DPRK's Great Leader Re-Imagined as DC Comic Villains

So this dude in Germany that goes by Aslan Malik has put out two series of foreign bank notes on which the dead presidents and other dignitaries have been made up as various characters from the DC Comics pantheon. The USA gets the superhero treatment while the Injustice League of North Korea is pictured below.

As a former resident of Korea myself, I find this work of political something or other to be really something or other. Right. You know I'll be honest here, this family has to go. Starving their own people, shooting rockets all over the damn place. Those fuckers sank a warship and shot at some civilians on an island about 40 miles from where I lived when I was there. NOT COOL.

대한민국 FOR LIFE

via Laughing Squid

KAWS "Ohhh..." Exhibition at Murakami's Kaikai Kiki

Brian Donnelly, aka KAWS, opened a new show titled Ohhh... down in 'ol Tokyo last night at Takashi Murakami's gallery Kaikai Kiki. Primer for the uninitiated:

• KAWS is a graffiti writer turned gallery sensation from Jersey City, which I'm told is in New Jersey. We are big fans and have previously posted about his work here, here, and OMG BOBA FETT here.
• Tokyo is the largest city in Japan with a population of 13.2 million. The food is fucking great.
• Takashi Murakami is an artist specializing in awesomeness. His artistic style is referred to as superflat. His artwork was displayed at Versailles. That's Versailles, built by the Sun King Louis XVI. He's kind of a big deal.

Credits to Juxtapoz for all the pics on this page. They really are fantastic over there, you must check them out.

Gringos at the Gate

Tonight, the United States will face Mexico in Mexico City's cavernous Estadio Azteca, a 105,000 seat stadium that hosted the 1986 World Cup Final. The US has won only one match in this stadium, an ugly 1-0 scoreline last summer when the Mexicans were emotionally and physically depleted after their Olympic triumph over Brazil.

That 1-0 affair was a "friendly," to use the parlance of the sport, but these battles are anything but. In past World Cup Qualifying matches, US players have been pelted with everything from batteries to beer glasses filled with vomit. The stadium sits at 7,100 feet above sea level in the Teotihuacan Valley, the polluted caldera of Mexico City, with temperatures soaring to 100+ degrees and oxygen required before, during and after the game. It is, without question, a hellish place to play a football match.

For more than 50 years, the Mexicans dominated us, beating us time and time again. It is telling, for example, that the United States did not host a World Cup until 1994, eight years after our cousins to the south. This was their sport. Was. Until the US defeated Mexico in 2002 in the World Cup round of 16, Dos a Cero.

Without getting completely lost in in the woods by how jazzed I am for this game, it suffices to say that the rivalry is now very real. Mexico and the United States are equals on the soccer field, and it makes for some tense, exciting stuff. Check out the trailer for the film by Pablo Miralles, Michael Wahlen, and Roberto Donati and then watch the US v Mexico in what I hope will not be another lopsided victory for El Tri in the Azteca.

Rio de Janeiro Wingsuit Madness

Ludovic Woerth and Jokke Sommer are doing that whole "wingsuit" thing. The twist being that rather than ripping through the rocky wilderness above, between and below the Alps, these two hopped off a couple of ultralite gliders over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The penultimate moment in this drama is when they rocket over Rio's Cathedral and between the opposing towers of a new office development. They then pull chutes and land safely in the Praça Tiradentes.

Not only is this, in and of itself, a mind-bending act of athleticism, skill and balls, it should remind everyone out there with a GoPro that the bar for posting "cool" videos online has been set rather high.

via laughing squid

Daft Punk: The Return of the Robots

Insomnia seldom comes with an explanation that doesn't involve an obvious and probably chemical root cause, and even those only occur once upon a blue moon, and on the weekend. No, the weekday insomnia is generally rooted deeply in the subconscious, a vile affliction that leads to coffee breath and cross emails about things that really aren't that important. But not today. Today I know why I could not sleep: The Robots have returned. Rejoice, for there shall be a tour. Someday. Maybe. 

Anyway, they posted the image above on their facebook page along with a link to their website, which crashed within a couple minutes, such is the love for our robot overlords. As soon as tour dates are announced you can expect an ebay auction for one of my premium kidneys to follow.

Take What You Can - BlueBlazer

Seldom do I get a chance to promote the worthy creative efforts of my friends, since most of them are mindless automatons or drunken buffoons, and also because I don't have very many friends left.

Anyway, Mike Schwandt, of White Light Riot fame, has a new project called Blue Blazers, and this is their first track, Take What You Can. Listen. Enjoy. Follow.

Paperman, a Disney Animated Short

Stuff like this makes me think that Disney is still genius, they just try too hard.

