Saturday Star Control: Otus Art!

So maybe you guys knew this, but I just learned that Erol "World's Awesomest Original D&D Artist" Otus himself did the illustrations for Star Control I and II game manuals. 

This one's titled "Removing VUX Limpets After A Battle". It's one of many wonderful pieces he did for the series and among several great surprises I found in the books!

YOUR MUST GET COMIC: BLACK SCIENCE!!

YOU GUYS! Remember when I told you about Black Science, Rick Remender's new weird science-horror comic? Well I picked up the first issue last week and it's awesome! It has everything you could want in a scifi pulp adventure. Here's a few quick snaps from my phone (sorry if the quality isn't great when enlarged):

Primitive fish folk riding land eels!

Ancient temples spewing eldritch energies!

Frog gods and the evil bullywugs who worship them!

Who hasn't mistakenly stumbled into a bullywug shaman lair and made a few new friends, am I right?

These are some of the wonderful splash pages from the book. The cover art by Matteo Scalera and Dean White is--to my eyes--evocative of those old pulp fantasy novels from the 70s. And there's more here to help fuel your RPG game:

• Cosmic Cthuluesque horror!
• Tragic consequences for practicing forbidden science!
• Hero loses initiative roll at least twice!
• Creative problem solving to get out of--not one, but two--jams!
• Dimension hopping gone awry not once, but twice!

Note: Black Science is rated "Mature".

Space Opera movie cheese

Looks like one of my favorite cheesy sci-fi flicks of the 70s is coming to the Trylon Microcinema (the tiny local theater in Minneapolis that I love!). Starcrash (1978) starring the incomparable Caroline Munro and The Hoff will be screened next Wednesday!

I already own the flick on DVD, but seeing it with like-minded geeks on a big screen will be a hoot. For those unaware, the film was an Italian production, shot in English on a shoestring budget--one of many space flicks rushed into production after the runaway success of a much more successful space fantasy.

I'm not certain which of it's failings won my love--a nearly incomprehensible plot, perplexing and hilariously overdubbed dialogue, and a fair amount of Harryhausen-esque (but not as good) special effects--but it hits on all cylinders of wackiness.

On a related note, I picked up a copy of Message From Space from Shout Factory (another Star Wars riff in '78, this time from the Land of the Rising Sun). That film is equally ridiculous, in many of the same ways, but with better art direction and the spaceship designs had more whiz-bang. This new version also has some (modest) behind-the-scenes extras that didn't appear on the old import version.

The old version was tragically mislocated in our move last year--foul play IS suspected. When the new version arrived on our doorstep a few weeks ago, I cracked it open while the wife was out, and had a blast watching Sonny Chiba take on Kabuki Vader and his mother who looks like she might have inspired that space witch from Voltron. It is not to be missed!

Curating a Sci-Crapfest!
One of my dreams (sadly) is to see a celebration of these cheesy classics. I'd long pined for the Trylon to do a series on second-string Star Wars (treating them as a genre unto themselves). It'd also be a good excuse to get a few local artists I know to do up some new posters for each film. Had I had the chance to curate (ahem) a film series, here are my official selections:

• Starcrash - Post-screening discussion: careers of Munro, The Hoff, Roger Corman and Harryhausen's influence over off-brand sci-fi, international SW knock-offs are first to arrive.
• Message From Space - Post-screening discussion: careers of Vic Morrow and Sonny Chiba, reciprocal Japanese/American sci-fi influences and overlap.
• Battle Beyond the Stars - Post-screening discussion: John Boy and Hannibal in Space! Robert Vaughn replays himself? Final discussion on Japanese/American sci-fi culture feedback loop continues.
• Ice Pirates - Post-screening discussion: career of Robert Urich, why the film is so underrated as satire of genre, that funky time travel scene at the end.

While they didn't quite get that full concept, I still get to see some beloved space cheese light up the screen. Can't complain about that!

Starcrash at the Trylon

7:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 22

Tickets are $5

 On Amazon:

• Starcrash Blu-ray / DVD
• Message From Space Shout Factory version / previous version, now hard to find
• Ice Pirates DVD / FREE on-demand
• Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray / DVD

Bonus: Did you know that Wikipedia has a page just for space pirates?

