Salad Fingers is a thin, bald, hunchbacked human with light-green skin and long, strangely shaped fingers. He is mentally troubled and speaks with a distorted Northern English accent. Salad Fingers inhabits a desolate world, living alone in a small shack with the number 22 on the door. His “friends” are finger puppets—whom Salad Fingers introduces as Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter and Jeremy Fisher. The animation series Salad Fingers is a creation of British cartoonist and musician David Firth. The first five Flash cartoons were released in 2004 and the series gained rapid Internet popularity in 2005. Five additional episodes were released between 2005 and 2013. You can watch the Salad Fingers full series (52 minutes) on YouTube.
P.S. David Firth was born on January 23, 1983. Today is his birthday.
Big Bunny is a 20-foot-tall, fuzzy pink rabbit with a dubious appetite. A group of three “tasty” children—Lulu, Suzy and Sam—and their “crunchy” dog Muffin meet Big Bunny in the forest. Created in 2001, Big Bunny was the second web series by Amy Winfrey, with Peter Merryman as the voice of Big Bunny. Winfrey is the creator of the Nickelodeon show Making Fiends, as well as the web series Muffin Films. Her most recent animation series include Squid and Frog and Fun with Cobra. Delicious.
P.S. Happy New Year! Christmas is over, but you can still play with the holiday characters.
Ded Moroz (translated as “Old Man Frost” or “Grandfather Frost”) is a fictional character who plays a role similar to that of Santa Claus in some Slavic cultures. Ded Moroz is said to bring presents to children; however, unlike the secretive Santa Claus, the gifts are often delivered “in person” at New Year celebrations. Depictions of Ded Moroz commonly show him with a heel-length fur coat and a semi-round fur hat. He is accompanied by Snegurochka (“Snow Maiden”), his granddaughter and helper. She is a unique attribute of Ded Moroz; no traditional gift-givers from other cultures are portrayed with a female companion, though the German analog Saint Nicholas comes with Krampus. There are equivalents of Ded Moroz and Snegurochka all over the former Soviet Union, as well as the countries once in the so-called Soviet bloc and in the former Yugoslavia. The official residence of Ded Moroz in Russia is the town of Veliky Ustyug.
The Spotted Elephant is a character from the stop-motion children’s Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced by Rankin/Bass in 1964. The Spotted Elephant resides with other unwanted toys on the Island of Misfit Toys, a land ruled by King Moonracer. (Moonracer is possibly a manipulative cult leader with megalomaniac tendencies who hoards rare, emotionally damaged toys.)
Major Motoko Kusanagi is the main protagonist in Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell anime and manga series. She is a cyborg employed as the squad leader of Public Security Section 9, a fictional intelligence department of the real Japanese National Public Safety Commission. Her counter-terrorist unit specializes in technological warfare against cyber-crime. Being strong-willed, physically powerful and highly intellectual, Kusanagi is known for her skills in deduction and hacking.
Business Cat is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation and an enthusiast of belly scratches, catnip mice and batting objects onto the floor. He is the title character of The Adventures of Business Cat, a webcomic written and drawn by Tom Fonder detailing the life and times of the world’s wealthiest playboy business pet. The strip was conceived by Tom Fonder and Rachael Robins and began as an occasional interlude in the gag-a-day webcomic Happy Jar. The first Business Cat comic was posted on January 7, 2014 and so far there have been 20 comics in the series.
Business Cat as a concept reminds me of the cat who took a “business trip” and “had an especially good head for figures” in Amy Winfrey’s Big Bunny (2001) cartoons. You can’t really go wrong with a housecat in a suit and tie. Business Cat is one of my favorite characters of the many webcomics/web cartoons I’ve followed over the years (some of my previous 8-bit tributes include General Twobabies, Zach Weinersmith, The Oatmeal, SpaceBear and Strong Bad). Speaking of business, today is my 10-year anniversary as lead web developer/designer at Oregon State University. (I code and design the OSU Ecampus, OSU Summer Session and Open Oregon State websites, among other things.) Also, it’s nearly my 13-year anniversary as an Oregon resident. And my four-year anniversary (two years married) with my wife Heidi. These major life events all happened within three days of each other (November 8-11) in different years. I like this time of year.
Urashima Tarō is the title character of a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a sea turtle and is rewarded for his kindness with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the undersea palace of Ryūjin, the dragon god of the sea. In one version of the story, Tarō stays under the sea for three days and, upon his return to his fishing village, finds himself 300 years in the future.
P.S. This 8-bit pixel art Urashima Tarō is based on ukiyo-e art by Japanese artist Yoshitoshi Tsukioka. Though I almost designed 8-bit Tarō after George Suyeoka’s gorgeous illustrations in Urashima Taro (1973), a beloved book on my bookshelf.
Mike Wazowski is a green, one-eyed monster and employee at Monsters, Inc. in the 2001 computer-animated Pixar film of the same title. The parallel city of Monstropolis is inhabited by monsters and powered by the screams of children in the human world. At the Monsters, Inc. factory, employees called “scarers” venture into children’s bedrooms to scare them and collect their screams, using closet doors as portals. But the monsters are themselves afraid that the children may contaminate them. The plot of the film involves Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) and his best friend Sully (John Goodman) discovering and trying to return a young human girl who has entered Monstropolis.
