Preschool was the prime of my life. I weighed like 100 pounds less than I do now. Jem and the Holograms was on right before ballet class. And other than my mother’s constant refusal to buy me a workout leotard (Totally different from a dance leotard) and leg warmers to accessorize my spontaneous acts of aerobics, life was perfect.
But, even better than being allowed to use plastic cutlery for the first time was learning letters. Letters led to words. Words led to reading. Reading led to this!
Eventually.
I owe a lot to writing (Not that you can tell from this, but sometimes people pay me to write stuff.).
We all remember those alphabets above the blackboard, printed uppercase and lowercase letters. But, they didn’t really stand out. They didn’t really stand up and belt out the showstopping showtune meticulously detailing how fun, fascinating, functional, and frustrating letters can be.
These alphabets do. They combine two of my greatest loves (Sorry, Mike.) – Pop culture and letters. So, without further ado, letters get to it (See, you thought the title would be the only pun in this, and I totally put another in! That’s the last of them. Scout’s honor.)
Learn Letters in 12 Parsecs or Less
Though I don’t really know Star Wars, I do know cute. This is cute.
I can’t wait to see the other two movies just so I can actually understand this poster. Image courtesy of Brandon Peat.
Click here or on the image to seen an enlarged version. Graphic designer/artist Brandon Peat created the poster and a children’s book of it to raise money for his newborn son’s college fund (Awww, for education!). Unfortunately, the drive has ended and to save himself from potential lawsuits, prints and the books aren’t being offered. So, I guess you’ll just have to visit The Cool Ship every day to see this to instruct your child in reading and the Force.
Set Phasers to “Learn!”
Artist Mike BaBoon seems to specialize in turning pop culture into posters that make a former library circulation worker like me dream.
I was the child of a Trekkie, and even I can only name half of these. Image courtesy of Mike BaBoon Design.
Seriously, if I can bring it on down for a moment, even after three years of putting books in alpha-numerical order, I was still singing the “Alphabet Song” to decide where a book should go. Having this attached to my book cart would have served as both a freak flag and a reference guide.
Raeppa Tebahpla!
From Amethyst to Zatanna (See, the header was a Zatanna spell. I know you totally caught that.), here’s a compendium of DC ladies.
Got to love the artist for going with the Stephanie Brown Robin for R. Nicely done, sir or mam. Image courtesy of Simple Being Loved.
I love seeing Big Barda, but even though she’s sitting, my heart is with Lois Lane. Who’s your favorite? On a side note, I’m so used to seeing digital art online, it’s unusual to see something done with colored pencils. Good unusual.
Day at the Zoo
Ok, so this isn’t an alphabet, but it inspired this list, so it’s in! Spider-Man has a lot of animal-themed and animal-like villains (For obvious and kitschy reasons, I know!), so when they’re all in prison it really must be like a zoo.
Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I want to see more hideous examples of what happens when man tampers where gods dare not tread! Image courtesy of Derek Eads.
I hope that one day there can be a panda-themed supervillain in Spider-Man comics (Or does one already exist and has somehow evaded my finely tuned panda sense?), because then this zoo would totally be better than the Bronx Zoo.
Rather be a Trainer or a Writer?
As I was awful at video games growing up, and Pokemon was a little after my time, I really don’t get half the characters on this. I knew Pikachu, but that little yellow bugger is nowhere to be seen. I do know that this is well done, and I like it.
Honestly, this piece could be totally inaccurate, and I wouldn’t know it. But, you have to admit, it’s bright and pretty. Image courtesy of arkeis-pokemon.
It’s just so bright and cheerful. It almost makes me want to try out Pokemon, but then I remember I’m 27, have no idea where my brother’s Game Boy is, don’t own a game, and would lose interest more quickly than that time I thought I could crochet. (Seriously, it was about a month, but I made a lot of ugly half-done scarves.)
There were some I loved that I couldn’t fit here for the sake of space. Check out the Marvel-ous alphabet and the movie alphabet here and here.
What are your favorites? Can anyone help me ID those Star Trek characters?
