A pirate ship slices through space in concept art from the lost Dune movie of the 1970s. Artist Chris Foss crafted covers for some of science fiction's greatest books, reshaping how we see spaceships and robots. Check out our gallery.
Artist Chris Foss is known for his visionary presentation of future technology and weird vistas. He illustrated many book covers in the 70s, 80s and 90s including the Lensman series, Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and Jack Vance's Demon Princes novels. His covers frequently feature spaceships that are sturdier and chunkier than the usual sleek space rockets you see on many other book covers of the time.
His cool vision of the future led him to be asked to work on production designs for Alejandro Jodorowsky's uncompleted Dune movie, in the mid 1970s, and later on Ridley Scott's Alien and Superman: The Movie.
As Alejandro Jodorowsky said in 1977:
And thus were born the mimetic spaceships, the leather and dagger-studded machines of the fascist Sardaukers;- the pachydermatous geometry of Emperor Padishah's golden planet; the delicate butterfly plane and so many other incredible machines, which I am sure will one day populate interstellar space. Chris Foss knows that today's technical reality is tomorrow's falsehood. Chris also knows that today's pure art is tomorrow's reality. Man will conquer space mounted on Foss' spaceships, never in NASA's concentration camps of the spirit. I was grateful for the existence of my friend. He brought the colours of the apocalypse to the sad machines of a future without imagination.
He has a website, ChrisFossArt.com, where you can see more of his work and buy signed prints of all of these images. And he has a group on Facebook, where you can keep up with his projects.
“Everything about it would be bad,” says Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, beginning with your attempt to scoop it up. Despite the fact that white dwarfs are fairly common throughout the universe, the nearest is 8.6 light-years away. Let’s assume, though, that you’ve spent 8.6 years in your light-speed car and that the radiation and heat emanating from the star didn’t kill you on your approach. White dwarfs are extremely dense stars, and their surface gravity is about 100,000 times as strong as Earth’s. “You’d have to get your sample—which would be very hard to carve out—without falling onto the star and getting flattened into a plasma,” Hammergren says. “And even then, the high pressure would cause the hydrogen atoms in your body to fuse into helium.”
(This type of reaction, by the way, is what triggers a hydrogen bomb.)
Then you’d have to worry about confinement. Freeing the sample from its superdense, high-pressure home and bringing it to Earth’s relatively low-pressure environment would cause it to expand explosively without proper containment. But if it didn’t blow up in your face—or vaporize your face, since the stuff’s temperature ranges between 10,000˚ and 100,000˚F—and you somehow got it to your kitchen table, you’d be hard-pressed to feed yourself: A single teaspoon would weigh in excess of five tons. “You’d pop it into your mouth and it would fall unimpeded through your body, carve a channel through your gut, come out through your nether regions, and burrow a hole toward the center of the Earth,” Hammergren says. “The good news is that it’s not quite dense enough to have a strong enough gravitational field to rip you apart from the inside out.”
It probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble anyway, Hammergren laments. White dwarfs are mostly helium or carbon, so your teaspoonful would taste like a whiff of flavorless helium gas or a lick of coal. But if you’re desperate for a taste of star, you don’t really need to travel 8.6 light-years—your fridge is full of the stuff. Most of the elements that make up our bodies and everything around us were formed in the cores of stars and then belched out into the universe over billions of years. Basically everything you eat was once part of a star. Might we recommend some star fruit?
The top 10 worst video games of all time presented to you by http://videogamelists.com. They span all consoles and all years. A game has to be REALLY bad to make this list. Hopefully you have never had the chance to play any of these games.The top 10 worst video games of all time presented to you by... more
A new rumour has pegged Jackie Earle Haley for the role of Sinestro in the The Green Lantern.
You may recall that he’s the mentor character that might just turn out to be a baddie (if they don’t save that for the sequel).
The same unnamed gossipmonger has Superman down for a cameo role in the film, which sounds like a wild and unlikely idea but the character was in at least one draft of the script and since Marvel’s multi-picture mashup scheme, I wouldn’t be surprised to see DC try a similar tactic.A new rumour has pegged Jackie Earle Haley for the role of Sinestro in the The Green... more
If you're near the Carolinas next weekend check out the Escapism Film Fest in Durham: Flash Gordon, The Goonies, Dr. Strangelove, Back to the Future, The Black Hole, Battlestar Galactica, Superman, etc.
(click the link above for details)If you're near the Carolinas next weekend check out the Escapism Film Fest in Durham:... more
"He may not have been faster than a speeding bullet. He wasn’t more powerful than a locomotive. But he did part the Red Sea! And in America he became the inspiration for the country’s leading superhero, the star of Hollywood’s fifth-highest-grossing movie, and a model for the nation’s preeminent symbol, the Statue of Liberty.
America’s most enduring pop-culture icon may be its least known: Moses.
Artists weren’t the first Americans to be influenced by the hero of the Five Books of Moses, the prophet who was born into slavery in ancient Egypt, raised in the pharaoh’s palace, then fled to the desert, where God summoned him in a burning bush to lead his people out of bondage into freedom.
The pilgrims quoted his story on The Mayflower. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams proposed that he be on the seal of the United States in 1776. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were eulogized as his incarnation. Slaves and civil rights marchers chanted his story. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all cited him as inspiration.
