Science Fiction Cover Art

[Graham1973]

"The Hell with it! Up wi' the hel'lem and gang into the middle o't!" Captain John Inglis, Battle of Camperdown, 1797

"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition.", Admiral Andrew Cunningham, Meditterranean Theater, 1941

From memory this image which depicts what happened after HMS Thunderchild's deathride as the Channel Fleet responded to Thunderchild's last signal was printed in an issue of Omni Magazine. The site that posted it claims it comes from a set of images created by Melvyn and Roger Dean along with Richard Clifton-Day (Individual credit is not given for the images.) for the Jeff Wayne musical version of 'The War of the Worlds' but not ultimately used for that project.

I'd remembered this image but thought it depicted the end of the deathride, which is a popular subject amongst science fiction artists. A later take on this scene, created by an artist on the Deviant Arts website can be viewed along with dramatic reading of Chapter 17 of 'The War of the Worlds' in Post #566.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by John Berkey for the anthology 'The Best of Frederik Pohl' (1975) edited by Lester Del Rey.

 

[Graham1973]

In Post #1601 I mentioned that the end of HMS Thunderchild's deathride was a popular subject amongst science fiction artists. British SF artist David Hardy is to my knowledge the only artist to have depicted it twice.

 

[Graham1973]

The first artist to illustrate 'The War of the Worlds' was Brazillian Henrique Alvim-Corréa who supplied illustrations for a French translation of the story the two attached images illustrate Chapter 17, thus making him not only the first science fiction illustrator to tackle HMS Thunderchild's deathride but perhaps the only one to depict the triumph before the tragedy.

 

[Graham1973]

A pair of uncredited Apollo cutaway illustrations from a publication entitled 'Space Horizons Nº.1'

 

[Michel Van]

Why chris Foss is so important in sci-fi illustration

View: https://youtu.be/p7gryVW0p4g?is=zUupPTf5eiwhkjHB

 

[Graham1973]

In this thread's OP I posted a picture of the cover of the 1983 children's science fiction book 'Beyond The Stars: Tales of Adventure in Time and Space' published by Octopus Books. Artist credit for that volume is given to one Peter Dennis. Having found a scanned copy of the book on the Internet Archive it was possible to extract the 'remarkable' illustrations created for the 'Star Wars' excerpt. One has to wonder what happened here, by 1983 the characters appearances were well established in the popular media.

 

[Graham1973]

'Astounding Tales of Space and Time' edited by John W. Campbell Jr was a 1957 anthology reprinting seven stories extracted from a hardback anthology entitled 'The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology'. For the 1957 edition the cover was supplied by Richard Powers, for the subsequent re-printings in 1964 and 1969 Paul Lehr supplied the cover art. All artwork has been sourced from the ISFDB

 

[publiusr]

The cover art by John Berkey for the anthology 'The Best of Frederik Pohl' (1975) edited by Lester Del Rey.

Anyone seen my Evinrude?

The USS Vengeance from 'INTO DARKNESS even sounded like one.

I crave creativity

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-art-boost-creative-viewers.html

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/qyu1rfO0DOU

 

[Michel Van]

The first artist to illustrate 'The War of the Worlds' was Brazillian Henrique Alvim-Corréa who supplied illustrations for a French translation of the story

H.G. Well liked much Alvim-Correa illustration, coming close to his vision of Martians
Capturing the nightmare fuel of story perfect

more on Alvim-Correa here:

View: https://youtu.be/R-n9SKpncJ0


A Netherland version show Martian weed how Wells envision
More on Johan Briede Here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHEHSq_GwE

 

[Graham1973]

'The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology' edited by John W. Campbell Jr was a 1956 anthology reprinting eight stories extracted from a hardback anthology entitled 'The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology'. For the 1956 edition the cover was supplied by Richard Powers. It was reprinted in 1964 with a different Richard Powers cover. In 1967 it was republished again under a new title 'Selections from The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology' with a cover by Paul Lehr.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Another video on Chris Foss: EDIT: Sorry, I thought it was a different one!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7gryVW0p4g

 

[Antonio]

Another video on Chris Foss:

Isn't the same as that on post #1606?

 

[Michel Van]

Another video on Chris Foss:

Isn't the same as that on post #1606?

yes

 

[Grey Havoc]

yes

Drats, sorry!

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyAoPr3n1CU


EDIT: Here are a couple of more;

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9p4IgBGHXE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4SyhhoLmpk

 

[Graham1973]

From my collection, the covers by Manchu to the 1988 reprint of 'L'orbe et la roue' (1982) by Michel Jeury and the 1989 French science fiction anthology 'La frontière éclatée' edited by Ellen Herzfeld, Gérard Klein and Dominique Martel.

 

[Graham1973]

An album cover by Tony Roberts...

 

[robunos]

Combining Album covers and War of the Worlds , here's the classic cover from the musical version of WotW by Jeff Wayne . There's no credit given for the illo , although on the inside of the sleeve is an illo of a 'Martian Cylinder on Horsell Common' , which is credited to Bruce Pennington . Did he also paint the 'Tripod vs. Thunder Child' scene ?



cheers ,
Robin .

