RSS Parrot

Sea Monsters

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/sea-monsters/

Published: March 23, 2026 14:00

I've talked before about the genre debt that science fiction owes to adventure fiction, and the sea is a big example. It's the "outer space" from before outer space became outer space: Unknowable, endless, and inhospitable enough to kill you fast if you…

Space Shuttles

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/space-shuttles/

Published: March 16, 2026 14:00

I almost called this post "strange shuttles," as a spiritual follow-up to my post dedicated to only the most offbeat types of dragons in retro speculative fiction art. However! Even though I'm mostly interested in the inventive sci-fi style version of what…

Angus McKie's Modular Future

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/angus-mckies-modular-future/

Published: March 9, 2026 14:00

Angus McKie's an elusive artist. He had a flurry of stellar science fiction paperback covers across the mid-to-late '70s, before slowing down across the '80s and '90s while working across a variety of other mediums, including his own graphic novels, the…

Odds and Ends - March 2026

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/odds-and-ends-5/

Published: March 2, 2026 15:00

Featuring a protesting genie model, hauntology, and artwork from "the temple of love."

Robert Tinney: Byte Magazine and Beyond

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/robert-tinney-byte-magazine-and-beyond/

Published: February 23, 2026 15:00

Robert Tinney's a big name in retro tech. Here's a collection of lesser-known facts and art from the famed Byte magazine cover artist.

'80s Unicorns by Sue Dawe and Andy Mack

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/80s-unicorns/

Published: February 16, 2026 15:00

Featuring the retro fantasy art of Sue Dawe and Andy Mack, with a cameo from Lisa Frank.

Robots in Love

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/robots-in-love/

Published: February 9, 2026 15:00

Happy Valentine's Day week! Last year, I flew pretty close to the "getting too specific" sun with a post centered on bug aliens in love with humans. This year, we're dropping the requirement that humans be involved and swapping out the proboscis for…

Cool Spaceships

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/cool-spaceships/

Published: February 2, 2026 15:00

Spaceships: The first frontier. Across the '70s and '80s, complex and colorful spaceships were the primary element that publishers everywhere thought to shoehorn onto any science fiction book cover. The diverse visual style of all that spacecraft is…

Strange Dragons

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/strange-dragons/

Published: January 26, 2026 15:00

Someone on Tumblr recently shared this illustration with me: Kinuko Y. Craft's 1990 cover art for The Malacia Tapestry, by Brian Aldiss (and posted on Tumblr by sweathome).I'm sorry to say that I had to look a second time before I noticed the creature…

Beams From Flying Saucers

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/beams-from-flying-saucers/

Published: January 19, 2026 15:00

There's something about the old-school "flying saucer" UFO. I've covered a wide range of classic sci-fi spaceship art, but the flying saucer is in a class by itself. It's mysterious, eerie, unknowable, even horrific. Cryptic and a cryptid. There's only

Ray Guns

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/ray-guns/

Published: January 12, 2026 15:00

Science fiction magazine covers of the '30s-'50s loved thinly-reskinned adventure tropes. Skeletons on deserted islands became skeletons on deserted planets; Wild animal attacks became alien monster attacks. The violence inherent to the genre meant that…

Polar Bear-Drawn Sleighs

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/polar-bear-drawn-sleighs/

Published: January 5, 2026 15:00

Next month is the tenth anniversary of a blog post I wrote for the Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. Like many cool art blogs owned by corporations, it is no longer online, so I don't feel too bad about scavenging that particular post off of the

'70s Influences on Fantasy Film

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/70s-influence-fantasy-film/

Published: December 29, 2025 15:00

Here's a shot from the 1978 animated Lord of the Rings movie, directed by Ralph Bakshi.Here's a John Howe illustration – Howe worked as a chief conceptual designer on the live action 2000s trilogy.And here's a shot from the 2001 Fellowship of

Ed Emshwiller's Four-Armed Santa Claus

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/ed-emshwillers-four-armed-santa-claus/

Published: December 22, 2025 15:00

For the first decade of Galaxy Science Fiction’s 30-year-run, Ed Emshwiller illustrated a total of eight Christmas-themed issues featuring the same character.The version of Santa Claus on these 1950s-era covers had an appearance exactly in line with…

Orange and Teal

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/orange-and-teal/

Published: December 15, 2025 15:00

If you were a movie nerd on the internet in the late 2000s/early 2010s, you're familar with orange and teal. The two colors are opposed to each other on the color contrast wheel, so they look good together. And since orange roughly translates to the fleshy…

Time Machines

https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/time-machines/

Published: December 8, 2025 15:00

Everyone knows, more or less, what a spaceship looks like: The exact shape varies, sure, but if it travels through space, it needs a hull and some thrusters. But what about a time machine? What does moving through time look like? No one knows.In his…