But the influence of Moses reached beyond politics into the heart of the American dream. In the 1860s, Americaphiles in France wanted to pay tribute to the American experience of freedom by building a Statue of Liberty. Sculptor Frederic Bartholdi chose a Roman goddess as his model, but he imported two icons from Moses to bring her to life: first, the rays of sun around her head; and second, the tablet in her arms, both of which come from the moment Moses descends Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.
Fifty years later, two bookish Jews in Cleveland, Ohio, channeled their religious anxieties into a cartoon character modeled partly on the superhero of the torah. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster drew on numerous sources for Superman, including Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, and the science fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs. But many of its principal themes are drawn from the Hebrew Bible, and its backstory was taken almost point by point from Moses.
Just as Moses was floated down the Nile in a basket to escape a people facing annihilation, Superman is floated into space in a spaceship to escape a planet facing extinction. Just as Moses is rescued by the pharaoh’s daughter and raised in an alien environment where he conceals his true identity, Superman is rescued by the Kents and raised in an alien environment where he conceals his true identity. Just as Moses is called to liberate a people from tyranny, Superman is called to liberate humanity from evil.
The most influential film of the 1950s, The Ten Commandments reflected the union of Americans and Moses. In the final scene, Charlton Heston blesses his successor, Joshua, then proceeds toward the summit of Mount Nebo, where he will die, having been prevented from entering the Promised Land after a dispute with God. Heston turns and quotes the words on the Liberty Bell: “Go, proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” These words do not come from this moment in Deuteronomy, but from Leviticus 25, yet DeMille understood their significance in American history.
Moses then continues to the top of mountain, where Heston pivots toward the camera and raises his right arm in a perfect tableau of the Statue of Liberty. In the final shot of his valedictory film, DeMille crowns his paean to the greatest prophet who ever lived by parading him through the medley of American icons to which he had been compared over the years—the Liberty Bell, Lady Liberty—until he becomes the embodiment of America enlightening the world.""He may not have been faster than a speeding bullet. He wasn’t more powerful than a... more
Let’s say you want to watch some TV that really captures the flavor of the original comic book, or is just a great show in its own right. Now, you can! Through the magic of the Internet, some of the television’s greatest super-hero shows are available for free, with limited commercial interruption, video download sites. All of the episodes listed here are available from either Hulu.com or AOL.tv, and many are available at both locations.Let’s say you want to watch some TV that really captures the flavor of the original... more
If you hired someone in Japan who has never seen Superman to design a knock-off costume of the Man of Steel, he might come up with something as awful as Mon-El's new costume.If you hired someone in Japan who has never seen Superman to design a knock-off... more
It would be easy to bypass Friday nights, but there’s a surprising amount of geeky goodness here. This may be the night you want to DVR a couple of shows you’ve never seen and try them out.It would be easy to bypass Friday nights, but there’s a surprising amount of geeky... more
Despite rumours and speculations, Diane Nelson (president of the newly created DC Entertainment) told MTV: "We've obviously done a lot of great things behind the property in our history, and it's a key part of the family, but we don't have current plans behind Superman."Despite rumours and speculations, Diane Nelson (president of the newly created DC... more
Superman's home was destryoed not by Kryptonite or sharks with lasers on their heads, but by common household molds and bird poop.Superman's home was destryoed not by Kryptonite or sharks with lasers on their heads,... more
This is a picture of Clark Kent (AKA Tom Welling) look for the new season of Smallville.
Complete with trench coat, boots, jeans and a black T-shirt (complete with trademark Superman logo), kind looks like someone from 'The Matrix' don't you think?This is a picture of Clark Kent (AKA Tom Welling) look for the new season of... more
Superman continua a non rispondere alle domande di Peter Parker, primo perchè ha un editore svizzero, un certo Lex Luthor (come se essere svizzeri fosse un difetto), secondo perchè Peter Parker è un evasore fiscale, e lui, con gli evasori fiscali non ci parla perchè sono dei polli. Peter Parker, potevi essere più furbo e fare come Superman no? Non li conosci i paradisi fiscali?Superman continua a non rispondere alle domande di Peter Parker, primo perchè ha un... more
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A massive methamphetamine ring that used women as drug mules and classic "Batman" and "Superman" comic books to hide drug profits has been dismantled after a year-long undercover operation, state officials said today.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced that 41 suspects were indicted, with 19 suspected of violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.
A state grand jury handed down the indictments last week and as many as 200 officers were involved in the arrests of suspects. The suspects were operating out of houses in mostly the north metro area.A massive methamphetamine ring that used women as drug mules and classic "Batman" and... more
Add-2 drops his new joint "Superman". I believe he shot a video for this song, but there were some problems with the footage...anyway, the horns are pretty fresh, and it reminds me of "Fly That Knot" by Talib Kweli...Add-2 drops his new joint "Superman". I believe he shot a video for this song, but... more
LeVar Burton has been part of the SF&F and Comics world for a really long time. It's great to see that he is still at it. He will voice the hero, Black Lightning, in the new feature length film, "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" which will be released Sept. 29, 2009 on DVD and Blu-ray. (BTW, why do black superheros always have to have the descriptor "Black" in their hero name? But I digress) I'm so looking forward to hearing that sexy-sexy man's voice. (Can I say that? Oh, well, just did.) Swoon!LeVar Burton has been part of the SF&F and Comics world for a really long time. It's... more