 

[Michel Van]

Combining Album covers and War of the Worlds , here's the classic cover from the musical version of WotW by Jeff Wayne .
There's no credit given for the illo

The Tripod Design is from Mike Trim
The Illustrator were Peter Goodfellow, Geoff Taylor, Michael (mike) Trim
Source first Edition of WotW by Jeff Wayne in 1978

later Peter Elson made illustration that Match the design, unclear for me if that was use in reprint of WotW

 

[Graham1973]

Not sure what novel this Chris Foss illustration was intended for, but I've always felt that the ultimate inspiration for it was J.M.W Turner's 'The Fighting Temeraire'.

 

[Graham1973]

Combining Album covers and War of the Worlds , here's the classic cover from the musical version of WotW by Jeff Wayne . There's no credit given for the illo , although on the inside of the sleeve is an illo of a 'Martian Cylinder on Horsell Common' , which is credited to Bruce Pennington . Did he also paint the 'Tripod vs. Thunder Child' scene ?

View attachment 808668
cheers ,
Robin .

If you watch the recent BBC '1914ish' set take on the TV series, that ship can be seen close inshore during the 'Dunkirk sequence'.

 

[Graham1973]

Japanese artist Noriyoshi Ohrai's take on the Millenium Falcon

 

[Graham1973]

Japanese artist Noriyoshi Ohrai's take on a ship that I referred to (Quoting 'Blakes 7') as a 'scruffy bag of bolts' during the lift off scene in the live action version....

 

[Graham1973]

Josh Kirby evoking the pulp era of SF on the back cover of a 1974 issue of 'Science Fiction Monthly', the picture also contains some pre-echoes of the style he would use for Terry Prattchet's novels.

 

[Brett Davidson]

More on Henrique Alvim Correa's illustrations. Wells did not like one illustrator's work (Warwick Goble), but he loved Correa's.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-n9SKpncJ0

 

[Graham1973]

Tony Robert's cover for the anthology 'Nebula Award Stories Nº.8' (1975 Panther Edition, the anthology came out in a hardback edition in 1973.) edited by Isaac Asimov. The artwork was inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke short story 'Meeting With Medusa' (1971) one of the stories contained in the anthology.

 

[southwestforests]

The cover art by John Berkey for the anthology 'The Best of Frederik Pohl' (1975) edited by Lester Del Rey.

Berkey's style has long been a favorite both for the ship designs and the slightly abstracted detail painting method.

 

[martinbayer]

I am a Christopher Frank Foss guy through and through.

 

[Graham1973]

Courtesy of the ISFDB the cover by Chris Foss to the 1973 Panther edition of 'Nebula Award Stories Nº.6' (1971) edited by Clifford D. Simak.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by legendary SF Artist Frank R. Paul to the October 1953 issue of 'Science Fiction +' which includes a possible inspiration for a later starship.

 

[Graham1973]

John Berkey's cover to Isaac Asimov's 1954 novel 'The Caves of Steel' when it was reprinted by Fawcett Crest in 1972. Aside from being a rare depiction of a human figure by the artist it's also a self-portrait.

 

[Graham1973]

Artist Paul Lehr's first science fiction cover to the 1958 Bantam Books edition of the 1954 novel 'Satellite E One' by Jeffrey Lloyd Castle.

 

[Graham1973]

Paul Lehr's cover for the May 1959 issue of 'Satellite Science Fiction' magazine.

 

[southwestforests]

Paul Lehr's cover for the May 1959 issue of 'Satellite Science Fiction' magazine.

Ya know, a model or even a game miniature of that could be built using things such as the following, for example,
(and of course there is CAD and 3D printing for the folks who have and enjoy those)

 

[Stingray]

I suppose this is an appropriate place to ask this.

When I was a kid I had this old, nonfiction book about space which touched on speculative future space travel in some places. Had some very pretty illustrations in it.

One of the pics was of a space station in Earth orbit, which I scanned and did MS.Paint edits to (why??), but I've completely lost the original and I have no recollection what the book was called. Another ship in the book was a type of towing shuttle, IIRC for hauling asteroids to different locations to be processed rather than mining them on the spot. I took a liking to the design enough to rip it off for one of my old Alien fan film concepts (but changed the nose a bit). Again, I lost access to the original art.

Does anyone know what book this was, or who the artist is? I'd love to have copies of the original arts, or even that book again. Thanks. :3

 

[Stingray]

Here's some various artworks I've collected from different places. Classic sci-fi illustrations are so incredibly inspiring to me.

 

[southwestforests]

Does anyone know what book this was, or who the artist is?

Although I do not know who the artist is, flipping through my old TTA books suggests the station's style to be Tony Roberts or Bob Layzell. Potentially Colin Hay.

 

[Stingray]

Some more (mostly for games and music albums):

 

[Stingray]

...