Let's Read _The Dinosaur Data Book_!

Today, I jump back on the older paleoart bandwagon. I can't believe how many books I have to review here. We'll start with one that's been requested a few times.

The Dinosaur Data Book was published circa 1990 by The Diagram Group. Illustrators include Grahame Rosewarne, Ashley Best, Darren Bennett, Brian Hewson, Pavel Kostal, Lee Lawrence, Paul McCauley, Philip Patenall, and Micky Pledge (whew).

Overall, the book is very, very similar to A Field Guide to Dinosaurs (to the point where I recommend re-reading my review of it). There's no indication as to which artist drew what and most of the illustrations are in a fairly generic style. I was confident in scanning this book, as it's soft cover was well-reinforced, but I apologize if some of the images are still a little off. They're all at Flickr (contributed to the wonderful Vintage Dinosaur Art pool of course) so you can click them for larger versions.



As with Field Guide, I'm going to be focusing on the stranger illustrations. I think this one is indicative of the book as a whole: it's got a very strange looking reconstruction of a prehistoric creature and a deeply strange indicator of scale. This poor 80's Quetzelcoatlus is about to be rear-ended by that airplane!



Odd scale markers are the book's forte, really. Get used to seeing the cat, the hound, and the man in a suit often. I haven't the slightest idea why Chaoyoungosaurus (sp) is drawn with a dotted line. Either the remains of the animal were fragmentary (which makes you wonder why they bothered to include him at all) or little ceratopsians were capable of becoming invisible.



And with that in mind, Hilarious In Hindsight depictions of dinosaurs who were poorly understood back in the late 80's is why we are here today. This little fellow is Noasaurus, a dinosaur I remember well from being mentioned many times in guides like this at the time but who doesn't get much press today. The big deal about Noasaurus was the fact that this at first appeared to be a dinosaur who looked an awful lot like a dromeosaur, but was not at all closely related to them. That's convergent evolution. Today, Noasaurus is classified as a small abelosaur. Which is to say, if you hate feathered raptors, Noasaurus is here for you.

Or perhaps not, because current reconstructions of Noasaurus look... different.



Speaking of maniraptors, this Oviraptor doesn't look half bad for a book published in 1990. She's half-naked, but the crest is right as is the beak (I'm sorry her face got a little washed out in the photograph), and it looks like the artist even made an attempt to avoid the dreaded kangaroo hand trope.



Here's a very speculative Deinocheirus and his famous crazy long arms. It almost looks like the artist was stuck between the then-recently popular "with arms and claws this long, it HAD to have been a horrible murderbeast!" theory and the current "actually, these look more like scaled-up arms from one of those little sissy-pants ornithomimids" theory.

Hey, speaking of assuming that an animal with really huge arms and long, long claws MUST have been a horrible murderbeast...



Yeah. I like to think the lady next to him is thinking, "You guys are going to be SO floored when it turns out these things actually looked more like Big Bird." This is a pretty obscure Therizinosaurus reconstruction that I referenced in this piece.



Meanwhile, Segnosaurus are still in Team Prosauropod in this book. I can hear the lady snickering still. She is, by far, the best character in the book, if only because she shows up in the craziest illustration. We'll get to that soon, but first...



Whaddup, Syntarsus? If you can't read the text, it explains how Syntarsus is often shown with feathers and that some scientists suppose that small theropods would have benefited from feathers "if they were warm-blooded". This is in spite of the fact, the text goes on, that no dinosaur has been found with feathers except for Archeopteryx, "usually thought of as a bird". Ow... my brains...



As you may have noticed, there weren't many offbeat illustrations of non-theropods. Nothing really stood out as strange... until I saw this Stegosaurus. Love those shoulder-spikes. The text provides no reasoning at all behind this reconstruction, and it's especially strange given that the most outrageously spiky stegosaurs were yet to be fully described.

