eel like beautifying your blog? Typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische wants to help:

The Daily Drop Cap is an ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap will be posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere. To use a Daily Drop Cap on your site or blog, follow the instructions in each post and read about the usage limitations. Enjoy!

Link [via MeFi]

Feast your eyes on this Caricature Map of Europe 1914 illustrated by Keith Thompson.  Based on Scott Westerfeld's novel Leviathan, the map is separated into three groups: The Clanker Powers, The Darwinist Powers and Neutral.  What incredible detail.

Link to larger version and explanation of map

Illustrator Joey Ellis designed these letter monsters to help his son learn the alphabet.  Link [via BoingBoing]

Wilbur is a designer at BBC Scotland who frequently posts his own sketches on his blog Ghostschool.  Check out his work.  Link.

Kevin Fanning and Kean Soo put together hilarious rhymes and illustrations called Baby's First Internet.

Not sure how to explain the internet to your young ones? Presenting a series of nursery rhymes to teach children how to comport themselves on the online.

Link

Related links:
Kean Soo's personal website - link
Kevin Fanning's personal website - link

el estratografico put together a fun flickr set called retronomaopeya which is a collection of images that illustrate the sound and motion found in comics.  Link

el estratografico has a few other sets worth the look:
50's spanish sci fi novels
old 45s

Every Monday you can read new installments of Next-Door Neighbor over at SMITH Magazine:

“Everybody has one. And, no matter how close or how far, we all live next to someone, and we all have a Next-Door Neighbor story,” says NDN Editor Dean Haspiel. “With this in mind, I asked some of my favorite storytellers and cartoonists to create their favorite NDN stories so that we at SMITH Magazine could share them with you over the next year.”

Link [via]

Illustrator Christoph Niemann put together a very cute illustrated story of his travels with his boys, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz, through the New York City subway system.  Link.

Related:
Christoph Niemann's official website - Link

Previously:
History of Typography in the Toronto Subway, City Hall Station: Photos of a Beautiful Abandoned Subway Station, subway sketches (LwL)

glowingskeleton illustrated a series of one thousand illustrations of beasts which will be appearing in the the Fantagraphics art book Beasts! Volume 2 later on this year.

Jason bought Beasts! last year and it's actually quite a fascinating and eclectic book.  The art book describes mythical beasts from around the world and the illustrations were provided by various talented artists. 

Link to Flickr set [via]

Illustrator James Turner created The Map of Humanity in order to describe the human condition in an organized map form based on names from history and fiction.  Here James Turner describes the map in his own words.