Fleischer Superman toons now online!

They've been in the public domain for years (and consequently in dozens of DVD compliations) but Warner Bros. has uploaded the classic Superman cartoons from Fleischer Studios.

In my totally unprofessional opinion, these are among the very best early animations of ol' Supes, bringing together the best of the early rotoscope animation style with the classic wonder of the Golden Age. There's no time-defying Kryptonian to wind back the clock by circling the Earth here--just a guy leaping tall buildings in a single bound (okay, he does fly a bit). Oh, and tearing the shiznit out of some robots!

I've stuck with a properly themed sci-fi episode, Mechanical Monsters, which later went on to inspire some even BIGGER automatons in movies like the Iron Giant and Sky Captain: World of Tomorrow.

Check out the full list of the Fleischer toons at Cartoon Brew.

Incidently, Hydra Miniatures has some excellent "warbots" that look like good stand-ins for Iron-Sky-Fleisher-bots!

Wally Wood book collects sci-fi work!

In a previous post highlighting Wally Wood in the Featured Gallery, reader Scott commented that there's a new WW hardcover hitting shelves. Wally Wood Strange Worlds of Science Fiction from Vangard Productions collects several issues of SWSF into a single volume.

Here's the cover on Amazon (and the version that I have):

There's some fantastic stories and art in this, and it's been a great inspiration for ideas for X-plorers. Really, ANY retro-future game setting would benefit from Wood's work.

It's filled with bubble-helmeted heroes brandishing ray guns, flying winged rockets, and sexy space babes. And of course, lots of grotesque looking aliens! But the single most fascinating thing for me is Wood's attention to detail when it comes to the backgrounds. Things like foliage, or a rocketship interiors are incredible. (My scanner isn't up and running at the moment, but if I get it going again I'll post some more images.)

Besides Strange Worlds, the volume also includes issues of Captain Science, Space Detective, Sky Masters, and a gallery of awesome covers. Some day I'm going to run a campaign that's literally based on covers of Wally Wood comics--I'll just point to one and say "...and then THIS happens. ROLL FOR INITIATIVE."

I believe Amazon now has a softcover version for less than $20, which is well worth it (considering the price creep for the hardcover has risen so fast--mine was about $25). Truly great stuff from one of the best sci-fi artists of the 20th!

Amazon listing

Jean Girard "Moebius" 1938 - 2012

Wow, not even a week after losing Ralph McQuarrie and another sci-fi artist is gone. Jean Henri Gaston Giraud "Moebius" was an icon in the comics industry. By all accounts, he was likely one of--if not the most celebrated comic illustrator(s) in a commercial sense as well as artistic influence. 

If you've seen (and loved) Blade Runner, Tron, Alien, The Fifth Element, not to mention the animated films of Rene Laloux (Les Maîtres du temps and Gandahar), then you've been witness to the collaborations with filmmakers. Perhaps the partnership for which he'll always be associated is the one with filmmaker, comic book writer Alejandro Jodoworsky. Their most famous comic book collaboration was The Incal, oft-cited as a science fiction masterpiece, it's set in a massively overpopulated future and touches on themes of high-technology, religion, and commentary (satire mostly).

Last fall on a trip to Madison, WI, my wife and I stopped in a tiny comic shop on Monroe Street and I picked up a hardbound collected edition--their last copy of a sold out print run. I splurged and it quickly became one of my most prized tomes. (Feel free to mention your favorite Moebius work in the comments.)

The other project, which has become somewhat of a legendary "what if it had been made?" status is Jodoworsky's Dune film. Moebius, along with other great artists like H.R Giger, rendered some of the most unique and breathtaking concept illustrations. Had it been realized on film in the scale and scope Jodoworsky intended the film might have changed the course of modern science fiction, as it was to release before Star Wars. When the film fell apart, Moebius went on to do concept work for handful of other films (The Empire Stikes Back and Alien included). 

Though his vision was in a state of irreversible decline the last few years, he was still working. I'm still trying to figure out a way to process it, because--and I say this without irony or hyperbole--there are two periods in the world arena of comics: with Moebius, and without. 


