Month: June 2012
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They Came from Mars
They Came from Mars, by W. P. Cockcroft, was first published in 1934 as the story “Cataclysm” in the British boys magazine Scoops. It was re-issued in 1945 as a little chapbook selling for 2 pennies, a common strategy during wartime because of paper shortages. As the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction points out, most of the […]
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Thumb – Concept Art
Update: Consensus of opinion is that the font made it looked too like a comic book so I’m going to rethink the titling. In the meantime, here’s the image. I liked the font as it was a German Expressionist one, but in this day and age it did look a bit too manga-like! I’ve sent […]
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Bugs of the Empire
A little while ago I wrote about the Eagle Comic in the early 1960s. The Captain was a similar magazine from the beginning of the twentieth century. The upsurge in adventure books for boys in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras paved the way for the first periodicals aimed at the Empire builders of tomorrow. […]
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Mary Shelley – Shared Experience
I’ve just been to see the play Mary Shelley by Helen Edmundson, performed by the Shared Experience theatre company at Winchester Royal Theatre. It was fantastic and I recommend anyone to grab tickets while they can and go and watch it. The play deals with Mary Shelley’s relationship with her father, the anarchist philosopher William […]
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Early Fantasy Art: the Symbolists
The Symbolist and Decadent movement in European art has always been overlooked. It stands between the twin monoliths of Impressionism and Cubism, and is overshadowed by both. It’s also tainted by association with late 19th century Narrative Art, where the story of a painting was more important than the style or quality. A lot of […]