Ocean Outposts

I just ran across this great retro illustration. It's by Colin Hay, and is apparently titled “Robotvendor Rex.”

It appeared in Omni magazine’s February 1986 issue, and was just scanned and uploaded to the r/RetroFuturism subreddit last week.

I've seen it before – it features dolphins, so I included it my exaustive roundup of dolphin sci-fi years ago. But this is the first time I've seen such a detailed scan of it, and it got me thinking about a great sci-fi art niche: the mini-subgenre of outposts on the surface of the ocean.

Today, let's take a look at the dilapidated oil rigs, island castles, surfaced submarines, and floating barges of retro sci-fi.

First, this is a great excuse to showcase my favorite Ray Feibush artwork again. Well, technically, it's not credited, but I'm very confident it's Feibush, given that he was a UK illustrator who fixated on skulls and had a style often mistaken for Bruce Pennington.

I wonder if Feibush drew any inspiration from John Pederson, Jr.'s August 1964 cover to Galaxy magazine, which also features multiple tall rocky tower islands.

Speaking of magazine covers, here's an exploratory barge on an alien ocean, done by Frank Kelly Freas for the June 1970 issue of Analog, illustrating "Star Light" by Hal Clement.

At least, I thought it was a barge. On closer inspection, this one might be a land rover, with the bluish coloring due to the star light of the title. The plot of the story does involve a frozen lake of water and ammonia, though, so maybe it's a little of both.

Here's another vehicle: A "heavy-lift reusable space vehicle" by Roy Kerswill, after an ocean touch-down.

It appeared in the 1965 book Beyond Tomorrow: The Next 50 Years in Space, by Dandridge M Cole, but this illustration is from 1959, if I'm reading that signature on the bottom right correctly.

Here's a great island outpost, featuring an orb-like observatory: Gilbert Williams, "Secret Paradise," 1978. Scanned by RetroSciFiArt from the 1979 collection Celestial Visitations- The Art of Gilbert Williams.

Bob Eggleton, "Wave Goodbye," used as the January 1991 cover to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

I don't think this image of an offshore nuclear power plant ever had an artist credit, but now even the source I found it on isn't available online outside the Wayback Machine. Looks cool, though.

Of course, Chris Foss has a great ocean vehicle illustration.

I was a little surprised to see just how much "ocean surface sci-fi hardware" is by Colin Hay, however.

In addition to the great piece that kicked off this roundup, Hay did this cool 1978 cover for Grimm's World, by Vernor Vinge...

...as well as the misty ocean fortress on his 1973 cover to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

And there's his 1976 cover to Edgar Pangborn’s The Company of Glory, too.

Plus there's this icy Colin Hay illustration, which appeared in the 1980 collection The Fantastic Planet, by Steven Caldwell.

Plus this eerie scene, which lays the airbrushed fog on so thick I could only tell it was an ocean from the sick longboat.

In fact, just when I thought I was done with Colin Hay's oceans, I stumbled on two more! The Projet Phœnix cover is from 1979, but I wasn't able to find publication info on the Missing Man cover.

Finally, here's one last outpost to end on. I can't tell if the reflections here are from water or just snow, but I'm throwing it in here since it's just really nice to look at.

Steve R Dodd's “The Distant Outpost,” done in 1983 and unpublished.

Music rec: Here's a mix of "dubby, watery synth wash sound." That's right, it's on-theme for this issue!

Next Time: Boris Vallejo's Roger Corman Posters