And sadly, we're now living in the Post-Moebius Era. 




More remembrances:

• Robot 6 on Comic Book Resources
• Comics Beat

Ralph McQuarrie, 1929 - 2012

This one hurts. I first found out last night when my wife was up late reading the news online. There have been several artists in the last few years that we've lost, but I can't think of one more influential to my own juvenile imaginings that Ralph McQuarrie. Yes, he was the inspiration behind the look and feel of Star Wars (and many other films). Yes, he influenced an entire generation of artists and filmmakers. But for me, it was much more basic and visceral.

When I was a kid, I didn't have any clue that someone actually drew Star Wars before it "happened". I had no idea what a concept artists even was. I remember seeing a painting (below) and thinking "That's not Star Wars! It's like Star Wars, but somehow 'off' a bit." How wrong I was--it was the essence of everything George Lucas was trying to achieve. It sold 20th Century Fox on his ideas, and it propelled production by serving as the blueprint for Industrial Light and Magic's efforts to bring the script to life. 

But one thing was certain, his work was electrifying. And it ignited my imagination so much that for a time I was a McQuarrie junkie, hunting down his work wherever I could find it. This in turn led me to learning about filmmaking, which eventually became part of my area of study in college. 

I owe a great deal to his work, in part because it was one of the earliest lessons I learned about creativity--that every idea comes from somewhere and there are a million directions every idea can take. I still look at his work and can think of a different backstory for every character, starship, or planet. That's the real power of art--to move the viewer's imagination as much as the person who created it.

Thank you Mr. McQuarrie, for all the feverish, nerd dreams you've inspired. And with every illustration, painting, and sketch--making feel like a kid again. You will truly be missed.

New Featured Gallery: Wally Wood

When I was researching the Space Ranger class for X-plorers, there were three pieces of art that inspired me. Wallace "Wally" Allan Wood's cover for the February issue of Incredible Science Fiction (above) was the first, and most iconic. His view of the sci-fi "spaceman" was dashing all right, but Wood would not be content with the caped swashbuckler that was made popular with Flash Gordon. He brought us the buckle-strapped, bubble-helmeted astronaut adventurers we've come to know by heart. This was "hard" sci-fi in the 1950s, grounded in a more realistic aesthetic than the preceding operatic golden age of space fantasy.

His spacecraft was shiny, but held together with rivets. The insides were twisted greeblings of be-hosed control panels, exposed wiring, walls of dials, and mechanical tissue so highly detailed it was a near blueprint for the coming space age. He may have rendered his visions in comic books, but he might was well have been slaving over a NASA drafting table. Wood's work help define the very template for how we view the astronaut-as-hero archetype in popular art.

His work spanned much further than sci-fi, venturing into fantasy with titles like Valor and The Wizard King, superheroes with Thunder Agents, as well as a slew of children's comics and adult humor books.

He is among my most favorite artists from the pulp era of comics. Head on over to the Featured Gallery page (see the top navigation bar if you're reading this on the site) and see some cherished sci-fi illustrations by Wood now!

Note: When the Featured Gallery rotates to the next artist, I'll archive the art in this post and delete this notation.

New palette and score for first sci-fi epic "A Trip to the Moon"

Cinema pioneer and silver screen sorcerer George Méliès and his science fiction wonder Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) has been getting a lot of attention of late. Most recently, Méliès is portrayed by Sir Ben Kingsley in the Oscar nominated film Hugo by Martin Scorsese and so the real-life man and his work is having somewhat of a re-introduction to the world.

If you've not seen the Hugo, do make a point to go while it's still in theaters. Scorsese and Kingsley have crafted a beautiful love letter to early cinema and to the artist. I'm a movie nerd at heart, and while I've seen some of his films, it was a real thrill to see Méliès' imaginings and his movie-making secrets lavishly illustrated on the big screen.

