Hear ye! Hear ye!

Ladies and manliest of manly men!

I’m puttin’ together a book!

What you say? How could this be so?

Indeed. I am putting together The Catalogue of Awesome. And I need your beautiful big brains to help.

What I’m looking for:

- Images of utmost awesomeness
- Ideas for images of awesome
- Badassery!
- Manliness!

The book is going to be broken up into a couple sections:

Section 1: Too awesome to be real

Section 1 is all about the things we wished existed, but sadly don’t. Things like flaming grizzly bears who jump dirtbikes over the Grand Canyon, Dinosaur Knife Fights and Shaolin Monks riding armored jetpack sharks. All that awesomeness that you just can’t find a photo of anywhere on the internet or anywhere else. Let your imagination go nuts, the more weird and awesome ideas we get, the better.

Section 2: Dude, did he just really?

Section 2 is our section on those things that people have done so awesome that we just can’t bring ourselves to believe it. The guy who sacrificed his own life to walk 190 miles through Siberian blizzards in 3 days to save a plane full of orphans and that crate full of puppies? He’s in. Know a guy who managed to blow up 47 Cadillac Escalades with nothing more than a rubber chicken, 2 bottle rockets and a pipe wrench? This is the section he’ll find himself immortalized in. Provided of course that you can give us the concrete proof that he did it. ( A newspaper clipping, historical report from a reputable source, etc. Just something so that we can confirm that it did indeed happen. ) That dude who ate a 55 gallon drum of back hair clippings? Him too.


Section 3: MANLINESS HO!

Ah, here we are faithful readers, the section that began this all. The genesis. Our section on Manliness.
Section 3 is for those guys who just perfectly embody what it is to be a dude. The guy who stuck a pickup truck 60 ft up a tree for shits and giggles goes here, as does the guy who decided that it would be a good idea to fly a plane low over junked cars and try to drop bowling balls onto them at 200 miles an hour. Keep in mind, that this section doesn’t just have to be about guys doing guy things. Say you know a woman who has a bigger pair than all the other guys on the block and keeps a black bear in the back yard, just in case she wants to pick a fight with someone. Well, she gets a spot here, in our manliness section.

Section 3 is also going to encompass our badasses. If you can find a guy who would fit Badass of the Week, then he can probably go in here. Did they manage to kill 34 Nazis, despite having no arms or legs and being completely unarmed except for their own testicular fortitude? Then they deserve to be remembered here. Keep in mind though, that because Badass of The Week already exists, this part of Section 3 is going to be kept relatively slim. There’s no point in competing with a fellow awesomeness admirer here. Any and all military badasses may be submitted, but don’t leave it to just them. It just has to be awesome.



The sections will also be broken down into further chapters that will be determined by how many submissions I get and what they are.

What I don’t want to see

Stuff like:
Image Macros
Christopher Walken
Transformers
Helicopter Shark
Pedobear
Raptor Jesus
Pretty much any meme

There’s some stuff out there that we’ve all seen before. I don’t want that stuff. This is an illustrated book, so there’s no point including something everyone has seen before, just drawn out instead of as a photo. Keep in mind that the people who are most likely to be reading this, are probably internet geeks themselves and they already know about everything you can find on 4chan. What we all want to see is something that people might not know about already. Sure, everything we can put in will be known by someone, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to find it, but the idea is to avoid those things that are pure pop culture and have become common knowledge. I will be reserving the right to refuse a submission if it’s inappropriate or something I think is covered well enough already on it’s own.


So you wanna help?

Good!

The easiest way for you to help, is to just leave me a suggestion or two here, and then keep it in the back of your mind. Keep thinking about it while you go about your day, whenever you get bored or just want to daydream. This project can be your opportunity to spend some time just chilling out, relaxing and doing nothing but think about stuff you want to see. Let your friends know you’re thinking about it and see if they have any ideas. The best ideas come from group thinking. And if you come up with some ideas and you still want to do more to help, I’ve got plenty of opportunities for that too.
A book is a massive thing, and there’s no way I can do everything myself without it taking me several years to get everything ready. While I will be editing, this and providing a lot of the illustrations myself, there will be plenty of opportunities to join in. Hopefully, the idea will be to provide an article opposite each illustration, giving a short history, notes of interest or even just some general info on the subject. If I get as many submissions as I hope, there’s no way I can possibly write all of the articles myself. I will be incredibly grateful to anyone who is willing to help out with the articles by doing some research or writing them. Each article shouldn’t be much more than about 750-1,000 words which comes out to about a page to a page and a half. Some folks may even be called upon to help provide a few illustrations of their own if I feel that their work might better suit the particular subject and they’ve got the time and willingness.

So how do you plan on printing this whole deal? What’s in it for me?

First of all, I’ll be honest; I have no clue as of yet precisely how this will be published. Doing something like this isn’t quite as simple as calling up an agent at the publisher and going down to the office that afternoon to sign the contract. Getting a book, especially a book as geeky as this, can be tough to get published. Publishers aren't usually keen on printing stuff from the internet and unknown authors. But rest assured that somewhere, somehow, this project will find itself published. Even if it means I have to set up a website for the sole purpose of hosting it and go from there.

