Preview of incredible science fiction and pulp art auction

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On Tuesday June 26, 2012, Heritage Auctions is hosting a reception and preview of its upcoming illustration art auction featuring The Jerry Weist Collection of science fiction and fantasy art, pin-up, pulp and paperback art, and classic golden age/mainstream illustration art. Above: Gil Elvgren's "Skirting the Issue" (1956). Below: Wally Wood's "Mars is Heaven!" complete 8-page story, Weird Science #18 (EC Comics) (1953).

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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: Art and Design • Comic Books • pinup art

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The Snowden Principle

retepslluerb

I love how they wonder if they had returned to earth by accident.

“No! No! We checked every mile of the the way! We went past the moon and out into space. I’m sure we’re on Mars, sir!”

I thought 1/3 of normal gravity should be a dead giveaway.
- jandrese
  
  Or in the worst case, just look up in the sky and see if you can find Earth.
  
  I’m always annoyed at stories when they require everybody to act like an idiot and question nothing.
  
  “Something crazy is happening!”
  “Lets just go with the flow.”
  “Ok.”
  
  The whole plan would have fallen apart if there had been a single person on that ship who questioned what the hell was happening or used a tiny bit of common sense.
  
  Then again, if the (spoiler alert) aliens can read minds, maybe they can control them a little too? Maybe just enough to surpress higher reasoning and make everybody just malleable enough to fall for the ruse?
  
  I guess the moral of the story is: Don’t try to explore planets with hostile mind controlling aliens.
http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

Somebody I showed it to said: Classic pinup artists always were coming up with inventive ways of painting a girl’s clothes coming off, but this one is like a snapshot 0.5 seconds before a tragic roadkill accident.
- malindrome
  
  I know right? And she’s not even wearing a helmet.
  - jimh
    
    Or a bra!
    - http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
      
      Nope…she IS wearing a bra, it’sjust one of those really sheer kinds, ala Agent Provocateur….on a sadder note, Goddam do I miss Ray Bradbury.
- Halloween_Jack
  
  The instantly-detaching, non-scooter-drivetrain-fouling breakaway skirt is part of the fantasy, just like those Art Frahm pinups where the woman whose panties’ elastic suddenly and catastrophically fails never trips over them and suffers severe facial injuries as she face-plants onto the sidewalk.
robdobbs

That woman is seconds away from a very painful, possibly deadly - definitely sexy – accident. If she’s lucky, she’ll just lock up the back wheel skid to a controlled stop. More likely she’ll lay it down and slide a bit as her skin rips off her thighs before hitting her unprotected head on the curb or a passing car, suffering brain damage.
- http://twitter.com/michaelsayyes michael b
  
  Well, you’re a buzz kill.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  More likely she’ll lay it down and slide a bit as her skin rips off her thighs before hitting her unprotected head on the curb or a passing car, suffering brain damage.
  
  Unlikely given that she’s obviously underwater.
- jimh
  
  I prefer to think that it’s an extremely light silk wrap skirt, and will not lock up the rear wheel, but will just get pulled into the spokes. Failing this, I prefer to think that she is an oil painting, and therefore in no real danger!
- Preston Sturges
  
  Or if she’s decapitated rear ending a truck, that’s a “Jane Mansfield.”
  
  http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/m/Mansfield/jayne_mansfield.htm
Gary61

gorgeous gal on a bike … but, technical issues:
She’s stomping on the gearshift, but NOT pulling the clutch lever – downshifting while riding FAST – AND her blue skirt is getting tangled into the rear wheel spokes – she’s about to go ass-over-teakettle over the handlebars.
She may look good now – but she’s gonna be riding to the hospital inna few minutes …
- http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
  
  If you pitch that idea to David Cronenberg I’ma come after you. I had it first.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    >>> If you pitch that idea to David Cronenberg
    
    A remake of “Crash?”
http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

Someone should make a series of classic pinups as two panel comics and fill in ‘the next frame.’
ElfSternberg

I mean, is that even a real Elvgren? Where’s the celery?
- malindrome
  
  You’re thinking of Art Frahm. If you want to go through a rabbit-hole of weird psycho-sexual imagery (featuring celery), James Lileks has thoughtfully compiled a gallery.
http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

I’m a bit disappointed that none of the Art Frahm has any celery.
Fogbert

The navigator always gets killed by a bad space person.
tocs

Man, the girl on the bike is almost a cool picture. Almost. It just makes me cringe. I do not think she would be killed or brain damaged. Most motorcycle accidents do not result in death or serious injury but this looks painful. As noted above it is a good thing that she is an oil painting.

The guys in the spaceship are worse. Did they not look out the window before they landed. It seams you would want a pretty good idea what you are landing on even if it is not on a group of kids playing in the park.
Preston Sturges

The first panel of the comic looks a lot like it was drawn by “Spain.”
Looking up Spain on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_Rodriguez
reveals “(Spain was) Strongly influenced by 1950s EC comic book illustrator Wally Wood, …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Wood
Who drew the strip shown above!
Preston Sturges

Reading the Ray Bradbury cartoon, I was prepared to make ironic comments about the cliched story line, but this very familiar story works and works well, largely because it is so well structured. It builds and builds, and it would work as a comic book or it would work around the campfire.

Not to ratfuck the whole thing, but it occurs to me that this same pacing is used in Bradbury’s “Zero Hour.”

Oh and in the second page of the comic, one of the astronauts has broomhandled Mauser, like Hans Solo.
Marcus 9000

The girl on the bike IS amazing science fiction.
How else could a picture from 1956 show a Yamaha Twin-Jet 100 YL1 from the mid 1960′s.
- bob therieau
  
  Or that she doesn’t have a clutch lever or that the forks are misaligned with the handlebars. She’s really and truly screwed, but I will happily take time off to nurse her back to health when she gets out of hospital.
Michael Hart

That would be the perfect wall painting for a beach house in Florida, preferably mine! I’ll see you at ftlauderdalevideoguide