ASM Blog Horde Interview with Zachary Clemente
Welcome to the Amazing Stories BLOG HORDE INTERVIEWS! The ASM Blog Horde is a diverse and wonderful species. I have the privilege of talking with all of them, and I get to share those chats with […]
The Artful Collector: Are Conventions a Good Place to Buy Art? (Part 1)
Well . . . .Once upon a time, and by that, I mean Art Collecting BDE (before the digital era) local, regional and “world” SF/F conventions were not just good places to find great SF/F […]
Vinyl Albums, KLAATU and the Warrior at the Edge of Time
Let’s travel back in time, you and I. Let’s go back to a time before music was delivered in packets of data. Let’s travel back to a time of bell bottoms, long hair and muscle […]
Sequential Wednesdays #11 – The Quiet Majesty of Kazu Kibuishi
Out in the world of beautiful stories, digital art, and ironclad contracts with Scholastic exists a beautiful man, in every sense of the word, named Kazu Kibuishi. For years, Kazu has worked on, collected, and […]
The Art of the IAAA: David A. Hardy – The King of Space Art
Today we begin a new bi-weekly feature that introduces the art and history of the members of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA), a group of artists who have as their collective forte the […]
Art in Action: A Bakuman Review
I spend a lot of time lately complaining about the state of anime and the series that have been created within the last five or so years. In the course of this tirade, shounen manga […]
The Beautiful Tiny Worlds of Animated Music Videos
Music videos are a strange amalgamation of variant creative forces merging together, all too often used to further market or popularize a song with flamboyant budgets, unnecessary celebrity appearances and overall lame concepts. For […]
The Artful Collector: Why isn’t There a More Active Market in What I Collect?
A common thread of discussion for collectors who buy art from me, and which runs through many sites dealing with collectibles, concerns the factors that make certain types of “X” (coins, stamps, comics, art, etc) […]
Trials and Tribulations of the Publishing Game
As I put the finishing touches and edits on my latest novel, I am charged with the task of also creating the cover art. I consider myself to be a good photographer but for some […]
Eric Brown Interview
Eric Brown is the author of over forty books including Helix and Kethani. His latest novel, The Serene Invasion features an eerie conquest of earth that sweeps away the old order without a drop of […]
Four Color Heroes! or: Superman at 75!
So Superman is 75 years old. That’s astounding. What’s even more astounding is how good he looks, given that he is now a senior citizen. Special cases like Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come notwithstanding, it seems […]
Cities in Science Fiction
The events in Boston at the beginning of this week were an awful tragedy and, naturally all our hearts go out to the victims. Boston is one of the oldest cities in the US and, […]
City Lights, City Grunge
From Metropolis to Blade Runner, the city of the future has been a subject for science fiction artists and film makers, who have vented both dreams and deep-seated fears. This blog post offers a collection […]
The Artful Collector: In Praise of Tangibility
First, and let’s get this out of the way right at the start: I would never say that digital art isn’t Art. I have never claimed that digital artists aren’t “real artists” – as some […]
The Cover with no Cover Art
Books need a cover. At the very least one needs to know the title of the book and usually who wrote it. Those are basics. But the cover of a book is the first point […]
The Artful Collector: Why Collecting Art is Such a Hard Job
Someone in a chat room I used to contribute to, once made an unforgettable statement: “it’s easy to collect art if you have money!” Hah! How I wish money were the answer! And that a […]
The Amazing Virgil Finlay
Whenever I think about black-and-white illustrations from the old science fiction magazines, it is always the work of Virgil Finlay that I picture in my head. And why not? The man was a genius with […]
Should You Judge a Book by its Cover?
Most readers—me included—will pick a book off the bookstore shelf because its cover interests us: the title intrigues; the cover illustration attracts; the author’s name is one we trust. If you don’t know the author […]
Cosmic Dance
Who isn’t fascinated by the images of outer space, which have become available over the last few decades from ever more powerful telescopes: the iridescent colour play of stars in the making, the drifting clouds […]
Anime As An Art Form
One of the greatest things that anime ever did for me was give me the desire to create. I was a really bookish kid, and the idea of writing had always been pretty appealing to […]
The Artful Collector: Price vs. Value
It’s an innocent question: What’s it worth? And I always answer: That depends on whether you’re buying or selling. An object’s “worth” can relate to price, or it can relate to value. These words are […]
Buying a Book for its Cover
So you know you’ve done it. I’m sure we all have at one point or another. You know what I’m talking about, right? You walk into a bookstore and there it is… the cover that […]
The Artful Collector: “Excuses, Excuses”
And when we can’t have what we want….despite our best efforts to strategize for maximum gain? Then What? Oh, do we have excuses. Pick one: 1. End up the underbidder? “It was too expensive for […]
A Beautiful Plummet: A Review of Upside Down
“And our love changed the course of history forever” is a fine concept to base a story off of. However, it’s a disingenuous and careless line of dialogue that should have been excised from the […]
ASM Blog Horde Interview with Michael J. Sullivan
Welcome to the Amazing Stories BLOG HORDE INTERVIEWS! The ASM Blog Horde is a diverse and wonderful species. I have the privilege of talking with all of them, and I get to share those chats with […]
The Architects of the Future
In my last blog, I featured the work of artists who have, in their own different ways, imagined what it might be like to look at an alien sky. The artists I feature in this […]
My Journey With Sci-Fi
There are many reasons that I love science fiction on the screen above and beyond any other format. I’ve always been someone who enjoys being told a story where I can see it in front […]
Special Effects, then and now
When Forbidden Planet came back out way back in 1956, it was on the cutting edge of animation, and lots of people were talking about how it showed things on film which hadn’t been […]
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