And now, as promised, the weirdest illustration in the book:



"I say, horrible Anthropocentric alien-thing, have you the time?"

I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the whole thing now, but this was actually part of a two-page spread of "fictional dinosaur species", mostly from The New Dinosaurs. Really. Because guides of modern mammals have two-page spreads of unicorns and centaurs and jackalopes and sidehill gougers and drop-bears and hoppopotomi and elephunkeys and platypus-bears. I hope you can see my facepalm, publishers of the Dinosaur Data Book, because I am doing it as hard as I can.

So, Dale Russel's Dinosauroid has been given more attention in this book. I've collected so many examples of this, I might as well plan on a future post where I show all the examples I have of perfectly normal and serious documents on dinosaurs which suddenly and out of nowhere include this thing. Lord knows why, I guess the concept really captured peoples' imagination for some reason. (By the way, "redesigned"...? )

Speaking of dinosaur-people...


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Sketch of the Day!

No, I don't hate all fictional species...

Hey, should I be numbering these? - More Links of Interest!

So I figure since I'm on the T/TR summer schedule, if I'm going to spring a Links Of Interest post on you, it's going to be a super long one:

I have no idea how I missed this but in 2007, John Updike wrote an article about dinosaurs for National Geographic. Turns out he knows his Avemetatarsalians (a better word to use than Ornithodirans it turns out, but sadly not as catchy) and gets downright philosophical about them. And I love, love, love the paragraph that opens the second page. Holy guano!

The only downside of the previous article is that the illustrations are the generic CGI jobs that are so annoyingly popular nowadays (who electrocuted the velociraptor?) The same criticism cannot be applied to these AMAZING (and very strange) Lord of the Rings stickers discovered by chance by author Ethan Gilsdorf. Be warned, whoever illustrated these stickers had a mental picture of Tolkein's characters that was... different. And very sixties. On the upshot, this will be how I imagine Tom Bombadil forever.

Speaking of crazy ways of drawing familiar characters, Something Awful's Flashtub has done a pair of dead-on parodies of Dingo Pictures/Phoenix Games. They make a lot more sense (???) if you watch this first. See the parodies here and here. (Naughty language warning.)

Maybe this isn't new to southern Californians, but Disneyland commercials air only very rarely here on the east coast, and this new one advertising the long-awaited reopening of Star Tours is the Best Thing.

The Onion AV Club shared a wonderful interview with Norton Juster. And one of their local branches questioned the logic of the NKOTBSB tour, and of misaimed nostalgia in general.

Over at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, Dave alerted us to some new "Terra Nova" teaser images, which can be seen here. The most important thing to note is that we get a better look at the theropod critter from the teaser trailer which I had assumed was a Carnotaurus. Turns out it's one of Branon Braga's invented species and... sigh... Brannon Braga.

I mentioned in the last post that I am foaming at the mouth with anticipation over "Brave". And now even more so, as Cartoon Brew has revealed that the characters have a wonderfully eerie Brian Froud a la "Labyrinth"/Miyazaki a la "Spirited Away" look.

Speaking of, "Labyrinth" is 25 years old yesterday.

CHUD.com reposted the list of winners from this year's Saturn Awards. Yipes.

"X Number Best of Whatever" lists on the Internet are usually a load of poo-poo, but here's Time Magazine's 25 Best Animated Features. You know what I just said about the Saturn Awards? Yeah... same thing here.

GeekMom shared an awesome way to get kids into art on her blog. I should raid my overstuffed, OCD-affected art supply box and make a few of these to give out to my little cousins when they visit.

The good news is, there is a sequel to Lev Grossman's The Magicians on the way. The bad news is, we have to wait until August. The... neutral news is, we have a teaser image as well as a discussion between author and illustrator to tide us over.

A couple of fun Tumblers about animation art have come to my attention: Smears, Multiples, and Other Animation Gimmicks celebrates the (often very strange) art of the motion blur, while Out Of Context Animation takes stills out of context with... odd results.

