So today we will once again travel into the world of obscure East-Block and hard-to-find Western pulp 1950s illustrations to see "What Future Used To Be"... in regards to space exploration (long live our memory of the Space Shuttle, alas) and the great starry yonder where no one has gone before.
Flash Gordon's spaceship is still the most fascinating / colorful -
We featured some pulp science fiction artwork before, but the poetry and glamour of Golden Age space illustrations will never fade with us - and so requires constant re-visiting:
(Illustration by Ed Emshwiller to "Have Space-Suit, Will Travel" by Robert A. Heinlein)
The anatomy of a spaceship is revealed in this dramatic image by Frank R. Paul, Air Wonder Stories August 1929:
Going back to Victorian illustration, we found this beautiful image of star fields clinging to a tree, by famous fairy-themes artist Dorothy P. Lathrop:
(art by Dorothy P. Lathrop)
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Vintage LP Sleeves Are Ooozing Space All Over!
Space-Age hit instrumentals from the 1960s, of course, came with their share of cosmic adventure covers:
But even as late as 1977, Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra has commissioned Japanese artist Shusei Nagaoka to create the cover for his "Out of the Blue" masterpiece:
Great space-themed paintings by the Russian futurist artist Andrei Sokolov (who also collaborated with the Soviet cosmonaut-painter Alexey Leonov). This rare collection came from a set of postcards "The Space Fantasy" (Kosmitcheskaya phantasya, 1963):
(art by Andrei Sokolov, Russia 1970s-1980s)
Andrei Sokolov's colorful alien landscapes were regular feature inside the Soviet youth-oriented magazines like "Tekhnika Molodezhi" and "Yuny Tekhnik" in the 1970s. Another great Russian space artist was Nikolai Kolchitsky - his work mostly pre-dated space era, being published in the 1950s popular science books:
(art by Nikolai Kolchitsky, Russia 1940s-1950s)
See the whole collection of Nikolai Kolchitsky art here.
Other East-Block Cold War Era Illustrations
(art by Zdenek Burian)
Another rare and interesting artist from the 1930s and 1940s was Zdenek Burian - a Czech illustrator since the late 1920s (more info):
(art by Zdenek Burian)
Gennady Golobkov's "Squirrel from Space" (left) and "In the Park; 75th Parallel":
(art by Gennady Golobkov)
Yuly Schwetz evocative artwork, from 1972 Soviet magazine:
"The Kosmokrator" spaceship from the first novel by Stanislaw Lem "The Astronauts" (1951) - illustration by the Czech artist Teodor Rotrekl:
(art by Teodor Rotrekl)
The whole Communist industry is working for the benefit of space exploration on this postcard, issued in 1958:
So, here we have a slice of the space-bound retro future from the 1940s and 1950s - till next time in our favorite series: To The Stars!
(illustration to T. D. Hamm's "Native Son", Imagination, July 1953)
"Yes, Hill sings his song of Gary with clear sarcasm and bile..."
Well, not really: the song was written in the 1950s, right at the peak of Gary's arc, right? In retrospect we may interpret it as ironic mockery, but that's not built into the song.
I used to work in Gary during 1996-99 years. The first day I joined and went out for lunch to a KFC across the street, my colleagues warned me to get food from home or get mugged. Being new to US and my first visit to Gary was a real eye opener.With the Jobs gone and economy in shambles it was a desolate landscape. There was a shooting 2 blocks from the office the day before I joined , later I learned was lot of gang banging and drugs. I used to live 4 miles away from Gary a beautiful little town called Crown Point and used to wonder what a difference 4 miles was.I was new to driving and took a less menacing route to Chicago Lakeshore drive avoiding the 80/94 Dan Ryan road rage way where honking or driving slow means sure death.Little did I know that I will be venturing past the Gary and its extended neighborhoods past the Amoco refinery and South Chicago. It was eerily a haunting scenario from old hollywood movies showing a desolate town and only the noise of some squawking bird. There were very few people near apartment blocks, the shops boarded or heavily armored , empty parks and no kids. The only successful business near Gary that seems to be crowded would be Al Bundy's favorite nudie bar and casino. During the winter you would notice some burning drums with people huddling to get some warmth and it felt a brutal existence for the people living there.There was some federal grant during Clinton years to revamp Gary, restart the convention center, which I bet was for used for payroll subsidy to keep the dead man walking.
Thank yoi for posting this! My husband is from Gary, and it is very sad to see the ruins of what used to be such a grand city. Whenever we drive through Gary, I always look at the buildings and try to imagine what they looked like when the city was in its prime.
wasn't this suppossed to be the first all black city. Which is the way they wanted it. Even with help from the government it still ends up being a ghetto. So this is the model they wanted to set for the rest of the country for the black community.
My grandfather was a welder and moved frequently from job to job during WWII. One place that he talked about, twenty years later, was Gary and how much he had liked it there.
Absolutely fantastic photos! After two years of urbex in Japan I'm really longing to explore some stuff in a Western country. Time for a trip to the States...
No, Anonymous idiot, Gary was not supposed to be, nor was it ever, "the first all black city." (That would be Eatonville, Florida.) *Gary* was billed as "the city of the century", and it was filled, at least in the early years, with immigrants and their US-born children. For the record, that's *European* immigrants -- Germans, Russians, Poles, etc.
Only after the immigration restrictions that came with WWI did American blacks really start moving to Gary in greater numbers, along with the Mexicans the company also encouraged to immigrate. Not, you understand, that they really wanted to socialise with those blacks and Mexicans, dear me, no. But they got the work done, while there was work.
