Illustration: Do your strip!


Do Your Strip!

70 authors/illustrators were invited to show how to create a simple character and then draw a comic strip...

Check out the pdf preview.

Via Drawn!

---

Vintage beverage: Cuba Cola






"Cuba Cola
was the first cola in the Swedish market - introduced in 1953 and still going strong. The label has been kept unchanged over the years and is a good example of true 50s design. The taste is characterized by the robust taste of cola and many think this is what a real cola should taste like." - Krönleins Bryggeri

"The recipe is owned by Saturnus AB of Malmö and it's brewed on license by Vasa bryggeri, Heines bryggeri, Guttsta Källa and Krönleins." - Wikipedia

"Saturnus produced a great many products during the Second World War to supplement products that were in short supply, and thus became even more well known in Swedish households. " / ". At the same time, the trendy post-War fashions from the USA resulted in a great deal of interest in Cola drinks. The debate was heated, and Coca Cola wasn't allowed to market its products in Sweden until 1953. Saturnus was ready - Cuba Cola was launched a few months before Saturnus' American competitor began marketing its products." - Saturnus

"... beating Coca-Cola by three months. The soft drink has in reality nothing to do with the country of Cuba, although it serves as an alternative cola drink to the many anti-American (or anti-globalization) youths of Sweden." - Wikipedia


(Click image for larger)
---

Illustration: Robert McGinnis

"Robert E. McGinnis (born 1926) is an American illustrator known for his illustrations of paperback book covers and movie posters, including Breakfast at Tiffanys, Barbarella, and several James Bond films." says Wikipedia.




This is my second post with the same name. The link in the first one is dead so when I saw girlfriday_2's excellent Flickr set via This is not happiness I thought "Great! A perfect substitute!" So enjoy!


---

Vintage animals: Cheeta the monkey man






Did you know that
retired monkey man Cheeta is still alive? He has turned 76! And he's the oldest non-human primate known.

Nowadays he's into painting, watching TV, reading and playing the piano. Visit the site C.H.E.E.T.A to check him out, or his MySpace.

---



IMDb, wikipedia

---

Blogger: Where do all the images go? Part 2

A couple of months ago I put out a question to the readers of Martin Klasch and it is now time to follow up on that. The main question was:

"If you, like me, publish most of your images in your blog by using the upload button in the blogger interface - in other words not using a separate tool - then where do all the images go?"

So, I kind of wanted to know if my blog images were collected somewhere that I and others could find them. My kind readers mrdantefontana, fisk, iluvnufc, arthur ignatowski, modmom, thombeau were all kind enough to participate in the discussion.

Iluvnufc was the first one to mention Picasa Web Albums and sure enough the answer to my question was that...

"...all the photos you've uploaded since December (2006) will appear in an album there, and we're working on migrating your older photos as well. (It'll take a while though - there are a lot of them.)" - Blogger Buzz.

What do you know? There they are!! Thanks to my readers for solving this mystery. Hopefully someone else got their questions answered by this too.

Here is the link to my open image galleries by the way (Your galleries are otherwise closed by default), and below you'll find links to my three open galleries and also an embedded slide show of the Martin Klasch images.




---

Album covers: Vintage classical album cover graphics





















Vinyl Gallery: Vintage classical album cover graphics
- a set on Flickr by jl.incrowd

Via Bibi's del icio us

---

Art: Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008

“Sometimes, it almost feels like Robert Rauschenberg and Moderna Museet are synonymous. In the same way that I can say without hesitation that there is a distinct “before” and “after” Rauschenberg’s appearance on the art scene in the 1950s." says Lars Nittve, Museum Director. (continue reading)



Mud muse by Robert Rauschenberg at Moderna Museet / The Modern Museum of Art in Stockholm, Sweden.

"Monogram" has become something of a symbol for Moderna Museet.
---

Google Docs: The Piraeus Lion

I just had to try this Google service - Google Documents.


Vintage street art: The Piraeus Lion

The Piraeus Lion "...was originally located in Piraeus, the ancient harbour of Athens (Greece). It was looted by Venetian naval commander Francesco Morosini in 1687 as plunder taken in the Great Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire..." / "The lion was a famous landmark in Piraeus, having stood there since the first or second century AD."



