Actress Anne Hathaway attends the “The Dark Knight Rises” World Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on July 16, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Jim Spellman)

An onlooker watches as the “Disney Fantasy” cruise ship is hauled backwards by a tugboat down the Ems River after the ship departed from the Meyer Werft shipyards on January 20, 2012 in Papenburg, Germany. The completed 130,000-tonne ship, which is 1,115 feet long and can accomodate 5,450 passengers, cast and crew, was on its way to the North Sea. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The Shannara Chronicles - A Refreshing Adventure in a Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Future

I was sitting idly on the couch, drinking cola and playing Red Flush online casino games while my better half was channel surfing besides me. I was completely immersed in my game, but dragged back with my feet on the ground when I heard a name - Terry Brooks - coming from the telly. And from MTV?!

The princesses that star in Disney’s classic movies inhabit beautiful fantasy worlds, but it apparently doesn’t take much to turn these into dark, nightmarish realms. Jeffrey Thomas, a cartoon artist and character designer in California, reimagines what our favorite Disney heroines would look like if their worlds were a whole lot darker and creepier.

“Exactly one year before the long awaited Sochi Olympics, Vladimir Putin went to Sochi personally to see how the construction is going. After receiving a report saying the ski jumps that were supposed to be ready in 2011, are not completed still, while their price has sky-rocketed from 1.2 billion to 8 billion roubles, he commented, “Good for you. Good job”, and then fired the vice president of the Olympic committee. Russian artist Vasily Slonov painted his view of the upcoming games, giving a new interpretation to the adored Russian mascot Cheburashka, and combining officially endorsed stereotypes of Russia with grimmer and less accepted ones”. – Ruskie.info. (Photo by Vasily Slonov)

A sculptural artwork depicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and headless presidents shot by a hooded high school student (not pictured) is seen at the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago, December 2, 2014. The artwork, part of the “El ladrillo angular” (The angular brick) exhibition, portrays a student fighting against the ongoing continuity of dictatorship because of a political and economic system which has been impossible to destroy, according to “Papas Fritas” the artwork's creator. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.