Comic Book Cartography

The map blog Comic Book Cartography gathers images of maps, schematics and cut-away diagrams from classic comic books.

The Fantastic Four at war with Namor the Sub-mariner?

Hemispheric Maps of Superman's home planet, Krypton:

The East Coast according to DC...



OMG! Superman's Metropolis is in Delaware? Batman's Gotham City is just across the bay in in New Jersey? Who knew?

For more Comic Cartography, check out Atlas of the DC Universe.

Where is West Xylophone?

They Might Be Giants, the American alternative rock band, primarily John Flansburgh and John Linnell, have released dozens of children's songs over the years. Including "The Alphabet of Countries"

The official TMBG video includes much map and flag fun... but where is West Xylophone?



From This Might Be A Wiki - The TMBG Knowledge Base:

Technically, there is no nation whose name begins with the letter 'X' or the letter 'W.' (Wales is a principality, Wallis is a territory of France, and Western Sahara is a disputed territory below Morocco). The fictional West Xylophone is used as a stand-in for both of these letters.

Several other TMBG fans have created videos for the song, with more map and flag fun:

How's the Weather Up Your Way?

The National Weather Service (US) Center Weather Service Unit has an interactive map that allows you to get the latest weather status at most of the international and regional airports throughout the country. Simply mouse over one of the dots representing an airport.



HT to Michael5000

#580

Wall Street Has No Sense of Humor

As reported on the comics news site, The Beat:

As he mentioned on his C2E2 panel, Chris Ware recently finished a cover for Fortune magazine, only to see it killed, perhaps because of all the jokes in the tiny spaces of the cover. This is really what the internet was invented for, don’t you agree? (Click for larger, rejected version.)

The stuffed shirts on Wall Street have no sense of humor.

HT to Alphistia

The Incredible Shrinking Aral Sea

Due to extensive irrigation projects, the Aral Sea in central Asia is shrinking. In 1960, it was the fourth largest lake in the world. Since then its surface area has shrunk more than 60%, and its volume by more than 80%.



In addition to decimating the fishing industry, the receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff. These pollutants are then blown in the wind, causing respiratory illnesses including tuberculosis, cancer, digestive disorders, anaemia, and infectious diseases.





Via The Map Scroll

Volcano Ash Cloud Video

Jonathan Crowe at The Map Room has created a video of the time-lapse animation the ash cloud emitted by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano from the Norwegian Meteorological Office:



Beautiful, in its own frightening way.

Korean Pasta

This is a menu or advertisement for an Italian restaurant somewhere in South Korea.



I know it is not really surprising that there would be Italian restaurants in Korea, but I just liked their use of the map of Italy; presumably describing the different regional cuisines.

I wonder if they have Korean restaurants in Italy? I love that Bi Bim Bop.

Thanks to Shawna, a colleague who saved this from a trip to South Korea several years ago.

UPDATE: Yes, there are Korean restaurants in Italy! Thanks Ke.

From Here to There, Hand Drawn Maps Are Every Where

Kris Harzinski, of the Hand Drawn Map Association, has a collection of hand drawn maps coming out soon, to a book store near you.

From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association will be published by Princeton Architectural Press this fall.

"From Here to There celebrates these ephemeral documents—usually forgotten or tossed aside after having served their purpose—giving them their due as artifacts representing stories from people's lives around the world."

Pre-orders now available from Amazon and Princeton Architectural Press

HDMA Previously on Cartophilia

#575

Lost States on Wall Street

Lost States author, Michael Trinklein, has been getting some great press lately, including reviews in newspapers and on interviews on National Public Radio.

Today, the Wall Street Journal, offers a two page feature spread. The WSJ Online includes an interactive map:



Read more about Trinklein's book at the Lost States Blog

Lost States, previously on Cartophilia:

Lost States Revisited

Lost States

UPDATE 4/20:As has been noted by many, the WSJ blew it on their map and made Michigan's Upper Peninsula part of the Canada... The map has been corrected... sort of. Now they have misdrawn the proposed State of Superior, to leave out Northern Wisconsin.

See: Lost States Blog

See: State of Superior

Should five per cent appear too small, Be thankful I don’t take it all.

April 15 is the deadline to file federal and state income taxes in the United States.



"Now my advice for those who die,
Declare the pennies on your eyes."

Flags of Arabia

Curzon at Coming Anarchy provides us with a brief explanation of why so many Arabic speaking countries have very similar flags, featuring a flaggish map!



Flags of Arabia, Part 2: Flags of the Arab Revolt, the Hashemite Kings, and Pan-Arabism

Flags of Arabia, Part 1: The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf

The Crescent and Sacred Green: A Postscript to the Arab Flags Series

Make Pizza Not War

Dots represent references to pizza, guns, and strip clubs in user-generated Google Maps placemarks.



From Floating Sheep

HT to Pat and Jon

How's About a Nice Hawaiian Map?

From My Food Looks Funny




#570

A Treasure Map To Your Heart?

The folks at Threadless Tees offer this anatomically correct map to your heart:



HT to Gretchen via Twitter

Mappy Books and Magazines

Just a collection of some recent mappy looking book and magazine covers:

Atlas of Unknowns by Tania James "A poignant, funny, blazingly original debut novel about sisterhood, the tantalizing dream of America, and the secret histories and hilarious eccentricities of families everywhere."

Governing Broke and Broken By Rob Gurwitt "Legislatures won't just be grappling with a shortage of money this year. They'll also be wrestling with government systems that simply don't work."

The Power of Place by Harm De Blij "What Carl Sagan did for the cosmos, Harm de Blij is doing for geography." --Bill Moyers

Time The Five Keys to Health Reform's Success or Failure By Karen Tumulty and Kate Pickert with Alice Park "Will it work? And how will it work? A guide to what the new law will mean for costs, Medicare, doctors, the states — and you"

Map Font

Today's map is from a series of posters that were part of collaborative project with Scalacolore (Scalacolore is a Design Community based in Verona – Italy). The concept was:

Take a letter of an alphabet, looking for a selection of 10 cities in the world that starts with this letter, say which languages are spoken in these places, say where are you from and which is your language. It was a research project around the concept of the TRAVELLING.

This map appears to me a mash up of cities starting with the letter F, including Falmouth (US not UK), Fohnsdorf, Austria, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Folgaria, Italy. Can anyone recognize or make out any of the details. Perhaps my Italian carto-friends have more info?

(click on image for larger version)

Wouldn't it be fun to have an entire alphabet font made up of maps?

HT to Michelle