If being a fan of Star Wars and comic books alone isn’t nerdy enough for you, then you’ll be happy to know that Scottish illustrator Matt Cowan has put together a series of mathematical equations that explain the origins of some of your favorite pop-culture characters, from Darth Vader to Captain Jack Sparrow. Check them out after the jump, and be sure to take a look at Cowan’s T-shirt store if you have a powerful urge to put one of these cool designs on your body.
Once upon a time, monsters were vile creatures to be abhorred and vanquished. Now they’re love interests for teen romances instead, which has left them considerably less scary than they once were. If old-school non-sparkly vampires and aliens were real and you wanted to get down and dirty with one of them, how much danger would you actually be in? To answer that question, we ranked some of our favorite B-movie tropes from most to least desirable.
Today marks the release of Ben Marcus’s long-awaited fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, in which language becomes lethal, estranging families, turning children (who are solely immune) into something resembling packs of wild dogs, and requiring everyone’s complicity in a sort of social apocalypse brought on by an inability to communicate. Needless to say, the concept that language may turn toxic and slowly kill off its users is relatively terrifying for us, so we’ve put together a short guide on the most frightening fictional afflictions in literature — and more importantly, how to avoid them. Click through for a quick survival lesson, and let us know if you have any more safety tips in the comments.
Today at Flavorpill, we checked out a new image promoting The Dark Knight Rises on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. We listened to a Norwegian space disco remix of Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug.” We learned that it’s easy to scare Great Danes. We tried to imagine the t-shirts that will come out of this boutique publisher’s acquisition of six Beatles songs. We applauded William Shatner for doing a new one-man Broadway show. We wanted to play all the records in this Sound Wave sculpture. We noted that zombies are here to stay where graphic novels are concerned. We laughed at the philosotoddler meme. We watched a balloon and a boom box “bleed.” We found out the answers to nagging Disney-related questions. We were surprised at how many of these predictions from a Ladies Home Journal published in 1900 came true. And finally, we wanted to tell Patrick Bateman about these $1,500 business cards, although we imagine he’d lament the lack of watermark.
As we all know, the world is supposed to end this year, dropping us all into a huge pit of who-knows-what. In an effort to be prepared, we’ve been thinking about what kind of post-apocalyptic world would best suit us — and since the end-date is a fantasy, we think it only fitting that the only resultant post-apocalyptic scenarios we consider be just as fictional. In our pop-culture focused minds, it just seems like it ought to work out that way. Accordingly, we’ve sifted through the many post-apocalyptic worlds in literature and film to find the best and the worst possible outcomes, at least in our eyes. But to each his own — would you rather live in Zombieland than in the Matrix? Or is your worst nightmare or best case scenario not represented here? Let us know in the comments.
In honor of Halloween, some culinary artists are corrupting the sweetness of cake, fondant, and molding chocolate by transforming them into horrifying, ghoulish sculptures. Wounded zombies dripping with blood, grim pumpkins, eyeball-filled cauldrons, and eerie sugar skulls are just some of the All Hallows’ Eve staples that have been re-imagined with the aid of piping bags, buttercream spatulas, and layers upon layers of cake that have been carved down to form seriously creepy creations. In honor of the spooky holiday’s imminent arrival, we’ve rounded-up a batch of exquisitely detailed cakes that’ll give you a fright after the jump.
This weekend, the third installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise — a supernatural sensation since Oren Peli’s original film debuted in 2009 — rocked the box office, taking in $54 million for its opening weekend. The film also holds rank as the highest grossing movie for any October opening in history. While Paranormal Activity’s victory can be largely attributed to its successful grassroots marketing campaign and Halloween slot (it replaced popular spooky long-runner Saw), it’s still quite the feat for a part three film. Most threequels fizzle out by the third go-round, leaving their characters to dully ride the coattails of previous successes — but clearly that isn’t always the case. And with news about Sherlock Holmes securing a writer for its third installment, perhaps the action-mystery movie can follow suit. After the break, we took a look at several trilogies that buck the trend of bad things coming in threes — some third features even managing to outdo the films that started their respective series.
Every day is Halloween according to amusing infographic, The United States of Scary Things. Between the devastating effects of Mother Nature, zombies, and serial killers, American citizens have a lot to worry about year-round. If the zombie apocalypse ever truly breaks out, it looks like the east coast is totally screwed. Meanwhile, falling rocks, tornadoes, and ghosts will plague the central portions of the state. We wonder if Wisconsin should share calamities with Ohio since Dahmer was born in the Buckeye state, but killed his victims almost entirely in Wisconsin. Hit the jump to check out the infograph in full, and debate your home state’s misfortune.
Zombies, somewhat inexplicably, have captured the attentions of American culture and don’t seem to be letting go anytime soon. Most representations, however, as perhaps best befits the shambling, brain eating, flailing creatures, are deliciously low-brow, from low budget horror films to trashy fright night novels — that is, until this week, when Colson Whitehead’s Zone One hit the shelves, reminding us all that zombies can be intellectual too. His literary use of the undead walkers in his post-apocalyptic vision of New York has led us to consider other high-brow treatments of zombies in pop culture, which have slowly been emerging to varying degrees of success as the gross-out creatures continue to gain popularity. Click through to see a few of our favorite highbrow zombies across the board, and let us know if we’ve missed any in the comments.
Andre De Freitas meshes his photography background with illustration by creating crystal clear, realistic drawings. The technique is well-suited to his Zombie Portraits series, in which he transforms adored cartoons and classic comic-book characters into grim, white-eyed zombies with menacing expressions and festering wounds. Although the eerie collection is the epitome of unsettling — it showcases a demonic Donald Duck and a desolate Charlie Brown — the detailing and color palette De Freitas employs is perfectly apropos for Halloween. See your favorite cartoon metamorphosed into an undead monster after the cut.
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