Art

I am a great fan of science fiction art and I can appreciate the different styles from the genre's various eras, but I think I am most fond of this sort of stuff from the 70s, perhaps because that is when I was first starting to devour sci-fi in earnest around then.

If I grew up in Japan, this is probably the sort of far-out stuff I would have been geeking out to at the time.

It's interesting to see how sci-fi art has evolved since then. These examples of futuristic cities are good examples of the sort of digital art that is in fashion today. More examples of modern science fiction art can be found in this collection of DeviantArt wallpapers and if that doesn't satisfy you, browse CoolVibe's archive of Sci-fi Wallpaper of the Week entries.

What's your favourite era for science fiction art?

You've doubtless heard by now that esteemed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has died. He is the artist by which all other fantasy artists are measured. His work is instantly recognizable and even before his death had begun to fetch vast sums of money on the art market.

I can say that a painting by him on an Ace edition of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel that I saw in a bargain bin in Woolco decades ago is what made me discover that author which became one of my favourites. I later learned the artist's name and have admired his work ever since.

To give you a feel for Frazetta's work, here's one of the better collections of images of his that you can find online. While most people are familiar with his colourful cover art, his fine pen and ink illustrations are equally powerful.

Compare the art Frazette created, using old-fashioned oils and ink, to some of today's top science fiction art, all of which was created in Photoshop. Those images are nice and surely required a lot of patience and skill to create, but I'll take old-fashioned works created by hand any day. Is anyone going to pay $1 million for a printout from a digital file in the future? I have my doubts.

Since I'm talking art, I've got these two wallpaper links sitting on my clipboard, so I'll dump them here for you to explore more fantastic images.

Regular visitors to this site are doubtless aware that I am a big fan of pulp magazine art. That's why I appreciate a site like Pulp of the Day. The captions provided by visitors are an added amusement.

It's not the only site of its type, but probably the best. It seems that it has outlasted the Pulp Magazine Cover of the Day site, but you can still visit that site to see some of the glorious covers presented in the past.

The Comic Book and Pulp Bondage Cover of the Day site is still plugging along, but it's pretty much exhausted the bondage theme and is sticking strictly to ordinary pulp covers.

Some would say the art for these covers is bad. Sure there are examples that are pretty crappy, but, technically, most of them are quite excellent works of art. It's just the subject matter that is lurid.

If it's bad art you want, Good Show, Sir! is the site you want. It collects examples of mind-bogglingly bad science fiction book covers and a lot of them are not nearly as ancient as those pulp covers linked to above so I guess it proves that bad art will always be with us.

One of my favourite science fiction artists is Richard Powers. His surreal book cover illustrations are instantly recognizable today. You have to wonder what kind of amazing things he would have created if he had worked with today's digital tools.

I'm sure there's some artist toiling away out there today who will be looked back upon with the same regard that we give Powers. Take a look at some of these creations and be amazed. For even more fantastic digital creations, follow this link.

You'll doubtless want to save some of those as future wallpapers. For a website that is dedicated to delivering nothing but science fiction art as desktop wallpaper, check out this blog.

Some artists today like to look back at the science fiction art of the past to inspire their work. Here's one artist who has created a nifty set of Star Wars travel posters that look like they were made in the swinging 60s.

Google's got more than its share of geeks so it's no surprise that their graphic artists occasionaly dress up the company logo with sci-fi themes. Here are some of the best examples which you may have never seen.

I'll wrap up this collection of art-themed links with this gorgeous collection of superhero art. I'm not a real fan of superheroes, but there's no denying that the work on display is top-notch.

When I first read about Orbit's Most Awesomely Bad SFF Cover in the World contest, I thought they were asking people to dig up the ugliest book covers that have been produced over the decades.

What they were really doing was asking people to come up with dumb titles. Admittedly, some of them are funny (Fear and Loathing on Uranus!), but I was disappointed to not see some terrible art.

Do you have a nomination for the worst-ever science fiction or fantasy book cover? Here are some suggestions to get you started. Jack Vance's Servants of the Wanhk has always prompts a titter when I see it on my shelf, but it's just the title.

One that I've always found ludicrous, both for the art and the title, is The Texas-Israeli War:1999.

Not strictly a science fiction blog, but one that pokes fun at goofy book covers and titles is Judge a Book. you may find some inspiration there.

