Science Fiction Cover Art

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Michael Whelan to Clifford D. Simak's 1976 novel 'The Trouble With Tycho' an expansion of a short story first published in a 1960 issue of 'Amazing Stories' magazine. The artwork includes an inventive way of incorporating the artists insignia.

 

[Graham1973]

The John Berkey cover to the first (1981) edition of Philip K. Dick's novel 'VALIS'

 

[Michel Van]

A Syd Mead illustration of unknown date.

If i recall it
that Artwork for United State Steel 1960s

 

[robunos]

A moonbase by David A. Hardy, apparently dating from 1972.

I'm not entirely sure , as my copy is packed away inside one of several boxes , but this may be from Hardy's 'Challenge of the Stars' book . . .

cheers ,
Robin .

 

[Graham1973]

A quartet of images by French-Canadian artist Jean-Pierre Normand, clearly a member of the 'School of Foss'.

 

[Graham1973]

Robert McCall's concept art for the USS Cygnus featured in the 1979 Disney film 'The Black Hole'.

 

[Graham1973]

Ed Valigursky evokes the earlier pulp era on the cover of the October 1957 issue of 'Fantastic Science Fiction' magazine.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Richard Corben for 'The 1975 Annual World's Best SF' edited by Donald A. Wollheim part of an anthology series that ran between 1965 and 1990, the year the editor died. The artwork in this case illustrates a story within the volume, 'The Sun's Tears' by Brian Stableford.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Trevor Webb for the 1985 Panther and 1987/1990 reissues by Grafton of 'A Scanner Darkly' (1977) by Philip K. Dick. The art is clearly inspired by the 1982 film 'Blade Runner' which was in turn inspired by 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' (1968) also by Philip K. Dick.

This novel was also filmed in 2006 and is most well known for this cameo....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bliFkRnN6e4

 

[Graham1973]

Robert McCall's concept art for the USS Palomino for the 1979 Disney film 'The Black Hole' which was clearly not used as the basis of the ship that appeared in the film.

 

[Graham1973]

A pair of untitled images by Peter Elson found on the artists memorial website. What they were intended for is unknown. But there is a connection with the legendary science fiction film 'Forbidden Planet' (1956) since the spacecraft in each is clearly based on that films C57-D.

 

[Graham1973]

Peter Elson's cover art to the 1993 ROC Books edition of Arthur C. Clarke's 1972 anthology 'Of Time And Stars'. The cover illustration is based on one of the stories within, 'Hide and Seek' which was first published in 1949. Source was the artists memorial website.

 

[Sineva]

A Syd Mead illustration of unknown date.

If i recall it
that Artwork for United State Steel 1960s

Yes,its from Concepts.
Heres the whole image
You can find a complete scan of it online here
https://www.scribd.com/document/993305314/Syd-Mead-Concepts

 

[Brett Davidson]

Art Shutter on Angus McKie

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyrur6CmOb8

 

[Michel Van]

Chris Foss 1978 cover for The Bloodstar conspiracy’ by E.E. Smith (and Stephen Goldin)

 

[Graham1973]

This is another pair of untitled images found on the Peter Elson memorial website. Whereas the earlier pair I posted seem to have been inspired by 'Forbidden Planet' (1956), this pair draws on visual ideas found in '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968), a possible clue as to when they were created.

 

[Sineva]

Art Shutter on Angus McKie

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyrur6CmOb8

This is one of his works I really like.
From his graphic novel,So beautiful & so dangerous.

 

[martinbayer]

A Syd Mead illustration featuring a 1950s style Ford concept car. Not sure when this originated but the license plate reads 1-18-59 (e.g. 18th of January, 1959)

A man can dream...

 

[martinbayer]

From the French edition of The War of the Worlds by Charles Dudouyt (French, 1885–1946). Published by Calmann-Lévy ~ 1917
Very close to Wells' description apart from the colour - the drooling lower lip, the ability to raise itself on its tentacles in Martian gravity.

We don't need any stinking outer space aliens on this here planet, no siree Bob...

 

[T. A. Gardner]

This is one of his works I really like.
From his graphic novel,So beautiful & so dangerous.

This one is from the movie Heavy Metal.

 

[martinbayer]

This one is from the movie Heavy Metal.

Looks just like some some lazy mindless sloppy pacman style corporate video character design to me, but hey, if you enjoy it, you do you, bro...

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Looks just like some some lazy mindless sloppy pacman style corporate video character design to me, but hey, if you enjoy it, you do you, bro...

No, the movie was a series of related cartoons that mimicked the magazine version. This particular segment lampooned the Pentagon, Cheech and Chong, and typical American Sci Fi at the time (early 80's).

It's actually a pretty good movie.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1068461-heavy_metal

The soundtrack is awesome as it was done by a who's who of the finest heavy metal and rock artists and bands from that era.

This is one of the segments (with music by Cheap Trick)

 

[martinbayer]

No, the movie was a series of related cartoons that mimicked the magazine version. This particular segment lampooned the Pentagon, Cheech and Chong, and typical American Sci Fi at the time (early 80's).

It's actually a pretty good movie.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1068461-heavy_metal

The soundtrack is awesome as it was done by a who's who of the finest heavy metal and rock artists and bands from that era.

This is one of the segments (with music by Cheap Trick)

Well hello there my dearest Gardner, as a freshly minted aerospace engineering retiree from Boeing I'll take your word for it, but in my day and age I prefer to watch shows and movies that do not require whatsoever previous tribal knowledge of any made up alternate universes, galaxies, solar systems, worlds, species, or habitats, but instead feature actual real life actors rather than drawn comic book characters, so I'm eagerly, breathlessly, looking forward to your recommendations fitting my criteria... And oh by the Way, I've already burned though Dowton Abbey...

