Rocketship Weird Retro Captain's Blog - Weird Retro

The Cross & The Switchblade (1972)

9/8/2015

The Cross and the Switchblade was originally a book written in 1962 by pastor David Wilkerson with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. It quickly became a best seller, with over 16 million copies being sold around teh world, with it being translated into 16 languages. The book told the true story of Wilkerson's first five years living and working as an evangelical pastor in New York City. He focused his work on reaching disillusioned young people on the streets, attempting to encourage them to turn away from the drugs and gang violence. In 1970, the book was adapted into a movie, that starred the goody-goody singer Pat Boone as Wilkerson and Erik Estrada (in his screen debut) as Nicky Cruz, the teen gang member whose life was transformed by Wilkerson's ministry. Then in 1972, the Christian comic book publishers Spire Christian Comics under the leadership of Al Hartley, adapted the story as one of their many Christian comic book propaganda pieces produced during the 70s.

Facts About Fallout Protection (1958)

25/6/2015

During the height of the 1950s Cold War period, the American government produced a hugs amount of information/propaganda literature. Probably the most well known is the "Duck and Cover" literature and PSA, which was aimed at children. The government also produced a series of pamphlets for adults, to inform them about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack from Soviet Russia.

One such pamphlets was the wonderfully illustrated "Facts About Fallout Protection" originally from 1958. It was part of a series of specialised information pamphlets designed for mass distribution. Others included "Rural Family Defence" from 1956, and "The Family Fallout Shelter" in 1959. During the late 50s and early 1960s, the building of public and private fallout shelters intensified across America, as they prepared for what many considered an inevitable war.

The Isolator, A Bizarre Helmet For Encouraging Concentration (1925)

20/6/2015

This curiously bizarre invention is from way back in 1925. It was introduced to the world by Hugo Gernsback a member of “The American Physical Society,” and one of the pioneers of science fiction. It was featured in that July issue of Science and Invention magazine, and involved something akin to a large bulbous diving helmet with an oxygen tank. It was supposed to encourage users to be able to focus and concentrate by rendering the wearer deaf, piping them full of oxygen, and limiting their vision to a tiny portholes.

Hugo Gernsback was an inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best known for publications including the first ever science fiction magazine. He began the modern genre of science fiction in 1926 by founding the first magazine dedicated to it, Amazing Stories.

Hugo Gernsback's place in science fiction is recognised each and every year with the Hugo Awards (the Hugos), named after him, that recognise the best in science fiction and fantasy writing. First awarded in 1953, they were called Science Fiction Achievement Awards until 1992. Renamed the Hugo Awards, in recognition of the great work he did to promote the genre.

Crazy Christians Are At It Again. Books, Pamphlets, and Biblical Buffoonery!

7/6/2015

More Sunday sermon madness, with Christian literature from yesteryear. Featuring classic tracts from of America's most renowned pulpit pounding preachers, like C. S. Lovett and V. W. Grant. We have the satanic hell that is "modern dance", and how the devil is forcing you to eat food that makes you fat. As well as Jogging For Jesus and we are asked the question Does God Ever Talk Through Cats?

The Dark Art Of Martin van Miele

18/5/2015

Martin van Miële was a renowned French illustrator of bizarre erotic drawings, often with religious (or should be sacrilegious themes). He did a lot of illustrations for the noted British erotica publisher Charles Carrington, but found more widely acclaimed fame as the illustrator of H.G. Wells's First Men On The Moon in 1901 (Les Premiers Hommes dans la Lune), which was turned in to the early silent-era classic movie by Georges Méliès, Le Voyage Dans La Lune in 1902. Miële also illustrated for the French translation versions of the Sherlock Holmes series, but it's his strange satirical erotic illustrations that he has become most well known for.

Retro Gaming: The Rats (1985)

17/3/2015

Developed and produced by the book publisher Hodder & Stoughton, and based on horror writer James Herbert's 1974 novel of the same name, The Rats came out in 1985. The game was a strange mix of governmental strategy simulation, text adventure and survival horror. How that one got past the initial development pitch is anyone's guess. Anyway the game was released on the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum, but not on the Amstrad CPC. Though a version was planned, but never released.

The apparent juxtaposition of different games was generally well received on release. For an 8-bit game, with limited sound and graphics, it was surprisingly creepy and atmospheric. The game starts like a novel, with a prologue is written out in bold white letters across a black screen to setting the scene. Then a pool of torchlight is seen wandering around in the blackness, sudeenly red eyes appear in the dark. A heartbeat sound quickens. Suddenly, a rat pounces into view! Then blood-spattered screen, with eerie accompanying theme music.

The Strategy game involves stopping the spread of the rodent plague from the city of London and killing it off. A map shows the rat activity, you may deploy people to deal with them, carry out research or read through field reports. Holding back the rat infestation is pretty much impossible, and all you are doing is holding back the tide. Eventually the government will be forced to send in the army. But before that happens, players will enter into the text adventure part of the game.

The Adventure section, like the strategic one, is in real time. You are shifted to the adventure section at random intervals throughout play. Each entry into this section is precluded by an alarm sound from the computer. This part of the game is more like a series of mini-adventures. The text scrolls slowly up the screen, emphasising the real time aspect of the game, building the tension. And the rats are never far behind you, wherever you are.

If you lose the encounter with the rats, the page seems to tear open to reveal a nasty-looking rat, and there is the sound of a scream . . . AAARRRGH!

The Call Of Cthulhu By Dr. Seuss (not)

4/3/2015

Cover from the alternative version.

You may have heard of this, as it's been doing the rounds on the Weird Wide Web for a few years now. The awesome Dr. Seuss style version of The Call Of Cthulhu, by the artist DrFaustusAU. However did you know there is a complete alternative version, with different artwork? And did you know that DrFaustusAU has also done a Dr. Seuss version of H.P. Lovercraft's The Tomb? As well as working on a version of Dagon and The Statement of Randolph Carter. These are wonderfully illustrated works of genius. I've had both versions of The Call Of Cthulhu for a few years now, as well as The Tomb.

DrFaustusAU also does Lovecraft inspired one-off panels. It was his How Cthulhu Ate Christmas, that first switched me onto his artwork, and I've been following and collection his stuff from Deviant Art ever since.

Find further examples of his work, on his Deviant Art page DrFaustusAU.

Here's the original version of The Call Of Cthulhu (for Beginner Readers). Enjoy!

Dog-Faced Man, Talks To His Human Headed Penis. Marquis (1989)

23/2/2015

A French language movie from Belgian director Henri Xhonneux and French surrealist artist Roland Topor. Based on the life and works of the Marquis de Sade. It's a mixture of live-action and stop-motion animation, with all the actors wearing life-like animal masks, to reflect their characters. Much of the animation involves the Marquis having long conversations with his huge metre long talking penis with a human face.

The penis is called Colin, and has a personality of his own, and a philosophy on life. He relates stories of debauchery to the Marquis, which form the basis for his stories. The stories and thus the movie make for a bizarre and sometimes unnerving sex comedy. That due to the nature of the masks, the sex scene veer uncomfortably close to being representations of bestiality. With their often highly sexualised human bodies, and animal heads. Making for an absurd piece of slightly disturbing cinema.

In the true style of Topor, it has darkly playful silliness at times. Giving a nod to the tradition of French farce, by playwrights likes Molière, the Comédie-Française, and the satirical elements of de Sade's own work. The movie won;t be to everyone's tastes, and an understanding of French revolutionary period France will help to understand much of the surreal symbolism in the movie. Though much of it doesn't take a genius work out. When for example the Marquis de Sade is persuaded by his self-conscious cock to screw a "crack" in the wall of the Bastille. Overall, a fun, irreverent piece of European art-house cinema, that doesn't take itself too seriously. And well worth a watch, by anyone interested in the weirder side of European cinema, and the cinematic work of surrealists like Topor.

The Fantastically Surreal World Of Roland Topor - French surrealist writer and artist, more well known outside of France for his visual design of the cult animation Fantastic Planet (1973).

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

15/2/2015

Cybernetic revolt, the technological singularity! Is it just a matter of time now, rather than science fiction? Horror and sci-fi movies, literature and computer games have been warning us for years of the inevitable/possibility of a computer taking over and controlling humanity.

One of the seminal movies that addresses this is the 1970 sci-fi thriller, Colossus: The Forbin Project. Based on a 1966 sci-fi novel Colossus, by D.F. Jones. In the story a massive AI computer, designed to control the United States nuclear defence system, becomes sentient. Colossus becomes aware of the existence of a Soviet supercomputer, like itself. The two computers start to communicate, but their link is cut by their governments. So the two computers launch nuclear attacks on each other's country, until their link is re-established. The two computers become one entity, and proclaims itself "the voice of World Control". Making its mission to end war among humans. The human choice? They have none! They must accept that with peace comes control, its control, and that "freedom is just an illusion".

Below are other links to posts that cover computers/entities that have managed to or tried to take-over humanity. Now... That give me an idea for an article about computers that take over the world!

The Revolution Started Here: Beneath A Steel Sky- The "revolutionary" adventure game from a small software house in Hull, that went up against the big U.S. software houses, and kicked arse!

EarthBound: The Trippiest And Most Fucked-Up Cutesy RPG Ever! - The weird world of the SNES game from 1994. How it mirrored real world events, and created a nightmare.

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (1967) - Harlan Ellison short-story about a computer that take over the world, that was made into a creepy 1995 point-and-click adventure game.

Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age

8/2/2015

Often finding itself on lists of the "greatest book you've never read", Dancing Lessons For The Advanced In Age is a novel by Czechoslovak writer Bohumil Hrabal. Published in 1964, the novel is one long monologue, told by a 70 year old man to a group of sunbathing women. In one long single sentence. That's right, the whole novel is one single sentence!

Bohumil Hrabal is considered one of the greatest Czech authors, and Dancing Lessons, one of not only his masterpieces, but an influential masterpiece of Czech literature. It's long drawn out sentence is littered with references to Czech history, and culture, as the old man recants himself of a life-time of stories. While that might sound a bit dull, it isn't, as the old man litters his anecdotes with irreverent humour. As the old man reveals stories about his life and love, juxtaposed and interweaving with the history of the country.

The story flows, jumps and runs off at tangents, in a cleverly constructed stream of conscience. As if the old man must unburden himself, before it's too late. Full of wit and humour, the novel sometimes playfully drops into a nudge-nudge wink-wink level of humour that you would imagine to flow out of an old man's mouth. As for example he uses the euphemism "the European Renaissance" to referred to sex. The over-arching character of the novel and the garrulous narrator, is one of pathos. The sometimes low-brow comedy of the old cobbler continues apace, until mid-sentence and without warning the...