A wonderful website Systemic Christina showed me. It’s a bunch of library books that may not have stood the test of time, and have since become crazy-looking and/or ridiculous. Or sometimes just awful. Check it out.  LINK.

Do you know who Ryan Estrada is?  (HINT: He wasn’t on C.H.I.P.S.) He’s a cartoonist, a webcartoonist at that, and has been around and had more projects than anyone I know (probably most famous Ryan Estrada Day, where he pretty much took over the internet). The man must draw faster than I can copy and paste, I swear. Well two of his projects need your help!

First up, Ryan has a comic up for voting at Zuda Comics.  Now that the dust has settled after everyone decided to hate on Zuda, and it turns out it isn’t such a bad deal. So help a brother out, check out this comic, and vote for him.  If you do and put a comment on the site, he’ll even do a drawing of whatever it is that you comment for FREE.  Because he’s that CRAAAAZY. Apparently last time out he lost by 2 votes. TWO votes! Don’t let one of those be you missing out. LINK.

So why is he working with Zuda? Turns out he’s going to turn around to use the money to help get voice acting for his feature-length animated film that he’s working on.  It’s a love story about a werewolf, and beyond that you can read more on the website. I can’t release names, but he is in talks with some big name actors, and ones that are fans of The System will be sure to appreciate. By putting some money towards it, you can even make an appearance in the movie.  Here’s all the details on getting involved.  LINK.

Every once in a while I find someone that seems to share the System ethos. The ideals and philosophy that set us, here, apart from the rest of the world.  Phronk, author and creative force driving Putting Weird Things in Coffee, is such a man. The idea is a simple one. If coffee is so good and often tried with things like “milk” and “sugar”, why not expand the palette to other things like “curry” (pictured above) and “peanut butter”?

Here’s where the Internet kicks in.  An idea like peanut butter coffee sounded right up my alley, especially considering previous comics here on both peanut butter and concocting things with coffee. I let him know, and now we’re friends on the internet.

I hereby welcome him as an honorary Systemic.  Welcome, sir.

Check out his site, y’all. LINK.

Digital goods for the design community since the space-time paradox of 1887 says their tagline. Currently available on the site is a set of custom ampersands (available in EPS and OpenType formats) for just $10.00, but what really gets me going is how much fun the site is. The ampersands have titles like “Swooshium”, “Piercium” and “Elegantium”. The whole thing is set up like a periodic table of elements. LINK.

A 5-year old kid writes a comic. His 29-year old brother draws it. Together, they fight crime. It’s been everywhere in the last week but it’s worth posting here to, if only to visually throw my support behind it. Because it’s amazing. I just wish the site wasn’t in flash, so I recommend clicking “Non-Flash” in the top right the minute you get to the site. LINK.

On a personal note, this comic honestly makes me want to try harder. To come up with more original ideas, and let go the way a 5-year-old writing gets to. There is a joy in being able to concentrate on one part of things (the writing or the art) that lets you take things further than they could otherwise. That’s why I put so many rules into creating The System. The more rules, the more fun I can have seeing how I can manipulate them. I think that’s part of what makes the art of Axe Cop so fun, he gets to interpret a 5-year-old’s ideas into visual form. Not to mention, it narrates like a child would write it.  And there’s some video proof on the site, in case there was any doubt in your mind an adult would write Flute Cop turning into Dinosaur Soldier turning into Avocato Soldier (to say nothing of Uni-Baby).

Here at Rosscott, Inc. we’ve had a real boner for infographics lately. Let today be no exception. Graphic designer (and fellow infographic lover) Stephen “Stivo” Taubman has created an infographic that depicts all the statistical and visual detail necessary to recreate the famous scene in the smash hit Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus where the mega shark jumps out of the water and eats the plane near the Golden Gate Bridge. When I saw this, I thought of my friends in tropical Madison, WI at Tank Riot, who I know love them some Mega Shark action.  LINK.

Systemic Haley sent me word of these. Bike clips that mimic Hermes’ (the g-d not the accountant from Futurama) magic little shoe wing things. $18.00 for a pair. Cheap, right? Since they’re so cheap, you should buy me a pair! LINK.

As if a comic and another post on infographics weren’t enough for this week, here’s another great infographics link. This is a site collecting visual graphics that interpret information about The Beatles. Breakdown of who wrote songs, song keys used, references to other Beatles songs, etc. Pretty epic stuff.  LINK.

Thanks to Systemic Amy for sending this one my way. A site full of infographics created based on episodes of This American Life. As the creator describes:

My new years resolution is to make an infographic on every This American Life ever made. The idea is to expand and add context to the stories and information contained in the shows. Basically, anything I am curious about while listening to the pieces.

It seems to be a growing trend of public acceptance for infographics (information is beautiful, flip flop flyball, etc). As well there should be. As well there should be. LINK.

I think it’s safe to say we’re all design geeks here. Well maybe not “all” but at least “the ones who bother to read the posts that go under the comics sometimes”. A while back there was a blog that started making the rounds called Letters of Note that showed famous letters from history in their original form, on their original letterhead. This is like that site, but without all that historical content gobbletygook in the middle. It’s just the letterhead paper itself without all that crap on it bogging down the designy awesomeness (or sometimes unawesomeness, find the Scientologist letterhead). LINK.

Sidenote: It’s funny how sites like this spread. I’ve seen it on VSL, Kottke, and Daily Heller in the last few days. Not to mention all over The Twitters. If you ever spot something awesome, let me know somehow (systemcomic at gmail, comment on the site, Twitter, etc). Some day maybe I’ll post something first instead of last.