Graphics Archive - Sci-Fi-O-Rama

Eric Fraser (1)

Eric Fraser - Red Dragon Express

Eric Fraser - Beowulf

Eric Fraser - Exploration of the Moon

Eric Fraser - The Laxdale Saga

A long overdue feature on Eric George Fraser (June 11, 1902 – November 15, 1983), one of the great British Illustrators of his time. Eric’s most renowned for creating lavish covers for the long running Radio Times Magazine as well Illustrating many classic scenes from mythology, Shakespeare and Tolkien – Here’s some notes on the featured images:

Top: The Red Dragon Express – British Railways menu card dating from 1960 via Flickr User: Mikeyashworth

2nd top: Eric Fraser Beowulf & Dragon via Flickr user: hitmissmaybe

3rd top: Exploration of the Moon – book jacket 1965, again via Flickr User: Mikeyashworth- The structure is very Norman Foster Associates!

4th top: St Peter, St Paul and Atilla (Pen Ink and Watercolour) dust jacket cover 1968 via: chrisbeetles.com

5th top: The Talisman (Watercolour and Bodycolour) 1956 via: chrisbeetles.com

6th top: Laxdolela Saga (Pen and Ink) Dust Jacket 1964 via: chrisbeetles.com

Bottom: Smaug (Pen and Ink) Illustration taken from The Hobbit published by the Folio Society in 1976 (thanks for the tip Zhu) see the full set here: tolkien.com.pl

For further reading and or galleries, check out:

Eric Fraser @ chrisbeetles.com with a chance to buy signed prints…

Also check this Flickr group: Eric Fraser – artist and illustrator

Finally here’s a link to buy Eric Fraser: Designer and Illustrator a hardback coffee table book compiled by Sylvia Backemeyer.

History of The 20th Century

Jul 14th, 2010 | Categories: Graphics | Illustration | Military / War

History of The 20th Century - Wrangel is coming

Vereschagin

History of The 20th Century - Spion Kop

Ok so something a little different here, Non SF/Fantasy related material!

The above images come from a full colour 1968 Magazine Publication “History of the 20th Century” that I came across recently. The magazine was a long running weekly publication that built up in to volumes of 16, forming a substantial encyclopedia of mankinds recent past – as you can imagine, the focus is on colonialism, imperialism and of course war and its devastating effects that have shaped our modern world…

Aside from the extremely in depth content “History of the 20th Century” contains some stunning imagery, all of which has a real “technicolor” saturated feel photography in the way that only 40+ year old colour print can have.

Some notes on the images:

Top: Illustration from a poster produced by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917-20). Wrangelm the White (anti-Bolshevik) general, is shown striding towards Moscow, accompanied by Tsarist officers, a train of priests, officials and capitalists all bearing Tsarist flags… The slogan for this poster was “Wrangel is Coming! Proletarians to arms!”

2nd Top: Allegorical painting: comment on the legacy of war by Russian artist Vereshchagin. Painted in the early years of the 20th Century.

Bottom: From an extensive article on The Boer War; This map details part of the timeline from “The battle of Spion Kop” – which the article notes was perhaps the bloodiest single engagement of the war.

For more imagery from “History of the 20th Century” check Flickr user Mando Maniacs gallery
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mando_gal/sets/72157600556461108/

Flickr Round Up (1)

Ejection Captain Lockhead & The Starfighters

Peter Goodfellow Sunrise on Mercury

The Kraken Wakes

David Pelham

A selection of differing illustration styles all linked from my Flickr Favourites – I figured that rather than post these one at time It’d be better to pack them into groups as a kinda round up. So here’s the notes on the images:

Top: Ejection “Captain Lockhead and The Starfighters” – A 7″ single sleeve, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Barney Bubbles though it is in fact the work of Rodney Matthews. Love the plum and salmon pink colouring here… Image via Flickr User Daevideo

2nd Top: This is one I spotted a while back via Will Schofield’s amazing A Journey Round my Skull. This cover is from a 1975 Estonian Childrens book “Panga-Rehe Jutud” by Jüri Arrak – a typical of the rare, outlandish source material Will so often posts…

3rd Top: Another lift from “A Journey Round My Skull” this image comes via a special feature “Women Snakes and Stalkers – South Asian Book Covers”. Well worth checking out to see a really diverse range of Illustrative work – also check the source: http://www.womensnakesandstalkers.com/ superb stuff…

4th Top: So back to more SF orientated material, and here’s a cover for the 1975 Robert Silverberg Short story collection “Sunrise on Mercury” art by Peter Goodfellow. What actually caught me eye here was that this wild sunscape actually reminded me very much of the 1988 Sega arcade game “Galaxy Force 2″. Not sure if any of you remember that, it was kinda an evolution of sprite scaling tech used in Sega’s Outrun or Afterburner. Anyway the Coin-Op was pretty rare in the UK, expensive to play and not particularly entertaining. On the plus side the level graphics were pretty imaginative and considering this is a 22 year old game the pseudo 3d effect looks very advanced for it’s age! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLRLo2yB04. Image via Filckr user: Martin Isaac

5th Top: A 1963 cover for the John Wyndham apocalyptic classic “The Kraken Wakes” art by Denis Piper. Even though it’s over fifty years old (first published 1953) this is still definitely one SF novel I’d class as essential reading – a plot thats mirrors the plight face with potential global warming and rising sea levels – highly recommended! Image via Flickr user: metoikosdraig

Bottom: The final image is another classic penguin David Pelham SF cover. Here’s a link again to the Penguin SF Book covers gallery: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/ – this image is via Flickr user levar

Dan Mcpharlin – Making Up A Changing Mind

Mar 14th, 2010 | Categories: Dan McPharlin | Graphics | Illustration | Sci-Fi

Dan Mcpharlin - Making Up A Changing Mind

A recent E.P Cover from Dan McPharlin the first in a planned series of three, lovely stuff as usual blurring the line between hard Sci-Fi and abstract geometric design/art, washed with a beautiful lime palette. The font used is the classic Serif Gothic looks great particularly in the heavier cuts.

Art via Dan’s regularly updated Flickr Stream http://www.flickr.com/photos/danmcp/

Eyke Volkmer (1)

Eyke Volkmer

These powerful, minimal designs with a fauvist-esque palette are a small selection of the art of Eyke Volkmer a German Graphic Artist/Illustrator. During the 60′s & 70′s Eyke worked closely with publishing House Wilhelm Goldmann, and during this period produced a total of 162 airbrushed covers for the SF series “Goldmanns Weltraum Taschenbücher” and another 70 covers for the series “Goldmanns Zukunftsromane”, his publisher once remarked to Vokmer: “It doesn’t look like that in outer space.” but encouraged him to follow and develop his unique and prolific style.

You can see the full set of “Weltraum Taschenbücher” covers at covers http://www.weltraumtaschenbuch.de and there’s a full bio on Eyke here: http://www.weltraumtaschenbuch.de/pages/eyke_volkmer.html

Many thanks to Tommi Bren for getting in touch with the link, Tommi set up the aforementioned tribute site and also runs the excellent Sci-Fi book archive http://www.houdinination.com/ great stuff! check the Book cover Gallery here: http://www.houdinination.de/covers.html

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