Photography: Greetings From Mars

"Greetings From Mars" by Julien Mauve

"In 1492, Christopher Colombus discovered America. Less than 500 years later, it has become a common touristic destination for wealthy people from every part of the world. What remains of the Wild West has now been transformed into National Park where people can quietly enjoy breathtaking landscapes.

Unknown worlds are now located far from Earth and our most famous explorer is a robot. "Curiosity" is the Christopher Colombus of our century, crawling the surface of Mars, searching for clues and informations about its past. As with the Wild West, we could imagine a point where Mars would become a touristic destination for people to visit and experience. NASA and SpaceX are already working on it and it is obvious that in less than 50 years, humans will walk on Mars.

I have always wondered what it would be like to discover a totally different world, lifeless, full of wild landscapes and to photograph it for the first time as if I was Ansel Adams. So I came up with this project, which is about space exploration and discovery. But it's also about our behavior in front of landscapes and how we create pictures that will share our personal story with the world. In every spots I stopped, carefully chosen for their similarities with the red planet, I imitated stereotypical tourist poses. It's interesting to observe the way we act in front of the camera, how we include ourselves in the landscapes, how those landscapes trigger the desire to affirm our presence. And how the way we take pictures exposes the vanity involved in our endless pursuit of self-definition."

Illustration: Yin Yang of Earth

"Yin Yang- Land" by India-based Dalip Singh of McCann Worldgroup

This illustration made by Greenpeace, India in collaboration with the advertising giant McCann Worldgroup portrays the state of our planet because of human activities.

"Yin Yang is a result of the same kind of belief and thought process. Everyday natural disasters and environmental hazards triggered the observation that the state of environment is imbalanced. Hence the idea – “Bring back the balance” was born. To visually depict it, I used the popular Chinese symbol “Yin Yang”. The symbol describes the state of balance between two opposites with a little bit in each. I wanted to explore this irony that exists between the symbol and the present state of environment.

It was quite a time consuming campaign. Before starting off, I invested a lot of time in doing research regarding the factors, causes and reasons behind different kinds of environmental pollutions. It was followed by a number of sittings with the illustrators in my team to finalize the style and scale of detail of the artworks. The rough sketches were done for more than a month by me and 2 illustrators. The original illustrations were hand drawn on wall sized sheets. I tried for as much detail and reality as possible. The illustrations were then painted with watercolors, photographed and digitalized. The last leg of the campaign involved the laborious task of retouching. It was pretty challenging to keep the synergy of earth colors (green and blue) intact while bringing forth the black and white of Yin Yang in the artwork, at the same time. It took the team more than 6 months to draw & paint and 3 months to retouch the whole project keeping in mind every single object in it. Now, here is the final result in front of you and it seems now the effort was worth all the time."

Humor: Growing up with video games

"When you grow up with video games" by BooksofAdam

Gaming Round-Up: June 1, 2015

BioShock Illustration by チョモラン

News:  27 million watch video game tournament - matching NCAA final audience

Andy Kelly asks the completely legitimate question Why the Hell Is a Farming Simulator at the Top of the UK Video Game Chart?

At Gamasutra, Katherine Cross compares the systemization of morality in the D&D and Pathfinder tabletop games with that of Bioware games.

Ernest Cline has managed to turn his ’80s nostalgia into an entirely different book from Ready Player One. Read the first chapter of Armada!

Comic Round-Up: June 1, 2015

"Spider Wars" by In-Hyuk Lee

Event: The City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, has an exhibit of original and reproduction art titled “A Lifetime of Making Comics,” dedicated to the late Dondi creator Irwin Hasen but also featuring work by other local artists Chance Brown, Frank McLaughlin, and Mort, Brian and Greg Walker.

Event: Long Beach, California, Mayor Robert Garcia will give a talk on “DC Universe 101: Comic Book Mayhem” at this year’s IdeaFest.

Interview: Chinese cartoonist Wang Liming, who’s living in Japan because he is afraid he will be arrested if he returns to his native country, says he believes the Chinese government is running a smear campaign against him

Interview: Zippy creator Bill Griffith is working on a graphic memoir, Invisible Ink, about his mother’s affair with a well-known cartoonist.

Link Round-Up: June 1, 2015

"Mad Max" by Greece-based Manos Lagouvardos

Additional "Decades" Details and Art for Disneyland Resort Diamond Celebration

Google’s Immersive 360 Action Flick Is So Realistic It’s Not Believable

How the Long Take Died a Death by 1,000 Cuts

Pushing Cosplay To Its Absolute Limits

Sir Patrick Stewart teaches us the proper way to eat gelato on this summer Friday.

Tatjana Joelle van Vark creates beautiful and sophisticated devices, like this recreation (including a "hypothetical planetarium") of the Antikythera Mechanism. In this video she walks us through some of her constructions: Mythe van een Magistra

These Alien Face Hugger Eggs Come In The Smartest Toy Packaging Ever

The United States of Horror: Where everything went wrong

What’s your Mad Max name?

Music Video: NSA SONG

"ADHD U: NSA SONG" by Animation Domination High-Def

Reemember last month when John Oliver gave that hilarious interview with Edward Snowden about the NSA seeing your Dick Pics?  Well, this week ADHD joins in the fun, stealing a page from Schoolhouse Rock, and educates us on what the NSA really does with all of their high-tech surveillance equipment. NSFW!