Television Really Needs A Show Like ‘Atomic City’

There’s something so enjoyable about 1960s futurism and visual effects expert Markus Rothkranz has created a television show that celebrates it all. It’s a retro science fiction comedy called, Atomic City – and it looks grand. ‘Sexy’ with an ‘innocent charm’, it features ‘…super-luxury liners that fly through the air with stewardesses in mini skirts, deluxe posh monorails with swank lounges, floating restaurants, flying diners etc. Secret bases. Underground test sites. Convertible jet cars. Bikinis, Martinis and UFOs…’ It’s a ‘comedy adventure about private eye Stan Velvet uncovering secrets in a futuristic Vegas’.

Rothkranz’s Atomic City is a concept project developed with his company, Astro Films LLC. Located in Nevada, Astro Films ‘works outside of the Hollywood bureaucracy that bogs down so many films and projects with great ideas.’ The talented creatives involved with this motion picture and entertainment company believe that, ‘The time has come for a new artistic renaissance.’ For those who feel bored and uninspired by the same old tired television faire, let the revival begin!

Unfortunately, while being on the outside creatively is a great thing, it isn’t so much when trying to get picked up by a network. Atomic City has never found a home on television. The video below is an introduction to the pilot episode. There’s a lot of cool stuff to enjoy – if you’d like to see more you can check out the super Atomic City web site by clicking here.

For those wanting a little fun getaway to a simpler time, step aboard this futurama rocket ride to Tomorrowland!

Ed Talks To Johnny About The Atom

Adventures Inside the Atom – 1948: Johnny poses inside a model of an atom as Ed looks on.

This is the front cover of the General Electric Company’s Adventures in Science Series, Inside The Atom, published in 1948. George Roussos was the illustrator. In the early days of nuclear energy projects such as this were deployed by the government and private industry not only to inform, but also to put a friendly face on atomic power. In the case of Inside The Atom, children in particular were the targets of this propaganda project. The intent was twofold, to ease the fears associated with atomic power and, to encourage young people to become familiar with a technology that would require future technicians and scientists for implementation and research.

You can view the entire comic and read more details about it by visiting the most excellent website, Comic Book+ here. A special h/t goes out to Quiof Thrul at Facebook for this way cool find.

Night And Day In Seconds

Operation Fishbowl Bluegill – image of an atomic bomb detonating at 30,000 feet, an altitude higher than Mt. Everest. (photo: Department of Energy, United States Government via: The Appendix)

…a strangely beautiful image of an atomic bomb detonating at 30,000 feet, an altitude higher than Mt. Everest. The explosion, which occurred in October of 1962, was part of a series of experimental nuclear blasts called Operation Fishbowl Bluegill.

Night And Day In Seconds: Johnston Island facility immediately prior and after detonation of an exoatmospheric nuke. 1 August 1958. (Photo: Department of Energy, United States Government via The Appendix)

To find out how the world – via The Untied Nations – reacted to this program, please visit The Appendix by clicking this link.

Valentina Tereshkova – One Cool Cosmonaut

Valentina Tereshkova – First Woman To Enter Space In 1963 (Photo via The Appendix

On June 16, 1963 Valentina Tereshkova was launched aboard Vostok 6 and became the first woman to fly in space. During the 70.8 hour flight, Vostok 6 made 48 orbits of Earth.  Tereshkova never flew again, but she did become a spokesperson for the Soviet Union. While fulfilling this role, she received the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace.*  She went on to earn a Ph.d. (Tech.) and become a professor authoring more than fifty research papers. Today she remains a Russian national hero.

Cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova – First Man And First Woman In Space (photo:© RIA Novosti. Alexander Mokletsov)

Valentina Tereshkova received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal under the June 22, 1963 Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet (Parliament) for her successful space flight and for the courage and heroism displayed during the [three day] mission. – RIA Novosti

Phenakistocopes (GIFs)

The optical toy, the phenakistoscope, was an early animation device that used the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion. It was invented by Joseph Plateau in 1841.

For a great short history on the phenakistoscope from Juxtapoz magazine, click here.

