STROMBOLI'S PUPPET THEATER

Disneyland is sitting on top of a gold mine, and they don't seem to realize it. That's it above: Stromboli's theater from "Pinochio," pictured here in a concept painting by Tenggren.

What a beautiful building! It has the feel of a wooden circus tent. It's architecture that's meant for fun.

Here's (above) the original Albert Hurter drawing that Tenggren referenced. The perspective's off, and the rear of the building lacks detail, but it's still a powerful statement. Tenngren improved it by moving the Russian-style tower closer to the front and bringing the banner poles closer in.

Hmmm...well, maybe the tower is okay where it is.

I'm always amazed to see how cloth artifacts can improve the look of a building. Awnings, banners, draperies...all serve to take the hard edge off structural geometry.

The Hurter/Tenggren building was never used in the film. The design didn't go to waste though, it's one of the main attractions in Fantasyland.

I love this facade, though it seems underused in its role as the front door to a crystal glass store. It would work better as the come-on of a functional marionette theater, with a barker and teaser puppet show on the balcony. With poles and banners restored, with some real wood, it would make a great stand-alone structure as Hurter and Tenngren imagined it, especially if it was kept small and intimate, as in the original artwork.

If Disneyland hosted a real marionette theater, imagine how many puppets they'd sell in the gift shop!

 Maybe the show would be hosted by a Stromboli look-alike. I nominate puppet enthusiast Steve Worth. For the puppeteers...maybe the Flexitoons people.

The plot for the show? Just like the film: a bewildered Pinochio interacts with manic puppets.

                                                                  C'mon Disney!

"NOW, VOYAGER"

Aaaargh! Lots of goof-ups here! It's blurry, too small, full of misspellings, the story doesn't make sense, the characters aren't sufficiently identified, typos....what a mess! Unfortunately I'm busy and don't have time to correct any of this! So here it goes....AS IS. It's the comic book version of that venerable 40s love story........"NOW VOYAGER"

Copyright Note: The film, "Now Voyager" is owned 100% by Warner Bros, or the subsequent owners. This is a one-time only parody.

RECENT ASTRONOMY PICTURES

Here's more pictures from that never-fails-to-please astronomy site, "Astronomy Picture of the Day," link on the right sidebar.  Above is the clearest picture yet of the surface of the Sun. Click all these pictures to enlarge.

Recently a gigantic rip appeared on the Sun's surface. Flares were ejected and the rent closed again.

Here's (above) the Earth and the Moon as seen from the Messenger probe near Mercury.

Above: not a ring nebula....a ring GALAXY! A number of these things are on record. Nobody knows how they formed, but it's speculated that bar-shaped arms may have been present earlier in the galaxies' development.

Above, a Martian plain as it was recently seen from the Opportunity rover. I mistook this for an aerial view when I first saw it. Click to enlarge.

Not recent (above), but still interesting: a Voyager picture of the odd wrinkling in Neptune's atmosphere.
It reminds me of the way that pond scum distorts near the shore.

Above, dark clouds in the Carina Nebula, home of supermassive stars. Do you see those canine shapes? I'm surprised that it's not called The Dog Nebula.

Here's (above) a vortex in the clouds over the South pole of Venus.

Above, Calypso, a moon of Saturn. Nobody knows why it's so smooth.

Last but not least: turbulent clouds in the Lagoon Nebula.

THE NEXT NEW THING (PART 2)

Here it is: my prediction for the next new thing, the sweeping change that will alter everything in the next 10-20 years. It'll effect the way you dress, the way you speak, what you name your children, the kind of house you live in...everything. That sweeping change is........

...STEAM PUNK! I know, I know...you think Steampunk is a niche thing, something a few fans do at sci-fi conventions. Until recently I thought the same thing myself, but then I stumbled on the Steampunk sites on the net.

They're all over the place! Don't take my word for it; check them out for yourself. Check out the number of times it appears in design and architecture magazines. Check out the number of anime films and manga that are devoted to it. Check out the fan art.

 Don't be surprised if you wake up one day to discover that post-modern architecture has morphed into Victorian Steampunk (above). The two styles are more compatible than you might think. You can find a lot of hybrids right now.