"The statue, which is made of white marble and stands some 3 m (9 ft) high, is particularly noteworthy for having been defaced some time in the second half of the 11th century by Scandinavians who carved two lengthy runic inscriptions into the shoulders and flanks of the lion. The runes are carved in the shape of an elaborate lindworm dragon-headed scroll, in much the same style as on rune stones in Scandinavia. The carvers of the runes were almost certainly Varangians(*), Scandinavian mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Emperor who had been sent to Greece to put down a revolt by the local people."


"The inscriptions were not recognised as runes until the Swedish diplomat Johan David Åkerblad identified them at the end of the 18th century." / "The inscriptions are heavily eroded due to weathering and air pollution..." / "This has required translators to reconstruct some of the runes, filling in the blanks to determine what words they represented."



"Erik Brate's interpetation from 1914 is considered to be the most successful one.":


"They cut him down in the midst of his forces. But in the harbor the men cut runes by the sea in memory of Horsi, a good warrior. The Swedes set this on the lion. He went his way with good counsel, gold he won in his travels.

The warriors cut runes, hewed them in an ornamental scroll. Æskell (Áskell) [and others] and ÞorlæifR (Þorleifr) had them well cut, they who lived in Roslagen. [N. N.] son of [N. N.] cut these runes. UlfR (Úlfr) and [N. N.] colored them in memory of Horsi. He won gold in his travels."

---
* "The Varangians or Varyags (Old Norse: Væringjar...)" / "...were Vikings, Norsemen, mostly Swedes, who went eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries."

---
Quotes from Wikipedia. Images from Wikipedia (the drawn version and the runes copied on paper), Swedish Museum of National Antiquities, (The copy of the sculpture set indoors), mararie's Flickr photostream (The original in Venice)
---

Transportation: Yesterday's Airports of Today


"This is a 1935 model for an underground air terminal. After landing, aircraft would go underground to various levels for passengers, maintenance, and cargo loading. Connections to ground transportation are at the lowest level."

Quote and image from The Smithsonian website - America by Air.


Via BibliOdyssey

---

Animation/art: MUTO by BLU

An amazing wall-painted (graffiti) animation by Italian artist BLU. (site / blog)
Via Drawn!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

---

Travel ephemera: Art of the Luggage Label

"Welcome to my image stream and information resource devoted to the art of luggage labels and related travel ephemera. Luggage labels are fascinating bits of hotel history from the golden age of travel, roughly the 1900's to 1960's. During this time these labels were used by hotels as advertising and eagerly applied to steamer trunks, suitcases and all sorts of luggage by hotel staff, mainly bellhops."

Tom Schifanella's collection on Flickr - Art of the Luggage Label.

Via Grow-a-brain



---
Martin Klasch loves travel ephemera
---

Problem: We're sorry, this video is no longer available

The last week or so I have had major problems watching clips on YouTube. Probably more than 90% of the clips have either just stuck in loading mode or the error message "We're sorry, this video is no longer available" reared its ugly face.



















After searching the Internet for solutions, uninstalling and reinstalling Adobe Flash Player a number of times, I finally found someone in a forum who described exactly the same problem that I had. Luckily, I could also find the explanation; the culprits name is Google Web Accelerator.



Hey, wasn't it supposed to accelerate things?! Isn't it so that Google owns YouTube? Should they really make programs that sabotage YouTube watching?!! Is that wise?

Anyway, after uninstalling that program everything worked fine and I actually think general web surfing works faster without it. I could be imagining this but I'm not so sure.

Please check the comments for other possible solutions!


---

Another YouTube problem and possible solutions: YouTube Freezing after just a couple of seconds

---

By the way, do you use any personalized start page? I have had iGoogle for a long time but never used it. I never liked it. Don't ask why. Today I tried NetVibes and so far it seems really good and it looks a bit better than iGoogle too. So I guess I'll give it a try.

PS. I'm
not a Google hater. They make lots of good stuff too.

---