reveals different stanzas of a poem based on the position of the sun.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru Action Figures.

The best Star Wars figures ever.

YouTube: Evolution of Maroon 5’s “Makes Me Wonder.”

I'm pretty ambivalent about Maroon 5, but I think it's interesting that they're willing to publicly release footage of themselves being so negative about the song. This is some great behind the scenes studio production footage.

Feature-length documentary on the creation of a single Jeff Hein painting.

Looks interesting but SXTY FIVE BUCKS FOR A DVD?

Animator Paul Robertson’s ‘Kings of Power 4 Billion%’ is finally done.

Insane videogame pixel art as fever-dreamish narrative animation. I’m amazed that indie developers aren’t dumping piles of money on him to port these into playable games.

Trailer for Jason Scott’s ‘Get Lamp’: A text-based gaming documentary.

I’m stoked that Jason Shiga’s interactive comics appear.

Tapeworks: Packing Tape imagery by Mark Khaisman.

I love how these pieces straddle the lines between disciplines: collage and sculpture in assembling the bits of tape, photography in controlling the light level.

Puzzle montages by Kent Rogowski.

Jigsaw puzzle manufacturers apparently often use the same cut pattern for their many designs. I’d like to see this idea taken further to a perfectly interlocking mosaic.

Ivan Brunetti’s sequential gallery: 50 banners hanging on Las Vegas Boulevard in Nevada.

Nicely constructed: the story loops around on itself.

An insanely thorough and well-written examination of the ressurection of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’

Even the comments are good.

The mural seen on the cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Figure 8,’ which became a memorial of sorts after his suicide, has been restored.

It had been tagged by graffiti artists several times in the past year.

Absolutely insane set of numeric statistics regarding the entirety of the MST3K Ouvre.

Putting Star Trek fans to shame in the fine-grained minutiae department.

“Playable MusicArt Compositions” by James Plakovic.

Pixelart made from musical notation.

Interview with a designer of Lego’s original ‘Space’ sets.

A peek behind the curtain at a designer whose work was hugely influential to an entire generation of nerds.

Recent Ignatz Award winner Tom Neely’s dead-on imitations of Tom Gauld’s author studies.

Audience: A limited subset of a limited subset.

Flash games by Nitrome.

I’m not usually a flash games fan, but the pixel art and animation on these is insanely high quality. Metal Slug caliber.

Exhibition of contemporary artists paying tribute to the creations of Stan Lee.

Johnny Yanok’s ‘Incredibles’-esque Fantastic Four piece and Monster Factory’s Hulk plush were the highlights for me.

Hasbro Attempting To Shut Down Scrabulous.

I was wondering about this whilst considering how much better and less cheater-prone ‘blokusulous’ would be.

Vintage Karusell Records 45 Sleeve design.

I’ve been a subscriber to this site for a awhile and this is one of my absolute favorite sleeves they’ve posted.

Vampire Weekend’s video for ‘A Punk.’

I am a sucker for one-take videos.

Paul Thomas Anderson interviewed by The A.V. Club in anticipation of the release of ‘There Will Be Blood.’

I can’t wait to see this movie.