Sometimes I think of stories as animals. Some common, some rare, some endangered. There are stories that are old, like sharks, and stories as new on this earth as people or cats.
Cinderella, for example, is a story which, in its variants, has spread across the world as successfully as rats or crows. You’ll find it in every culture. Then there are stories like the Iliad, which remind me more of giraffes—uncommon, but instantly recognized whenever they appear or are retold. There are—there must be—stories that have become extinct, like the mastodon or the sabre-toothed tiger, leaving not even bones behind; stories that died when the people who told them died and could tell them no longer or stories that, long forgotten, have left only fossil fragments of themselves in other tales. We have a handful of chapters of the Satyricon, no more.
Neil Gaiman, “Introduction” to Caitlín R. Kiernan’s novelization of Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf
(via tomtefairytaleblog)
I’d forgotten that this existed when we rounded up introductions for THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS.
(via neil-gaiman)
(via neil-gaiman)
Thailand’s New Tallest Skyscraper Just Opened, But It Looks Like It’s Missing Some Pixels.
i’m gay for this building
AESTHETICC
(via solymn)
i was looking up historically accurate clothing as a bit of art inspiration and found the online museum of saudi arabian costume.
there’s a bunch more gems just like these and they’re all so beautiful and unique. there’s also great information about the clothing, too, such as how they were made, who wore them, what fabrics were used, what the different parts of the costumes were called, etc. just a really fun and informative site and i thought i would share my find.
(via medievalpoc)
Princess Takiyasha Summons a Skeleton Spectre to Frighten Mitsukuni, Kuniyoshi, c. 1844
PRINCESS TAKIYASHA GOES HARD AS FUCK
(via solymn)
Black History Month!
My favorite parts of history (as might be obvious from my choice of subject matter when making books) are the ones that fall into easily-categorized genres, genres with associated visual iconographies. This is the sort of stuff I loved as a kid: pirates, knights, cowboys, explorers, romans and Egyptians and flying aces. Stuff you could find featured in a bag of toys or a generic costume.
For Black History Month, I thought I might visit some of these adventure-leaning periods and pick a few historic black people from those eras to draw, just for fun. If you’re doing a project or report in school this month, you could do worse than to tackle one of these toughies. Feel free to share some of these with youngsters that you know. And call them youngsters, they LOVE that.
(via bowlersandtophats)
READ THE LINK. This woman was wild.
READ THE LINK. Do you love badass ladies? Olde-timey scandals? Vintage newspapers? READ THE LINK
Awesome
For anyone who needs this.
(via mickeycookies)