Octopus Maps

January 23, 2013 5:07 PM

Need quick visual shorthand for an aggressively encroaching political entity? You want an Cartographic Land Octopus! It's a subcategory of satirical maps. More octopus maps here, here, here.
posted by Miko (9 comments total)

Can I file a request for a cartographic land vampire squid?
posted by anonymisc at 5:27 PM on January 23, 2013

Later, thousands of years from now when we are a thoroughly space bound species, the other sentient beings of the universe will get drunk enough at a party to impart the story of how we survived.

Well..." the Letha'rk ambassador began "the Oculosinistra, the evil tentacle overlords, had been planning to attack you while they thought you were still primitive but when they did early reconnaissance they found that you had centuries of records showing your hypothetical strategies should giant tentacled creatures attack your planet. So they stayed away until it was too late and you guys had the tech to fight them off. Yeah so..." his voice trailed off for a few seconds before he slugged back the rest of his drink, slapped Humanity on the back, shrugged and said "guess you guys dodged that bullet," before wondering off to go hit on some Twi'leks.
posted by sendai sleep master at 5:30 PM on January 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh thank god. I'm still pretty shaken up from finding out a few threads back that "Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's Octopus network" wasn't a network of actual octopuses and the video was just some old guy talking about computers in the 1840s or whatever—I don't think my poor heart could have sustained another disappointment like that. These are much better.
posted by wreckingball at 5:36 PM on January 23, 2013

I love catalogues of political-cartoon clichés.

Also, is Spain just always asleep in these things?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:07 PM on January 23, 2013

Holy Christ don't let it touch you
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:13 PM on January 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Great post! Rustic, that's a super addition.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:53 PM on January 23, 2013

I mean, it's not an addition, it's in the "satirical maps" link.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:58 PM on January 23, 2013

Thanks very much for this. (I'm a keen follower of the StreetsofSalem blog so had already seen their great post).

The BBC produced a 4-part series in 2010 called The Beauty of Maps and they discuss the Fred Rose map in the last (~30min) episode (ON: Satirical Maps) [via].

I can't make this series play online (even using proxmate plugin or hotspot shield; so I'm not sure if it's geoblocked or linkrot) but, due to a previous torrential downpour of good luck, I happen to have saved the series to my hdd.
posted by peacay at 3:00 AM on January 24, 2013

I wish I could favorite this post twice.
posted by marxchivist at 5:13 AM on January 24, 2013