Driver?

Back in December we had an episode from the story arc in Jim Meddick's Monty where Monty's "Little Lord Fauntleroy" stereotype rich, bratty next-door neighbor confuses a Neanderthal for a Bohemian artist. I had said that the little brat dug him up, however it turns out that Monty's time-traveling-but-stranded guest accidentally brought him to this timeframe (or maybe Monty did, I'm not sure) and the little Neanderthal simply wandered off into the little brat's employ.  This strip is from earlier in the story arc, when Monty and his time travelling friend still care about the whereabouts of the primate (a concern they rather quickly got over). This is where the brat is trying to figure out what job best fits the pre-historical castaway, before trying his hand at the arts.

Wrong America

A spelling error on a global scale.  This is beginning to be a pattern: South America getting wildly mis-identified:

• As Europe
• As Sudan/Darfur

... and then today's as its Northen [sic] neighbor.  I'm curious as to how  North America was labeled.   

This image is from Failblog.org, which is probably the Internet's premier site for photos and videos of things going wrong, sometimes very, very badly wrong.  And it's part of the Cheezburger Network which has brought together a virtual Internet empire of funny/silly/odd/interesting photos/videos/graphics/etc. which all started with this comically-labelled photo of a cat.

Animated Christchurch Earthquake Map

For Animated Map Thursdays this week we're almost topical.  This isn't a cartoon, per say, but it is an awesome interactive animated map of the quakes that hit Christchurch New Zealand since September of last year. And it covers the smaller-magnitude-but-deadlier quake earlier this week.  This was created by Paul Nicholls of the University of Canterbury's Digital Media Group in Christchurch, New Zealand.The data he used is effectively the same as the data available from the USGS' Earthquake map, but the USGS' site isn't animated... yet. I do think it would be awesome if it were possible to do a cut-away view of this or any section of the Earth's surface to show the quakes hitting at depth instead of merely color-coding the depth on a 2D surface.

Here's the URL in case the link above doesn't cut it:
http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

Bruce's holiday

Simon Bond gives us this joke about Australia's love of beer.  Better than the last few Simon Bond map-related cartoons that I posted, but not as brilliant as the Amerigo Mondrian comic.

Too much for Warhammer?

Here again is Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulk and Jerry Holkins.  This one is from just a few days after the last one, but it's not the same story arc.  This one is Warhammer based and, thus, I don't get it.  I can see how it would be funny though.

Paint the line

Here we are again at Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulk and Jerry Holkins.  This one is the last part of a story arc about ping-pong (story arc starts here).  The Earth-curvature image in the first panel qualifies this part for this blog.  There was another ping-pong story arc over in Penny Arcade's "sister" webcomic Player vs. Player that also had to do with ping-pong, but there were no map references in that.  Penny Arcade was mentioned though.The line at the beginning of this Penny Arcade ping-pong story arc comes from the 2007 Mark Wahlberg movie Shooter, but that scene, of the hero retired or hiding and fly-fishing, I coulda sworn that's been done countless times in various action movies.  I thought there was at least one Clint Eastwood and/or Schwarzenegger movie that started that way.

Stinky Earth

We haven't done a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, by Zach Weiner in a while.  It's hits on mapping topics with some regularity.  Expect to see more.

If you go to this actual comic's page there will be a little round circle button thing to the lower left of the comic.  Mouse over that circle and there will be an additional panel 9which in this case makes this example slightly more map-esque)

Animated Atlas

My friend Daniel Dixon sent this to me recently so I'm going to count it as a submission for the blog. It is a fun animated map that shows the expansion of the US over time. One person who saw this said: "I just learned more about this subject in 10 minutes than I did in 16 years of school." It is actually rather impressive.  This is the kind of format I'd love to see in an ideal interactive history website:  A map with a scroll bar that lets the user scroll back and forth through time.  Users could click on any location and up pops more information about what happened there at any particular time.  And that's essentially what this "Animated Atlas" company is trying to produce.  If you like it consider buying their other animated atlas products. 