What’s in it for you then? What’s in it for you is the joy of seeing your name next to that article and illustration saying that you provided the idea, did the research or wrote it, telling the world that you contributed to the project. It may not net you a job, and I can’t offer money or even necessarily offer a free copy ( Although if you do choose to help out with more than just an idea, be assured I will make sure you get something extra for the effort. ), so it’s really up to you to choose if you want to be a part and lend a hand. There’s a few folks here with me working on this already, but this is going to be a community project. It can still happen without you, but it won’t be nearly as awesome or well-done without you.

Any question, suggestions and other strange stuff floating through your head can be left in this thread, and I’ll make sure I answer as soon as I can. I won't be putting the ideas people send me into a big list here, to avoid having it potentially mess with people's heads and have them get stuck into a rut of thinking about particular things.

This idea reminds me of books like: Maddox Alphabet of Manliness, Real Ultimate Power Ninja Book, and Truth about Chuck Norris. :)

Jimi Hendrix defeating an alien invasion just by rockin' out.

Sorry been on a 60's 70's rock binge lately.

IN all seriousness. Check out this page.

A couple years ago, Buzz Aldrin punched a guy right in the face in front of cameras. Apparently the guy was a huge moon landing conspiracist and had been harrassing the astronauts for years and being really awful. I think in this incident he'd somehow tricked or lied to get entrance and confronted Aldrin, who didn't take his crap for long.

Here's a fun video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUI36tPKDg4

A picture of me could be in a do not section.

Otherwise I can't think of anything not overdone on the internet.

Someone
Christopher Walken

Way to compile an unfactual catalog then, since the man is the very definition of awesome. I don't care what meme fuckery lurks about, you cannot diminish things like Weapon of Choice.

EDIT: the Alphabet of Manliness has already been written by the way so you're kinda' late.

skoolmunkee
Here's a fun video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUI36tPKDg4

It's especially funny because the guy is towering over little Buz and he's go a whiny high pitched nasal voice.

lefarce
EDIT: the Alphabet of Manliness has already been written by the way so you're kinda' late.

The irony here is you were beaten by Kyu in pointing that out. lol

That last category (Manliness Ho) just sounds a bit jackassy… I don't think the stuff they do is very “manly”, it's sort of the opposite- childish.
That's not a criticism of lba, just that last category.

———–
Couple of entries for manliness (real)

-Steve Irwin getting killed by a stingray, stabbed through the heart by the sting. That's pretty amazing!
I really did not like the guy, but he died well.

-The grizzly bear guy, who after being attacked by a bear, dedicated his life to making a bear proof suit of armour that could withstand a 12 gauge shotgun blast at point blank range… and bankrupted himself doing it.

-In 1974, Joseph Beuys, German performance artist locked himself alone in a room for 3 and a half days with a wild coyote and by the end he'd tamed it.

lefarce

Someone
Christopher Walken

Way to compile an unfactual catalog then, since the man is the very definition of awesome. I don't care what meme fuckery lurks about, you cannot diminish things like Weapon of Choice.

EDIT: the Alphabet of Manliness has already been written by the way so you're kinda' late.

I have no problem with Walken, but I really see no point in repeating what's already been created. Why bother drawing more pictures of him building Optimus Prime when you can go to google and find 20 already? I'll look into rewording that requirement a bit, but the point is that I just don't see a point in recreating what's already to be found on google. I'll add him, since I think there's probably something there to talk about, but I mainly put him there to avoid seeing 30 suggestions for the optimus prime meme.

And the Alphabet of Manliness is somewhat different than what I'm hoping to accomplish. There's been plenty of geeky books about stuff on the internet already and I know that. I'm looking to come from a different angle than the books mentioned. But why should similar things being done before ever stop someone from doing something they find interesting? I've read books like BADASS!, The ultimate zombie survival guide, and I still think there's more to it than what's already there. I don't expect this to be the next Alphabet of Manliness or anything, but at the very least, I think it can be an enjoyable thing for people to take part in. I literally expect this to be more a catalog like Workbook or any other design magazine, in essence almost a sort of geeky reference book for awesome stuff.

And to answer your objection Oz, I'm largely looking at the internet's version of manliness for that section, but I'll take anything so long as it fits somehow. This is just the idea gathering stage for everything.

This thing always gets me.

I haven't seen something that ballsy in quite some time. Many critics would agree.

Count me in!

this always seemed pretty manly to me.

PIT_FACE
this always seemed pretty manly to me.

Manly in an incredibly terrifying way. At least to the guy in the background. Has this been inspiring Putrid Meat? ;)

A Chinese Restaurant where Kung-fu fights spontaneously break out.

I once saw a little chick (as in a little chicken) standing on top of a dogs head. thats quite awesome.

All excellent ideas so far, and several of them have given me a few more ideas of my own as well. Thanks guys. Keep 'em coming.

Onzone said “Steve Irwin”:

Ew…