CHANGE... Into A Truck

Just in time to "coincide" with "Revenge Of The Fallen". We all knew back then that this pop art portrait of Obama gonna be iconic. And in this time and age, getting parodied, spoofed or what ever you want to called it, is just part of the trial for any pop culture remnants to reach iconic status. This cheeky image done by Tom Doyle is available for sale as an art print here.

The Life And Passion (And Shameless Rip-off Of Batman) Christ

Batman begins. Christ follows. Well, that's a more polite way of saying plagiarize, rip-off, swipe or steal, that is.

Love Is...Loath. Apparently.

Salvaged from my junkbox of drafts is this little animal. This was, as I vividly remembered, back in 2005 mind you, originally from an independent.co.uk article. Double damnation that I even have the exact link which is now dead and will lead you to the main page of independent.co.uk. Fortunately, thanks to the immortality of internet memes, I found a blog devoted entire to this subject, complete with the quoted text I had from the original article. Goes a long way to show you the relentless way one abuses the free blog system. Anyway, have fun. The good people syndicating 'Love Is..' comics recently ran a contest where fans of the long-running strip could submit their own takes on this time-honored classic. This was taken by some to mean that there was an interest in changing or at least shifting the sensibility of the comic, one of the great one-panel strips in cartooning history. This notion was mistaken. In fact, contained herein are some stabs that very narrowly skirted legal action. What happened to this post that it remained in the Draft junkbox for more than four freaking years deludes me.

Pope Does Yojimbo

Behold. The reputedly multi-award-winning comic book illustrator, Paul Pope, fully capable of injecting his jab at the core of pop culture given his previous works on churning out not one, but two alternate Batman that proves to be thought-provoking and nonetheless artistically fulfilling, had move on to produce a bold new rendition of Akira Kurosawa's timeless classic, Yojimbo. The print, available at the nakatomic site as both a normal poster and a special wooden one, is definitely not your run-of-the-mill mundane jam art.

Flag Of Earth

Earth does have a flag all its own, so it would seemed. The rationale and history behind the flag can be found via the official site and here's an excerpt on detailing its obvious design. The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors - the Sun and Moon - are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space.

R.I.P. David Carradine And Shih Kien (石堅)

Amidst this tumultuous day (being the twentieth 4th June since 1989, after all), life proves that tragic news still got a way to upstage otherwise pointless anniversary. If I'm less respectful, I'll call this entry R.I.P. Double Bill, in lieu to the its Grindhouse B graded film's origins for both the departed actors, David Carradine And Shih Kien (石堅). Incidentally, two of the most iconic villains of the silver screen, what with the role of the titular "Bill" in Quentin Tarrantino's Double Bill Classic Homage to B Actioner, Kill Bill; and one of the best-known B Actioner arch-villain, Han (the one with cheapskate Wolverine's claws, most famously in the last mirror sequence), from Bruce Lee's equally iconic high octane "Enter The Dragon". A noble, genuine pugilist perhaps more suitable than anybody else to play the role of Wong Fei Hong, the legendary righteous Kung Fu Master, Shih Kien, instead found fame or rather infamy in playing Wong's opposite number, the villainous Kien. A short intro of him from Wiki as below:- Shih Kien (石堅, Shek Kin; 1 January 1913 - 3 June 2009), sometimes credited as Shek Kin or Kien Shih in the Western order, was a veteran actor of Cantonese wuxia movies in Hong Kong. His name has become synonymous with villain, as he tended to play evil characters. In Hong Kong, there is a slang expression that compares people's evil deeds with Shih Kien's, despite the fact these deeds were committed by the evil characters he played, not the actor. He was actually well-respected within the Hong Kong motion picture industry and recognized as a very kind and passionate man. He was found dead from kidney failure on June 3, 2009 at the age of 96. In the meantime, David Carradine, finding fame in "Shane" and to a much more extent later, in "Kung Fu", the TV series, after (reportedly) Bruce Lee reject the role back then, was found dead from a sex act that went wrong after his body was discovered Thursday morning hanging from a wardrobe rail in a Bangkok hotel room, naked and with ropes attached to his neck and penis. The official release for the cause of death is autoerotic asphyxiation. That sounded something straight from an episode of CSI, eh?

Happy Chinese Internet Maintenance Day

Today, 4th of June, is... Why yes, many Chinese online communities (some obediently while some in retaliation to the latter, did it with their tongues firmly in cheek) had come to call it the "Chinese Internet Maintenance Day". But more importantly, and really, the core of the day, today is the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989. Earlier this week the government blocked access to a number of popular western websites, in what was widely seen as way of controlling access to information about the events at Tiananmen Square. Among the sites that were screened out were photo-sharing website Flickr, Microsoft's Hotmail email service and the popular online messaging site Twitter. A number of other sites appear to have gone down over recent days, however, in a move that may be part of an ad hoc anniversary protest online. According to Chinese media blog Danwei, the music-sharing service VeryCD has been taken down, as well as Fanfou, a local version of Twitter. But rather than simply fail to load, which would be typical for websites blocked by the firewall, many of the sites are now carrying messages saying that they are closed for maintenance. It is not clear whether any of the sites took down their services as a result of government pressure: most have had previous trouble with the authorities in Beijing, and reports suggest that many sites were told that they would face serious consequences if they published anything relating to the events of 4 June 1989. But it was also suggested that the phrasing used by some of the websites indicates a subtle attack on the government. While deliberate government action cannot be ruled out, more than 300 Chinese sites appear to have posted increasingly blasé maintenance messages on the anniversary. "The Fanfou server is undergoing technical maintenance. Service is expected to resume before dawn on 6 June," said one message. On dictionary website WordKu.com, its owners said they had taken the site down for Chinese Internet Maintenance Day. Blog hosting service Bullog.org, meanwhile, says it has gone "on strike" for the day, and Wuqing.org carried a message saying: "I, too, am under maintenance!" Internet users in China often deploy subtle methods to criticise the government without falling foul of the law. For the kids who knows shit about the ordeal, the gates of wiki is always there for you, with one of them held right open in the link up there. In retrospect, one can't help but feel the bewilderment at "the times they are changing". Months ago, I've been picking up the mutters and whispers at the back alley of many Chinese Forums etc, some tell-tale legends about how wearing Sport Jerseys sporting the number "20" will get them detained by the Chinese Authorities. Is it real? Guessed we might have a hard time verifying that, but seeing how the internet generation launched their very much subtle yet bogglingly effective digs at the Chinese Authorities, it seems that the Chinese, a sure-fire representative of the World-At-Large (what with their sheer population), though none the sensible than anybody everywhere else, are showing their collective consciousness. And it glows. In the meantime, let's take a quick peek at the "affected areas". Swallowed by the very flag that you are raising. How meaningfully ironic.. In the rowdy streets of Hong Kong, a "Toy Soldier" reminds all of the military might. Photos via telegraph.co.uk