What is it with Lisa Hanawalt and the use of automobiles for untoward purposes? Last week she drew a review of Nicholas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling's neon-noir crime flick Drive, and now she's selling an original art piece entitled "Car Wreck Totem Pole." Originally created for the (very comics-friendly) Panorama issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the watercolor illustration was inspired by Crash, author J.G. Ballard's novel about accident victims who've become sexually fixated on car crashes. (You may also recall director David Cronenberg's kinky film adaptation, starring James Spader at his James Spaderest.) It's on sale for $220 at Hanawalt's new online store. Where does she go from here -- The Road Warrior, Death Race 2000, Vanishing Point, Duel, Cars, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Herbie the Love Bug? The possibilities are endless and/or unleaded.

And hey, while we're on a Ballard kick, it's never a bad time to check out The Diary of a Teenage Girl author Phoebe Gloeckner's extravagantly NSFW illustrations for Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition -- well, unless you're at work, in which case it's a very bad time to do so. There's also this examination of Ballard's book covers by Simon Sellers and Rick McGrath, featuring striking from artists such as Salvador Dali, Chip Kidd, Max Ernst, David Pelham, Bill Botten, and Chris Foss. Finally, this is a bit farther afield from comics, but the excellent BBC4 rockumentary Synth Britannia, which is now available in its entirety on YouTube, spends some time tracing Ballard's influence on early synthesizer-heavy experimental and synthpop acts The Human League, The Normal, John Foxx, and Gary Numan. Buckle up!