Alan Gutierrez
Alan Gutierrez's career in sci-fi covers spans the majority of the '80s and '90s.
70s Sci-Fi Art
Let's look at a bunch of retro science fiction cover art
Latest posts
Giant People
I mostly picked this theme because I really love the image below. It's Howard V. Brown's cover art for the June 1924 issue of Scientific American , depicting "The world in miniature: Model makers at work on a huge relief map." In other words, it&
Jael
Jael's science fiction and fantasy illustration career lasted an impressive 68 years or so.
Frogs
It's finally time to cover the humble frog's presence in retro speculative fiction art. Moistorized. Flourishing. Occasionally rising up for eco-terroristic revenge. Science fiction artists don't have quite the same collective love for frogs as they have demonstrated for cats. Still, frogs are
Book Notes: Women of Wonder
Women of Wonder, a 2015 collection edited by Cathy Fenner, focuses much more on fantasy art than on science fiction, but there's a lot of interesting recent art by women artists in here.
Odds and Ends: July 2026
I posted these two iterations of the same Chris Foss canvas on Tumblr a while back. Foss had a habit of painting over his previous work to create a new scene (Frank Frazetta would do something similar). In its science fiction form, this one was the 1973 cover art for
James Allen St. John
Active mostly across the 1910s through the 1940s, James Allen St. John was famous as the definitive Edgar Rice Burroughs artist.
Weird Galaxies
I'm still not entirely sure if Wojtek Siudmak is intentionally making a "wormhole" visual pun with his 1985 cover to a French-language edition of Jack Vance's The Blue World . On one hand, English isn't his first language. On the other hand.
Alex Schomburg
Alex Schomburg stands out for the sheer length of time he spent as an active science fiction artist: His first work for the genre was in 1925, and he kept creating new art up until the mid-80s.
Surface Reflections
I wrote about space helmet reflections in this newsletter back in 2020, a topic that I later turned into one of my favorite sections in my 2023 art book Worlds Beyond Time . However, seven years later, I still haven't written about other types of reflections in retro speculative
Book Notes: The Science Fiction Book - An Illustrated History
Featuring Virgil Finlay, John W. Campbell Jr., uncredited Howard V. Brown covers, Frankenstein, and Almos Zaschtk, but not in that order.
Alien Waterfalls
When crafting an atmospheric landscape on an alien planet, it's always best to borrow the coolest, most interesting elements found here in the beautiful natural world.
Philippe Caza
Is it possible to pick just one artwork to represent French comic book artist Philippe Caza? They're all so good.
The Fairytale-Themed 1976 Fender Guitar Catalog
Step aside, USA and your paltry 250th birthday. The year 2026 marks a far more meaningful anniversary. It's officially a full half a century since the debut of Fender's fairytale-themed guitar catalog. We've covered vintage ephemora before, from '80s Maplin catalogs to
Book Notes: Paint or Pixel
A 2008 essay collection of artists discussing the merits of digital tools, including Jael, John Berkey, Jill Bauman, Tom Kidd, Frank Wu, and more.