Viktor Vasnetsov And Hayao Miyazaki.

"Are video games a form of art?"

My answer to this age-old question? YES...

EL OMBLIGO DE LA LUNA (Animated Short Film, 2023. Gobelins)

Fun Fact:

History's greatest hero deserved better...

The ending to Hercules' story is quite a downer. When Hercules was traveling with his new bride Deianeira, they came across a flooded river and the centaur Nessus offered to carry Deianeira across while Hercules swam in front of them. Only when Hercules got to the shore, he saw that Nessus had turned around and tried running off with his wife. So the hero took out one of his poisoned arrows and sent it ripping through Nessus' chest. Refusing to die unavenged, Nessus told Deianeira that she could use his bloody shirt to cast a love spell on Hercules if he ever got bored with her. And years later, she gave it a try, without realizing the shirt had also absorbed the poison from her husband's arrows and so the moment Hercules was tricked into putting the shirt on, his body cried out in pain. The poison entered his bloodstream, causing it to boil and hiss and the tunic grafted itself to his skin. So the only way to get it off was by ripping off his own flesh. Left with no other option, the immortal Heracles made a funeral pyre to burn away his physical form and soon after, his spirit was welcomed to Mt. Olympus.

Fun Fact:

This scene from the 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula adapts a real legend regarding the first wife of Vlad Ţepeş, the Wallachian Voivode also called "Dracula".

According to this legend, while Vlad was away from his fortress (Poenari Castle), an arrow message was shot into the chamber of the princess with news of the Ottoman army's attack on the castle the following morning. Rather than risking capture, the princess jumped from the castle tower into the river below. In the film however, she jumps after hearing false news of Dracula's death.

The river in this legend was later named "Râul Doamnei", meaning "The Lady's River". In a later scene in the film, Dracula names the river "Argeș, River Princess". But Argeș is actually the larger river that Râul Doamnei connects to.

Frans Francken the Younger’s "Chamber of Art and Antiquities" (1636). 

A painting depicting a 17th century cabinet of curiosities made up of art, collectibles, and oddities from the natural world.

Dark City (1998) by Alex Proyas.

A beautiful, sleek, lucid nightmare.

Filled with unforgettable, overwhelming images.

Highly influential.

“Our tour begins here in this gallery, here where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptible mortal state. Kindly step all the way in, please, and make room for everyone. There’s no turning back now.”- Ghost Host

The Winged Man (1880), by Odilon Redon, a classic symbolist image that has inspired me.

Fun Fact:

Man-Thing, one of my all-time favorite Marvel monsters. Maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't. But I doubt you knew just how absurdly powerful this guy is! This guy is way more powerful than you think and here's the reason why:

Believe it or not, Man-Thing can take on Cosmic Entities, he's defeated the Incredible Hulk and even the Juggernaut is afraid of him. In addition to superhuman strength that allowed him to fight the Incredible Hulk to a standstill, his durability is so insane that he couldn't be hurt by the Incredible Hulk or the hell flames of Ghost Rider (and Ghost Rider's hell flames can actually harm Doctor Strange). Man-Thing can fly, he has telepathy, and he can teleport himself and others to any dimension or universe in the Multiverse because he's the guardian of the Nexus of All Realities, which leads to the Multiverse.

But the Man-Thing's primary power is his empathy, which allows him to sense the emotions of others. But the one emotion that Man-Thing cannot tolerate is fear. And because of a deal that was made with the demon Belasco, whatever knows fear burns at the touch of the Man-Thing. And there's no known upper limit, meaning as long as any being (from human to cosmic entity) is afraid of the Man-Thing, they will burn at his touch.