Technorati Tags: frederik pohl, birthday, futurians, science fiction, fandom

Here’s where you can use the sale code:

Celtic Art & Retro-Futuristic Design
Retropolis (just the Celtic/Retro departments)
Celtic Art Books
the Retrovert
The Non-Conformists Union, Local 404

An awful lot of my merchandise is included in the sale, from my posters, blank books, and my Celtic knotwork book, to the mugs, greeting cards, gift boxes and who knows what all that you’ll find on those pages.

Technorati Tags: sale, celtic art, celtic design, retro future, retropolis, vintage, retro, posters, mugs, books, labor day, sci fi, science fiction, fantasy

Among the many things I didn’t know is that the Rocketship was also briefly installed at the NASA Ames Center as part if their Yuri’s Night celebration (in case you don’t know, that’s NASA’s very sportsmanlike recognition of Yuri Gagarin). Alan’s blog has a video of the ship’s raising there.

And as we see in these photos the San Francisco installation has added a "Rocket Stop" kiosk so that travelers can tap their toes waiting for the next rocket ship to take off. That’s a nice addition since liability issues are sadly keeping the ship’s doors closed for the duration of its stay.

If you get tired of waiting for the rocketship to take off, it should be a short walk up to the Maxfield Parrish mural in the Pied Piper Bar of the old Sheraton Palace Hotel. That’s at Third and Market… if we can trust my memory.

Technorati Tags: raygun gothic rocketship, rocket ship, retro future, retrofuturism, retro futuristic, sculpture, installation

IDW has recently released both a recolored anthology of the Rocketeer stories and the line art “Artist’s Edition” of Dave Stevens’ original inks.

I had my doubts about the former – which, it turns out, has been well received – but I think that the latter sounds like a great insight into the original work.

This latest news is that IDW will be publishing a limited series of new, short Rocketeer stories by a wide range of Pretty Big Names:

Dunbier said “The Rocketeer” will be a standard-sized comic with three stories per issue plus pin-ups. “We’re going to start out with a four issue miniseries and then see where we go from there. There’s some pretty decent people who are lending their talents to it so far.”

Those “decent people” include Mike Allred, Kurt Busiek, John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Michael Golden, Gene Ha, Michael Kaluta, Garry Leach, Bruce Timm, Bill Willingham, and more. “Mike Allred is writing and drawing his, Kurt Busiek is writing a story for Michael Kaluta, John Cassaday and Darwyn Cooke are both writing and drawing their stories,” Dunbier said. “There will be some pin-ups by Geoff Darrow, Art Adams, Jeff Campbell, Mike Mignola, a bunch of different guys.”

(Scott Dunbier, Editor, via Comic Book Resources)

I have so much affection for Stevens’ work that any announcement like this makes me squirm a little. But I also know that the names in that list probably have at least as much affection for The Rocketeer as I do – particularly Kaluta, who had a hand in some of the original stories. So I feel a bit optimistic about the announcement.

I’ll be interested to see if they continue the direction Stevens took – in which our hero Cliff Secord runs into pulp heroes without knowing who they are (Doc Savage, The Shadow).

But the main ingredient that made The Rocketeer iconic, and prevented us from ever seeing more of the stories, was Dave Stevens himself. His high standards for the work made it excellent, on the one hand, and impossible, on the other. By making it more possible, will we lose the excellence? Time will tell.

A “substantial portion” of profits from the series will be donated to Hairy Cell Leukemia research. That’s the form of Leukemia that Stevens fought for several years and which eventually led to his early death in 2008.

This is one of those Comic-Con days that’s full of news releases that often have nothing to do with comics, but have emanated anyhow from the singularity that is San Diego. Among the news is a little bit about Jon Favreau’s filmed take on the “Cowboys and Aliens” books with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. What I really like about this one is that Favreau is again relying heavily on practical effects with just a bit of digitality to enhance them. I say “again” because before he shot to everyone’s notice with Iron Man he directed Zathura – a film I think ought to have done much better – and Zathura made brilliant use of practical effects and miniatures. I’ve sort of expected his blockbusters might have changed things and I’m really glad to see him do another film with that same old school approach.

And that led me to think about Hollywood’s endless remakes, and the fact that although I have a soft spot for Disney’s Rocketeer movie…. it wasn’t actually that good a movie and it certainly wasn’t the movie that the Rocketeer deserved. So as of today, I’ve decided that what I would really like to see would be a Jon Favreau Rocketeer film – heavy on practical effects with just a digital gloss. Like everything imaginary, it would be awesome.