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Radioactive Dirt Removing Cold Cream From Dorothy Gray (video)

The Future World According To Radebaugh

Arthur Radebaugh, 1906-1974

Master of the Airbrush

He was born on 14 May 1906 in Coldwater, Michigan. After high school he moved to Illinois in 1925 and began his studies at the Chicago Art Institute. With the exception of the airbrush, it seems that the institute had little to offer this creative man. After all, art studies are exercises in reviewing the conventional, and this man didn’t seem the least bit interested in that. He left the school after one and a half years. In 1930 he returned to Michigan and worked various jobs as an illustrator. It wouldn’t be until 1935 that his unique talent, style, and vision would become recognized by the heavy hitters in the graphic arts industries. His name was Arthur Radebaugh and his particular artistic genius would become a symbol of an optimistic techno-utopia longed for by many post-WWII.

MoToR Magazine ANNUAL SHOW NUMBER – November 1935. Arthur Radebaugh’s breakthrough cover illustration for which he was paid $450.00.

From 1936 until 1942, Radebaugh’s distinct airbrushed illustrations adorned the covers of various magazines like Fortune, Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post, and others. His futuristic deco-style creations were displayed in adverts for Dodge, Bendix, United Air Lines, and more.

Saturday Evening Post Cover, September 20, 1941 – Arthur Rabenaugh Illustrator

1937 Bendex Automotive and Aviation Products Promotional Poster – Arthur Radebaugh Illustrator

1938 National Hotel Management Co., Inc. Advert – Arthur Radebaugh Illustrator

1939 Hercules Powder Company Advert – Arthur Radebaugh Illustrator

‘Dodge Luxury Liner: Dodge’s Silver Anniversary Triumph’ – 1939 Brochure Illustrator: Arthur Radebaugh

In November of 1942 Radebaugh began his enlistment in the U.S. Army. He worked in the Pentagon Ordnance Research and Development Dept./Design and Visualization Branch. He led a team of artists and designers who worked on the development of various weaponry. Radebaugh’s work in creating florescent dials for vehicle and aviation instrument panels gave him a tool that he would use in the years after his military career. He would create ‘Black Light Magic‘ in his works that would become part of his artistic signature. He finished his duties in the Army with the rank of Major in November, 1945.

Half Track Armored Personnel Carrier M3 – A rare illustration from Radebaugh’s military work (via Arthur Radebaugh, The Future We Were Promised.)

Radenbaugh’s return to Detroit seemed to be perfectly timed. The city was preparing for the fiftieth anniversary of the American auto industry – Detroit’s Golden Jubilee 1896-1946. Radenbaugh was commissioned to design a symbol for the event that would be used as a logo for print materials, memorabilia, and other ephemera. It was also built into a sixty-five foot statue that was on display in Grand Circus Park for many spectators to see and enjoy.

Image on the left – 1946 Detroit Automotive Golden Jubilee Program Cover – Arthur Radebaugh Illustrator (via Clarence’s Car Journal). On the right – 1946 Detroit Golden Jubilee Statue – Designed by Arthur Radebaugh.

[the] Queen of the Golden Jubilee will be the first woman in history to use atomic power for peacetime purposes in public ceremonies Wednesday night at 9 p.m. when she illuminates and sets in motion the spectacular automotive symbol in Detroit’s downtown Grand Circus Park to usher in the twelve-day Golden Jubilee celebration. …The Queen will wave a wand of neutron-splitting beryllium over a tube of boron, smashing a boron atom. Energy thus produced will be transmitted to the symbol electrically to illuminate its spiralling neon conception of an atom in fission, its antique car and its modern car. — Golden Jubilee press release

Radebaugh’s work with the auto industry probably paid for most of the bills, but his most recognizable and enduring illustrations were those produced for the Detroit based Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corporation. In the 1940s Bohn presented a forward looking, avant garde vision of the future. This was the perfect playground for Arthur Radebaugh’s creative imagination. From hands-free phones, to lightweight energy-saving amusements, to pushbutton overhead kitchen appliances, to planes, trains, and automobiles, Radebaugh’s streamlined techno-utopian style positioned Bohn as a visionary company ready for the technological progress promised for the 20th century and beyond.

One of the First Radebaugh Bohn Illustrations – March 1941

Bohn – July 1945

Bohn – May 1946

Bohn – January 1947

Bohn – August 1947

Bohn – 1947

From 1951-1955, Radebaugh’s services were hired by National Motor Bearing, (NBM), in Redwood City, California. His illustrations were decidedly different than those for Bohn. NMB had the same idea to present themselves as a forward looking company – Mars colonization included – yet the approach appeared less exciting and more utilitarian. Though the machinery and technology showed a fascinating future ahead, the monochrome images suggested a future less bright. Insect-like machinery, tentacled farming equipment, and lonesome robots in large warehouses gave a very impersonal alienating effect.

