Weird Galaxies
I'm still not entirely sure if Wojtek Siudmak is intentionally making a "wormhole" visual pun with his 1985 cover to a French-language edition of Jack Vance's The Blue World.
On one hand, English isn't his first language. On the other hand... just look at it.
It inspired this post about galaxies in sci-fi art, although I'm not sure that the celestial body within that apple is a galaxy – it looks like a ringed planet on closer inspection.
But that just illustrates the difficulty I ran into with this post: There aren't as many galaxies in science fiction illustration as you might think.
At first, I was going to go for more niche theme: Out-of-place galaxies. Jack Gaughan's March 1970 Galaxy cover shows a guy wading through a galaxy, looking for planets like they were stones in a river.
And in this Barclay Shaw illustration, the galaxy functions like a close-up magic trick.
Cliff McReynolds has a 1971 illustration, "The Creation (With Natural Phenomena)," which appeared in the 1977 art collection Visions.
With apologies to McReynolds for the comparison, it kinda reminds me of how AI image generators will try to create their own version of what "the rest" of an artwork would look like.
The uncredited British VHS cover for 1982 film Parasite features one of the mutant parasites eating the galaxy.
That's just one variant, though. Other marketing materials feature the same monster with other things in its mouth: People, a city, the word "3D," and several versions of Demi Moore.
Actual black holes are kinda tough to depict visually, so this 1981 Black Hole pinball machine art looks more like someone started funnelling a spiral galaxy down the drain.
That's about it for the more unusual forms of galaxies, however.
The most famous standard version has to be Michael Whelan's "Trantorian Dream," for Asimov's Foundation's Edge.
I enjoy the little yellow arrow pointing out an infinitesimally small destination on this illustration, which I believe is from an Usborne kid's book.
Here's 'Galaxies In Motion,' by April Lawton.
I had labelled Vincent Di Fate's "Galaxies like Grains of Sand" as a 1979 work, but I see now that he dated it to '84. That said, I know he sometimes touched up older artworks and added the most recent date; not sure if that's the case here.
Here's a nice straightforward galaxy by Bob Eggleton.
Alfred Kelsner has this green 1998 one.
And one with some space exploration in the foreground, by Robert McCall.
Alfred Kelsner has a nice example, too.
Finally, I love Don Dixon's rich colors.
Cool Links
The unsettling world of the 'TikTok Farlands' - BBC Future
One of my ongoing obsessions that I sometimes shoehorn into this newsletter is the existence of modern, internet-era urban legends. This one's a great example:
"[B]eneath the surface are billions of videos TikTok normally won't show you. Some are boring. Some are bizarre. Some of them are truly unsettling. Rumour has it if you stay up too late, scrolling for hours until you exhaust TikTok's normal recommendations, you might get a momentary glimpse. But users of the platform say they've found a way to go deeper."
Another obsession? Signs we're in a real-life cyberpunk dystopia. This one's incredible:
"Brand strategist and researcher Viktoriia Vasileva has coined the term 'Panopticon Chic' to describe the new visual language inspired by surveillance tools. By filming through the lens of body cams and wearables, creatives can turn ordinary moments into acts of voyeuristic exhibitionism"
Music Rec: Late 90s Atmospheric Drum and Bass Selection
Next Time: James Allen St. John