Once again, the art blog Drawn! has brought to my attention an interesting niche in art: Japanese city flags. As seen above, each city in Japan has a flag with a logo (called a mon) similiar in many ways to American cities and states’ seals… but much cooler.

Mons are used not only for cities, but are symbols used similiarly to badges, crests and seals in the English-speaking world.Here’s the most complete index of them I could find: link


Did you know that legendary artist & movie designer H.R. Giger (Alien) has his own museum and bar? Neither did I. The H.R. Giger Museum & Bar is located in the Swiss town of Gruyères. More on their website.
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The above is an image from photographer Troy Paiva’s book Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration. Paiva’s “light-painted” night photography of the modern ruins of American civilization evoke a senses of burned out apocalyptic suburbia that most sci-fi works wish they could do. You can see more of Paiva’s work on his site, Lost America, or by buying the book.


Chris Arrant is a freelance writer working in journalism and comics. In comics, he's been published in anthologies such as Tori Amos' Comic Book Tattoo, 24Seven Vol. 2, Negative Burn and No Formula: Stories from the Chemistry Set. In 2006 he self-published the print anthology Four Stories and wrote the webcomic 1 Way Ticket. As a journalist, he has written for Publisher's Weekly, Newsarama.com, Marvel Comics, Suicide Girls, TalesofWonder.com, TOKYOPOP and The News Herald (Panama City, FL.).