Colin Smith

So, to some quality time in the company of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and Tove Jansson’s enchanting illustrations.

The first night of the Brixton Riots, April 11th 1981, by David Stevens.

And then there was the time just recently that Hugh Jackman met Paddington & it seems they became the best of friends. Bless them both.

The Rich Repose Of Autumn, by Walter E Spradbery, 1924.

“The Lumber Camp - Cutting”, by Clare Leighton, wood-engraving, 1931.

And then there was the time just recently that Hugh Jackman met Paddington & it seems they became the best of friends. Bless them both.

Acclimatise yourself to the Starship Nostromo so that you can make a run for the escape pods if a fearsome alien somehow gets onto the ship. (From a period “Alien” poster mag photo feature.)

Christopher Reeve IS the Man Of Steel!: cover art by Terry Hoffman for a planned Atari game tie-in with 1983’s Superman III. When the movie got a (deserved) critical drubbing, the game was cancelled.

“The Lumber Camp - Cutting”, by Clare Leighton, wood-engraving, 1931.

Aw. Farewell Walter Koenig. Few actors have played important roles in two quite seperate sci-fi series while portraying characters who are fascinatingly different from one another. It was lovely to hear his voice in the finale of Picard III. R.I.P.

Iggy Pop, by Charles Burns, c.1990.

Christopher Reeve IS the Man Of Steel!: cover art by Terry Hoffman for a planned Atari game tie-in with 1983’s Superman III. When the movie got a (deserved) critical drubbing, the game was cancelled.

How has this morning felt? It’s felt just like Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land. Autumnal, wistful, a little bit sad. It’s a beautiful album.

Acclimatise yourself to the Starship Nostromo so that you can make a run for the escape pods if a fearsome alien somehow gets onto the ship. (From a period “Alien” poster mag photo feature.)

Character sheets for Matt “Clayface” Hagen for 1993’s Batman: The Animated Series.

Francis Bacon snapped on London’s Piccadilly Line at lunchtime sometime in the 80s by Johnny Stiletto.

The Who: Pete Townshend, about to catch a guitar he’d hurled into the air, Roger Daltrey & Keith Moon, San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, late March 1976, by Michael Zagaris.

The Who: Pete Townshend, about to catch a guitar he’d hurled into the air, Roger Daltrey & Keith Moon, San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, late March 1976, by Michael Zagaris.

Character sheets for Matt “Clayface” Hagen for 1993’s Batman: The Animated Series.

On this very day in 1981, just 45 years ago, a tiny little two paragraph piece near the bottom of the back page of The Daily Telegraph mentioned evidence gathering about something vaguely threatening called “global warning”.

Francis Bacon snapped on London’s Piccadilly Line at lunchtime sometime in the 80s by Johnny Stiletto.

What a great cover! The cast of 1977’s Live Stiffs Tour: Wreckless Eric, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Larry Wallis & Ian Dury. Some sat in on each other’s sets, with Dury, say, drumming for WE. For some, it was a very competitive business, with most accounts giving the crown to Dury & his Blockheads.

Art Spiegelman using AI because - in his own words - he felt too lazy to create something new using his own skills. I don’t think I can even process that. (Below: Self-Portrait with Maus Mask, by Art Spiegelman, 1989.)

Chatham Square Station, New York, 1941, by Arnold Eagle.

Behind its rather oldschool cover, albeit gawd bless The Kinks, April 22nd 1977’s New Musical Express featured substantial pieces on the newly-born 2000AD & the first Clash album. Which is one reason why, for some of us, punk and 2000AD felt like they belonged to the same rebellious cultural moment.

Chatham Square Station, New York, 1941, by Arnold Eagle.

A rather gorgeous Frank Frazetta concept sketch/painting for the 1979 Battlestar Galactica two-parter “War Of The Gods” in which the evil Count Iblis reveals himself.

Behind its rather oldschool cover, albeit gawd bless The Kinks, April 22nd 1977’s New Musical Express featured substantial pieces on the newly-born 2000AD & the first Clash album. Which is one reason why, for some of us, punk and 2000AD felt like they belonged to the same rebellious cultural moment.

“Give me four versions of you”

Siouxsie Sioux, Mount Fuji, Japan, 1982, by Anton Corbijn.

“Give me four versions of you”

A major problem I have with every film/TV/comics adaptation of Dune is that none of them look much like Bruce Pennington’s classic 1970s paperback covers of Frank Herbert’s novels. Pennington’s were the only visual take on Dune I came across in my early & impressionable teens. They’re my head canon.

West Branch, Iowa, by Grant Wood, 1931.

Siouxsie Sioux, Mount Fuji, Japan, 1982, by Anton Corbijn.

A few choice pages from 1970’s Aurora Model Kit Catalog. Ah, the frustration of seeings ads for the company’s products in imported American comics & knowing I’d never see a single one in the UK, let alone get to own it. If only I could live across the ocean in America, where everything was possible…

A major problem I have with every film/TV/comics adaptation of Dune is that none of them look much like Bruce Pennington’s classic 1970s paperback covers of Frank Herbert’s novels. Pennington’s were the only visual take on Dune I came across in my early & impressionable teens. They’re my head canon.

The Adam Ant comic strip in early 80s issues of TV Tops was a darn sight more fun than you might imagine. With art by Maureen & Gordon Gray, this page sees The Legion Of Adam Ants (*) gather to fight the fiendish Evil. * They’re not called that in the strip. But by crikey they should be.

“Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring”, by Dame Laura Knight, 1943.

A spearhead of DC Comics Silver Age stars from 2004’s “The New Frontier”, by the hugely missed Darwyn Cooke.

The Adam Ant comic strip in early 80s issues of TV Tops was a darn sight more fun than you might imagine. With art by Maureen & Gordon Gray, this page sees The Legion Of Adam Ants (*) gather to fight the fiendish Evil. * They’re not called that in the strip. But by crikey they should be.

When I was 12, the cover to the 1975 NEL edition of Barry Malzberg’s “The Destruction Of The Temple” thoroughly unnerved me. And it still does. How wonderfully disturbing. (Cover often attributed to Jack Faragasso, although Them That Know have been known to throw doubt on that.)

“Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-ring”, by Dame Laura Knight, 1943.