“Twenty years ago, the conceptual artist Mel Chin cold-called the offices of Melrose Place, Aaron Spelling’s wildly popular prime-time soap opera, with a proposition. What if a task force of artists supplied free artworks and props for the show’s apartment-complex set, with coded cultural messages on pressing topics […]
Look, it’s some notes on how @unchartedatlas generates fantasy maps! “I wanted to make maps that look like something you’d find at the back of one of the cheap paperback fantasy novels of my youth. I always had a fascination with these imagined worlds, which were often much […]
Roc Morin explores the making of No Man’s Sky. “Physicists still debate whether our own universe is deterministic or random. While some scientists believe that quantum mechanics almost certainly involves indeterminacy, Albert Einstein famously favored the opposing position, saying, ‘God does not play dice.’ No Man’s Sky does […]
DM David writes about “The Dungeons & Dragons spells Gary Gygax never meant for players.” “Dungeons & Dragons first supplement, Greyhawk, raised the game’s highest level spells from 6th level to 9th. None of Gary Gygax’s players had reached the level required to cast the new spells. Tim […]
“The history of Soviet mission patches begins with one of space travel’s most significant achievements. In 1963, Valentina Teresknova made history as the first woman in space. Her call sign was Chayka—Seagull—and under it, she completed 48 orbits of Earth. As she did so, hidden from view, sewn onto the […]
SF Gate has a little about the history of the art on firecrackers and a whole lot of pictures of vintage firecracker labels. Click through to see them! (Thanks, Stephanie!)
Find t-shirts, mugs, totes and more at our new Guttermart location at Teepublic!
The Cultural Gutter 