December/January Kicks Post

photos via Kith and Sneaker Freaker

KAWS Boba Fett Figure

Pssshhhhhhhhreeeeeeooowwwwwwwwkchckhckchshhhh is the sound my brain made when it exploded just now, because the man, the myth, the legend, Brian Donnelly has combined his signature KAWS character with intergalactic bounty hunter and sarlacc snack Boba Fett.

On sale January 26 at the KAWSONE website. I will be in line.

via the khooll

Nike Mercurial Vapor IX Spot Starring CR7

PLOT by Osko+Deichmann for Brunner

Great modular seating solution for large spaces. I like the brighter colorways above rather than the fairly drab bit the models are sitting on below.

Designed by Germans, manufactured by Germans.

via contemporist

Elfandiary's Draw Diary

Unreal. What an amazing insight into the process, and what amazing work with those markers. The artist is Elfandiary from Indonesia. Aduhai.

via Juxtapoz

Stencil Portrait by C215

Another beautiful piece by French stencil writer C215 in Barcelona. This guy is fast becoming one of my favorite visual artists, period. His work gets some of its context from where he places it (the street), but it also adds so much life to his subjects.

Gotta be my artist of the year for 2012, because it's December, and that's what people do in December, they talk about the best things that happened over the course of the last year. I'm supposed to make like a big list called "THE 127 BEST ARTISTS OF 2012" according to my SEO guru, but fuck it, y'know? C215 wins.

image via C215's facebook

The Newrosis 2012 Sneaker of the Year

I was gonna do a whole big list, but I wrote like 20 posts this year so I'm pretty sure you can see all the shoes I liked without much effort, even by internet standards.

Anyway, without further ado, the Nike Air Force 1 Year of the Dragon II. With the venerable cut of the AF1, you get a classic shape that is, at this point, up there with the Shell-toe and Chucks in the pantheon of sneaker immortality. What this model adds is all about the details. The colorway is reminiscent of a Korean or Chinese Buddhist temple, as is the pattern on the insole and the dragon on the tongue. It is, in my opinion, a 9.9/10. Selling on Ebay right at this very moment for about $200.

pics via nikeblog.com

Digital Paintings by Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor

A quote from the artist, a Colombian art student, which I think you'll agree we can all relate to:

"I am currently an Art student at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogota, Colombia and from that aside I'm a small chick, very small, who lives the way small people do and that eats and create small things, that it also has a purpose, a very healthy purpose, fight and bitter the existence of those who are different, the tall ones, and with that I mean, conquer the world to then have the power over the pituitary gland of the human race and replace them with the gland of some random chicken or something scientifically correct." 

For digital paintings, I really like how soft and brutal the images are. I guess, like most people my age, I expect Jar-Jar Binks and Gollum, or Tron; stuff that's really clean and precise and 150 dpi. This work is really personal, and I guess I'll have to reassess my narrow-ass view of the digital art box.

Kudos to you, you pint-sized Colombiana.

Images via Juxtapoz 

Manchester City 2-3 Manchester United

As they say over on that magical isle, GET IN. #ORVP via Red Mancunian

Assault Rifle Sunglasses

You know, it has become apparent to me that I have been reposting a fair bit of content from the Laughing Squid. This may lead to speculation by some that I am lazy on the internet. Not true! In fact, I quite pride myself on my ability to devour massive amounts of the online world, absorb the nutrient segments into my blood, and discard the bulk as solid waste out of my cyberanus.

It just so happens that the editorial staff at the Squid and I subsist on a similar diet, and I am going to take this opportunity to tip my hat to that mob over there. You do good work.

Right, well tell me these assault rifle sunglasses, designed by Jeremy Scott and Linda Farrow, aren't just the fucking shit. Unfortunately, they're available at Colette, which my readers will know is a by-word for the French what the fuck expensive.

Yeah. €380. For machine gun sunglasses. God I hate Colette.

McNairy x Timberland Boots

KithNYC has these beautiful mud-stompers from Timberland available for $245-$265 at their online store.

I don't have much to say about them, other than I would not wear them for their intended purpose, which is presumably to go sloshing about in puddles or tromping around in snow. Instead, I would wear them to a fancy dinner party or to church and otherwise keep them dust- and dirt-free. Because that's what we do with our nice things in my house.

Ed Fairburn

Ed Fairburn is a guy who makes beautiful drawings of faces on maps. It occurs to me that it's a good thing this post is accompanied by the illustrations themselves, or that sentence as a standalone would be somewhat underwhelming.

The artist has this to say about his work:

"A short series of figurative studies, plotted and drawn over a collection of Bartholomew maps. Through this body of work I study both the physical attributes of the terrain and the features of my chosen subjects. I search for opportunities to synchronise the two, finding similarities between the patterns, before drafting out the portrait and building the tone."

via laughing squid