When I spotted Australian artist Gibson Radsavanh’s work on DeviantArt, I was immediately swept away to an usual place that reminded me of Wonderland. Where some inhabitants were sweet, some sinister, and others sinister disguised as sweet. Here’s a sampling of Radsavanh’s unique creations with a few well-known pop-culture characters skewed to his particular stylings mixed in. Beware, some creepiness lies ahead…

Here’s a funny story for your late afternoon enjoyment: Zookeepers in Pakistan regularly purchase alcohol for the zoo’s elephants for when the animals get a little keyed up during mating season. Or so they claimed. For twenty years. If that isn’t funny enough for you to begin with, try this one: Someone thought it was strange that elephants were basically being “prescribed” booze, so they asked a veterinarian, “Hey, can elephants drink booze?” And the vet said, “No, elephants cannot drink booze. God, I hope they haven’t been drinking booze.” Don’t worry! The elephants never drank any of the booze. It was for the zookeepers, who bogarted all that elephant-relegated booze for all those years.

Dana Terrace is a third-year animation student at the School of Visual Arts, and probably has tons of stories to tell. Kickball, about two new friends meeting after a quick dust-up, is a really sweet beginning. Check out more of Terrace’s work at her blog, Dana Draws. We can’t wait to see more!

(via Cartoon Brew)

Charles Paul Wilson III brings us a wonderful, very good, heartwarming mashup set of the Avengers and Winnie the Pooh, and we can think of nothing better to show you on a Sunday afternoon. After the jump, see more watercolor scenes and more friends — both Marvel and DC!

On his new show Rock Center, NBC News anchor and all-around media hero Brian Williams was awesome enough to feature some New York-based comedians, Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp, and their amazing internet creation, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. The tiny, one-eyed be-shoed shell has two videos on the internet, boasting millions and millions of hits — and hearts. Yeah. I said it. But Marcel the Shell is newsworthy, so you should follow us behind the jump and watch the very excellent video. Marcel won’t talk to just anybody, people.

Yesterday, during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Tim Burton made his debut as “parade balloon designer” and introduced his original character B. Boy to the all-star lineup. B. Boy was part of an artists series called the Blue Sky Gallery, a regular part of the parade that gives artists and creators the opportunity to make a balloon that sits just outside of the mainstream “cast” of balloons. (Past artists have included Keith Haring and Takashi Murakami.) According to the Macy’s team, Burton was always very high on the list for this. B. Boy was first featured at the Museum of Modern Art last spring, and that’s when the parade team starting courting Burton. More pics, behind the scenes video, and B. Boy’s origin story after the jump!

Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

Make no mistake: Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side) by Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn — based on the work of fashion designer Olympia Le-Tan — is a beautiful and sad short film. But it does contain a small amount of NSFW language and a copious amount of sex between a skeleton and a woman, both made out of felt and who have magically sprung off the covers of books at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. Enjoy!

(Nowness via /Film)

For some reason, this video of a man who built an unbelievable Skeksis costume inspired by The Dark Crystal for the sole purpose (it seems) of scaring the bejeezus out of his co-worker has not gone insanely viral. (Okay, maybe he had some plans for Halloween, too.) We have no idea if this is awesome or horrible … we’re just going to go with both, because it is not nice to scare a co-worker, but look at that Skeksis costume! The craftsmanship! Seriously!

(via io9)

Back in ye olden tymes when I was a kid and played outdoor games with my neighborhood friends, we used to imagine that the woodsy patch separating two houses was real quicksand, and we never went over there. Ever. These illustrations, by Pierette Diaz, will probably remind you about how our young eyes (and ears) were interpreting things a but differently than they do now.

It’s safe to say that the internet is full of animals. And not just cats! There are penguins, parrots, frogs, raccoons, philosoraptors and wolves of all kinds out there, displaying colorful backgrounds and being just a little too like us for it not to be funny. Now it may seem obvious that we tend to find images of animals compelling in a different way than images of humans. I mean, Cuteoverload.com almost never posts pictures of human babies. And science, which never sleeps, seems to indicate that the reasons behind this difference are even deeper than we would have guessed.