Rule 34

This might be a trigger warning for some.  And if you don't know about Rule 34, here's the explanation

Gates bet

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a video with claymation-style animations that represent Africa in a variety of clever ways:

Darwin award, geography category

Protecting the gene pool:

No Ebola

Here to address yer Ebola worries: 

Ebolaids

So there's some unwarranted stereotyping here, but this does seem like what all the media hype is driving at:

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.)

Made in... (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up cartoons involving the world or globe for the next few Mondays.

From "Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly"

A lesson in Comic Cartography

Amanda also sent in this article from Fine Books Magazine about Comic Cartography

“The plumb pudding in danger.” In 1805 English cartoonist James Gillray lampooned Napoleon (right) and British Prime Minister William Pitt. CREDIT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LC-USZC4-8791.

“The hungry customer.” Canada (left) offers Great Britain a breakfast of hot cereal while Uncle Sam’s smaller serving is politely refused. CREDIT: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION.

“The Rhodes colossus.” As the founder of the De Beers diamond mines, Cecil Rhoades was a great supporter of the British Empire. When he announced plans to build a railway and telegraph line across Africa from Cairo to Cape Town, Punch magazine portrayed him as the great Rhodes colossus. The original colossus guarded the Greek harbor of Rhodes in the 2nd century BC, and at 30 metres, is thought to have been the tallest structure of the ancient world. CREDIT: PUNCH, 10 DECEMBER, 1892.

“I repeat, we see no signs of intelligent life.” In a world gone mad with nuclear weapons that are capable of destroying the world several times over, cartoonists Roy Careless asks how we could ever possibly consider ourselves to be an intelligent form of life. CREDIT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF CANADA, C-141801.

In this broadside from 1876, Uncle Sam and his family feed the world using their new Uncle Sam wood stove by Abendroth Brothers. From the red, white and blue fabrics, to the Declaration of Independence on the wall, the image is a celebration of America’s centennial. CREDIT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

“Heal.” Duncan Macpherson would like us to think that President Jimmy Carter (dressed like a country preacher) has some rather unusual methods for improving the world’s problems. The caricature was inspired by the announcement in May 1977 of a new foreign policy for the U.S. CREDIT: LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, C-112581.

“The French Invasion, or John Bull, bombarding the Bum-boats.” Gillary’s 1793 caricature has the British Isles, in the form of King George III, blasting a fleet of bumboats into the face of France. At the time, there was some concern that revolutionary France might challenge Britain’s sovereignty. Bumboats were small vessels that ferried supplies to ships moored offshore and their reference by Gillray was obviously meant to underline the British monarch’s contemptuous reaction to the situation. CREDIT: BRITISH MUSEUM.

Delicious depictions

Food stylist Caitlin Levin and photographer Henry Hargreaves have collaborated on a series of food-based country maps composed of signature national ingredients. The typography is by Sarit Melmed.
























Food Maps from Kiwi and Eagle on Vimeo.

Humans dehumanizing humans

Ah, good old de-humanizing propaganda.  And with maps there's even less subtlety! Here's a pair of WWII-era propaganda images from either side of the conflict from an article in New Scientist about humans dehumanizing each other.

This is the French Vichy state showing what's supposed to be Churchill-as-octopus... because octopus is geographer shorthhand for global domination.

Translation: "Be assured, the amputations are proceeding methodically."

Tattoo (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here with a tattoo map of Africa in a cartoon:

(Image links to source.)

African unity

Paresh Nath gives us this graphic commentary on the benefits of African Unity.  I knew there was a map in this, but it took me a bit to see it (it's almost east-up).  I thought I saw Australia first, but that made no sense.

Out of Africa

Another case of mistaken identity at the continental scale.  Usually it's South America that has this problem.

Questionable story arc two-fer

Since we did Thursday's animation on Tuesday we'll do the Tuesday two-fer today.  I introduced Questionable Content by J. Jacques. a few months back near the beginning of a space-faring story arc that seems to have now come to a close.  The entire rendering was punctuated by increasingly sophisticated spectacular images of the Earth out the space station windows.  I'll post the links to the entire story arcs below, but I just want to take a moment to post a few of the more wonderful examples:

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2110: Orbit

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2111: The Space Station

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2116: Just a little glimpse

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2119: Barely visible through a window

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2123: A couple rim shots

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2128: Here we go, getting better.

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2129: More earthviews

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2130: Peeking rims

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2131: Barely worth mentioning

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2136: Getting the party started

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2137: Not much here

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2138: Indian Ocean backdrop

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2139: The Full Africa!

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2140: More Africa

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2141: It does kinda look like he's showing a little rotation

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2142: Pacific coast

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2151: Africa still or again? Gotta be again

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2155: Romantic view

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2157: More romance

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2158: High above the rim

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2159: Money shot!

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2160: Fall through

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2162: Morning after

Lord's Resistance Army Graphic Novel

Today's two-fer comes from the graphic novel "Army of God", by David Axe and Tim Hamilton.  They have published the first chapter of a graphic novel recounting the atrocities committed by the Lord's Resistance Army (and others) in the Congo.  The first chapter gives background for the area, which has had a deeply sad history in recent centuries, which continues to this day with what has been called "Africa's World War" and the murderous exploits of the Lord's Resistance Army.  So far Chapter 1 uses a few maps.  Future chapters will be forthcoming. The story promises to be sad, even difficult to read, but compelling.