m. c. de marco

A selection of screenshots from David Braben’s classic 16bit Space trading adventure game elite Elite 2 “Frontier” which made it’s debut back in 1992. Frontier’s core gaming may not have been as playable or fun as it’s illustratious, highly sucessful 8bit predecessor, but it was IMHO a much more immersive experience - Armed with an [...]

Another Classic David Pelham Penguin Cover, for the Pohl / Kornbluth collaborative novel “The Space Merchants” this dates from 1974. If your unfamiliar with Penguin SF Book cover art and want to see more, the best place to start is here: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/ Scan via Flickr User metoikosdraig who has assembled this great selection of Classic SF [...]

A wonderfully detailed profile shot of “Tank Girl”, a British Comic book character who made her official debut in Deadline Magazine back in 1988. Set in a post-apocalyptic Australia (ala Mad Max) Tank Girl is the creation of Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, Hewlett of course most famous for being the Co-Creator (along with Blur’s Damon [...]

Ok so here we have something of a Sci-Fi-O-Rama Exclusive! A set of 3 gorgeous SF Illustrations commissioned for the May 2009 edition of Wired Italia. The accompanying future gazing article hypothesizes the year 2061, where Italians are living on the moon - hence the Earthrise in the middle image! Super cool stuff from Dan [...]

A quick follow up to a feature I ran a year ago on Roger Dean’s Artwork for the computer game “Shadow of the Beast” published by legendary 80’s/90’s 16bit software house Psygnosis. This image is a close up of the highly sought after limited edition T Shirt featuring a graphic bio-mechanical Deer (reinterpreted from the [...]

A lone, fragile explorer traversing a world of cold desolation… These spectacular landscape’s are the work of French Artist/Photographer Vincent Fournier, taken from his “Space Project” Series. I’m not sure on the exact location here but this type of arid terrain is known as ‘Badlands’ or simply ‘Badland’, basically a landform created by the wind/water erosion [...]

Two enchanting Illustrations with an echo of both Tolkien and Tove Jansson, from London based Illustrator Jake Blanchard. See more of Jake’s excellent portfolio at: http://jakeblanchard.co.uk/ First spotted via ffffound.com/cornhustlah

A selection of vintage Space Art by John Polgreen an American artist most prolific in the 50’s - a style akin to the work of Chesley Bonestell -  difficult to believe these beautifully rendered forward thinking scenes are 50 or more years old.  Perhaps then a shame that these depicted visions (simultaneous moon landings) haven’t [...]

Back to retro 70’s Sci-Fi with another explosive illustration from Blog Fav Peter Andrew Jones.  This Menacing looking craft has a strong resonance of past military avation tech, which is why I’ve selected it - very Harrier Jump Jet -  http://is.gd/1qprC “To Here and the Easel” dates from 1974 and is scanned from Peter’s glossy compendium [...]

“The strange and beautiful Tarot cards form a system of communication through symbols, showing the relation between God, man and the universe; the symbols act as stimuli to the imagination and it is for each student to interpret them for him or herself….” Taken from Man Myth & Magic Issue #100 Full post to follow soon…

More lush sleeve art from Dan McPharlin this a recent 12″ design for Prefuse 73 (AKA Guillermo Scott Herren) “The Forest of Oversensitivity EP” released via the UK’s premier electronic label Warp Records. Aside from the transfixing Illustration itself much kudos for using the chunky black header and retro themed SF logo - wicked, as [...]

Nothing like a bit of Ian Miller to break up the flow of the blog, probably because in terms of style there’s no one else anywhere near him… This amazing image is originally scanned from David Days “The Characters From Tolkien” book, that’s the subject of a larger post featured over on Jeff’s superb Ski-ffy Blog [...]

A further selection from British Artist Chris Foss one of the true masters of Sci-Fi Art. I’ve collected these sample’s together as they best serve to highlight the elements I find most interesting in Chris’s work. IMO these are: the ship designs themselves (naturally)  the striped and checkered lexicon he adorns these craft with, the simply [...]

A vintage Astronaut used as the cover of the 1958 first edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s book “Have Space Suit - Will Travel” art is by the late American Illustator Ed Emshwiller Image sourced from Flickr User Glen Mullaly’s Flickr Photo Stream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenmullaly/ not just an avid collector of gorgeous vintage Illustration but a talented [...]

An amazing set of old Russian Matchbox Graphics celebrating early Soviet success in the space race. These wonderful images are taken from an astonishing selection of over 1,000 Labels !! all featured via Flickr User Mariad http://www.flickr.com/photos/maraid/sets/72157594234429063/. The majority of the labels are of Eastern European origin, and of course not all space related, Maraid [...]

Haunting still shots taken from the extremely rare late 80’s Polish Arthouse Sci-Fi Movie “Na Srebrnym Globie” (Translation: On the Silver Globe) Directed by Andrzej ?u?awski. I’m ashamed to say I’ve not seen this myself yet, though it’s gone straight to the top of my wish list on it’s rarefied nature alone… Youtube has a series [...]

Polish Graphic Art in the shape of a screen printed Movie Poster for the 1968 Original “Planet of The Apes” design by Eryk Lipinski. Image originally featured through Flickr User Junkyard Dogs Photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/36464802@N05/ some excellent Retro Sci-Fi, Movie and Video Gaming paraphernalia/visuals collected there, well worth a look….

Another quick post - I have had a few questions asking about Juan Gimenez and the availability of his Books/Art recently so a couple of leads… Depending on how up to speed you are with your Spanish I suggest perhaps trying the official site: http://www.juangimenez.com/ though I’m not sure how often that’s updated. Failing that [...]

Thought I’d do a another quick Omni Magazine Post as quite a few visitors have been searching for it… This is the cover of the July 1981 edition of the classic SF magazine and is taken from a 25 piece set over on Eric Carl’s Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_carl/sets/72157616740741408/. Some superb examples old-school SF slanted Photomontage/Illustration/Design, some [...]

Scans taken “The Colonial Marines Technical Manual” written and illustrated by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood and published by Boxtree in 1995… I’ll have to admit this rare book is one of my prize possessions! “The Colonial Marines Technical Manual” if you hadn’t of guessed is basically an analytical expansion on all the military hardware envisaged and designed [...]