Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Teacher geography skilz

So there's this teacher in China who can freehand draw a map of the world in about a minute. I had a geology professor in college who could draw detailed coastlines and maps in seconds.  He's retiring this year actually:
History Teacher Draws A Ridiculously Accurate World Map From Memory

Monday, September 29, 2014

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Smell maps

Artist Kate McLean  creates smell maps (and other types of "sensory maps").  The video below is a depiction of her Smellmap of Amsterdam.  Her maps can even be used to follow a smellwalk of the cities she targets.


Saturday, September 27, 2014

Not again, actually... or at least not today (probably?)

There hasn't been another mass shooting.  This is merely a collection of map-related editorial cartoons about gun violence.
Steve Benson

Jack Ohman
Steve Breen
Steve Benson

Friday, September 26, 2014

The Lockhorns

The Lockhorns, by Bunny Hoest and John Reiner, is one of those married-couple-fighting comics that has infested the funny pages for decades.  Here their marital discord has something to do with maps.  

Thursday, September 25, 2014

State foods again

We've had a map of the official state foods before, but this one from my friend Villate is much better (and I'm even hungrier now):

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The geographic aftermath

So some people are a bit unclear on some important geographic concepts: Scotland's Independence Vote Might Have Real Geological Consequences

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Death Star-ify anywhere

How would you like to make anywhere look like the surface of the Death Star? The open source Mapbox Studio lets you do that with their Space Station Earth.  You can also do a huge nu,ber of other mapping things with this extremely powerful tool.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Africa (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here with a longer post than usual, interrupting your regularly scheduled Monday morning world map cartoons to bring you images of Africa from over one hundred years of political cartooning:



























(For an ever-growing collection of maps of Africa in other contexts, follow the jump.)

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Music repetition

Here's a TedEd video about Why we love repetition in music that begins with a pretty map:

Saturday, September 20, 2014

British sunset

Here's a little toy distributed by the Children’s Encyclopedia in Britain in the early twentieth century showing why the sun never sets on the British Empire.
BritEmpGlobe

Here's an excellent XKCD "What-if" post explaining when the sun will set on the British Empire.

And here's an old post from this blog showing different pre-WWII-era propaganda pieces each distorting the size of the British Empire in different ways.

Secession cartoon round up

There have, of course, been some editorial cartoons about Scottish secession.  here's a few.  Send in more!
153719 600 Scotland about to vote cartoons
153720 600 Highs and lows of the United Kingdom cartoons

153723 600 Camerons last battle cartoons

Friday, September 19, 2014

Together forever?

In the spirit of results of the momentous vote about secession for Scotland being published today, here's a map of countries (or "countries") created with secessionist votes:


And here's a map of what Europe might look like if all the other secessionist agitators got their way:
separatists1

And here's a map of what the good ol' US of A might look like if all the secessionist groups in the US got their way... assuming, as is the case for most of them, that they merely want to secede from the other states to which they currently belong, not from the Union itself (as some seem to).  I like that it includes parts of what are currently northern Mexico.  I like that solution for the issues with the southern border security far better than any silly wall,  I also like the prospects of Puerto Rico, Guam, and even Cuba as states... but that smells of empire.  Is it empire if those places ask to join the Union (as Puerto Rico already has) ... or would that be "asking" like how Hawaii "asked" to join (not).

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Pat Bagley Pulitzer?

Regular guest poster Amanda has provided this example of Pat Bagley's work which was featured in an article about how he's a finalist for this year's Pulitzer prize in editorial cartooning
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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Monday, September 15, 2014

Sunday, September 14, 2014

British Insults

Here's a lesson on (mostly) non-vulgar British insults... with a very mappy backdrop. Thanks to my son I have far too many justified opportunities in my life to utilize the term "mardy".

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Friday, September 12, 2014

Stand Still Stay Silent by Minna Sundberg

Is it me or are we living in a golden age of webcomics?  Here's another debut-for-the-blog webcomic Stand Still Stay Silent by Minna Sundberg, who also did A Redtail's Dream.  SSSS virtually starts with a map, with a pandemic story to set up its post-apocalyptic setting for a band of youth to have adventures.  Looks like a lot of fun!




Thursday, September 11, 2014

Mormons on the move

This pictorial map, printed in 1899, commemorates the 1846-47 route of émigrés from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as they made their way from Illinois to Utah. It's not to scale, exaggerating some locations/events that were considered to be of greater importance. Click to see it in more detail.  More info here.