io9: photoshop

The Secret War Against Afghanistan's Space Invaders

Lauren Davis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Adam Richardson has added pixelated alien invaders to actual war photos from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when the Space Invaders descend on a war zone, they find that they have more to contend with more than laser cannons.

Invaded Space [Adam Richardson via Boing Boing]

Starry Starry (Batsignal-Filled) Night

Graeme McMillan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:00:15 PDT

We all agree that comic books can be art, but here are some particular takes on classic paintings may be taking that argument just a little bit too literally (Wait until you see the Wolverine Lichtenstein).

Marvel Comics may have thought they were being original with a month of Wolverine covers "inspired" by classic artists to commemorate the launch of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie earlier this year - and we have to admit that all of the above all-original works are well done and kind of awesome - but Worth1000.com beat them to that idea punch more than three years earlier with their Superhero ModRen Photoshop contest. Here are some of the entries.

Many more at the link.

Alyson Hannigan Secretly Replaced With Robot!

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:30:00 PST

The starlets of tomorrow will emote in the depths of space and at the bottom of the ocean. That's because gynoids will replace all our favorite actresses! This gallery is sleazy, but probably work-safe.

I've been mesmerized and alarmed, looking through a giant Flickr set of fembot art, mostly created in Photoshop. It's a weird mixture of the titillating and the disturbing. The only way you know these woman are fembots is if they're flawed somehow, so the images divide into two categories: fembots suffering damage (usually with sparks flying out) and fembots who are seductively removing their faces or synthetic skins. It's like torn clothing or a striptease, only way more personal. And yet impersonal, because of their blank emotionless faces.

Way more pics at the link. [Meifembot on Flickr, thanks to Olga]

The Secret Career of 19th Century Naturalist Ernst Haeckel

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:59:43 PST

You've probably seen Ernst Haeckel's amazing naturalist drawings of squid and other creatures of the sea. But did you know he started his career as a greeting card designer?

Historical detective John Holbo uncovered this heretofore unknown detail about the celebrated nineteenth century naturalist's life, and has released several of Haeckel's long-lost Christmas cards. Holbo writes:

Ernst Haeckel's 1904 "Kunstformen der Natur" [Artforms of Nature] is a classic of biological illustration. What is less generally known is that the artist started as a Christmas card designer. The book was originally simply an album of holiday designs.
"All the sweet things that the Squiddies/Twittering in the dewy spray/Wish each other in the springtime/I wish you this happy day."

During the Victorian era Christmas was indeed regarded as a 'happy' day, but one of uncanny terror; accordingly, cards and ornamentation featured strange creatures with too many tentacles. But then Santa Claus became popular, and many of these older designs 'fell out of fashion'.

Commercially marooned, unable to draw anything except tentacles and congeries of pustules/bubbles, Haeckel wandered into natural 'science' - almost as an afterthought - when he discovered that the stuff he had been drawing actually existed, give or take a tentacle. Isn't that interesting?

You can view the rest of these amazing Xmas cards at Holbo's Flickr stream, or buy reproductions of them from Cafepress. Happy tentacles!

A Twelve-Layer Freeway Clover for Los Angeles

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:00:00 PDT

If you have too many cars on the freeway, the best thing to do is go vertical and build a skyscraper road system. Here is one possible way to do that, layering roads on top of each other until the traffic thins out. Perfect for Los Angeles, where it often takes three hours to cross town on the freeways. [Core Form-ula via Next Nature]

What If the X-Men Made Porno?

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:09:41 PDT

Those of you with discerning tastes already know there is a subgenre of porn devoted to superheroes fighting, but you probably didn't know that there's a sub-subgenre devoted just to ladies with laser rays coming out of all their parts. Luckily, our sister site Fleshbot discovered this for us, and now we bring you the good news. A Flickr user named Daveisdrawing says he had a slow weekend with the old Photoshop, and decided to test out his theory that "porn is really super-powered women fighting." Check out the NSFW results. [Naked Super Battle via Flickr]

The Secret Inspiration for "Y the Last Man"

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:00:49 PST

Everybody thought comic book creator and Lost scribe Brian K. Vaughan was so creative when he came up with the premise for post-apocalyptic comic book Y the Last Man. In it, a mysterious force wipes out the entire male population of all species except for the main character, Yorick, and his male monkey. But we didn't realize Vaughan had copied the premise from a fifty-year-old romance comic! Behold the just-revealed inpsiration for Y, brought to light thanks to the researching powers of the dude behind comics blog MightyGodKing.

Since we are future reporters and all, we loved this other Silver Age inspiration for a present-day comic featuring a reporter named Spider. Of course, by "inspiration" we mean retroactively-Photoshopped creation. Is that a retpho? W00t!

Rampant Plagiarism [Mightygodking] (Thanks, Douglas!)

Chewbacca Looks Better Than Colin Farrell

grae — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:40:44 PST

Worth 1000 asked readers to improve non sci-fi movies by giving them the George Lucas treatment. The readers didn't disappoint. Sci-Fi Theater [Worth1000.com]