Apparently, someone wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal that, according to GeekMom and i09 (and many, many others), might as well have been entitled "Badly Informed, Sensationalistic, and Deeply Patronizing Thoughts on a Genre I Lost Touch With Decades Ago and Now Only Notice the Very Worst Popular Recent Examples Of". As usual. This time it's young adult literature.

In happier news, I can't wait, I can not freaking WAIT, to go see this.

Speaking of dinosaurs and glee, Albertonychus has done a fabulous series on feathers which you all need to read starting here.

And Darren Naish has been sharing chapters from his bird biology book that, sadly, never happened.

Everything is Terrible gave us a brief reminder of why I kinda miss the "eff it, let's just slap some trash together and there's your costume" aesthetic of low budget 80's sci-fi movies. They also reminded us that there is nothing on God's green Earth that is more utterly confusing than Christian Furries.

Last week, I wrote about how "Jurassic Park 4" just refuses to die. Turns out the same thing can be said for the "Fraggle Rock" movie (and good lord, the comments on that article are depressing). I maintain that the Fraggles are Jim Henson's crowning moment of awesome, but my interest in a film gradually eroded when it went from "the original puppeteers will play the characters!" to "it's going to be CGI" to "and it's basically got the same plot as 'the Smurfs'". And then the report came in that the studio wanted a "darker and edgier" script and that's the point where I was just, f**** it.

io9 has a list of Things That We Will Never See Happen in a Green Lantern Movie. They've also shared a timely list of uncomfortable issues raised by the presence of the Popemobile in "Cars 2".

Legendary Bronze Age Disney animator Andreas Deja launched a blog called -what else?- Deja View. Definitely worth following.

Speaking of neat artist blogs, Jody Bergsma gives us a refresher on the color wheel. I should really practice my watercolor skills this summer. Her crab painting gave me some nifty ideas for the upcoming Carboniferous Gallery.

Cartoon Brew shared this charming teaser for an upcoming stop-motion film based off The Boy With the Cuckoo Clock Heart. Just try not to get the chorus in your head.

This theater disclaimer is both the most hilarious and the saddest thing.

Via "Hark! A Vagrant!", Strong Female Characters! Also simultaneously the most hilarious and saddest thing.

And Project Dryptosaurus hosted the Boneyard Blog Carnival!

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Sketch of the Day!

Squirrels!

In Which Trish Tries to Reassess "Cars" and Wonders if She Even Wants a Fourth "Jurassic Park"

I have been seeing an unusual sentiment lately that you've probably also already seen around the Internet wherever animation is discussed: "This might be the first year I ever voluntarily skipped a PIXAR film." "I love PIXAR, but I can't see myself paying to watch this." "I'll go, but once the short and the 'Brave' trailer are over, I'm out." "Why the hell are we not getting an 'Incredibles' sequel instead of this?" The film in question, this summer's annual PIXAR entry, is "Cars 2".

Admittedly, "Cars 2" has quite a lot going against it. It's explicitly been made as a moneymaker, even though PIXAR *really* doesn't need one. And also, well, it's a continuation of "Cars".

It's fairly common knowledge among animation fans that "Cars" is widely considered the "least best" PIXAR film. Fans have a hard time finding good things to say about it for a number of reasons I'll get to. It had been a while since I watched it, so I decided to revisit it and try to give it a fair reassessment. Maybe the movie was better than most people thought?

I fell asleep halfway through.

If you've read the Chronological Disney Animated Canon from a few years back, you know that (a) I don't sleep through animated films under normal circumstances and (b) when I do, it generally means that they are pretty bad ("Home on the Range" is a notable example). But being the nice person I am, I watched the rest the next morning.