I meant it about Zathura. Go watch it.

Technorati Tags: the rocketeer, comics, dave stevens, michael william kaluta, idw publishing

My friend Glenn Price just showed me something he’s working on, and that reminded me of Andy Murdock‘s Lots of Robots. I hadn’t watched it in awhile, and before I knew it, well, that’s what I did. Now you should too.

Andy’s been pretty busy recently with his work for the National Geographic Channel but I hope he gets back to this one day.

Sadly it looks like you can’t buy the DVDs at the moment. You can’t have mine.

Technorati Tags: computer animation, 3d, robot, andy murdock, lots of robots, cool

Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading had her doubts about Kickstarter as a way to fund projects outside the traditional models of publication, and she expressed those doubts here; conversation ensued; and somehow my math skills came into play.

Normally that means that I count out the wrong change while a lot of people are standing in line behind me. This time, it was different.

Technorati Tags: kickstarter, project, fundraising, funding, comics

From the amazing Link Bait Generator:

Technorati Tags: mad scientists, sky pirates, giant robots, link bait

Lately I’ve been keeping that head down a bit more than usual because what I’ve been immersed in is not a metaphor: it’s just a great big project that I hope to finish soon. Ish. So today, here are a couple of things I’ve meant to share… but haven’t. After which – head down, full speed ahead, silent running.

Greg Brotherton’s New Museum Show

I’ve written before about Greg Brotherton’s sculptures, which are remarkable pieces that combine found objects with new metals, wood, and other materials.

His newest work is now on display in a show called Discoveries in Dystopia at the Oceanside Museum of Art, near San Diego in California. The new work concentrates on dystopian views of workers in fascinating but forbidding settings: cubicles, desks and machines that enfold their laborers in Sysiphean toil.

Like Brotherton’s other works the textures and their contrasts are lovely to the eye and there are occasional grace notes (like the "Back Space" typewriter key shown here) that reward the careful observer. Wonderful stuff!

The museum’s show runs through March 19, and there’s a "Meet the Artist" event on February 6.

ATOMIC ROCKETS Web Site

If you’ve seen my own work, you may have guessed that of all the things I may be about, scientific accuracy is, well, absent. If I can fool you into thinking that a thing might work, well, job done, right? Because things like open cockpit roadster "rockets" aren’t the most practical or likely sort of vehicles in the first place.

On the other hand, I appreciate scientific accuracy in science fiction (which is not exactly what I do, anyway). Authors can get away with fooling me, too, but they have to work at it a bit if what they’re doing is cast in a realistic mode.

So I was delighted on a couple of levels when I discovered the Atomic Rockets web site. It doesn’t hurt for me to get a little better at fooling you, after all, and the material’s pretty interesting in its own right.

Because Atomic Rockets is a large and growing compilation of information about how spaceships and related technologies actually need to work, and why. The examples are a mix of real aerospace experience and research with science fiction examples – good, bad, and ugly – from decades worth of fiction and movies.

And there are plenty of equations to help you to calculate whether your own space ship is going to be able to make that trip to Neptune. If not, you can research some of the other types of propulsion!

So I’ve made plenty of discoveries there already and look forward to more. The site is the ongoing project of Winchell D. Chung Jr. – have a look!

Technorati Tags: greg brotherton, dystopia, gallery, museum, sculpture, Winchell D. Chung Jr, atomic rockets, aerospace, spaceship, space ship, science fiction, science, technology, research

…from Winsor McCay, via Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

Here’s hoping all our futures will be better ones.

Winter’s finally decided it’s really here at the Secret Laboratory and it’s doing its best to make me glad I’m in here, finishing up the last of the remaining characters for Part One of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS, my first installment at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.

This is the mysterious Doctor Rognvald. The big interior set I’ll still need to build is his laboratory – and to do that, I’ll have to sequester myself with Just Imagine and an old Boris Karloff film because they have such great mad scientist glassware. The sacrifices I make, I just can’t tell you.

That’s what I’ll be up to till that freelance job attains "check on the desk" status, anyhow. Then I’ll have to drop everything – carefully! there’s all that glassware to think of – for a bit.

Technorati Tags: winsor mccay, new year, thrilling tales of the downright unusual, the toaster with two brains, interactive fiction