A strangely skewed 18th century rendering of the “The Tower of Babel” the famous mega-structure from antiquity designed to be as tall as to touch heaven itself. Note the top of image and the falling bricks and hod carrier, according to the accompanying article a day of mourning was declared whenever a brick fell from the top of the tower, this of course due to the immense effort and time span in ferrying it up there… alas no mention of remorse for the hapless builder!
Not sure of the Artist, exact date or origin of the painting, please let me know if you do…
Image is scanned from the 70’s publication Man, Myth & Magic more about that here at Wikipedia.
Continuing on with the freaky portraiture I thought I’d start 2010 with a piece I’d earmarked and scanned right back when I first began this blog, and I guess some extremely sinister character art from blog favourite Ian Miller, is as good a way as any to kick off a new decade!
This Illustration is scanned from one of the few Fighting Fantasy books I still have in my possession – FF28 “Phantoms of Fear” – published by Puffin back in 1987 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantoms_of_Fear. The game plot revolves around a hopeless near suicide mission (is there any other sort?) battling through a blighted forest and eventually infiltrating a vast demonic fortress… The adventure takes place in both the physical and dream worlds, but what really makes it stand out are of course Ian’s fantastical warped illustrations, I can’t think anyone else better to illustrate a chaos tainted army of darkness. If your a fan of Ian’s I definitely recommend checking this rarity out, its available on Amazon for next to nothing: http://ow.ly/WWP2
If your new to Ian’s work I’ve run several posts already: Ian Miller & Also check Ian Millers home site/portfolio http://www.ian-miller.org/
Some pretty far out and slightly Horrific Psychedelic Fantasy Illustration from English artist Patrick Woodroffe. this piece used a cover art for the 1974 edition of Micheal Moorcock’s ‘The Oak and The Ram’ published by Quartet Books, London.
Art is via Flickr User: Jovike, I highly reccomend checking out his Photostream over there, loads of super cool stuff including retro SF novel covers and Record Sleeves….. Also Check his Blog: http://www.enkil.demon.co.uk/
Just a quick post as a reminder that if you like reading Sci-Fi-O-Rama then definitely check out Jeff’s Skiffy Blog. It’s recently been massively updated with a large selection of super-rare new material, including this retro trading card from the 1960’s…
Highly Recommended: http://ski-ffy.blogspot.com/
The above familiar looking alien and font is the work of American Artist Norman Saunders (January 1, 1907– March 7, 1989) who was commissioned by Topps to Illustrate the original trading card series, dating from 1962….
Read a little more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Saunders
This expertly crafted clean and striking design is one of the original promotional posters for the 1978 Horror sequel Damien: Omen II – the follow on from the 1976 original classic “The Omen”.
I saw this years ago as a kid and found it pretty freaky, in that weird way that only 70’s horror can be – something to do with everyone wandering round in flares? – though I actually kinda think all paedophobic horror (Village of the Damned etc) is genuinely creepy! Check the original trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az86iKhWAjk
So there you go, a really cool poster, and I’ll add that the Raven is one of my favourite birds - slightly off topic, but Crow’s actually have a high level of intelligence having been observed to fashion and use tools and even play tricks on one and other! Here’s quite an interesting read if you have 5 mins: http://www.physorg.com/news168701856.html and another one on avian intelligence in general…
One last thing, can any type spotter’s identify the two Serif font’s use here? not sure whether the title is an actual font or rather just a distressed version of an existing cut….