I still don't like "Cars". But having watched the movie again, I have a better understanding of why I and most other PIXAR fans don't like "Cars":

First off, it's very definitely a film for little kids. PIXAR has made it's name by making movies for everyone. Moms and dads, boys and girls, dogs and cats, adults and children - every other PIXAR film appeals not just to the whole family but to that coveted demographic: everyone. But "Cars" is aimed squarely at the Matchbox/Tonka/Micro Machines set. There were scenes in the film where I couldn't help but think, "This is kind of stupid, but I'm sure a four-year-old would find it funny."

That said, there are also weird little moments that only an adult fully versed in car culture would appreciate. Racing stars have vocal cameos. There's an underlying nostalgia for old-fashioned cross-country road trips. Every vehicle is exhaustively researched to the point where they make the right sounds. For me, whose heart belongs to her fellow organic life forms and who does not get car culture at all, it was like peering into a window on an alternate universe, where I didn't understand the language or anything. (Though it is unspeakably reassuring to know that even when PIXAR swings and misses, they're still going to research their asses off. Therefore, I am foaming at the mouth with anticipation for the Celtic mythology-based "Brave".)
"Cars" was bookended by "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" on one end and "Ratatouille" and "WALL-E" on the other in the PIXAR chronology. These titles, and the fact that almost everyone has a hard time with the "but 'Cars' was made for children, chill out" argument, shows you what kind of reputation the studio had at the time. And in comparison to these films, "Cars" can't help but feel like an also-ran.

But the one thing that really bugged me during the film is also the one thing that gets brought up again and again as I was reading other people's reviews: The world of "Cars" is not very well constructed. As in, it makes no damn sense, and the more you're forced to think about it, the further you're sucked out of the story.

The characters in "Cars" are talking cars, and as I said, it appears as though most of the research and development for the film went into making them as realistic as possible. It's too bad, then, that almost no thought went into issues like, if they're cars, how -and why- did they build the houses? No, even better, how did they build the tire lugnut screwdriver thing since nothing in this world appears to have appendages with fine motor control? If everything is a car/plane/whatever, even the insects, why is the Dinoco logo still a tyrannosaur? Why is the Ferrari logo still a horse? Where did the fuel come from anyway? What in the world is even in "organic fuel"? Why are there military vehicles? Was there a car war? If (and granted this is from the "Cars 2" trailers but it's worth mentioning here) the Popemobile is indeed Catholic, what in the world kind of religion do these cars have? What would the Order of Mass in a car church look like? Why are they growing lettuce?

It's not just that this is the only PIXAR film completely lacking in the human element. It's worse because everything seems built by and for humans who are never seen, none of this is ever acknowledged, and the viewer's mind can't help but jump to some weird conclusions (my favorites being that this is a cheery distant sequel to "Maximum Overdrive" or a pro-machine propaganda film from the world of the Matrix). It reminded me more of something out of one of the not-good Dreamworks movies really. In "Shark Tale" (aka, the one where Will Smith is a fish and he quotes other movies and it is allegedly hilarious), the world was populated by fish and yet their city looked exactly like New York and they had a car wash and other human things a fish would have no need for. Say what you will about the movie I reviewed earlier this week, but at least "Legend of the Guardians" put some thought into what kind of castle owls would live in and what their tools and armor would have to look like.

So unless the reviews are spectacular, I doubt I'll be rushing to see "Cars 2". Speaking of sequels, last week, /Film reported that "Jurassic Park 4" just flat out refuses to die. The discussion under this report became quite lively and I had to join in. I apologize, but I'm going to be That Person on the Internet and repost some of my thoughts about the possibility of a fourth "Jurassic Park" movie.

The big one is, "Why?"

Could you even make a "Jurassic Park" movie in the 2010s? We've learned (and here I am going to use a very scientific term) a metric sh_t-ton more about the signature dinosaurs in "JP" since even the third movie, and at this point things like naked coelurosaurs would look stupid. Furthermore, you can't really do anything with the reoccurring human characters, nor can you really introduce new ones, without it feeling really forced. (And anyway, who cares about the humans in a "Jurassic Park" movie? :)

So you would either have to do a massive retcon, or come up with an excuse as to why the velociraptors don't look like velociraptors, or go for broke and do something totally insane like the anthropomorphic dinosaur soldier hero squad idea that was floating around a while back.

