June 25th
Today is the birthday of the Belgian Cartoonist Peyo, creator of the Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs). The smurfs are a race of little blue elf/gnomes known for their appearances in comics, animation, and some stinky CGI-Live Action films. However most people don't know they were originally supposed to be one-off characters in a different comic.
Johan and Peewit (Johan et Pirlouit) was Peyo’s first major medieval fantasy comic, and it already had a solid ten year run before the Smurfs were even conceived. Then came the story "The Flute with Six Holes", where the comic relief Peewit comes into the position of a cursed flue, and they have to contact the Smurfs for help fixing it after it gets stolen. The Smurfs were extremely popular from this first appearance so the focus shifted to them.
----------
June 26th
Today is a grab bag day so I'm going to pass the metaphorical microphone over to Ariel.
Say you’re in a situation like this: Your county just got a tornado watch. You’re looking out the windows constantly, maybe even sitting on your porch, searching the sky for danger. And then… oh my goodness, what is that? A dark cloud with a funnel-like shape, pointed like a spindly skeletal finger, reaches downward from the heavens. Is that a forming tornado? There’s no rotation… How is that possible? Luckily for you, that cloud is probably just a scud cloud.
I’m here to help you out with the question, Is that a scud cloud or a funnel cloud? It sounds silly in concept to mix up other things for a funnel cloud or tornado, but you wouldn’t believe how much it happens!
First of all, what actually is a scud cloud? A scud cloud, or pannus cloud, is a type of detached, low-hanging fractus cloud that is found beneath a parent storm cloud. Compared to the organized form of a tornado, scud clouds are more ragged and torn in appearance—and most importantly, they have no rotation. Sometimes you see a scud cloud that looks a little too much like a funnel for comfort, but that’s when you ask yourself, is it rotating? If you do actually see rotation, increasingly so, maybe you oughta get off your porch.
Tornadoes are typically smoother in appearance, due to the tight rotation of air forming a condensation funnel. Funnel clouds that spawn tornadoes also tend to touch the ground. Scud clouds do not make contact with the ground, not in the way a tornado does. To make absolutely sure of this, if you’re studying what you think is a funnel cloud, watch the ground underneath it. Sometimes a visible funnel doesn’t fully reach the ground as a tornado forms, but the invisible column of rotating air in the tornado still does, which will kick up dust and debris.
So, there you have it! I know what some of you must be thinking—“If I see anything that looks like a tornado, I am NOT sticking around to see if it is or isn’t!” And that’s completely fair. But you never know, this advice could come in handy and prevent alarm.
----------
June 27th
Today is the birthday of my favorite Pixar movie, WALL-E. Wall-E is a beautiful post-apocalyptic robot romance film that tells the story of a timid robot left to clean up after an earth that was destroyed by human pollution, and he does his job better than he ever could have imagined.
The story is part robot romance, part space epic, part environmental warning. All these elements make a really good movie if you are going through the Pixar catalog or leaching off someone else's Disney channel streaming account. However you want to get your family robot romance movie fix.
------------
June 28th
Today is Paul Bunyan Day. Paul Bunyan is a very specific folk tale, a giant man who worked the North American lumber industry with a giant blue ox named Babe and shaped the world along the way. Honestly, the legends around him are pretty inconsistent, but he was definitely a big and powerful logger.
I know there's a similar folktale called Stormalong. Stormalong was a gigantic sailor who captained a massive merchant vessel. Part of me likes to imagine Bunyan and Stormalong found each other's company and were able to retire on a secret island or into the clouds or something. Wherever giants retire. Neither have completely defined fates, so you never know.
-----------
June 29th
Today is National Camera Day. Cameras are everywhere nowadays, everyone has them and uses them. The word camera comes from "camera obscura", a way to project images in a dark room with lenses or small holes. This is just because of how light bounces, and it's the principle that allow eyes to work. The phenomenon can and often does happen by accident, and likewise humans have known about it for centuries. It also means that technically, cameras predate humanity.
-----------
June 30th
Today I am getting the finishing touches ready for my second time participating in Artfight. Just like last year, everyone's websonas are on the table for art fight attacks. I got over 50 colored drawings, mostly headshots, illustrated and uploaded for book club last year, and depending on how busy I am with everything else I hope to at least match 50 attacks this year.
Last year, I also interviewed some of the people I exchanged art with, and I hope to both re-interview some people alongside interviewing new artists if I can.
I do intend to make these articles my first Tumblr exclusive articles this time. Mainly to make it easier to credit people, so I don't have to worry about website image space, and as an excuse to get people to check out my back up blog I have if Wix ever eats dust or something. I always like to have a plan B if I can. Most of what I've got on there now is, like, Homestar Runner fanart and aesthetic posts I've reblogged, so now it's going to be those things and those articles. I'll link to them in a later article when they are up on Tumblr.
That being said, if you are participating in Artfight and want to art attack any of the website's mods, the link is on the other website page. I always give art revenge back, and depending on how busy I am I should be casting some random attacks on whoever has a cool homestar runner OC. That being said, I'll see you all at rope drop.
------------
July 1st:
Today is the anniversary of the 1# summer jam of all time. Everybody to the Limit is like, the third or fourth most popular song from the website Homestar Runner. You know it well, it's that old internet cartoon I don't shut up about. Anyway, the website is known for its music alongside the cartoons, video games, board games, and puppets, and Everybody to the Limit is probably the site's best song for 2004 middle school dances you only half remember but you still find yourself visiting in vivid dreams where it's like you never left middle school. I don't dream anymore but you know what I mean.
ohhh... all that information about tornadoes is really helpful, honestly. those are some of the scariest things i can imagine happening, so hearing them explained like this is at least KINDA helpful. sorta.