Snufkin is a character in the Moomin series of books authored by Swedish-speaking Finn Tove Jansson, appearing in six of the nine novels. He is the best friend of the series’ protagonist, Moomintroll, and lives a nomadic lifestyle, only staying in Moominvalley in the spring and summer, but leaving for warmer climates down south every winter. Snufkin wears old green clothes and a wide-brimmed hat he has had since birth. He lives in a tent, smokes a pipe and plays the harmonica. Snufkin has a great dislike for all symbols of private property and for authority figures such as the Park Keeper, and the many regulation signs and fences he erects. At one point he sabotages the Park Keeper by planting Hattifatteners in his garden, causing them to grow and drive him out. Snufkin prefers freely-growing foliage to fenced-in lawns. He keeps as few worldly possessions as possible, seeing them as a burden, and being happier keeping the memory of a thing than the thing itself. Tove Jansson based the character of Snufkin on her friend and one-time fiancé, Atos Wirtanen.
P.S. This 8-bit Snufkin is based on his character design in the 1990 Japanese-European anime television series Moomin.
Q*bert is the title character of an arcade video game developed and published by Gottlieb in 1982. It is a 2D action game with puzzle elements that uses “isometric” graphics to create a pseudo-3D effect. The object is to change the color of every cube in a pyramid by making the on-screen character hop on top of the cube while avoiding obstacles and enemies. The game was conceived by video game programmer Warren Davis and artist Jeff Lee. Lee designed the orange, armless title character and the original concept by drawing a pyramid of cubes inspired by M. C. Escher. The character jumped along the cubes and shot projectiles, called “mucus bombs,” from a tubular nose at enemies. Q*bert was developed under the project name Cubes, but was briefly named Snots and Boogers and @!#?@! during development. The game was Gottlieb’s most successful video game and among the most recognized brands from the golden age of arcade video games.
I obviously didn’t have to modify the 8-bit arcade sprite of Q*bert very much to fit the format of my Mascot Mashup: Gorillas artillery game. I’m surprised it took me almost 800 characters to make him. When I think of Q*bert, I think of playing the Atari 5200 cartridge at my cousin Brian’s house at Christmastime in West Virginia. I never owned a copy of the game, but I was fascinated by its pyramid structure.
Usagi Tsukino, better known as Sailor Moon, is the superheroine protagonist and title character in the Sailor Moon manga series and anime adaptations. Usagi is introduced as a carefree, underachieving schoolgirl in Tokyo. She is initially believed to be an Earthling, but is later revealed to be Princess Serenity of the moon kingdom Silver Millennium. Usagi meets Luna who discovers that she is destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna gives Usagi a broach to transform into Sailor Moon, and asks her to form the Sailor Soldiers, find their princess and protect the “Legendary Silver Crystal.” As Usagi matures, she becomes one of the universe’s powerful warriors and protects her adopted home planet, Earth, from villains who wish to harm it.
This 8-bit Sailor Moon was created at the request of my wife Heidi and her sister. Speaking of sailing (or at least ferries), Heidi and I are heading to Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands, to stay in an apartment in Eastsound for the next few days. It’s her birthday present from me.
Strong Bad is one of the major characters of the Homestar Runner series of animated Flash web cartoons. He is portrayed by Matt Chapman, the principal voice actor and co-founder of the series. Strong Bad sports red boxing gloves and a red lucha libre mask with four laces in the back and a blue diamond in the center. He enjoys pranking the other characters of the series, along with his pet The Cheat and his older brother Strong Mad. Strong Bad’s main segment is Strong Bad Email (2001-2009), in which he answers emails sent to him by fans. Segments have been spun off of his emails, including Trogdor the Burninator and Teen Girl Squad, a comic drawn by Strong Bad about four teenage friends.
P.S.IT’S OVER! Summer is over! Happy autumn equinox. By the way, the Strong Bad character was based on the Strong Bads, a lucha libre-style fighter team from the 1983 arcade video game Tag Team Wrestling. Oh, nostalgia for 1980s entertainment via Flash cartoons of the early 2000s. ARROWED!!!
Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski is the protagonist of The Big Lebowski, a 1998 crime comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The Dude, played by Jeff Bridges, is a single, unemployed slacker living in Venice, California who enjoys marijuana, White Russians and bowling. The Dude is mostly inspired by Jeff Dowd, a member of the anti-war radical group the Seattle Liberation Front (The Dude tells Maude Lebowski during the film that he was one of the Seattle Seven, who were members of the SLF). A friend of the Coen brothers, Vietnam War veteran Pete Exline, also inspired aspects of the character.