Or -and call me crazy- maybe come up with a totally new and different prehistoric animal franchise?

About the only thing that might make sense at this point would be a prequel. In the novels, there's a lot of implied (and not) backstory which could fuel a good "JP" prequel. All from memory, since it's been a while: A better explanation of the lysine contingency. The genetic engineers being asked to make the real live goddamn non-avian dinosaurs look and act more like what people "expect" (in the late 80's remember). Alan Grant being called in the middle of the night with the question "seriously, what would a baby Miasaura eat?" since the Park scientists have no zookeepers among them and have *no* experience with animals. Struggles with adapting the animals to modern diseases and parasites. And of course they could show exactly how the Park scientists learned how unruly the pterosaurs and maniraptors are...

And this was my favorite idea until a poster named Jonas came up with:

"They should set it in a distant future when humanity is extinct and the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park have populated the Earth and evolved to talk and make an amusement park where they can interact with real flesh and blood HUMANS recreated from genetic information preserved in fossilized rolled up gym socks: HOLOCENE PARK!"

Oh sweet Raptor Jesus, I need this movie yesterday (although the title really ought to be "Neogene Park", heh). The whole thing writes itself and I shall repeat my off-the-cuff dialogue for prosperity:

Dinosauroid!Alan Grant - "Well, perhaps humans are more closely related to our modern Rabbucks than to ancient reptiles. Look at the mammary glands, just like a Rabbuck's! Perhaps they even had hair like a Rabbuck!"

Dinosauroid!Annoying Child - "THAT doesn't look very scary! More like a fifteen pygostyle tall PARASHREW!!!"

Dinosauroid!Alan Grant - "A Parashrew. Well, imagine you're in the late Holocene. You see this fifteen pygostyle tall parashrew walking towards you, rather ungainly since it's hind legs are so absurdly long and it's skull is so monstrously large. But suddenly, you are attacked! *WSSHT!!!* By the other six billion humans that you didn't even know were there. And when they kill you, they kill with this: a gun. Point is, you will be stripped bare, have your bones and organs torn out, be cut into little pieces, and set on fire when they start to EAT you. So next time, show a little respect, hm?"

Dinosauroid!Annoying Child - 😨

(Later...)

Dinosauroid!Ellie Satler - "Gosh, Alan, if you wanted to scare the kid you could have just jumped up and screamed while flashing your talons at him."

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Sketch of the Day!



Ducks and Chickadees...

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Other Person's Art of the Day!

I'm going to link to this piece by concept artist Jake Parker. It's his take on Lightning McQueen and, honestly, it is glorious because it pretty much sums up my thoughts and feelings RE: "Cars".

Inside Lightning McQueen

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Ridiculously Important Addendum!

Guess who almost forgot to remind everyone that "Futurama" returns tonight at ten?

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Even MORE Ridiculously Important Addendum!

So... this post prompted a rebuttal from Scott at the Coherent Lighthouse. You should read it. (If only because it is so far the very first rebuttal I've prompted from *anything* I've written on this blog. Yeah...)

I feel a little silly that I could potentially get into an argument on the Internet over "Cars" of all things. Also, more importantly, I guarantee my response to Scott's post was exactly what he was probably doing while reading mine: Nodding politely while drumming his nails and thinking, "Yeah, but..." So, I am going to respectfully agree to disagree here.

(Even though I really really REALLY want to re-emphasize that the "it's just a kid's movie, chill out" argument is hard to swallow since I and practically every animation fan in the world expect so much more from PIXAR and... OK, Trish just breathe...)

You don't know what a gizzard does, do you? - Thoughts on "Legend of the Guardians"

So... I am aware that there has been a dearth of Tricia's Art lately on Tricia's Art Blog. This is largely because (a) I haven't had a chance to scan stuff lately (b) nor have I had a chance to sit down and draw because (c) it is REALLY FREAKIN' NICE OUT. Believe me, if you've suffered through the winter I have, you'd be outside partying everyday too. I promise I'll bring my poor, neglected Sketchbook next time and I eventually want to get behind a big canvas again like last summer.

OK, on to the subject of this post. As I have mentioned before, 2010 was a phenomenal year for animated films. So much so that there were actually a few animated sleeper hits. One such film that (appropriately enough) flew very quietly under most people's radar was Zack Snyder's "Legend of the Guardians", which will henceforth be referred to as "The Guardians of Ga'hoole" since (a) it's a much less generic title and (b) I'm pretty sure anyone reading my blog is aware that this film is based off an anthology of preteen fantasy books.

Now I didn't expect anything from this movie when I first sat down to watch it. As you may recall, when the trailers first arrived for this film, I was... a little incredulous. Zack Snyder directing "'Star Wars' but Everyone is a Different Species of Strigiform" with the team behind "Happy Feet" (which, you may have heard, I loathed) was a bit of a hard sell. But my trusted /Filmcast sold me (skip to about the twenty minute mark), and I decided to give "Guardians" a shot.

First off, I want a nice big "Art Of" book for "Guardians of Ga'hoole". This movie is absolutely knock-your-socks off gorgeous. See it on the biggest screen you can. The different species of owls actually look like owls and act like owls and the film avoids Feather Fingers and Acrophobic Bird like crazy. This must be what it felt like to be an ichthyologist watching "Finding Nemo" for the first time.

I also would like to know exactly what Zack Snyder's involvement in the film was, because I think he might have found a niche. His films have been basically animated anyway, and he appears to have grounded the Animal Logic studio. If there was any motion capture in "Guardians", I couldn't tell - the animals move like animals and I never got the uncanny valley feeling I got from "Happy Feet".

Now, I don't want to build "Guardians" up too much. Remember, I expected nothing at all from this movie and while I did want to be a cheerleader for it, it's with some reservations. The characters are kind of dull and you can tell what their various arcs and roles in the story are going to be within a few seconds of their introductions. Additionally, it sounded like Hugo Weaving was voicing every other character... Not that I had a problem with this because Hugo Weaving is THAT awesome. The story really is "'Star Wars' But Everyone Is An Owl", and there is a song that appears about two thirds of the way in that... Yeah, actually I'm going to need a whole paragraph for this one.

OK, so there is a song that appears about two thirds of the way in "Guardians" that is such an utterly baffling inclusion that I'd give anything within reason to learn, in essence, WTF? It's a song by Owl City, and it plays over what is essentially "Guardian"'s equivalent to the Hobbits' arrival in Rivendell. Now, I get the thought process that would lead to involving a band named Owl City in a movie about owls. But I would probably listen to their music first and see (or hear, rather) if it were in any way a good fit. Because all the music I have heard from Owl City so far has been... eh, I'm going to use the word twee. I wouldn't go so far as to call it saccharine, but it is rather annoyingly cute and has no place in a soundtrack otherwise made up of Epic High Fantasy Themes (tm).

Other than this one major problem (and it isn't that big of a deal really all things considered), "Guardians of Ga'hoole" is quite good and I actually would have no problem at all if they decided to make a sequel. If nothing else, in the ironically cliched world of fantastic fiction films, at least a secret weapon made out of irradiated owl puke is a new one.

Speaking of, the gizzard is a digestive organ that has very little if anything to do with flying. Knowing this makes some of the dialogue in the film unintentionally hilarious.

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Other Person's Art of the Day!

It's the Summer Solstice! I'd be remiss if I didn't share this oddity from the early days of Disney. Holy cow, those little fruit flies are the cutest things ever.



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Sketch of the Day!

