We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

The Seafarers is a fun little online series that Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock have been animating together. Elevating simple tales of the sea with deliciously rendered illustration an unexpected humor, The Seafarers is the type of irreverent, bizarre, and yet somehow tender entertainment that kids could use more of these days. I was alerted to the existence of this awesome cartoon by Michelle at Giant Robot, who notes: “Kelly & Ferris are busy new parents and still managing to find the time and energy to develop their work, be in the studio, and strengthen their ties with family, friends and colleagues.” Hey, let’s all be inspired by that example and make even more awesome stuff to share with the world! Yeah!

Dapper seafaring gents, mermen, centaurs, soldiers and saints: these are the anachronistic subjects of Michael C. Hsiung’s curious doodles. Idiosyncratically mixing erudite references to obscure folklore with deadpan humor and unexpected romance, Hsiung’s treatment of epic olde thyme mythology is as sarcastic as it is tender. Fond of accenting his illustrations with long-winded titles like, “A scene in which the street performer with six fingers may or may not need the passerbyer’s help to untangle himself,” and “Whereupon uncertain events befell, the baby angora unicorn mourns the man with the broken neck,” Hsiung provides teasingly brief glimpses through his work to the vast fantasy world that seems to have taken root within his imagination, revealing itself one rad picture at a time.

Check out Hsiung’s latest drawing, “On the levitation of the boy named Peter,” which the artist has generously made available as a free PDF for recession-battered print collectors.

If you ever find yourself in Philadelphia, you’d be highly remiss to skip the Mütter Museum, a collection of medical oddities and anatomical anomalies presented in gory detail for the public’s voyeuristic (and educational!) delight. It’s sort of like Body Worlds, but way more antiquated and unsettling– chock full of foetal deformities, olde thyme books leatherbound with manflesh, overgrown colons, and 19th century serial killer brains floating in formaldehyde. Beyond the freakish thrill of it all, there’s a lot to be learned at the Mütter Museum. You’ll pick up fascinating tidbits they don’t teach you in Biology 101, like how mankind’s evolution from four legged mammals to bipedals structurally impeded the birthing process, forcing a community-oriented cultural evolution. Also, they have a human horn exhibit. Humicorns!