Radebaugh Illustration for NMB – ‘Mole-Like’ machines for underground digging. (1952)

Radebaugh Illustratoin for NBM – Tentacled push-button farm machines (1954)

Radebaugh Illustratoin for NBM – Atomic machines on Mars (1954)

Radebaugh Illustratoin for NBM – ‘Rolling Robots’ working in massive warehouses (1953)

As the fifties progressed print advertising began to move towards photography rather than illustration to sell products. Near the end of the decade, Radebaugh switched gears as well. 1958 would be the year that Radebaugh’s future vision and ‘imagineerings’ would begin to reach millions in the form of his nationally syndicated comic, Closer Than We Think. The strip ran from January of that year until January 1963. Radebaugh toured the country in his Ford Thames custom van finding inspiration and ideas as he went along. Each week Radebaugh would present an illustration of a newly found concept or a prediction of his own. Closer Than We Think inspired a generation of scientists, designers, and engineers.

Closer Than We Think: Satellite Space Station – the first strip published on 12 january 1958

Closer Than We Think: One-World Job Market (1959)

Closer Than We Think: Wall-To-Wall Television (1961)

Due to health issues, Arthur Radebaugh retired from his work as an illustrator in 1963. He fell upon hard times financially and was forced to sell most of his personal belongings. Radebaugh spent his last years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As time marched on, his work and his name faded into obscurity. On 17 January 1974, Arthur C. Radebaugh died in a military hospital.

Fortunately, his art has emerged from the shadows to fascinate the people of the 21st century. While working as director of Lost Archives in Philidelphia, PA., historian Todd Kimmel obtained a large repository of commercial negatives. In 2001 he discovered twenty-five Radebaugh works amongst that collection. Working with Jared Rosenbaum and Rachel Mackow, Kimmel co-created Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised traveling exhibit. The show was on the road in 2003-2004. An online exhibit was also set up. Since then, interest in the world of Radebaugh continues to grow – forty years after his passing, a new generation now acknowledges a man who so inspired the technologies we enjoy today…and perhaps beyond.

For more information about Arthur Radebaugh – his life and works – check out:
Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised – A tribute site with biography, chronology, and examples of works.
Visually Telling Stories (VTS) – An excellent collection of Radebaugh’s Bohn Illustrations.
Paleo-Future – A large collection of, and discussion about, Closer Than We Think.

Imagining A Glow Of A Post-Nuclear Strike

Trinity Test Fireball – 16ms after the first ever detonation of a nuclear weapon. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

16 July 1945. Alamogordo, New Mexico. 5:29:45 a.m. – ‘The Gadget’ is detonated and the world is forever changed. The ‘atomic era’ has begun. On 6 and 9 August 1945 the United States government drop two atomic bombs above the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The horror and devastation of these two atrocities soon become known around the world. 29 August 1949 – the Soviet Union conducts their first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The Cold War is on.

In the U.S., the possible reality of nuclear annihilation struck the minds of the people. At home, at work, at school, in entertainment, etc., the society was deluged with public service announcements and emergency preparedness  geared towards surviving an atomic attack. Fortunately, that feared assault has not yet occurred – although it is still a possibility despite the fact that it is no longer quite so salient on the minds of the populace.

But what if it did occur? What would the remnants of the time look like to those future generations whose ancestors might have survived the destruction? There is an artist photographer whose work seems to capture that haunting effect. His name is Troy Paiva. He uses the moniker of ‘Lost America’ as the umbrella term for his projects.

Paiva has been drawn to urban exploration since being in his teens and he has used that interest to become the master of night photography. Utilizing natural moonlight, as well as synthetic lighting of varying kinds, he doesn’t just take photographs of his subjects – in a lot of ways, he paints them. Paiva’s works involving the abandoned west are the primary focus of this post.

Below are a few of Paiva’s photos depicting various remains of abandoned mid-twentieth-century cultural artifacts. Some of these were once considered the gems of the time – to collectors they still are. The eerie luminescence that colors these works evoke a kind of radiant glow often mentally associated with things atomic. In many ways they depict a society now long gone, and even though the decay has been brought about by abandonment, one’s imagination could be led to the thought of a more sinister destruction.