As I said, tragically I haven't had time to sit down and draw and I don't feel right!

So because unicorns are good luck, here is an older drawing of a Quilin:

Easy wildlife garden (Along with a Veggie Garden Update!)

My tulips from last week's post have since faded and my oft-ignored front garden needed some love. I got a great deal on perennials at Big Box Home Building Supply Store. Holy hraka, those Harebells!



They're giving a small "bald spot" in the front lawn some color.



More importantly, the Meadow Sage, Harebells, Columbines, Irises, Buddleja, and Delphiniums (the latter three had not yet bloomed when I took this photo) are all flowers loved by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. In this little sunny spot, I've created a wildlife habitat. At the Big Box Garden and Home Center, the plants cost about fifty dollars total and I had the little whimsical touches. It's that easy.

I may be modifying this garden as the summer goes on, so, as with the veggie garden, I will make myself post periodic updates on it.

Speaking of the veggie garden. In the Herb/Salad Greens section, I added some Rosemary and Parsley that was languishing in the Evil Big Box Store I "rescued" them from. In the Squash/Cucumber section, the plants have grown some real leaves! There isn't anything as exciting going on with the tomatoes; they look about the same. I did just realize that most of the plants in the vegetable garden are actually fruit...

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Sketch of the day! Doves drawn from observation:

Hummingbirds and Orioles are Back!

Last autumn and LAST last autumn, I had written about feeding hummingbirds. Since they've returned and are courting each-other by now, I figure some of the points I made back then need to be reiterated.  Once again, the formula is 3.5-4 cups of boiled water to one cup of pure cane sugar. Let the sugar dissolve in the hot water and set it aside to cool. DO NOT USE FOOD DYE!!!

I like to have a container prepared in advance. The feeder currently has a 3.5 cup of water mix but I'm going to fill the feeders with the 4 cup water mix next, just for the sake of experimenting.

A couple of Baltimore Orioles have been visiting the hummingbird feeders and their own nominal feeder as well. We started seeing just the adult male at first, so I put out a few slices of oranges to encourage him.



And then we started seeing this Oriole. I apologize for the blurry-as-hell through-the-kitchen-window photograph. I figure she/he is either a moulting young male or a female who looks a little ragged after diving in and out of her nest all day.



Here's another look at her/him. If you know what I'm looking at here exactly, sound off in the comments please.

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Sketch of the Day!

Tulips Aplenty -and- Joy from E.I.T.

As you can see in the above photograph, my tulips took a beating from the winter storms. I certainly don't have as many as I did last year. I will definitely have to replenish them once it comes time to plant bulbs.

That said, I did get a nice surprise.



Look at these funky tulips! I know this kind of tulip has a special name (are they Darwins or Parrots?) Does anyone know it? I want to plant more of these.

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For the sake of a little more substance, I did a little archive binge-ing (?) at Everything is Terrible and found these life-altering films:

Remember that one weird play your whole elementary class had to do?

This one actually made me feel sad for record executives.

Oh, how I wish I could retroactively add this to the Art Evolved Elephant Gallery.

Watch this video immediately after the immediately previous one and you will have seen the whole of not-fondly-remembered early '90s superhero cartoons.

And this last one might be the most beautiful thing they have ever shared with us.

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Sketch of the Day!

Veggie, Fruit-Fruit / Veggie-Veggie, Fruit-Fruit / Veggie, Fruit-Fruit / CHA-CHA-CHA!!!

It's spring! It's spring! It finally came! My gosh, it's actually nice out! The snow is gone and the air is full of bird song and frog song and pollen and mosquitoes and the little blackflies. Always the blackfly no matter where you go.

This week and next week will be nothing but gardening posts to celebrate (and also I will be very busy these two weeks). I've got a doozie to begin with.

Last week, my family and I started in on a grand science experiment: we built a raised vegetable garden. It's out by the side of the house and has not yet been eaten by ungulates knock on wood. Here's the tale of it's construction.

