Super Marilyn Clouds

You know what I'd do this weekend if I lived in Atlanta? I'd drag the hubs to the Emily Amy Gallery on Saturday evening so I could take in Ashley Anderson's "Shinobi Marilyn" exhibition, that's what.

Why did Anderson call his first solo show, "Shinobi Marilyn," you ask? According to the Emily Amy Gallery's website, he chose the strange moniker because he was "inspired by an online discovery of imagery embedded in a classic Sega video game from 1987 (Shinobi). Convinced the appearance of Marilyn Monroe in the game was a posthumous tribute to Andy Warhol created by the game designer in 1980s Japan, Anderson sought to explore the subject further."

(For more on what prompted Anderson to focus on this head-scratcher of a subject, read Henry Detweiler's informative interview with him over at burnaway.org.)

A series of 10 digital collages will be featured as part of the "Shinobi Marilyn" exhibit, including the following trio:

According to Anderson, the second of the three pieces above was inspired by fellow artist Cory Arcangel, whose most famous creation also incorporated cloud sprites pulled from the first Super Mario Bros. (On a related note, I'm pretty sure the third piece is made up of coin sprites taken from the same game.)

Want to know more about this Atlanta-based artist? Check out his blog, his Facebook page and his Flickr photostream.

In this post: Proof that any piece of pixel art that borrows graphics from TwinBee is awesome

I've been a smidge obsessed with the TwinBee series of "cute 'em ups" (you know, shoot 'em ups that are cute) ever since I first laid eyes on the PC Engine port of Detana!! TwinBee as a teenager.

Actually, I'd say I was only intrigued by the series at that time; I didn't develop a real interest in it until I bought Detana!! TwinBee--it was the first game I ever imported--and played through it a few times, and I didn't become fully obsessed with the series until I picked up--and loved dearly, I might add--Pop'n TwinBee and TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventure for the Super Famicom a few years later.

Anyway, I'm sharing all of this in order to show that I have a definite appreciation for Konami's series of cute, overhead shmups. I also have a definite appreciation for the poster to the right, produced by artist Ashley Anderson for the Atlanta-based band, Little Tybee.

Anderson says (on Flickr) that he sifted through nearly 7,000 pixellated images before settling on the ones that appear in this colorful illustration. If you're at all interested in hearing how the artist pieced all of those elements together, check out this blog post at your convenience.