So I'm Writing Another Art Book

Publishers Weekly says my "obvious love for the form animates the volume." And I'll animate again! I'll never stop animating volumes.

The above quote has been my bio on Bluesky for the last few years. Finally, the time has come to make good on my promise: I'm animating another volume, folks.

I've signed a deal to produce an art collection that takes a broad look at the entire history of science fiction art. It'll be titled either The Art of the Future or The Art of Science Fiction – tbd – and it's coming out Fall 2027 from UK publisher Frances Lincoln.

It's a part of the "Art in the Margins" series, joining The Art of the Occult, The Art of Darkness, The Art of Fantasy, and The Art of the Unknown, all by my art book author friend S. Elizabeth.

I'm excited! It's a lot of new territory for me: 1880s books, 1920s magazines, 1980s cyberpunk, 2000s video game concepts, and the coolest contemporary sci-fi artists of today, among a lot more.

It's also a lot more work, so I'm restarting my two-issues-a-week schedule for this newsletter – On paid-tier Fridays, I'll publish something connected to the book. Sometimes I'll do my Book Notes series where I collect quotes and art from a specific art book I'm researching, and sometimes I'll highlight a bunch of art from a specific artist.

I stopped doing two issues a week because I couldn't sustain it. This time, my art book is out late-ish 2027, so I don't need to sustain it indefinitely. However, I could really use financial support in the form of you all buying my paid tier! Enough support, and it really will be sustainable.

So, I'm discounting my paid tier for the next two weeks: It's normally $5/month, but if you use these links any time before June 16, you get my writing-a-book special of $3.50/month or $40/year for life (or until you cancel). If memory serves, that's the cheapest I've ever gone!

Why pay for an art-book-behind-the-scenes email? Well, check out some of the incredibly cool stuff I've learned already!

So far, my pick for the best representation of cyberpunk is the 1991 Night City Guide sourcebook for the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying game. I'll be including Doug Andersen's cover art in my book.

One of Mike Jackson's interior illustrations in the sourcebook was really interesting: It depicts a mallplex in the far-off future year of 2020, and take a look at what's playing in theaters: Dune.

That’s only a year off from when (the most recent) Dune actually debuted in 2021! And it would have been 2020, if not for pandemic rescheduling. Not a bad guess from Jackson.

I also have a running list of early 90s nerd easter eggs featured in just that illustration alone. (Thanks to everyone on Tumblr and Bluesky for those - I wouldn't have caught any of them myself)

• Deunan and Briareos from the Appleseed manga and anime, shopping on the upper left
• Kei and Yuri from the Dirty Pair anime, at the top of the escalator
• A balloon shaped like Max from the Freelance Police comic on the lower right
• The name of the 'Cyborg Sally' store references a character from Norman Spinrad’s novel Little Heroes.
• The store called 'Darrow' is likely a reference to Geof Darrow, a comics artist who won the 1991 Eisner Award
• The Honey Pillar poster in the personality chip store references the personality modules from the same seller, in George Alec Effinger’s novel When Gravity Fails.
• At first, "Kowalski Drugmart" seemed like reference to Leon Kowalski from Blade Runner – particuarly since the guy with the overcoat and gun outside Cyborg Sally's might be Deckard. But I'm informed that it's far more likely a reference to Vanishing Point, a cult 1971 film about a mononymous Kowalski who's on uppers for the whole movie.
• Mike Jackson slips his own name into the Desktop Engineering storefront, of course.

I don't think I could fit all that information into a caption about that illustration if I tried! But it's the sort of research that reveals a lot about sci-fi art history. Specifically, that the comics/gaming circles of the early 90s really loved easter eggs.

I don't know if I'll be able to get a Moebius artwork in this book – I didn't in my last one! – but if I do, one of these three Starwatcher illustrations would be a great candidate. It's a series that Moebius did in 1985/1986 as original silkscreen prints for the French art publisher Aedena.

Here's an old Syd Mead interview I dug up on the Wayback Machine - not sure if the original site is still up, but it wasn't loading for me.

“I like the term ‘future proof’. Some of the Le Mans-format vehicle designs I did back in the ’60s still look comfortable alongside current high-end vehicles. The future is a morphed version of what is ‘now’. Because of my industrial design way of thinking, attributed to my time at Art Center, I can read or make up the story and then design the stuff that the story permits as technology, social format and general ambience. That way you create the image of a scenario that has recognizable visual cues and is overlaid with stuff ranging from simply ‘weird’ to reformatted versions of ‘now.’”

What Syd Mead art am I looking to include? I've love to have this 1961 illustration, for how modern it looks (and for predicting how we'd start dropping vowels on the early internet).

But this one might be a better option for showcasing Mead's majestic futurescapes. Or I might not have Mead in the book at all. Crying shame, I know, but he's very pricy and I'll have to talk my publisher into it!

The book goes deeper than the '60s-'80s.

Here are some of the older images that I'm planning to include, starting with an entry in the proto-science fiction category: Alphonse Adolf Bichard's interior art from a 1886 French edition of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolph Erich Raspe, depicting the Baron climbing a beanstalk to reach the moon. Light on the science, perhaps, but heavy on the fiction.

Some striking early 20th century science fiction magazine illustrations include Frank R Paul's February 1912 cover to Modern Electrics – granted, it's not representative of Paul's most well-known science fiction illustrations from the next few decades, but I'll include a few of his later works as well.

I also love Harold Brown's February 1920 cover to Electrical Experimenter Magazine. Note the spherical liquid that the woman is drinking out of a straw here! It's a grapefruit highball, apparently. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to make a pun about it being a high ball.

As for art from this century, I haven't confirmed any that I'll be able to include just yet, but I love Terryl Whitlatch's concept art - she did the creature designs for The Phantom Menace! Here's an original concept from her, the Rhino Dino Dragon.

I'm also a little obssessed with Sajan Rai's vibrantly confusing surrealism. Check out their portfolio, Insta, and one-panel webcomic about a Sasquatch.

Finally, Kilian Eng would be great to include as well. This 2021 artwork "Stars Aligned" is a good representation of his style.

Cool link

Adam Rowe is writing a new book about science fiction art

You thought I was done promoting my new book? Think again! Here's a whole interview I did yesterday with Transfer Orbit, discussing more about the book itself, including a bunch more artists I'm hoping to include. Every illustration in this article is an artwork that will be in my book, too!

Music Rec: Two hours of video game forest music

Next Time: My paid tier launches this Friday with my notes on the 1974 book One Hundred Years of Science Fiction Illustration, by Anthony Frewin. See you then, paying readers! Everyone else: There won't be a better time to hop over to the paid tier! Those deals again are $3.50/month or $40/year.