We'd been intrigued by the idea of making a raised bed for a while now and decided to start with a very simple one. We just picked out our five favorite plants and were a little overwhelmed by the options. We got a bunch of different tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, basil and mint, seeds of nasturtiums, beets, and spinach, onions to deter squirrels and marigolds to repel bugs. Ideally these plants won't know what pesticides even are.

With our "software" acquired, it was time for the hardware. The garden is basically a box full of dirt. We mixed the peat moss in with the garden soil to retain more water. Now for the fun / emotionally satisfying part: placing the plants in their new homes. They got a nice big soaking to settle the dirt. Hopefully, I'll remember to do weekly updates on it. Any advice or suggestions? Sound off in the comments please. Remember, I'm more used to plants who can essentially care for themselves.

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In other news, the Mtv Movie Awards were this weekend and... It'd be easy to say "this generation of young people has failed." But really, Mtv needs to change the "you can vote online as often as you like" policy. My one vote for my favorite movies isn't going to mean squat against fifty Sucklings with lots of free time.

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Sketch of the Day!



And just to get it out of our heads...

In which Trish watches "Gnomeo and Juliet", so you don't have to.

You know, it's hard to be an animation fan sometimes. Sometimes enough comments of "it's better than it looks" and/or sheer curiosity can backfire on you. And you wind up with something like "Gnomeo and Juliet" in your Netflix queue. And since you hate to send movies back without watching them, you watch it.

Well here's the thing, dear reader. This isn't just a bad movie. It'd be one thing if it were a bad movie, I could just dismiss it in one throw-away line in a post about something completely different if it were just a bad movie.

But despite what anyone in their right mind would expect from the trailer and (let's admit it) the title, this isn't in the same family of forgettable and easily dismissed bad movies as "Meet the Fockers" or "Valentine's Day" or what have you. No, "Gnomeo and Juliet" has turned out to be more along the lines of "The Star Wars Holiday Special" or "The Room". It is a fascinatingly bad movie.

You may remember a little less than a year ago, I wrote a post about this movie that was almost entirely prompted by my disbelief that somebody actually sat down and made it. Long story short, this was a project that was pitched at Disney sometime after "Dinosaur" and "Home on the Range" and other Disney movies that probably never even got to go in the Vault. The studio was pretty desperate for another hit. So they almost made a movie where nonhumans sing Elton John songs in a very loose adaptation of a Shakespeare story. Again.

The project was scrapped years and years ago. However, last autumn, it mysteriously actually got made somehow by (according to what little I can learn from IMDB) the studio that gave the world "Space Chimps". It turns out, according to the making-of featurette on the DVD, Elton John loved this movie too much to let it die.

And so, in 2010, we got ourselves an animated film full of gags that only could have been pitched during the exceedingly specific time in history where a movie in which gnomes sing Elton John songs would have actually not been a wholly terrible idea. Thus the "American Beauty" reference pictured above. And a scene where a character does an impression of Borat. And a good old-fashioned scene where the Internet behaves like it has never ever done in anything resembling our reality.

But maybe the strangest part of this movie is the fact that the animators went all out with it. My gosh, the gnomes are adorable and the little details are stunning (if only because it's a shock to see such things in a movie like this). They've got little grass stains and moss and chips and dings and hand-painted flaws. The ivy and rhubarb plants have little veins and discolorations. Hell, this is one of the best-looking bad animated films I've ever seen.

(And as God as my witness, I wish I could say this was the only fascinatingly bad kiddie-oriented "Romeo and Juliet" adaptation I saw this year. Alas...)

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This article showed up in my feed via a toy collecting blog I like and...

Fellow Art Evolved-kateers, this is what we are fighting. I was ready to cry. (And the comments... Dear God, the comments...)

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Sketch Photograph of the Day! Just to show I have lost no love for gnomes.



This also reminds me: it's been a while since we had a gardening post hasn't it?