Scout Paget has posted an article about the illustrator Arthur Radebaugh (1906-1974), whose airbrush art we see above, over at Atomic Scout.

Radebaugh was one of the many illustrators who worked for industry and for mass market magazines (as opposed to the pulpy ones) and who together defined the shape of that future we thought was right around the corner, from the Depression years through the fifties and even beyond them.

And like that vision of the future, a lot of Radebaugh’s work was all about transportation.

In addition to his illustrations for these commercial clients Radebaugh also contributed to the design of aviation displays, some using florescence, and other instrument panels during his service for the Pentagon during the Second World War.

Scout Paget goes on to show Radebaugh’s postwar work, again for automobile and aviation companies and also for the Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corporation (including a terrific flying wing airplane).

Great stuff! You should visit.

Today marks the beginning of the Great Rejection Tour of 2014 for my new book Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom!

My first query letter has set out for glamorous New York City in the kickoff for this highly anticipated season of melancholia and despair. There the query will land on the desk of an agent who’s so far out of my league that the true test of the query is whether she’ll even ask to see the manuscript. If she does ask to read it, I’ll know that it’s a pretty fine query letter. If she doesn’t, well, I’ll have contributed something toward the Postal Service pension fund. And that’s worth doing.

Then, rinse and repeat. Ursula Leguin once wrote that in order to find your level you need to start at the top, and then work your way down. Into the yawning maw of rejection, I mean.

The fact is that I’m working my way through a pretty short list of agents on the principle that the wrong agent is worse than no agent. So it’s only going to take me a few months to get rejected by all of them, and once they’ve done their worst I should have finished the illustrations (you see the illustration for Chapter 15 up above).

Then, phase two: The Forgotten Slush Piles of the Damned.

This morning’s incredible time sink is this site, full of reproduction dust jackets for vintage books. It’s already eaten way too much of my time, and so far I’ve only explored the fantasy & science fiction covers. I’ve got a feeling that the Mystery books will have all kinds of memorable wonders, too.

In fact the “About” page offers to resize a dust jacket to fit any book you’d like to slip into it. So, for example, if you’re tired of your coursework in Edgar Rice Burroughs novels you can get a dust jacket to fit that fascinating calculus textbook you’d rather be reading.

The jackets are digitally printed reproductions, marked as reproductions on the front flap. Each one is based on a carefully restored scan from an original dust jacket. And whether you want to frame them, slip them over your vintage book, use them as props, or simply browse these archives, the site’s definitely worth a bookmark and hours and irreplaceable hours of your life. Like me.