Love, love, LOVE these beautiful yokai (Japanese Folk Monsters) illustrations by Shigeru Mizuki. Japanese folk tales and urban legends have some of the weirdest monsters you can think of. While us Americans have Bigfoot and Babe the giant Blue Ox, the Japanese have Kasa-obake (phantom possessed umbrellas) and Kappa (turtle-like water sprites with ponds for brains). There's a wacky folk tale for just about everything in Japan. For example, if you look carefully at the moon, the Japanese claim you can see bunnies making rice cakes. Do you ever see candlelights dancing on the edge of a hill? Those are the bobbing lanterns of a family of tanuki (Japanese raccoons) mischievously marching. During the many years I went to Japanese School on Saturdays I would be blown away by the morbid and imaginative folktales of Japan. Stories of a powerful boy growing out of an oversized peach and fighting horned demons on Troll Island (Momotaro)! Horrific tales of wicked old ladies cutting the tongues out of beautiful birds. It's a darn shame I didn't learn any Japanese (gomen!).

When it comes to Japanese Monsters, Shigeru Mizuki is one of the best illustrators. His style is the perfect blend of cartoony and spooky that makes these strange Japanese creatures beautiful and timeless. Mizuki-san is best known for his manga series GeGeGe No Kitaro, a gothic children's adventure comic about a zombie boy whose father was reborn as the child's missing left eyeball (a big eyeball head with a miniature naked human body!). It's a shame we haven't been blessed with an English translation of this fantastic series!

Just in time for Halloween, the wonderful PINK TENTACLE blog uploaded many fabulous illustrations from Yōkai Daizukai an illustrated guide of Japanese folk monsters by Mr. Mizuki. Below I have included 3 of my favorites. For more monsters and descriptions of the monsters below, be sure to check out the original Pink Tentacle blog post!

COMBO is the collaborative art animation short by Blu & David Ellis. I posted about Blu's brilliant Muto piece about a year and a half ago (time flies!). David Ellis does his own form of "motion painting". When the two met up in Italy for the FAME festival, they decided to spend 10 days to paint, animate, and film the ambitious elements of COMBO. Although it's not as refined as Blu's MUTO animation, there's a rawness and spontaneity to COMBO. It's style is akin to improv jazz. Some bits may seem a little drawn out or unnecessary... but it regularly all comes together with its playfulness and creativity. I find these street art animations fascinating. It's like you're watching the shadows of ghost art. The real time process is excruciatingly repetitive... but when you see it on film everything comes alive to reveal a rich world of wet paint, bright colors, and the occasional bout of property damage.

Originally discovered via Street Level's Awesome Post!

With all the Kanye West/Taylor Swift talk, Lady Gaga didn't get her due props for sporting the zaniest outfits of MTV's 2009 VMAs. If you're gonna go all out, this is the way to go! Let's not act like the publicly seen pop star world has any semblance of reality (it doesn't) and push it to the limits. Let 'em think you're crazy. Make yourself into an idol of worship... and scare the crap out of them as you do so. As with Marilyn Manson, Bjork, Madonna, and the hair metal bands of the 80s, I'm positive this is all super calculated. Bring it on. We need more monsters to fear. Say what you will of her music (ehhh), but she's quickly made herself into a helluva public persona. Oh yeah, brilliant move on Lady Gaga's part to thank BOTH "God and the gays"!