Ordinary stores like Restoration Hardware and Ikea are carrying Pseudo-Steampunk lines. They don't call it that, but that's what it is.

This (above) is from Pottery Barn's Fall catalogue. It's an updated version of a Victorian living room, something Jules Verne would almost have found comfortable.

Make no mistake about it: Steampunk is in our future. It'll morph into a more pure form (above) with each passing year.

Eventually even your computer (above) will look like something out of George Pal's "Time Machine" movie.

Cars (above) will look a lot different. Inside they'll be high-tech for sure, but on the surface they'll resemble something your great grandfather might have seen when he was a kid.

Expect clothes (above) to change. Expect a return to etiquette. Far from resisting the new fashions, goths and emos will embrace them.

So that's my prediction for the not too distant future. Ignore it at your peril!

TIME TO CARVE THAT PUMPKIN!

I couldn't resist leading with this picture by commenter Joel Brinkerhoff. The baby is Joel's granddaughter and the picture was taken by the baby's aunt, Joanne Zarana, kittens by Joel. Man, Joanne and Joel make a great team. Imagine how this would sell if it was a Halloween poster!

Now, to get down to the business of carving...how did the carver do this (above)!? I doubt that he did smooth, rounded lines like that with a knife  Maybe he used an electric hand saw, but then how did he do the teeth? I'm guessing it was done by hand with an X-acto and a file.

It seems like every year there's a new fashion in pumpkin carving. This year it's gotta be the Aztec head (above), replete with face tattoos. I saw a bunch on the net.

Niiiice (above)!

A variation on the Aztec pumpkin...the Tiki mask!

Ah, the perennial favorite (above), the psycho midget pumpkin!

Lotsa good designs here (above)!

Here's (above) a nice variant on the pumpkin-eating-pumpkin motiff. 

A black scarecrow (right) with black clothes, backlit here by the sky... but an electric light and fog machine would do a good job, too.

Some squashes (above) are red, right? And you gotta love the Super Big Mac pumpkin.

Excellent, excellent!!! The horns really make it!

Haw! Fire pumpkins! Who wouda' thought!?

Above, a pumpkin scarecrow. I put up one of these on my lawn for three years in a row, and kids loved it. I used torn white rags. big black gloves, and a really wide pumpkin with the hole cut on the bottom, just like you see here. I got the design from an old-time greeting card similar to this one. 

H. J. WARD: ILLUSTRATOR

H. J. Ward was incredible, wasn't he? I thought it might be fun to take one of his pulp illustrations (above) and see how it was done, step by step. I'm not aware that those kind of pictures exist, but maybe we can get the same kind of effect (sort of) with Photoshop filters.  Let's try it!

Wow! A "squint" (daub) filter really helps to simplify things.  It's possible that when Ward laid in his first colors, the canvas looked something like this (above). Without distracting details it's easy to see that the picture is mostly red, yellow, blue and orange, the classic newsstand colors. There's some green and brown in the part of the picture we can't see.

Hmmmm. I see a mushy "X" pattern, with a creamy flesh-yellow on one diagonal, and an orange on the other. I also see a large triangle consisting of three dark points. The triangle might have carried our eye out of the picture if the point on the lower left hadn't been so small.

Sharpening the squint a little (above) gives us our first shadow colors. Maybe this is how Ward handled it. He laid in basic color fields first, then started to add shadows for volume and modelling.

Maybe next he spotted his darks (above).  The filter reveals spatters of dark all over, but not on the girl's abdomen or stomach, and not on the cowboy's orange shirt. The middle and top of the picture form a cascading wedge of light.

Notice too, how the villain cowboy's hat touches the blond hair of the hero in the foreground. Ward probably had a fit wondering if he should let them be or disconnect them. When you see the finished painting it doesn't seem to matter.

Here's (how) how he spots his lights...sort of. The balance is distorted because I used an infra-red filter. I love the way the white of the hills cascades down across the girl's stomach, and further down her arm.

There's a new book on Ward that looks pretty good. I ordered it, but it hasn't arrived yet. He's one of the all-time best illustrators. After WWI, illustration and cartooning partly displaced fine art, then later on photography partly displaced illustration and cartooning. Where does it stand now? I'm not sure.