I've actually got quite a number of these sorts of animated map things so I think I'll make Thursdays Animated Map day for a while.

Hungry hippo overlords

This human experiment has gone on long enough. Give the hippos control.

Farley Katz had this published in  The New Yorker last June.  It's another in the category of "God contemplating His Creation" gags that include a lonely Earth floating in cold space.  When I first saw this cartoon I didn't see God facing the Earth.  I saw his ear as the eye of a fish-like deity facing the angel dude.  I don't know whether that might've made the joke a little better. 

Swamp mountain

Anna Gawrys gives us this cute little cartoon about a couple lost while looking for some mountain. 

"We should be near the mountain pass..." "Are you sure that's the right map?"

Highway Engineer Pranks

Randall Munroe's XKCD has this excellent geographical pun involving freeway ramps. He titled it "Highway Engineer Pranks" (click on the image to make it larger and more legible). At this actual webcomic, hovering over the image reveals this additional message in the "title-text":

Prank #11: Boston

I think L.A. might be a bigger highway prank than Boston... but then I haven't been to Boston. And I don't think this episode of XKCD actually ran before The Big Dig was finished... not that it matters.

Wrong backpack

I accidentally picked up my daughter's backpack this morning

Kate Beaton and Sam Means had this published in The New Yorker last June.  Oddly, it's not the first map-related comic that involves a backpack.  The other is from the "Atlas gag" category.

Just messin' with ya

Here's an XKCD by Randall Munroe that is in keeping with the recent round of storms. The U.S. had it's snowstorms, but Australia had a monster of a cyclone at the same time. A hurricane map like this one would be fun.

At this actual webcomic, hovering over the image reveals this additional message in the "title-text":

I'd like to see more damage assessments for hurricanes hitting New York and flooding Manhattan -- something like the 1938 Long Island Express, but aimed a bit more to the west. It's just a matter of time.

If you want a map showing all of the hurricane paths each year, this site is pretty great for that:

http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/

...although it missed the freaky one that hit Brazil a few years ago. Brazil doesn't get hurricanes because there's just not enough ocean between it and Africa to give such storms time to form. But a few years ago brazil got a full-fledged hurricane for the first time ever... well the first time it was ever called a hurricane. There's a small chance that maybe some of the storms described hundreds of years ago might have been hurricanes, but even those descriptions don't seem to fit the bill. It was only Catagory 1, but still.

Fore!... crying out loud.

Cartoon by Joe Kohl.  I don't like golf.  And the desert is absolutely the worst place to have a golf course.  It's obscene that so many golf courses are in deserts.  I am not, however, above making money off of golf courses by making maps for them.  But that's a fairly saturated industry already.  As I understand it almost every golf course has a golf video game tailored for their course... made all the better with the advent of Kinect and Wii type systems.  If those kinds of systems can keep more people off actual courses, thus bankrupting a few of them, I'm all for it.

An Evil, Inc. app for that

This Evil Inc. strip by Brad J. Guigar isn't part of the same story arc as the last one (I don't think it is anyway).  I don't remember these evil villains' names.  You'll just have to head over to the Evil, Inc. website and look 'em up.  

That's a nifty app, though.  And there's probably a dozen or so apps like it available right now for most smart phones.  Whether they'll make users aware of nearby super heroes or villains, I dunno.

Fly me to the moon

I haven't posted an Evil Inc. by Brad J. Guigar in a while. This guy is Commander Heroic.  His son, Captain Heroic, is one of this webcomic's more major characters, and is (secretly... mostly) married to an evil villainess Miss Match (wanna guess whet her super power is?).  I think in this story arc the Commander, here, is dealing with some old age/dementia issues. Guigar has a LOT going on in the webcomics industry.  

That would be a spectacular view though.

Parrot powers activate!

This is Jim Meddick's Monty.  Using a parrot for a navigation device is typically the purview of pirates. Moondog (the driver) would have better luck with a bird that actually migrates.

Not smart

Here is another Book of Biff comic by Chris Hallbeck, this time about satellite navigation systems. I think smart cars are cute.  And this may be the cutest police car I've ever seen: