An illustrated guide to the Top 100 Panda Movies of the 20th Century

Pandas are seen as totally cute, furry fluffballs that roll around in the snow doing adorable things to the delight of human observers. Modern media has picked up on large eyes as a cue to cuteness. From ET to Garfield to Bugs Bunny, we have seen that large eyes, tiny chins and short noses are popular. It is no surprise that this is what we see in newborn babies.

Pandas are the ideal fit, right from the start.

However, the world of movies has not been so kind to our furry friends. Many animals have been represented in the various movie sub-genres. Movies like Moby Dick and Free Willy gave cetaceans some well deserved exposure, just as Happy Feet, Madagascar and Mr Popper’s Penguins showed off the cute antics of penguins.

Even birds get some recognition in Hitchcock’s The Birds, The Road Runner and even One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It is high time that the secret world of panda cinema be exposed to the world. This book contains 130 panda based cinema classics that the world has forgotten. Unforgettable movie milestones such as Smokey and the Pandit, The Fast and the Panderous and Steve McQueen is Panditt never really gained the traction they deserved.

So come along on our journey to explore the secret world of Panda Cinema.

An illustrated guide to the secret world of Pandas

Pandas are seen as totally cute, furry fluffballs that roll around in the snow doing adorable things to the delight of human observers. Modern media has picked up on large eyes as a cue to cuteness. From ET to Garfield to Bugs Bunny, we have seen that large eyes, tiny chins and short noses are popular. It is no surprise that this is what we see in newborn babies.

Pandas are the ideal fit, right from the start.

Cute animals doing cute things is a sure-fire popular hit. Just count the number of cat videos that hit your inbox, or fluffy ducklings or puppies, (or fluffy ducklings asleep with puppies).

However, when you get cute creatures doing things they are not normally associated with, then things can get interesting.  If we expand the Panda’s repertoire from eating and tumbling, we can discover just how capable and under-rated these amazing creatures are.

Using the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated imagery, we can now place Pandas in the most unlikely of situations and watch them thrive in their new environment. Being an endangered species, it would be foolhardy and irresponsible to put Pandas into a Pandzer Tank or have them smoke Giant Pandatella cigars, however the virtual environment offered via AI imagery allows us and the Pandas to experience a totally new world full of exciting possibilities.

Pandas are also clever linguists. Their mother tongue, Mandarin Chinese, is a rich and complex language, relying on not just words, but tones, to create a broad linguistic canvas. Their devilishly cheeky sense of humor allows Pandas to engage in fun wordplay and monumentally groan-worthy puns.

So come along on our journey to explore the fun world of Pandas (or as they call themselves, Pundas)

An illustrated guide to over 100 Collective Nouns for groups of animals

The year was 1486 and “The Boke of St. Albans” was published, containing amongst many observations of the day, a list of “Companys of beestys and fowlys” which included items such as a Covey of Partridges, a Flight of Swallows and a Litter of Whelps.

Fast forward over 500 years, and we see the emergence of AI Image Generation, whereby text prompts can be entered into specially trained algorithms to create images.

Now combine the ancient lists of “beestys” with the AI image generation capabilities of today and you end up with this book.

The English language is always evolving and so too is technology, so this book is the happy confluence of 2 ever evolving streams.

Just as the reach of The Bible increased dramatically when combined with the 1440’s technology of Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press, so too will the knowledge of collective animal nouns blossom as a result of this book.

Discussions on the origins of these collective nouns are hot topics amongst various fora frequented by word detectives, so there was some trepidation in enquiring “what is the collective noun for a group of collective nouns ?”

Given the very serious nature of these discussions amongst word-loving logophiles, such a question could release a torrent of opinions and potentially not arrive at a commonly agreed conclusion.

This book started as a fun experiment to test the bounds of AI image generation technology. I was playing around with the various AI models, in Australian slang, I was ‘farnarkeling around’ with the technology.  It was surprising how little time it took to accumulate over 100 such collective animal nouns, so I have converted the verb Farnarkeling into the noun Farnarkle to encompass these images of collective nouns.

I hope you have as much fun farnakeling through this book as I did creating it.

An illustrated guide to 100 Cliches to Avoid Like the Plague

Planned for release in mid 2024

A book on how the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope images are created - and how you can create images like these yourself

The general public are familiar to some extent with the amazing images produced by the Hubble and James Webb Space telescopes. Such images are presented as “pretty pictures” in more general publications and any more detailed analysis of the images quickly becomes very scientific.

This book proposes to go beyond the pretty picture and explore these wonders of the universe in plain English, using non-scientific language, while maintaining a balance of Science and Art. Aspects of each object such as colour are addressed via a discussion of wavelengths of light, the gases that emit specific wavelengths of light and how these are combined to create the image we see.

The book highlights 50 of the most popular images from these telescopes along with images from terrestrial telescopes in Chile, Spain, The Canary Islands and Australia.

Each image is described in plain English and discusses aspects such as where in the sky is the object, how far is it away, what causes the colours, what processes have formed the structure and what new knowledge has been gained from this observation.

A section outlining how these colour images are produced by combining several monochrome images sheds some of the mystery behind the creation of these images.

The final section includes guidelines on how to access the raw image data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope archives and how citizen scientist readers can create their own images based on their interpretation of science and art.

A satirical picture book of amazing and unlikely devices - your entry to Steampunk Astronomy (especially for non-astronomers) 

Astronomy is a device based pursuit. As with any other equipment based activity, there is always a long list of manufacturers offering an amazing array of devices promising spectacular results at often astronomical prices. Think $5000 golf clubs that promise to turn you into Tiger Woods.

Arc Fortnights Compendium of Astronomical Devices is an illustrated satire of such manufacturers and the gullibility of their customers. Using the Steampunk style to illustrate the high technology devices provides a visual contrast that adds another layer to the absurd nature of these devices.

The book is presented in 2 sections, the Compendium of Devices and Great Moments in Science History. The second section also uses steampunk illustrations to highlight notable events of dubious notoriety. 

Events such as “The Beagle has landed”, a recounting of the real lunar landing in 1869 by Jules Verne and Charles Darwin in their riveted brass and copper spaceship.

To keep the wider (non-astronomer) readers in on the jokes, most devices are linked to a glossary of terms where the intricate detail of the device or process is explained in plain non-technical English, hopefully making this book educational as well as fun.