Tetsuo Shima is the main antagonist of the manga and 1988 anime movie Akira. One of the youngest members of a motorcycle gang in Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo was once the best friend of leader Shotaro Kaneda. At the beginning of the story, Tetsuo is severely injured in a mysterious motorcycle accident, which causes him to display immense powers, including telekinesis, teleportation, mind-reading and a shield that allows him to breathe in space. Tetsuo’s mental instability increases with the manifestation of his powers. This ultimately drives him insane and destroys his friendship with Kaneda, who becomes his nemesis.
Note: I created 8-bit Tetsuo after the point in the story where he synthesizes an artificial, metal arm to replace his severed right arm. Also, today is 9/11. Last year on September 11, I published my 666th pixel art character, Nero. In 2012, I posted Augusto Pinochet on this day. That’s three villains in a row. But if you go back to 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I published Captain America. Because, ‘Merica.
SpaceBear, created by artist Andy Helms, is a small black bear working as a bounty hunter (or, more accurately, bounty barber). He wields a pins-and-needles pistol and wears an orange robotic spacesuit, called a Xyber-Suit, which features a Xyber-Shield and Xyber-Snips (for cutting facial hair). In the animated short “SpaceBear,” SpaceBear saves Brobot and Frog Teen at a Gas-Teroid before facing off with his bearded wizard nemesis the Astro-Magus, Perplexulo. The cartoon, animated by Dave Ferguson, premiered on Cartoon Hangover one week ago, on August 14, 2014.
Oompa-Loompas are knee-high beings who originate from Loompaland and work in Willy Wonka’s factory. They appear as characters in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and the film adaptations of these books that followed. In the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas were written to be played by actors with dwarfism and are portrayed as orange-skinned, green-haired men in striped shirts and baggy lederhosen-like pants. However, in the book, the Oompa-Loompas insist on maintaining their native clothing: men wear skins, women wear leaves, and children wear nothing.
Note: Perhaps you’d like to play Oompa-Loompa vs. Willy Wonka. The Oompa-Loompa throws golden eggs. It’s a pity they don’t throw miniature Veruca Salts. I want it now.
Willy Wonka is a character in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and the film adaptations of these books that followed. The book and the film adaptations both vividly depict an odd Wonka, a phoenix-like man arising from his creative and eccentric genius. In the 1971 film adaptation, Wonka is memorably played by Gene Wilder. Wonka’s reasons for giving away his fantastic factory are never revealed in the books, but in the 1971 film, Wonka tells Charlie he “can’t live forever,” so he wanted to find a sweet child he could trust with his candy-making secrets.
P.S. Merry Christmas! I enjoyed this forum thread, which addresses King Moonracer’s possible villain status: “Was King Moonracer a fraud?” Indeed. Why was King Moonracer holding the misfit toys hostage for so long? Since he regularly flies around the world collecting unwanted toys, why wasn’t he already collaborating with Santa to find new homes for those toys? Moonracer only thought to contact Santa afterRudolph, Hermey, and Yukon showed up? Really? King Moonracer is very possibly a manipulative cult leader with megalomaniac tendencies who hoards rare, emotionally damaged toys. It seems like the unexpected arrival of visitors to his remote island shamed him into doing the right thing with his sad toy collection.
Quincy Magoo (or simply Mr. Magoo) is a cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. However, through uncanny streaks of luck, the situation always seems to work itself out for him, leaving him no worse than before. Mr. Magoo was born on February 25, 1858.
General Twobabies is a recurring character in the webcomic Left-Handed Toons by Drew Mokris and Justin Boyd, who are right-handed people. General Twobabies, created by Drew, is my favorite character (with Whale! being a close second). Twobabies is actually two babies in an Army general’s uniform. He may be guilty of war crimes, and adorable teething. He has also appeared as Private Twobabies and Senator Threebabies.
Note: Drew also makes Spinnerdisc cartoons and Justin also makes the Invisible Bread webcomic, which I enjoy. Go check them out!
Business Cat – No. 803
Business Cat is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation and an enthusiast of belly scratches, catnip mice and batting objects onto the floor. He is the title character of The Adventures of Business Cat, a webcomic written and drawn by Tom Fonder detailing the life and times of the world’s wealthiest playboy business pet. The strip was conceived by Tom Fonder and Rachael Robins and began as an occasional interlude in the gag-a-day webcomic Happy Jar. The first Business Cat comic was posted on January 7, 2014 and so far there have been 20 comics in the series.
Business Cat as a concept reminds me of the cat who took a “business trip” and “had an especially good head for figures” in Amy Winfrey’s Big Bunny (2001) cartoons. You can’t really go wrong with a housecat in a suit and tie. Business Cat is one of my favorite characters of the many webcomics/web cartoons I’ve followed over the years (some of my previous 8-bit tributes include General Twobabies, Zach Weinersmith, The Oatmeal, SpaceBear and Strong Bad). Speaking of business, today is my 10-year anniversary as lead web developer/designer at Oregon State University. (I code and design the OSU Ecampus, OSU Summer Session and Open Oregon State websites, among other things.) Also, it’s nearly my 13-year anniversary as an Oregon resident. And my four-year anniversary (two years married) with my wife Heidi. These major life events all happened within three days of each other (November 8-11) in different years. I like this time of year.