Well, I didn't win the contest. I guess the jokes were too obscure, and using Flash wasn't much of an advantage. Though I can't figure out, if I think Flash is better than Paint, why I keep returning to Paint. I mean, Paint pixelates everything, and redrawing a portion usually involves deleting the offending bit, meaning the... OK, I'll just get to the pictures.

The first is a lateral symbiotogram (to take John Langdon's terminology) of the words "true" and "false."

The subject matter has been used in a rotational symbiotogram and an (embedded) oscillation, but I'm surprised that the lowercase t/f hadn't given rise to this already.

The next one is an experimental 120-degree rotational ambigram. I actually worked on this in Flash, but put it into Paint for some reason. I really should have exported it, and then as a GIF, but it's a jpeg screenshot instead.

It's the title of Sue Grafton's first Kinsey Millhone Mystery, A is for Alibi. She's up to T is for Trespass now. I realize this is hard to read, so it's just an experiment, but I like how the dots on the I's lined up.

This next one is a rotational figure-ground relation set on a gray background. If you're not logged into LJ, try to guess the words in it before opening the lj-cut.






I'll add some extra blank space just for good measure.












Still there?





Good.














Mm-hmm. The super-hairdo on the C is sort of cheating, but the shapes of all the other letters are quite faithful.

All right. This fourth and last idea is something I actually lifted from ceruleanst. However, since today's Chinese New Year, and since he hasn't posted about it yet, I think I can safely post it here without being accused of theft. (Though maybe I shouldn't, since he's just gone through that thing with that other ambigrammist and it only got settled four days ago, but I'm hoping to start up a friendly competition. Hmm, maybe I should wait on this last one.)

UPDATE, FEBRUARY 10: Apparently, I've been given the go-ahead. So I'm going ahead.


This, of course, is a picture of a mouse that includes the Chinese zodiac animal "mouse," which in turn includes the year "2008." (Is it cheating to color the imbedded string? I guess not, since it's all right for the "true/FALSE" oscillation I referred to above.) Doing "mouse" avoided the problem of how to place the T of "rat" into the curvy shapes of "2008" (not that it's too hard--I did 2008/Rat in Paint just now--but this is too much more elegant to take back, and I've already finished this picture.)

In fact, I think I'm only saying what it's supposed to be so it shows up on search engines. Which reminds me: BLACK/WHITE.

Spell-check watch: "pixelates" and "screenshot." But at least it caught "imbedded." FURTHER UPDATE: Which is an accepted variant.