 

[Graham1973]

For the 1966 Four Square Books edition of 'Escape On Venus' the fourth book in Edgar Rice Burrough's 'Venus' series artist Josh Kirby went with a classic 'Macho Woman With A Gun' scene.

 

[Sineva]

Looks just like some some lazy mindless sloppy pacman style corporate video character design to me, but hey, if you enjoy it, you do you, bro...

The pacman arcade game debuted in may 1980,the first chapter of so beautiful & so dangerous was published in the oct 78 edition of Heavy Metal magazine.
I`m pretty sure the design of the ship was based on the old smiley face symbol.
The ship itself despite its size is actually just a small shuttle,and in profile view looks rather different.The mothership in orbit is miles long.
The sequence the image is a part of is quite funny.
You have a talking head referencing the so called "greenbank formula" [the drake equation],a way to try & calculate the number of "technical civilizations" in the galaxy,the talking head confidently asserts there is only one,"our own",not realising the crew & passengers of an alien starship have been watching the tv transmission & decided to pay a visit.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover to the 52nd issue of GDWs house magazine 'Challenge' depicting a fraught moment in inter-species relations. The artwork is by Thomas Kidd.

 

[Graham1973]

Another of the Untitled artworks to be found on the Peter Elson memorial website, this piece was clearly intended for the cover of a novel. The note accompanying it suggests it was intended for George Orwell's '1984' (1948) but given what's depicted on the cover I really don't think that was the case.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Peter Elson to the 1978 UK edition by Sphere Books of 'Time-Storm' (1977) by Gordon R. Dickson. The same cover was used by Sphere Books until 1987.

 

[Michel Van]

This one is from the movie Heavy Metal.

Here link to the madness with overdose plutoniumniborg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQKDblMSp4

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Alfred Kelsner to an unidentified issue of 'Perry Rhodan'.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by Denis Loubet for the 81st issue of 'Space Gamer'.

 

[Michel Van]

The cover art by Alfred Kelsner to an unidentified issue of 'Perry Rhodan'.

that is cover for Planetnovel #400 from Perry Rhodan
note: Alfred Kelsner make cover the traditional way with Paint on canvas !

 

[Graham1973]

The covers by Alan Craddock (White Dwarf 27) & Terry Oates (White Dwarf 28), issues which featured portions of Marcus Rowland's pioneering series 'The Dungeon at the End of the Universe' the first look at mixing space with Dungeon's and Dragons, well before the appearance of 'Spelljammer'.

 

[Graham1973]

A chance find on the Say Hello Spaceman blog (Inactive since 2024) in the form of covers by unidentified artists for the 1977 and 1980(?) editions of 'Great Adventure Stories For Boys', Leonard Matthews (ed.) part of the Hamlyn Story Library. The blogger notes that the first cover features a spacesuit that seems to be based off elements from the Gerry Anderson TV series, specifically 'Space 1999', 'UFO' and the Hammer film 'Moon Zero Two'.

The second cover cannot date from before the release date of 'Alien' (1979) as both the spacesuit in the foreground and the spacecraft in the background come from that film.

Later: This one is on the internet archive. Included is a sampling of the more science fiction related interior artwork. Both covers seem to be based off the first story entitled 'Revolt on Prison Planet'.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover and cover art by Peter Elson to the 1984 anthology 'Adventure Stories for Boys and Girls' which was published by both Octopus and Marylebone Books. Despite what is on the cover the closest this anthology comes to science fiction is an account of the Vostok 6 mission attributed to Valentina Tereshkova. The cover was sourced from the Internet Archive, the cover art came from the artists memorial website where the image is listed as 'Untitled 1'.

 

[Sineva]

A chance find on the Say Hello Spaceman blog (Inactive since 2024) in the form of covers by unidentified artists for the 1977 and 1980(?) editions of 'Great Adventure Stories For Boys', Leonard Matthews (ed.) part of the Hamlyn Story Library. The blogger notes that the first cover features a spacesuit that seems to be based off elements from the Gerry Anderson TV series, specifically 'Space 1999', 'UFO' and the Hammer film 'Moon Zero Two'.

Thats actually the suit from the space 1999 episode mission of the darians,its a hybrid using the suit body from a moon zero two suit & the helmet from a ufo suit,the helmet isnt from one of the doppleganger suits,but one that was made for ufo.
I guess the props department lost the helmet that went with the suit body & had to improvise,still you have to really look to notice the difference.

Say Hello Spaceman is a great website & a rather unique resource as I`ve not found anything else like it online.

https://sayhellospaceman.blogspot.com/

 

[Sineva]

Heres a neat scene that would`ve taken place between Beneath the planet of the apes & Escape.
Dr Milo discovering Stewarts corpse in the submerged Icarus [illustration by Erik Gist]
From the novel “Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes” by Andrew Gaska.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Chris Achilleos for Alan Dean Foster's 1989 novel 'Flinx in Flux'.

 

[Graham1973]

'The Young Scientist Book of Space Flight' (1976) was one of many Useborne books aimed at young readers interested in science. These two images come from a copy on the internet archive and as the author of the Say Hello Spaceman blog points out, was what he first thought of when he watched the TV movie 'Plymouth'. His site has better quality scans of the spacesuit heraldry page and the left hand side of the double page spread on pages 28/29.

https://sayhellospaceman.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-young-scientist-book-of-space.html

 

[Hood]

Back in the day when Sunday newspapers were 2-foot thick, the Sunday Times had a children's supplement called the Funday Times and in one edition they printed that moonbase artwork (must have been mid-90s). I loved that artwork and must have drawn that Moonbase about 20 times! It's really cool to see it again after all these years.