Underground Castle: Castle AFB was a Cold War era Strategic Air Command installation in central California. This is a semi-blastproof, partially underground, barracks-bunker where B52 and KC135 crews lived on 2 week shifts. On a scramble they’d run out of these tunnels to their waiting aircraft. The crews could have their aircraft in the air in 15 minutes, 24-7.

Aluminum Drizzle: How hot does it have to get for an airliner to melt? Aviation Warehouse, El Mirage, California.

Rusty Boomerangs: This Jetsons-era Googie gas station rots beside Interstate 80, just east of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

A Chemical Hotspot: Inside the assayers office at Atolia tungsten mine, abandoned since the ’60s. Judging by the ventilated booths on the left, a dirty chemical process was done in this room.

Kitchen Witchin Hour: About 1 AM in the unlucky kitchen of a destroyed abandoned house. A mile down a lonely dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, in the Mojave.

Greyhound Scenicruiser…at the Williams Bus Yard. The unrestored inside of the bus was as hot as a sauna, and smelled like an overflowing toilet.

Kelvinator: Late-’50s Nash Metropolitan, at The Big M in Williams, California.

The Fear: Skaggs Island Naval Base. Over 100 buildings, abandoned, near Sonoma, CA.

Hope Has Left: Never to return.
Inside the Palms Motel at Salton Sea Beach. Abandoned and ravaged by vandals. Taken shortly after dusk on a sultry, hot night.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Troy Paiva’s works, you can visit his Lost America Flickr page here, or the Lost America website that features a bio, information on night photography workshops and techniques, links for purchasing books and prints, and access to Paiva’s blog, here.

A Fantastic Voyage – Charles And Ray Eameses ‘Powers Of Ten’

Charles and Ray Eames (Photo via Library of Congress)

Charles Ormond Eames, Jr and Bernice Alexandra “Ray” Eames were American designers who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film.
– Wikipedia

That’s a very brief and simplified summation of the amazing accomplishments of Charles and Ray Eames. Entire tomes could be written about each area of their influence – indeed, such is the case. But today we’ll only look at one of their really mind expanding projects – the 1968 documentary short film, Powers Of Ten.

…rereleased in 1977. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten…The film is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new book version. Both adaptations, film and book, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work.
– Eames Office

Powers Of Ten is an amazing journey to the outer reaches of space back to the deep reaches of inner space. In fact, this is what makes it so mind blowing – by traveling through every scale the viewer is left with a wondrous realization of how relative our experience of reality is.

Sounds like pretty heady stuff, and it is, but this is what makes the Eameses film so marvelous. In Powers Of Ten, the complex becomes simple. Instead of struggling with convoluted philosophical details regarding the relativity of perception, the viewer is taken on a visual adventure that brings it all home. In fact, this is the signature of Charles and Ray Eameses work in every field – making the complex easier to perceive and enjoy.

If by the end of the film you wish to explore more of this fascinating subject, the Eames Office has set up a terrific interactive website sponsored by IBM. You’ll find it by clicking here.

So, without further ado, this is Powers Of Ten:

Directors: Charles Eames, Ray Eames
Running time: 9 minutes
Narrated by: Phil Morrison
Music composed by: Elmer Bernstein
Story by: Charles Eames, Kees Boeke

The Stout Scarab – A Fab Minivan From…1935?

1935 Stout Scarab (via COMPLEX MAG)

1935 Stout Scarab – Rear (via COMPLEX MAG)

The Scarab was the first to ever do it, as far as minivan-type vehicles go. Designed by the “Father of Aviation,” William Stout, who designed the Ford tri-motor airplane for Henry Ford. Mr. Stout wanted his outlandish vehicle to be an office on wheels. This chromed-out trail blazer is credited with many impressive innovations, such as being the first car to do away with running boards. The interior was fit for a very legit party, as passengers could could configure their seating arrangements any way imaginable, including for a small card table. It also was the first to use independent suspension and coil springs and possessed a unique transmission set-up that was later repeated by the Lamborghini Countach.

Stout planned to produce the Scarab in limited quantities by invite-only at a hefty price of $5,000, which would be about $80,000 today. Needless to say, the public wasn’t buyin’ it. It’s super futuristic styling was considered downright ugly by our great-grandparents. Only nine were ever built, each hand made. No two Scarabs were exactly alike.

COMPLEX MAG

Why are the most fabulous things in the world always the most rare? And why must the public at large have such mundane taste? It would be wonderful to have access to a time machine and an island of one’s own – it could become an amazing place filled with misfit gems like this. An alternate world with all things awesome.