Artist C. David Claudon created these beautiful illustrations of paper dolls that cover a wide swath of history from ancient Egypt to the time of the Plantagenets. I'm especially fond of these Catholic saints, and this gallery of Oscar Wilde, along with other debauched Victorians like Aubrey Beardsley there on the left. Claudon even throws in something for the Goths.

His main site is also filled with tasty chunks of ephemeral goodness like these guides to 1940s and '50s decor.

via Beyond the Roots of Lounge and the recently-re-functified Exclamation Mark

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:19 PM | Permalink

What We Want uses Flash to generate a collage of facial features that accompany cut-n-paste singles ads, with bizarre, often humorous results:

"Energetic, adventurous, single Asian opera buff. 4ft 11in, 30 year old retail clerk. Fetishes include knitting, NYC, and playing guitar. Can't live without a thin, hot, homeless man who enjoys starting a family and surfing. Must have a car."

Click your mouse to stop the animation and hover your cursor over any part to change the image and text

via Reality Carnival

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:11 PM | Permalink

Deviled Ham is a new weblog devoted to the Prince of Darkness, in all of his artistic guises. Seeing as Christ has his own art 'blog now, I suppose it was inevitable that Lucifer would appear to tempt him.

Your satanic familiar is Keith, who's also the friendly proprietor of a bunch of other great 'blogs like Old Haunts, Malls of America, Santa and Me, and the Sir Graves Ghastly fan site.

I don't know when this guy finds time to sleep. He must possess supernatural blogging powers.

Could he be....SATAN?

Posted by MrBaliHai at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This post at Jart In My Head got me thinking about the days when my mom and I used to live at my grandparents' house; they were devout Sicilian Catholics, and their house was filled with cheesy and creepy religious knicknacks; the worst was a portrait of Christ that hung on the wall next to my bed. It depicted him praying with his eyes closed. When you turned out the lights, his eyes opened wide and glowed in the dark. I had to turn the picture around to face the wall because it freaked me out so much.

I went a-Googlin' for an image of this fine collectible, but couldn't find it. Instead, I turned up the Ethical Atheist's Ridiculous Religious Merchandise page, that old stalwart of spiritual kitsch, Cheesy Jesus, and this subdued, but amusing collection of Lutheran items where I learned that Martin Luther brought forth the reformation while sitting on the toilet. Whatta guy!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)