Tomeka in Pink by Tricia Kaman

There is, I think, no arguing that contemporary genre art has a character distinct from previous decades. I also think that while there are big shifts in aesthetics somewhat aligning with each decade of the 20th century, here in the 21st things have definitely slowed down — I feel like the look of genre art has fossilized somewhat in the last 20 years. I don’t have a good explanation for why. Sometimes I wonder if I’m blinded by nostalgia, and that there really aren’t any obvious objective differences at all.

Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023) is a compelling argument, I think, that there ARE definite differences. The book, by Adam Rowe (and spinning out of his social media accounts dedicated to, well, ’70s science fiction art) looks at both artists and thematic categories of art from the period, mostly from paperback covers, and offers commentary and historical context in the text. The result is startling: a body of work by a variety of artists working in their own styles that nevertheless seems visually unified. With the exception of a couple outliers, this stuff all feels of the ’70s. The fact that there are some inclusions from both the ’60s and ’80s makes this even clearer.

I think the most interesting thing about this is how bizarre some of the ’70s art seems to be. A lot of these artists appear to be entirely off the leash, delivering work they WANTED to produce rather than what they were directed to produce (you can see a shift toward clearly pairing the cover art with the content of the book in the later part of the decade). There was also more money in the work, then, so speed wasn’t quite so big a part of the equation as it is now.

And, greater questions of genre art aside, Worlds Beyond Time is still a mesmerizing collection, worthy of your time even if you just want to feed pictures to your eyeballs.

Dartmoor - March 2020

Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

guy tries to toss a cigarette on the ground but the ground parries it and it flies back into his mouth and he solemnly continues to smoke it

and god said to the angels: the age of prophets has come to a close. Speak not to mortal men, unless they get high enough. Then it's fine.

more Isabel Badkitten

they should invent a waking up where you’re not in pain and agony

the dev patel girlies have KNOWN how hot he is for years and years but the little giggle I heard from a grown man seated next to me when he took his shirt off in monkey man tells me it's truly over for everyone else. god bless

Next up: the heron! Another from this series.

Obviously this is an adorable bit but I'm so struck by how different this is from so many little kid shows today like.......the muted colors. no background noise. no sound effects. you can literally hear Jim Henson breathing between his lines. Ernie is talking very slowly, meandering, letting the kids digest the info. it's a full minute before you get the payoff of it all. man

Foggy Morning by Szabo Ervin-Edward

Mount Rainier, Washington by Gabriel Miller

rats live on no evil star

the world is a better place with trans women in it