Neo-Tokyo

The recent big reading spree got me to thinking about and identifying my major influences. For example, AKIRA's a bigger visual cue for me than Blade Runner is, at least in terms of what future metropoli are supposed to look like.


image:MacQ


image:MacQ


image:MacQ

The major point on which the Blade Runner city is better than Neo-Tokyo is the ethnic/cultural melting pot imagery of the Blade Runner city. Neo-Tokyo's pretty much all ethnic Japanese.


image:MacQ


image:MacQ


image:MacQ


image:MacQ

Recently I've been purchasing piecemeal and reading the original manga. Its unbelieveably good, and its funny how the movie, which is no slouch, is, at best, some crib notes for the books.

But dang, I've got 1-3, but these things are expensive!


-d.d.

Selk'nam

Oddly, I came across these postcards whilst in the midst of an image search for "The Land Leviathan," as in the book by Michael Moorcock.¹



There are a few more here.

They are of the Selk'nam, also, Ona, an indigenous people who dwelt on the Tierra del Fuego until the beginning of the 20th century, when western culture quietly disposed of them.

I don't have a whole lot to say about them, other than that they are quite striking visually, and that I think you should look at them. And that it never ceases to amaze how something so authentically otherworldly to our modernish eyes can exist, or existed, right under our noses.

-d.d.

¹ Fat was reading this very book. He had dared me, in a way, to guess which edition, according to cover art, he had purchased. Aware only of the DAW edition's art, I was forced to seek what other options were available.

Brooklyn's Kiser Studios.

The Sellwood Beefeatured a short piece on the Kiser Studios, formerly located at 3833 SE Milwaukie (at Bush St.) a while back.¹

The Kiser Bros. (Oscar and Fred) started out as photo printers.² Oscar drowned in 1905, but Fred carried on the business under the name Kiser Photo Company.

Kiser sold the company to Clarence Winter in 1915.

In 1922 the studio dabbled in silent film production, including a Western bank heist flick titled “Flames” (1926) featuring a very young Boris Karloff in the role of Blackie the Bandit. Some scenes where shot in Sullivan's Gulch. Others at a sandlot by Gregory Hall at Sacred Heart.

-d.d.

¹ You can read the full article over at the Bee, tho' I'm not sure how long it will be posted there...
² Print runs included the Columbia Gorge, Crater Lake, the 1904 St. Louis Expo, and the 1905 Portland Expo, which, it turns out, easily turned a greater profit than the its predesessor in 1904 .

Jack Gaughan Sci-fi Paperbacks

image : levar

I've been exploring Flickr with an eye towards stuff marked with Creative Commons Licenses rather than copyrights. These are the best from a search for sci-fi cover artist Jack Guaghan.


image: jovike

I'm attributing source with the "image:____" beneath each image. If you click on each photo it follows through to Flickr. Both contributors have more paperbacks scanned.


image: levar

Pretty disappointing results, really. Compare the search for Creative Commons pics with one including "copyrighted" photos. Sure, there's a bunch of NASCAR related crap in there, too, but the search easily triples the results of the Creative Commons search.


image:levar

I really wanted to do a gallery of Moorcock novel covers but the CC results are pretty skimpy. Lame.

-d.d.

Songs about Dirigibles

Early Aviator doesn't just have archival photos of airships and biplanes, it also has oddities like cover art to sheet music about airships and biplanes!

Also, this curious "incident report" about "Rodney Gerrard Voß F1.103/17."

-d.d.