'Epic' Sci-Fi Art

Adam Rowe

Oct 14, 2024 • 3 min read

1985 John Harris cover art to The Corridors of Time, by Poul Anderson

As you might have noticed from the last few issues, I like using this newsletter to package up tiny, bizarre sub-sets of the much wider retro sci-fi art world. Challenging myself to spend an entire newsletter on something as silly as illustrations of giant teeth or fantastical crucifixions keeps me entertained while giving me a reason to feature lesser artists and research new stories.

But there's a downside: By focusing on the strangest offshoots, I wind up ignoring all the awe-inspiring spaceships, landscapes, or planets that really defined this era.

I'm going to try balancing out the strangest stuff with the best of the best, and this issue's going to focus on the latter of the two with a collection of my favorite sci-fi illustrations. I've been running the 70s Sci-Fi Art tumblr since 2013, and – industry secret – I've been tagging the most breathtaking illustrations with my "epic" tag the whole time.

Here's a selection of those works, all of which made me stop to marvel at their beauty or at the otherwordly spectacle they embodied. See if you agree.

Uncredited art from a 1985 issue of the Japanese computer magazine I/O

Spanish artist Prieto Muriana did a ton of horror and sci-fi magazine covers, so this is likely one of them, although I couldn't find a source or date. I like how I can't tell quite what's going on.

Uncredited 1964 cover to Poul Anderson’s *Twilight World*. I love the offbeat details in the crowd, and the portentious empty plain in front of their space ark.

Geoff Taylor’s 1980 cover art for *Tau Zero* by Poul Anderson

Paul Lehr’s 1978 cover to ‘What Mad Universe’ by Fredric Brown. Lehr is one of the GOATs, but this artwork is mesmerizingly colorful even for him.

Bob Eggleton, "Stranger Suns." One of Eggleton's more hypersaturated works.

Don Ivan Punchatz, 1982. Sometimes an artwork falls into the "epic" category purely because it's uniquely weird and engaging.

Josh Kirby’s 1973 cover art for *Alien Planet*, by Fletcher Pratt. I always try to get the cleanest scans possible, but sometimes the really janky, falling-apart scans add some charm of their own.

Nothing says epic like a Jack Kirby two-page spread. From *Captain Victory #12*.

Angus McKie art, used in Stewart Cowley’s 1979 art collection *Spacewreck.*

Next Time: Medieval Computers