Monday, November 24, 2014

Commander Matt's Space Adventure (1971)


Just a quick oddity today, Commander Matt's Space Adventure (1971) was a record album which included scripts for student to read along. It was intended for the classroom and the directions tell the teacher how to use it. While basically a science fiction story I really like the cover illustration.


..the last line is wonderful:
"Look there---that dear old planet covered in smog---we're home."

Monday, November 17, 2014

This Week (June 21, 1959): "Here's your city of tomorrow"


Another of the old This Week (6-21-59) magazines featuring illustrations by Fred Freeman. While not spaceflight this article certainly is space age. The domed city is an important feature of 50s science fiction and astrofuturism (look it up). How does the "future" look to you from 2014?

This full color painting led readers to see what the city of the future would look like.

I will share the text of this article at the end of this post. First I would like to highlight the other Fred Freeman illustration and the detail he brought to his paintings.

There is so much detail imbedded in this large painting that the article broke it down with numbers to show some of the features of this future city:





The city of the future looks like a cross between Disneyland and many of our modern downtown public parks.








As a treat for those of you who went all the way to the bottom of this post, here are a few 1959 examples of the city of the future actually in place.