Space Art in Children’s Books « Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Space Art in Children’s Books

John Martz | May 11th, 2005

Darin sends in this great link: Dreams of Space, a fantastic collection of space art from children’s books from way back in 1883 to 1974 (they weren’t always that far off in the 1880s, either!) Darin says, “Of particular note is the Disney Tommorowland series form the late 1950s with beautiful artwork by Nino Carbe (who is, oddly, not credited on the site). A must-see for any fans of retro futurism.” And I agree!

GN

I was just about to go on Ebay to do a search for vintage science and space books, since I really dig those things. There's something really great about artists' renditions of the moon / mars / future cars, and to see how accurate (or way off) that they were. One example is the way some artists in the 50s depicted how "a car from 1984" would look like - a straight up Jetsons hovercraft with the glass bubble canopy and thrusters poking out the rear!

Funny that I should run into a post linking to a great collection of these wonderful books. Ah, now I have something fun to do during break.

So that's what they call it - "Retro Futurism." Killer. Thanks for the post/link.

Darin

Well, I came up with the phrase 'retro-futurism' when I wrote the email, but I'm sure I'm not the first one to use that. Some of my favorite examples can be found on teh Disney Tomorrowland DVDs and in Ward Kimball's excellent animations for Mars and Beyond.

GN

Cool term nonetheless. I especially like the nearly contradictory / oxymoronic feel of the term "retro-futurism" - basically, a look at past visions of the future. I imagine someone hopping back and forth on the timeline. So much for my weird visions.

What do the "Disney Tomorrowland DVDs" contain? Never heard of those. Home Movie, a documentary on unique homes, features a short film on Disney's "Monsanto's Home Of The Future," a futuristic conceptual house which was one of Disneyland's main attractions in the '50s (probably in Tomorrowland, at that!). Totally cool. The whole movie is pretty good, but that Monsanto thing was a great special feature.