The Cartoonist

Saturday, February 8, 2003

Pop goes the page. Pop-up and movable books is a partly interactive exhibition at the UNT Library, covering history, publishers and artists. You can move things around and lots of animated gifs demonstrate the 'movable picture books'. Another exhibition can be found at the University of Virginia: Movable and Mechanical Books from the Brenda Forman Collection, with Quicktime 3D examples. Wonderful stuff. "Pop-ups, the generic name for mechanical, movable books, unfold and rise from the page to our surprise and delight. Through the use of rivets, flaps, tabs, folds, and cut paper, these books perform before our eyes. Each page becomes a stage, inviting action and participation. Here, physical transformations make dynamic the static illustrations. In the moment of touch, we, the operators, escape the mind and pop into the page." 1:31:58 PM     |

Public Transport. No comment. 'Irate' passengers stuck on Eurostar. Hundreds of passengers were trapped on a Eurostar train for five hours, after it broke down just minutes from Waterloo station. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] 9:09:51 AM     |

Obelix, MobiliX, Masterix and Skrobelix. Astérix whups MobiliX. Reverse in Gaul legal brawl [The Register] "MobiliX, the Unix on mobile devices company, has suffered a legal setback in its dispute against the French publisher which owns the trademarks to the cartoon series Astérix the Gaul. Les Editions Albert René claims MobiliX is similar in name to Obelix, a character in Asterix the Gaul, and so infringes on its trademark." 8:59:31 AM     |

Friday, February 7, 2003

I'll move to Ireland. Or somewhere else. Just away from the Central Line. Tube travellers face further delays [This is London: London News] 11:28:41 PM     |

Fantastic. Gorgeous. Tasty. Delicious. I'm happy. An Online Anthology of Early Comics, from medieval ages to 1929. "This is a collection of old comics, from the beginning to 1929. On this long page they are listed chronologically. If you are looking for particular artists, go to the text-only Alphabetical Listing." "link" 7:50:41 PM     |

Dreams of Space. Space Art in Children's Books 1950's to 1970's is worth browsing. "With the discoveries by Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth of liquid-fueled rockets in the 1930's and the use of V-2 rockets in the 1940's, rocket travel went from science fiction to science fact in the public's mind. In post-World War II America anything seemed possible, even going to the Moon! There appeared in 1949, a book The Conquest of Space , which led to a new trend in children's books. These books outlined the future the children of the "baby boom" would grow up in, the world of space ( example ). The illustrations in these books show facts (as they were known) mixed in with the fantasy of space flight and led many of the readers of these books to 'dream of space'." Via das kollektiv 2:21:29 PM     |

Sketch Book Time. Much too busy to draw any new stuff ... 2:00:56 PM     |

The Transcript. On the Channel 4 News Page are links to Tony Benn's interview with Saddam Hussein (video and transcript) and - even more interesting - the afterwards chat with viewers. channel4.com - news 12:06:42 PM     |

Booohooo. Real Pictures of Ghosts. Impressive double exposures, I must say. All done without the help of Photoshop, but 'in camera'! "link" 9:15:46 AM     |

Paper. Ladies and Gentlemen, here's the Toilet Paper Museum. "This is where you'll find the interesting stuff: history of toilet paper; samples (including Madonna's); links; funny stories; and odd commentaries ." "link" 9:06:36 AM     |

Thursday, February 6, 2003

Simulacra. Talking Heads: The Early History of Talking Machines is a fascinating website about speech synthesis. And at The History of Speech Synthesis is a nice and long article about "Wolfgang von Kempelen's and the subsequent speaking machines" with old engravings and photos. 9:36:11 PM     |

The Turk. A little page with a few pictures of Wolfgang von Kempelen's Chess Automat is at Chess Graphics; a long list with links is here (most of them are dead though). 9:26:28 PM     |

I'm back. Amazing how many people can fit into one train. 9:16:29 PM     |

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

That was HELL. I lost 5 hours of my precious life today on buses, trains and then the Underground. Tomorrow the same. And possibly Friday. I'm knackered. Now quickly a frozen pizza into the stove and then to bed. 8:13:23 PM     |

Tuesday, February 4, 2003

In order to arrive in Central London tomorrow at 9:00, I'll probably have to leave home at 6:30, thanks to the buggered Underground. So don't expect any entries tomorrow. 5:52:46 PM     |

Antique Hamburg. 2 links for Kellerkind: Frank Möller compares photos of the old Hamburg with photos of today's Hamburg, and here are historic postcards of the old Hanse Town. 1:22:46 PM     |

MMM. Short for Major Matt Mason, Mattel's Man in Space. This was long before Apollo 1, Apollo 13 and Shuttle disasters and was a fascinating toy. Go to Major Matt Mason's Homepage, or visit Keith Meyer's Space Station. Which I had blogged already a few months ago, but certain things need to be mentioned a couple of times. 12:10:29 PM     |

Oh no! Please ... More delays to central line repairs [This is London: London News] "Hundreds of thousands of Tube commuters today faced the threat of continued travel chaos after it emerged that London Underground has still not found a safe method of securing the half-ton motors beneath its fast Central line trains." 10:27:20 AM     |

Monday, February 3, 2003

Dogfood, a German Weblog writes about travelling on the S-Bahn in Hamburg. My Hamburg; yes, I miss it. Nothing seems to have changed since 1993. No, the photo is probably from '33! Hamburg has changed quite a bit since then! Lots of Hamburg photos can be found at the Bildarchiv Hamburg (obviously), rather old ones as well as rather new ones. Anyway: thousands of pics. Worth browsing. 10:54:24 PM     |

Tsk. Rock legend held in fatal shooting. Legendary US record producer Phil Spector is detained after a woman is found shot dead at a house in Los Angeles. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] 10:15:14 PM     |

The light! The light!! Found a huge website about Turner. J.M.W. Turner. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), a Painter, to be precise. Ahh, the light...! Browse to English Romantic Art History. Oh - Radio's working again. 10:13:09 PM     |

And my Sitemeter seems to be kaputt as well. Stupid Internet. Modern World - pf! 2:10:21 PM     |

Because Radio is still buggered, I've done a new 3D illustration instead. It's my interpretation of Poe's 'The Cask of Amontillado' and can be found in the bottom left corner of my gallery. 2:05:19 PM     |

Radio kaputt again. Can't upstream pictures. Booo! 11:43:11 AM     |

Sunday, February 2, 2003

In case anyone's interested: I have a new 3D rendering on my gallery page. It's called 'Yuk ... Nature!'. 4:52:08 PM     |

Interesting Entry in Michaels Weblog (in German). "Es ist noch viel zu früh, um die Ursache und die Auswirkungen der gestrigen Katastrophe abzuschätzen. Ich habe trotzdem einige - vorläufige - Fakten zusammengestellt. Bevor ich zu einer Auflistung von Fakten komme: man sollte den Absturz der Columbia nicht zu hoch spielen - es gibt auf der Welt noch viel mehr Katastrophen, die viel schlimmere Folgen haben, die viel mehr Leben fordern, die viel mehr Leid bringen, aber im Vergleich dazu nur eine Randnotiz bleiben. Man sollte auch nicht vergessen: das, was den Menschen im Irak womöglich bevorsteht, wird die Columbia-Katastrophe in allen Punkten in den Schatten stellen." 11:24:10 AM     |

Shuttle History. Images and documents at the NASA History Office. 11:17:51 AM     |