More than a century after the film's 1902 debut, French electronica band Air, was asked to compose a score for a restored version of "Trip". The orignal was colorized (hand-tinted) by Méliès before the advent of color film. Black and white copies were easier and cheaper to make and over the years, the color versions were all thought to be lost. But a color print eventually was discovered. From The Guardian:

But that celebrated image was always black and white, as the colour version of the film was thought to be lost for ever until an anonymous collector handed a copy to the Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona in the early 1990s. It was in such a poor state that it took eight years to restore before it was ready to be unveiled in public. Air only became aware of the rediscovered print when they were asked to create the soundtrack. "The first we heard of it was when they asked us to do it, because it was lost, destroyed. Nobody alive had seen it in colour," says Godin. "It was something that only a few specialists knew existed."

There was no original soundtrack, as films were silent. If there had been, Air say they would not have touched it. "If there was an original score, it would be horrible to make new music and destroy a piece of art," says Godin. "I would hate it if someone did that to one of my records. When a piece of art is done, it's done. But the fact that there was no original score was too good an opportunity to miss."

The full article goes into greater detail and I agree with their assessment, that the new music and brightened visuals lend a psychedelic quality to the story--and reveal a whole new depth of appreciation for the film's characters and design.

It's worth noting how remarkable the changes are in contrast to a black and white version of the film:




And now feast your eyes and ears on an excerpt of the newly restored version:





Full article at the Guardian via io9.com

Video: pulp sci-fi art through the ages

This is a great video introduction to the evolution and influence of pulp science fiction illustration from the Golden Age of sci-fi. If you don't know much about the era (I'm certainly no expert!) or just want to feast your eyes on some incredible and long-forgotten artwork from the heyday of space fantasy, have a look.

What if: Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune of the 70s

I think it's almost redundant to put he term "avant garde" before Alejandro Jodorowsky's name, but one thing's for sure--his version of Dune would have been a visual spectacle that David Lynch would have never dreamed.

The above clip is from an upcoming documentary on Jodorowsky's never filmed version of the Dune saga. Call it: Galáctica Fantástico!

Here's a few more details over at Twitch Film in case you've never heard about this incredible, missed opportunity in cinema.

Oh, and a few of Moebius' illustrations (that's right, Moebius!) from the pre-production process that never got past the initial stages:

Duneinfo.com has more in-depth info on Jodorowsky's abandoned Dune.

Exonauts Hearts Multinauts!

I <3 them so very much right now. I know others have posted about it, but I've had the chance recently to go back and view it again and it's just pure creativity. It's science fiction. It's fantasy. It's a love letter to RPGs written on public access television stationary.

There's mutants. And 80s music.


THE MULTINAUTS - Episode Two "Mirrorman" from Multinauts on Vimeo.


It's like she has a kaleidoscope view strait into Jeff Rients brain.

/cries at the beauty of it all

I hope the show's creator Jennifer Juniper Stratford keeps on keepin' on, because I freakin' love that show. She's also one of the masterminds behind Dungeon Majesty, which is another amazing effort from her company Telefantasy Studios. She seems to have found the perfect vehicle for homebrew imagineering.

If there's anyone in OSR - Left Coast Division reading this, you need to make room for Multinauts at your gaming table. Seriously--this is a Gamma World dream in the making!


You can heart Multinauts too:

• Main website (Sparkly!)
• Webcomic (Not nearly enough issues, but a good start)
• Give them all your money! Get cool stuff (and more shows!) in return!

Flash Gordon Friday!

Man, the month is nearly over and I've not been living up to my promises for Flash Gordon Month! That ends right now. Here are some choice images from Raymond's original strip. Click any to embiggen.

Here's Flash and co. strolling carefree through the dense forests on Arboria...
Looks like Ronal rolled a 1 on initiative.....
Sufficed to say, it doesn't end well for purple tree lizard. I'd show you how the creature was felled, but the next panel just shows one of Barin's merry men with a bow and arrow. Apparently seeing imaginary purple lizards getting skewered was too much for young eyes of the Golden Age. Sad!

I just love these panels illustrating starship construction on Planet Mongo...
I'm going to have to write some optional rules that uses GIANT CRANES to load spacecraft into GIANT TUBES for launch. Seriously, that's full of awesome.

Finally, everyone needs to give it up for Ming the Merciless, the O.D.M. (Original Dungeon Master)!
Ladies love a man who can pull off a gold-lapel bathrobe. Silk even!

More Flash posts.