The Russian embassy has taken a hard line in Bulgaria where Soviet monuments have been spray-painted to become iconic American fictional characters from Superman and the Joker to Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald.

According to the Moscow Times, Russia has continued to demand that measures be stepped up to clean and protect the statues. They also want Bulgarian authorities to identify and punish the criminals and do more to prevent future attacks.

The monument at the center of the controversy was sprayed with red paint around the anniversary of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, but some artists have had other ideas over the years as well.

Previously, this same monument in Sofia was painted bright pink to recall the Prague Spring — it later got covered in Ukrainian colors to show solidarity. They have been covered with masks as well.

Of course, this is all a bit excessive in context — these are memorials to a defunct regime and situated in a foreign country over which Russia has no control. One solution would be to simply remove them from public view, as has happened in other countries over the years, but, in the end, it’s up to Bulgaria, not Russia.

Marijuana is smokin’ hot and an herb’n helping of marijuana mascots have helped add leaf, er, life to a host of marches, rallies and events.

Marijuana’s gradual transition from an illegal, subversive hobby to a legal, taxable commodity is neither quick nor easy. Proponents of the psychedelic herb have resorted to traditional methods of getting their point across, and mascots take front row center when it comes to getting attention to the cause. Philadelphia-based “Hempy” is a typical marijuana mascot that plays on the wacky weed’s most obvious attributes: he’s green, leafy and makes you smile.

Being a marijuana mascot ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, however. Hempy’s looking decidedly red-eyed and wasted at the November 2015 march for Delaware NORML. Get that dude some Doritos, stat!

Bongman

Yikes! “Bongman” may not be green but something about him will make you FEEL green… and we don’t have to tell you what that something is, hmm?

Appearing at the 420 Smoke Out in downtown Toronto on April 20th of 2011, Bongman was spotted leaving the event behind the wheel of a white van with “FREE CANDY” scrawled on the sides – at least that’s our guess. Canada is set to legalize the recreational use of marijuana on July 1st of 2018, so maybe Bongman did more than make everyone feel uncomfortable and harsh their buzz.

Potsquatch

Bumble Snowman’s got nuthin’ on Potsquatch – just ask Jennifer Pagliei (below) of WWLP-22 News, who was video-bombed by the shambling weed mascot while reporting live in a Springfield, MA blizzard on February 9th of 2017.

When he’s not crashing newscasts, Potsquatch can be found at POTCO – a marijuana growing supplies store described by owner Dave Mech as a “Costco for marijuana” Welcome to POTCO – we love you, man.

Horny Goatweed?

This capped & shaded stuffed goat is the unofficial mascot of EAZE, a San Francisco-based medical marijuana delivery service backed by Snoop Dogg, among others. No one at EAZE knows the goat’s name, how it got to be the company mascot, or even how it ended up in the front lobby… yeah, sounds like your typical weed-biz startup. Word to staffers: goats eat weeds so keep an eye on your stock. EAZE has been working with a number of local California based cannabis and CBD companies to bring Royal CBD – the brand that was awarded High Times best CBD oil for pain title – to the masses with their cannabis delivery service. We’ve worked with them to ensure that all Royal CBD’s products are available on their website and fully in stock, so you can avoid the holiday rush that last year led to them running out of stock in just 3 minutes after restocking.

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You Gotta Be Leaf 12 Smokin Hot Marijuana Mascots

As they evolved, illustrated figures in architecture (sometimes called ‘scalies‘) have grown to have more personality, color and life, serving as more than a means to measure relative distances, heights and widths in renderings.

Historically, architectural drawings rarely featured people and, when they did, these were simplified constructs, often just outlines or silhouettes, designed simply to give the viewer a sense of scale.

Over time, start to see figures sitting in furniture, holding books (or recently: mobile devices), groups interacting and other strategies to bring these two-dimensional people to life, and the architectural scenes they inhabit along with them.

Their evolution is not accidental: scalies are often used with very explicit aims, from trying to give people a sense of the use that will take place in a finished building or space to conveying a broader vision of its popularity. Developers, for instance, may want to sell investors on how well their project will do financially, and thus pack drawings with figures to create that impression.

On the flip side, architectural students may take things to opposite extremes, setting lewd, crude or generally absurd scenes for shock value and collegial entertainment.

While some architects simply photo-edit their own scalies out of various images, there are professional makers as well, who take pictures against green screens and sell them in bundles, like “100 Business People” or “100 Casual People.” With the rise of 3D modeling, some companies are starting to capture and sell three-dimensional figures as well.

Increasingly, other ‘support’ objects have coming into play, from cars to carried accessories. Some designers go out of their way to make scalies stand out, using scantily-clad models, impossible characters (like dinosaurs) or famous figures (like a sad Keanu).

Taking the larger view, scalies show us a great deal about times, places and cultural norms; in the mid-1900s, you find men golfing and women in kitchens, dressed (of course) in period attire. Today is no different, but we notice the cultural cues less since these are now our times and places (Images via Gizmodo, Curbed, The New York Times and DesignObserver).

Bringing a certain subtly and sense of humor back to three-dimensional chalk art, David Zenn creates highly-contextual scenes using an array of animal characters, all interacting with urban environments.

For decades, he has used chalk and charcoal to feature pieces that tie into their surroundings, relating to anything from fallen flowers to cracks in the sidewalk.

Rats, bears, lizards, dogs and other less-identifiable animalian hybrids can be found lounging around, floating balloons or hiding in imagined holes, like refugees from a wild children’s book.

Over time, a cast of regular characters has evolved, appearing in different places, telling a story through each sequential work of art. Some of his archival prints are for sale, as well as his book Temporary Preserves (via Colossal).

Nothing gets lost in translation with these embedded English pronunciations, tied directly into the Japanese typographic style Katakana. While the letterforms of Katakana create an effectively phonetic alphabet, its characters are still difficult for some foreigners to read, at least until now.

Like many design solutions, this one looks easy in retrospect: simply tuck an English-legible phonetic articulation guide using a capped alphabet inside the Japanese characters. The result: Phonetikana, a potentially very powerful tool for communication, teaching and learning, or even signage in places like international airports or multinational conventions.

From the creators: “Multiple trips to Japan and constant frustration at being unable to read the language has sparked off an unusual typographic project at johnson banks. Earlier in the year we started seeing if we could combine the English language and Japanese script in some way.”

The firm went a step further as well, embedding words and phrases inside symbols to create a children-legible introductory guide to Japanese, reinforcing connections between each sound and symbol set. Meanwhile, the hybrid typography remains a work in progress, but definitely on the right linguistic track.