It is in no small part attitudes and ignorance very like your own that contributed to what Gary is today; prejudice like that does tend to lead to the kind of racial conflict that became Gary's public image. As it turns out, that conflict only gets worse when you combine it with worrying about how you're going to feed your children and knowing you'll be at the end of the line for anything and everything because some people think the color of their skin and the language they learned with their mother's milk add up to virtue on their part instead of pure luck.
I live not to far from here, and I promise this is as beautiful as I've seen the city in 20 years... gary is the one place we "219'ers" wont go after dark, especially since the police are off the clock after 5.
You can thank the labor unions for driving out the big steel mills, textile mills and other manufacturing that employed thousands of people. Vehicle manufacturing went to using lots of robots and other automation, but the automation technology for these other industries didn't come soon enough to keep them in the USA when labor priced itself out of the market.
The rooms with a lone chair and the huge fireplace could have been J F Sebastian's residence in Blade Runner. Unsettling when life and art resemble each other so closely.
Thank you! I think there is a typo though: "This hood ornament is from a 1954 Chevrolet police car (right image). On the right is the hood ornament from the DeSoto Diplomat". So, which is which?
!!! Jude Law for 46th Karlovy Vary IFF !! not spam, Jude used the prize - small statue - girl with globe for his car.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fNTli9bvRM
"This hood ornament is from a 1954 Chevrolet police car (right image). On the right is the hood ornament from the DeSoto Diplomat"... The ornament on the left is from a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. http://www.flickr.com/photos/44323995@N03/sets/72157624804248321/detail/ This is a 54 Chevy Police Car http://popuppistons.com/2342/1954-chevy-police-car/
@Kaiser Troll: The Viking inspired ornament is the emblem of The Rover Car Company, Vikings, and later pirates were known as 'Sea-Rovers'. Others of their cars carried viking ship ornaments, badges of a ship with dragon prow, red and white striped square-sail, its sides lined with shields. The founders of the company were a bit viking obsessed. In 1948, they built the 'Land-Rover', and have been building them ever since.
It's also worth noting that many of the plastic and glass ornaments were illuminated from inside or underneath and glowed when the car was running at night.
Polar Bears are never 'stranded' on an iceberg. They are excellent swimmers, they hunt in the water, and are known to swim tens of kilometers while hunting.
Actually, during certain seasons, the polar bears can be effectively "stranded" on ice bergs, because the distance between ice floes can be hundreds of miles. They are strong swimmers, but even they have their limits.
The Pyongyang Hotel certainly amazes me, but there's something even more impressive: the emptyness of the sreets even around such a key architectural point of NK.
"Anyone wants a rocket?" A couple of bombs on the cart, not rockets. The rockets I've seen have exhaust nozzles at the back for propulsion, these don't.
As to the balloon photos, the one on the left (multi-color balloons) is real. I have crewed for this pilot. See clusterballoon.org See also clusterballoon.com The one on the right (blue and white balloons) is most likely a fake. In real life, the balloons tend to pack tighter than depicted and one needs many more of them
Ski jumping is a popular sport even nowadays, it's part of the Winter Olympic Games too! The countries of the Baltic and the Alps are very good at this, but I think there are some people doing it in the Far East (Japan, China) and in North America (USA, Canada) too. I wouldn't call it an extreme sport, although those people jumping more than 200 meters in the air need huge balls. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEIv95bzLy8
The national sport of Argentina is the Pato (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pato) which originally was played using a living duck (not for long) inside a basket which was in itself the prize. If there was no duck ('pato' is the Spanish word for 'duck') any animal could be used and quite possibly goats have been used.
It is now played with a leather ball with 6 handles all around and formal rules.
it might be worth noting that the vasa boat in the first pictures - the colored stern is a part of a scale model of the boat, while the unpainted stern is the real salvaged boat which occupies the complete museum. Flash is not allowed as they are trying to preserve the ship as much as possible.
La Real, the flagship of the Holy League forces at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 has a rather interesting stern, definitely worth including in a Part 2 if you can find a good picture of it (the wikipedia link above had one that's decent, but a little fuzzy)
Beautiful! On the other hand, I doubt the tower was truly lost, just unknown to Europeans and Americans. I am fairly certain that the local Afghan people knew it was there. I feel like it's disingenuous to act as though Westerners' knowledge is the only one that counts.
Gaidig, the phrase that the tower was forgotten meant that it was forgotten to westerners, given the context of the rest of the text. I feel that it is a rush to judgement to feel that a phrase like that implies western arrogance.
I really wish I could see something like that in the area of Afghanistan I am in. It is truly beautiful. Here... not so much. As I side note, we could all learn something from the message of tolerance on that tower.
Is it a sign of tolerance, or a symbol of defiance built by those who had been conqured and forced to submit to islam? A leaning minaret covered in references to their native faiths built to show the contempt they felt for their new masters.
Careful now Anonymous, we could easily replace 'Taliban' by USA, Britain, Spain or any other number of Western governments over the years that have treated countless other countries around the world to exactly the same regime.
I rarely quote the Bible, but the proverb about taking the plank out of your eye before removing the speck from another's seems appropriate.
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7 Comments:
Beautiful stuff, as always!
Images that stretch the mind. Thanks again, DRB.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Tsk. I'm surprised. That's not a "black hole-like entity" on the cover to 'Second Stage Lensman'; that is a _negasphere_.
Holy crap, the Russian drew Wall-E first...
Awesome stuff, DRB!
>Holy crap, the Russian drew Wall-E first...
More like he drew a Commie-E. :D
I put on my red/blue anaglyph 3-D glasses and went blind staring at the red/blue Russian cards! Thanks!
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