It might get better. Oh no!

This sums up a very important point against climate change denial... although the typical reducto ad absurdum response tends to be that the environmental solution requires eliminating technology, not making the technology better.

Introducing Table Titans

We've seen Scott Kurtz outstanding Player vs. Player webcomic.  Here's an episode of his people-playing-D&D webcomic, Table Titans.  Enjoy

Anime 1988

Bani Garu is Lea Hernandez’s story of becoming the U.S. merchandising vice-president of notorious Japanese animation studio Gainax, “a year-long trip down a rabbit hole of reality.” Start with page 1. It's gots maps too.  This one is a look back at the world before online maps and directions.

Out of this world

That's nice?

Wood 3 (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Art Wood - Wearing Kinda Thin - 13 Oct 1955

Flipped

Jim Meddick's Monty does a down under gag. 

Better dead than red

In this episode of Gil Thorp by Neal Rubin and Rod Whigham some random character teaches the students more geography in a hallway moment than they'll ever see in class.

GPS AA

Moondog, here in Jim Meddick's Monty, has woken from a drunken stupor to get his bearings. Binge drinking is so funny. 

Pie chart map

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley correctly misidentifies a pie chart

Transpacific Partnership agreement explained

Here's a map-infused cartoon about the Transpacific Partnership agreement that some are trying to "fast track" through Congress. It's from the guys who wrote Economix, a terrific cartoon history of economics by Michael Goodwin and illustrated by Dan E. Burr. It's a long read, but an enlightening one.

Page one:

Tonight at 11

Dan Rosandich gives us this grim... and I think kinda tired... take on tv news.  The blob on the front of the news desk is probably a sloppy attempt at a Goode's Homolosine Equal Area Projection

Wood 2 (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Wood - Contagious - 26 July 1955

Gravity well

There simply is an endless supply of map-ish xkcds by Randall Munroe. this one does a beautiful job of illustrating gravity wells. The "title-text" at the actual webcomic says:

This doesn't take into account the energy imparted by orbital motion (or gravity assists or the Oberth effect) all of which can make it easier to reach outer planets.

Click on the image to enlargify.

Map of a woman's heart

"The Open Country of Woman’s Heart, Exhibiting its internal communications, and the facilities and dangers to Travellers therein” (1830s), by D.W. Kellog.

Burn down the whole world

Remember our friend Claire Fontaine and her mapstick art? Italy, France, and even the good ol' US of A wasn't enough for her.  She wanted to burn down the world.  And here she does (at least I'm assuming it's her... might not be). 

Back handed

Here in Herb and Jamaal by Stephen Bentley our heroes are resorting to an old-fashioned paper map ... which makes a kind of sense given their arguably old-timey vehicle and hats.  But seriously, who memorizes the back of their hand?

Olympic odds

ASAP Science is putting out an Olympics-themed video every day of the Olympics. This one is front-end-loads a pile of anthropomorphized country maps and discusses the odds of becoming a winter Olympian

The first Lego movie

This is a movie from 1973 made by Lars and Henrik Hassing, the two cousins who were 12 and 10 at the time.  It may be the oldest Lego movie. At 2:00 and 4:39 the boys used a globe to portray the space travel away from and back to Earth.
 

Wood 1 (Guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Wood - Squeeze Play - 1950

Lewis and Cluck: Explorer Chickens

Here's an item from the webcomic Lewis and Cluck: Explorer Chickens by Bill Rilling.  Given that they're globe-trotting, explorer chickens, they're frequently mappy.... but is it frequently funny?:

United States of GDP

Created by Reddit user Phaenthi, this map presents U.S. states and corresponding countries with similar GDP.

Globes

Here's a tantalizing preview of The Art and History of Globes, a massive, gorgeous art-book tracing the history of globes. Written by Sylvia Sumira

What makes a snow day?

This how much snow it takes to call a snow day:

Most detailed yet map of the Internet

There have been several other posts about maps of the internet (1, 2, 3).  This is a screenshot of the most detailed attempt yet, from Slovakian artist named Martin Vargic. Go to the link and click on the map to experience the full interactive, zoomable, pan-able experience.

Rejects

Here's a completely unrelated pair of geography comics published decades apart:

Reality Check by Dave Whamond

Charles Addams from The New Yorker in 1936

All hail the queen (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Rosen - Big day a comin - c June 1953

So...?

This map shows what the top autocomplete word is for every state.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-nebraska-so-boring-map-2014-1#ixzz2rcVAIHxY

Fantasy maps

The New Yorker has an article by Casey N. Cep about maps in fantasy stories. Here's some of the maps from the article:

Map of Treasure Island, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.”

Illustration by Roland Chambers, from Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians.”

Illustration by Roland Chambers, from Lev Grossman’s “The Magician King.”

Dangerously cheesy (guest post)

Image links to source.

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."

The sadness of the truth of this makes me sad:

Here there be...

Now you will always see the dragon:

Another fuse is lit (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Duffy - The keeper of the light of Asia - 1950-3

Now with GPS

From the webcomic Poorly Drawn Lines by Reza Farazmand

Smiley Face Germany (guest post)

Here's a panel from SMBC that doesn't include the image, but does mention the shape of a map:

(Image links to source.)

Lost on the moon

Here's the debut of Invisible Bread by Justin Boyd on our blog with a guy who is very lost.

But not the first time this particular joke has appeared on this blog:
Driving to the moon
And again
Lunar jailbreak

Another Ed Fairburn map

More Map Art from Ed Fairburn

XKCD's Actually

xkcd by Randall Munroe that touches on a fundamental concept behind geodetics.  The "title-text" at the actual webcomic says:

Protip: You can win every exchange just by being one level more precise than whoever talked last. Eventually, you'll defeat all conversational opponents and stand alone.

Australia's cat-dog

The dog's kinda hard to see...maybe a scotty?  But the cat?  That's a cat!

Global defense (guest post)

Hello! Guest contributor Amanda Murphyao here. I'm putting up historical cartoons involving the world or globe from the United States Library of Congress for the next few Mondays.

Fischetti - Now keep your fingers crossed - 1953

Global cocktail

What to drink around the world:

The only way to win is not to play

The sadness of the truth of this makes me sad:

Success? (guest post)

Hello! Amanda Murphyao here with some commentary on waiting for success:

When you wish

In this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic artist Zach Weiner reminds me of a passage from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Eventually of course, after their Galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own Galaxy --- now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.
For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across --- which happened to be the Earth --- where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. 

Global chicken

Re-arrange all the planet's landmasses to make a chicken...GO!: