For fans of basketball and vector illustration alike: The Macrophenomenal Pro Baketball Almanac. Designed and illustrated by Jacob Weinstein.

The other week I had the immense pleasure of seeing Lynda Barry speak in Toronto. She was in town promoting her book What It Is, part autobiographical comic, part how-to guide for blocked creatives.

The It in the title of the book is the idea of an image–a memory, a place, a feeling–and it is what forms the basis of Barry’s methods for storytelling. Rather than racking one’s brain for the perfect story idea, she shows her readers how to let the stories, the images, reveal themselves through word association exercises, and quick, easy writing assignments.

It’s a book that teaches adults how to play and daydream again, and it’s full of Barry’s humour and matter-of-factness. More than I recommend the book, though, I recommend seeing Lynda in person. I’ve never met anyone bursting with so much creative energy and joyful inspiration.

Her workshop tour, Writing the Unthinkable (Myspace link), finds itself in Chicago next — Jan 3rd and 4th — and it could be just what you need if you think you don’t have any stories in you to tell.

Link: What It Is

Previously: Lynda Barry on the Power of the Paint Brush

Coraline.com has been up and running for some time now, but with nothing worth noting. Until now. And it looks good. So far, I’m very impressed with the PR campaign for Henry Selick’s up-coming stop-motion feature produced entirely at LAIKA. First of all, check out the mystery packages they sent out to various members of the press. You’ll notice from that post a password to enter once you’re on the film’s site. Enter it (buttoneyes) and you’ll be treated to a vignette on the various characters in the film. There’s more. I’ve been able to scrounge around other passwords (thank you, internets), if you’re curious:

stopmotion
moustachio
puppetlove
armpithair
sweaterxxs

Enjoy! (Oh, and Focus Features? We here at Drawn! are still waiting for our ‘mystery boxes’. Just so you know.)

Check out the playful paper sculpture work of Ana Serrano. I love this piece, Cartonlandia, a vibrant cardboard microcosm of perfect little houses and vehicles.

You can read an interview with Ana at ReubenMiller.

Interesting collage from magazine images by Gordon Magnin. He creates some great texture and effects from some very simple image manipulation.

Mario Feese created this surprisingly lovely image, Air Lines, out of global flightpath statistics. He writes:

Every scheduled airliner route has been extracted from booking and airline systems. Every single route is represented by a small line, so the transatlantic racetrack is a sea of lines, whereas African or local Cessna routes are only a subtle hint.

It took several months to gather information and program the software algorithm that interprets inputs like LHRDXBSIN3242AD into vector files.

He’s selling prints for US$38.

Google, in cooperation with Time Life, has posted a ton of photographs from the Time Life archive online, most of which have never been published before. The photographs are categorized by decade, and if you take a look at the 1950s section, you will find pictures of Walt Disney Studios, many featuring the man himself, but also others featuring the brilliant folks behind the scenes (such as Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas, and who I think maybe Marc Davis?)

A while back I posted a link to a series of monster trading cards scanned in by illustrator Rafa Toro:Monstruos Diabolicos. Flipping around Flickr today I’ve discovered that Rafa has started to redraw the entire set, and the results are pretty fun: Monstruos Diabolicos Redux.

Related: Toro! Toro! Toro!

The previously-blogged Giuseppe Ferrario is now blogging, so you can keep up-to-date with his deft cartooning.

Previously: Giuseppe Ferrario

Victor and Susie is a cute illustrated book in which the illustrations are all created with typography. It’s the work of design shop Brighten the Corners.