A tangerine Death Star spinning in the inky blackness of space, cover art for the 1977 Discus Editon of Isaac Asimov’s ‘The Planet That Wasn’t’. Alas no artist is credited anywhere in the book, so I’m unsure of whom its by, although it look’s like it could be the work of Dean Ellis but that’s purely a guess! If anyone knows more please let me know…..
The beautiful grotesque; Matthias Grünewald’s (1470 AD – 1528 AD)
depiction of “The Temptation of St. Anthony” a religious theme that’s has been repeated many time’s in European Art most notably by Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dali. These images are taken from just one panel of the twelve panel’s that make up the magnificent ‘The Isenheim Altarpiece‘ the masterpiece for which German Artist Grünewald is most famous for.
The Isenheim Altarpiece was painted between 1512 and 1516 and now stand’s on display at The Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France – read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isenheim_Altarpiece
Artwork by Terry Oakes for the 1982 Hawkwind LP ‘Choose Your Masques’.
I’m not on expert on Prog/Space/Kraut Rock – although I’m trying to learn more! so whilst searching for images I came across this excellent blog that focuses on the aforementioned genres: http://nostalgae.blogspot.com/
Nost-Algae’s tag line mirrors my thoughts too: “I missed out on so much by being born so late, now I’m trying to catch up on some of it”… contains scans of loads of rare/obscure 12″ Sleeves – definitely worth a look!
Happy 2009!
Thought I kick off the year with an american artist I’ve been meaning to feature for a while – the supremely talented Geof Darrow. Here’s a sample from ‘Hard Boiled’ a three issue comic series from 1990, witten by Frank Miller and illustrated in the most meticulous way imaginable.
The plot follows Insurance Investigator Carl Seltz/Nixon/Unit Four on a trail of utter destruction through a sprawling overpopulated dystopia of sin, and plays out like a very violent black comedy. Hard Boiled is packed with visual references, gags and graphic delights – fans of ‘The Matrix’ will also recognise the fetishistic robotic design – Geof worked as a ‘conceptual designer’ on all three films.
Hard boiled is amalgamated into one Dark Horse Graphic Novel here: http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Boiled-Frank-Miller/dp/1878574582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230828048&sr=8-2
More on Geof Darrow here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geof_Darrow
A large tribute site: http://www.geofdarrow.net/
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