Triptych: Now You're Playing With Power

"NES" by Charlie Bernatowicz

"Gameboy and Games" by Derek Temple

"Lucky Star and Disk Writer" by Gashi Gashi

If you're wondering about that last one and how it relates to Nintendo, the Famicom Disk Writer was a peripheral that was only ever released in Japan. Basically, games for the Disk Writer were released on rewriteable floppy disk (take a look at the original Legend of Zelda disk, for an example) and led to, as far as I know, the first cases of console game piracy.

Double Triptych: The Adventure of a Lifetime

"Last Line of Defense" by Justin White

"Adventure Before Xmas Time" (t-shirt) by Warbucks Design

"Mathematical!" by Anthony Petrie

"Fistful of Adventure" by Dave Guertin & Greg Baldwin

"Marceline The Vampire Queen" by Michael Anderson

"Adventure Time Princesses" by Hirokiro

Triptych: Man of Rock

"Mega Man 2" by Nacho Tamez

"Yellow Demon" by Alex Ahad

"Mega Man" by Pinteezy

Triptych: Three Amazing Shows

"Fallin' For Gravity" by Jeffrey Cruz

"Super High 5!!!!!" by Dirk Erik Schulz

"OOOOOOH" by Cotton-Gravy

Gravity Falls is currently my favorite cartoon on TV. This is just a genuinely high-quality show. Everything from the animation to the writing to the voice work goes above and beyond typical Saturday Morning Cartoon fare. It's also extremely funny: just about everything that Mabel says and does cracks me up. The show also boasts a remarkable voice cast: Jason Ritter and Kirsten Schaal play the two main kids, Dipper and Mabel, with Linda Cardinelli, John DiMaggio and Will Forte amongst the supporting cast. Guests have included Coolio, Larry King, John Oliver, Alfred Molina, Stephen Root, Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell.

The Amazing World of Gumball is an odd, collage-like little show that I happened to stumble across recently. Nominally written for kids, I would say the big selling point of Gumball is the art style - it's a mash-up of two dozen different types of traditional animation, stop-motion animation, CGI, real-world photography and puppetry. Literally every character on this show (the Watterson family excluded) is presented in a different artistic style. It's a very unique premise for a cartoon, and one that creator ben Bocquelet and his team pull off with aplomb.

Regular Show, which I've posted about here before, is just fine television. That is all.

Triptych: A Rip In Space-Time

"Portal 2 Minimalist Poster" by DirtyGreatPixelsUK

"Companion Cubism" by Dann Matthews

"Because I'm A Potato" by Blimp Cat Studio

Triptych: The Perils of Living In The Mushroom Kingdom

"Instant World 1-1" by TubbyPaws

"Luigi: Always Angry" (t-shirt) by Adams Pinto

"Toadstool Construction" (t-shirt) by Radscoolian

Showcase: Dorkly's House Sigils for Videogame Families

Dorkly, you've done it again.

[Dorkly: Game of Thrones House
Sigils For Videogame Families

Triptych: TARDISes and Time Lords

"The Tetris Lord" (t-shirt) by Gordon Brebner

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"Fantasy Rides: TARDIS" by The Geekerie

"Asylum of the Daleks" by Citron Vert

Triptych: Wreck-It Ralph

"Wreck-It Ralph Mashups" by Drew Wise

"I'm Gonna Wreck It!" by David Gilson

"I'm Gonna Wreck It!" by Sandra Rivas

Man, I can't wait for this movie. Like, maybe more than anything ever.

Showcase: Steampunk Transformers

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"Optimus Prime"

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"Megatron"

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"Soundwave"

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"Bumblebee"

A disclaimer: I try to avoid anything steampunk here, because let's be honest - steampunk has been done to death, and then some. I could go into a whole rant about steampunk, in fact, and how it was a novelty for about six months back in 2002 before it got co-opted by the Hot Topic crowd and blown completely out of proportion, but that wouldn't change the fact that blue-haired teenagers wearing corsets, goggles and top hats would continue to celebrate an era of western history typified by its horrific working conditions, abuse of children and the poor, and rampant, unchecked colonial expansionism. So I'll leave it alone.

But, having said that, sometimes I come across something that uses steampunk tropes to its advantage, and that's what we have here, with Brian Kesinger's clever steampunk\Transformers mashup. As you may or may not know, depending on how nerdy you are, IDW published a steampunk Transformers miniseries, called "Hearts of Steel". Kesinger's industrial revolution revisions of Transformers blows that officially sanctioned concept out of the water, thanks to his attention to detail and a number of sardonic touches.

In particular, I love how both Optimus and Megatron are sporting mustaches. I love how Optimus turns into a steam-powered locomotive, Megatron into a baroquely-patterned sixshooter, and Soundwave into a victrola\player piano. I love how era-specific hats have been incorporated into each character's robot mode.

If more steampunk had as much of a sense of humor as this, I probably wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it out of hand.

[Brian Kesinger on Deviantart]

Triptych: Dragon Slayer

"Dragon's Lair" by Jayson Weidel

"Dragon's Lair Poster" by Tom Whalen

"Dragon's Lair" by Saeta Hernando

Interesting fact: there is not much in the way of Dragon's Lair fanart that is a) well-done and b) not pervy. There is a LOT of Dragon's Lair fanart that is pervy and very well-done, but this is not that kind of blog. The above three pieces represent basically the only three works of fan-art I was even remotely comfortable posting.

Triptych: The Terror of Zebes

"Metroid Poster" by Kevin Altman

"Super Metroid: Japanese Variant Poster" by Marinko Milosevski

"Samus Found God" by Juhász Márk

Showcase: Adventure Time Famicom Cartridges

These are pretty clever. Check out the link below to see some shots of these cartridges in action.

[SimplyAWFUL's Adventure Time Collection]

Triptych: Ocarinas and Such

"Zelda Items" by Scott Balmer

"Link" by Josh Legendre

"Ocarina of Time" by iwilding

In other news, Heather bought me Ocarina of Time for the 3DS last weekend and I've been playing the HECK out of it. Turns out I never actually got that far in the N64 version of the game because this is all new to me.