... Money for God's sake... or so says the 1976 10cc song. This particular page looks at some of my favourite pop art and is full of links to other topics such as literature, music, etc, with work from people I have appreciated for quite a while now like Roger Dean, John Howe and Ted Nasmith or Alan Lee. There are also references to what may be called " Cult phenomena" , such as Final Fantasy, that exploit classical subjects using modern day, state of the art or groundbreaking imagery work.
Click on image for a closer look...or here to see more
Secret Gardens
I read once that websites are, apparently, like modern day status symbols. You know... big cars, small hands... that sort of thing and are supposed to be bigger, better, flashier than the other guy's!
Personally, I think that websites are more like gardens. Secret or open, neat or disorderly, minimalist or modern day Versailles, whatever their aspect they are what they are and reflect the person behind them. Me? I see my websites like my mum's garden... an apparent mess hiding some gems.
Finally, trimming here, adding there... there's always something going on in this particular garden so feel free to come in and wander round and if you like the images and graphics, feel free to share, you're welcome, but remember where they came from and above all feel free to come back and visit SilentWings133 whenever you want.
Pop Art & Graphics
Right from the beginning images, pictures, cartoon comics and books have, like music, dotted the good and the not so good periods of my life, from.Dan Dare (Dan Who?) to Roger Dean, and many, many more!.
(Click on the images to see real size)
The transition from the Eagle Annual to Sci-Fi was gradual but logical and with it came the books from the masters of the genre, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Moorcock , followed by a growing interest in the accompanying, fantasy rich book cover art.....
The artwork, initially used to promote the content inside the book covers where very often works of fantasy in themselves, complementing but never over-shadowing the book itself, for example Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man", or James Blish's series "Cities in Flight", and Moorcock's "Elric" saga.
Then, at the beginning of the 1970s, I discovered JRR Tolkien's masterwork: "Lord of the rings". Of course, The "LOTR" had been around for quite a while but it started making an impact on a broader public in the 1970s along with various other complementary works, such as "The Hobbit" and "The Simarilion", containing sketchings, graphics and maps all meant to enhance and supplement the stories they punctuated.
The Tolkein legendarium catapulted numerous graphics artists such as Tony Galuidi, John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Naismith, amongst others, into the limelight, some excellent and some not so.
Out of the myyriad of graphics circulating on the Internet in the early 2000's was my all time favourite depicting the mysterious hidden Elven kingdom of the 02nd Age, the City of Seven Names, called "Gondolin".
Just like the publisher's record companies realized that the covers went a long to way to encourages sales and they realized that they could sell a few more albums, a little quicker, if the packaging was a little more exciting. The music at the end of the '60s, with all that was going on, was an incredible source of inspiration and albums like Sergeant Pepper's forged the way. People spent hours trying to understand what the cover was all about and discussion groups were even set up to talk about it!
Hundreds of groups and record companies jumped onto the "Band Wagon" and realized that the covers outside and the posters inside were as much a part of the cult as the music itself and the really alternative "Classical" music flourished, thanks to bands like ELP, Genesis (of the 70s), Pink Floyd and Yes, making it all perhaps a little more accessible and understandable thanks to the Pop Art culture that went
Roger Dean also put his art to the service ofother groups such as the African group "Osibisa"(see Music section) and their famous fliying elephants...
...as well as simply publishing work for himself
BTW. Feel free to right click on the graphics but please remember that they belong to Roger Dean)
Other artists were busy too. Among them Frank Frazetta
The producers realised that "Merchandizing" was a non-negligable source of income and with every film release came the marketing campaign...
...and the spoofs 
...
...of the real thing.
Films
In a perfect world, I would have shown all of my 50 or so favourite films but I'll just settle for a few ...
On to more Art & some surprises
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©N.Richards-10/2010
