Sunday, 13 September 2026

Breathing in Dystopia

 I love dystopian art.

The Missus and me have just spent some time in Suffolk with close pals. 

In their huge and wondrous LP collection was this fabulous vintage cover of people wearing gas masks on a beach. It's called Picnic, A Breath of Fresh Air no less! 

The mad happenstance reminded me of Alex Andreev's artwork I borrowed for the blog during the airing of Sarge, the blog stories and Celtica radio plays, I first began writing in 2013.

Here's another of Andreev's I adore, a huge beached fish with an American fifties car nearby.

Whilst in Suffolk we visited Bawdsey looking for fossil shark teeth.

 I snapped the Bawdsey headland above because it recalled that shot in The Howling of the Colony coastline ( actually in Mendocino)  first sketched by hairy Eddie Quist. It's a werewolf film I adore. 

On Bawdsey dunes is this beautiful blue and maroon house with its windswept trees. Truly gorgeous in its marine setting. Maybe utopian!


Moving away, this Getty/ BBC marine shot I saw online made me think of large metal creatures emerging from the sea. I think in reality it's a lifeguard post. It's Galveston.


And every dystopian homestead needs a decaying robot nearby. This painting is sublime with its snowy vagueness and leaning droid. By artist Jakub Różalski.


But perhaps the most enduring image of the week is this superb utopian portrait of health and optimism, the vintage cover art of It's a Beautiful Day's eponymous LP kindly given to us by our pals (the large Adam West Batmobile was a neat Norwhich charity shop find).


Do you have favourite sci-fi art readers? Dystopian? Utopian?

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