I love old postcards and I love aliens. I never thought I'd see the day where both of these interests would be satisfied at once. Check out this fellow who loves to insert fantastic creatures and futuristic robots into some banal, Swiss post cards.

Flickr has lots of bizarre sci-fi related images if you dig hard enough. How about this spoof poster that urges you to Keep Khan and Carry On? or these William Shatner hats which are known as Shats?

Not on Flickr, but equally interesting as unexpected pieces of art are these pimped out editions of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

It only goes to show that there are a lot of ways that people choose to express themselves when it comes to science fiction. The Near Future Laboratory is going in a different direction altogether. They create plausible science fiction gadgets. Think of it as prop-building as art.

Believe it or not, there was a time that science fiction blogs were rare. Now they are a dime a dozen so I'm always pleased when I find one that stands out from the crowd by specializing in a niche that no other genre blog follows. Marooned is a great example. It's a blog that focuses all of its attention on science fiction stories set on Mars.

Who doesn't like stories set on Mars? It's the planet in our solar system that I think is most attractive to writers and readers alike. It certainly helps that several landers have been exploring the planet for the past several years with tantalizing clues pointing to the possibility that life may have existed, or may yet exist, on our neighouring planet. That idea still captures our imaginations.

I think that fascination dates back to the time when we thought canals existed on the planet to bring water to the dying cities on the dusty world. Those ideas permeated early science fiction for a long time. Nostalgia for those stories inspired this artist to combine retro-style travel posters with old-fashioned notions of our solar system. The results are great.

Here's another blog that has targeted an underserviced niche. It's name describes it perfectly: Science Fiction Wallpapers. It could be a little better organized, but you'll find plenty of nice images from popular TV shows and movies as well as some good space shots to use as desktop wallpaper.

I've been gathering ideas for this year's science fiction calendar and have encountered some wonderful old-fashioned science fiction art in my online travels.

This collection of vintage SF covers from a Japanese artist who I have never heard of was quite an eye-opener. I'm always fascinated about how American pulp art is copied in other countries.

This Flickr pool of old science fiction book covers was also a treat. There are thousands of entries for you to ogle. You've probably got some of them in your own collection. I know some of them can be found on my shelves.

If you're new to the world of pulp art, this is one of the better overviews of the topic that I have read in a while. It covers all the big names who's art now fetch big dollars.

As much as I admire the old-time covers, the modern 3D art that today's artists are creating with computers is nothing short of astounding.

As for the Robocop on a unicorn art, I'll leave that for you to decide what to think about it.

Doc Savage is hard to classify. He's an action hero of the 30s and 40s that was hugely popular in his day and was undoubtedly a template upon which comic book artists drew inspiration for a future generation of superheroes.

Savage books still have an avid following despite the cornball writing and hackneyed stories, but maybe that's why some people like them. One fan has taken to reviewing each of the books in his blog as he reads them.

Not satisfied with the dozens of wonderful James Bama covers already in existence for the Ballentine printings of the books, another fan has created several fantasy covers of Doc Savage pitting him against other creatures from pop culture such as Godzilla and Frankenstein's monster.

For more cool, pulp art, check out this fantastic collection of Ron Turner cover art as well as this eye-popping array of 50s Spanish science fiction book covers.

If you enjoy the words as much as the pictures, PulpGen offers a fine collection of page scans of stories from the original pulp magazines. All that's missing is that mildewed smell of old paper.

Admit it. You do judge books by their covers. More than once I've heard science fiction editors proclaim that adding a rocket ship to the cover of a book helps boost sales, but at least one publisher is trying to get rid of some of the more garish elements of certain SF books, presumably in the hopes that the books may expand their audience beyond the usual genre pool. It may work, but it just may be that those garish covers are not for potential readers, but for bookstore buyers who need a quick way to identify and shelve their stock.

Outside of a few star artists that win all of the awards, most fans don't know the names of cover illustrators. Ever heard of Darell K. Sweet? He's 73 now and has illustrated 2,000 books, 75 of which have been on the New York Times bestseller list.

Locus magazine has a directory of cover artists that illustrated SF books and magazines in the past year. There's also an archive that goes back to 2002. Last year's list shows 487 covers. The artist with the most credits in 2007 was Stephan Martiniere with 22 covers. The fact that you've probably never heard of him only reinforces my point that artists tend to work in obscurity.

If you'd like to gaze at some cover art from decades past, this is an interesting collection of mostly European books that is worth a look. This small gallery of John Polgreen paintings and drawings is also nice.