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Back in April, at the request of his 87-year-old grandfather, Redditor stevieboy1984 turned to the /r/PicRequests subreddit to see if anyone could clean up a scanned JPEG image file of his grandfather's World War II-era photo taken during his service in the Navy as a submarine sonar/radar operator. After a number of people offered their photoshop wizardries to help its restoration, stevieboy1984 showed his grandfather six variations before handing him a framed version of top commenter unhi's submission. Here's a video of the big reveal. Grab a box a tissues, manly tears are coming.

Redditor AlphaF submitted this perfectly staged photograph that she had sent to her worrying mother during a trip to the Grand Canyon. For more photoshopped parodies and copycat attempts, check out the gallery over at Know Your Meme!

Prank Artist of the Day is a feature series showcasing some of the most brilliant pranks and exploits of our times.

These two images are portions of a new photo showing the central area of the Milky Way galaxy, released by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The photo shows 84 million stars in an image measuring 108,500×81,500, which contains nearly 9 billion pixels, and is actually a composite of thousands of individual photographs shot with the observatory's VISTA survey telescope.

Don't miss the zoomable version.

Comic book writer and novelist Greg Rucka (Stumptown, Queen and Country) answers a frequently asked question in an incisive essay for io9 titled "Why I Write 'Strong Female Characters'".

The entire piece is well worth a read, but here's the key passage:

Writers don't write Men or Women or Dogs or Salmon. Writers write characters, and at our best, if we do it well and with care and with thought, we invest in those characters a spark of life, a realism and nuance that makes them believable and relatable.

Rucka also questions why journalists don't tend to ask female writers how they write "strong female characters," and why more male writers don't do the research about their female characters, the way they would with any other character whose experience differs from their own.

[io9]

Conservative group One Million Moms is at it again, directing its not-quite-a-million members to boycott Marvel and DC Comics due to recent announcements from both companies about their futures of their gay characters.

DC has revealed that a major character is soon going to come out as gay, while Marvel announced the engagement of superhero Northstar to his boyfriend, Kyle.

These events don't sit will with One Million Moms, whose anti-gay agenda has also led them to protest the wedding of Archie Comics' first gay character, Kevin Keller.

"Children desire to be just like superheroes," said the group in a statement. "Children mimic superhero actions and even dress up in costumes to resemble these characters as much as possible. Can you imagine little boys saying, 'I want a boyfriend or husband like X-Men?'"

The statement goes on to accuse the publishers of trying to "indoctrate [sic] impressionable young minds."

Marvel and DC have yet to respond to the homophobic comments.

[towleroad.]

Ebony magazine commissioned street artist Shepard Fairey (of Obey and HOPE fame) to create artwork of the late Trayvon Martin to accompany a piece in this month's issue.

Fairey writes:

I have followed Trayvon's case closely and I think any compassionate human being can relate to Trayvon as a brother or son and would want to see a thorough investigation into the killing of an unarmed person. In my portrait I wanted to emphasize Trayvon's humanity as well as the public outcry for a just investigation into his death.

[twbe]

A Disney Cruise employee named Nelson has become internet infamous after allegedly stealing a passenger's iPhone and using it to take several photos. Thanks to Apple's Photo Stream feature, the owner of the phone was able to grab Nelson's snaps of himself, his friends and his girlfriend and upload them to her Facebook account.

"This is Nelson," she wrote next to one photo. "Nelson stole my iPhone."

While it hasn't been proven that this man actually took the phone and then foolishly failed to delete the owner's account before using it as his own, things certainly don't look good.

"I have alerted the officials of the Disney Cruiseline and forwarded them the photos. Hopefully I'll get my phone back and maybe some free passes to Disneyland," wrote the alleged theft victim.

Disney has yet to comment on the incident.

[nymag]

This is why the dog takeover will never happen. They don't even understand the mechanics that people can only go down a slide, not up. Still, with a face like that, the human race will probably just surrender to a canine regime based on cuteness alone.

[fluffingtonpost]