Any mad scientist – and by that, I mean any OTHER mad scientist – will tell you that it’s not enough to cackle and prance insanely around the lab. Some lab assistants just don’t get the hint.

So when going “Muahaha!” doesn’t cut it; when Igor (or Igette) simply won’t leave you alone with your mastodon/cuttlefish hybrid, your Dissolvo Ray, or your mind-melting Psycho-Cyclotron, just state the obvious. Back off. I’m doing SCIENCE.

As before, recently, this was an idea for a t-shirt at the Retropolis Transit Authority and couldn’t be stopped before it had also become a poster, a coffee mug and a greeting card . And last but assuredly not least, an archival print.

Because the motto of my Secret Laboratory is “We waste no part of the animal! Muahahahaha!”

Not unlike the German jetpacks I posted about back in January, this is a video of a real-life Rocketeer – Yves Rossy. He reached a speed of 186 mph during this flight over Bex in Switzerland. And his arms weren’t even tired.

The wings he’s wearing here use jet turbine engines and he steers by shifting his body, and yes, this is what I want for my birthday. Though I’d pick another soundtrack… Nat Gonella’s It’s a Pair of Wings for Me would do nicely, thanks.

[tags]jet pack, jet pack, yves rossy, flying wing, rocket pack, rocketeer, rocket man[/tags]

So it’s three minutes till lunchtime on a Friday, when the head of some other department steps into your cubicle and starts to explain how because of this – and it’s brilliant, believe me, really ground-breaking – change he’s made to the way HIS department does things, you’re going to need to redo all the work you’ve done for the past six months and, really sorry about this, we need it all done by Monday afternoon.

Your eyes glaze over and wander to the motivational poster on the wall – it’s something with penguins – but THAT is not what you’re seeing. THIS is what you’re seeing. The vision that truly motivates you.

His people won’t be calling your people, and you won’t need to tell him to talk to the hand. Because THIS guy, his entire family, and everyone who’s ever worked with him are about to TELL IT TO YOUR GIANT ROBOT.

Yep. They’ll be screaming and running for cover – and cover, you can trust me on this, will not be available. The three ton steely feet of your Obedient Servant will grind them all into a pinkish slurry of terror and despair as your own personal Giant Robot responds to this onslaught of corporate incompetence with a rampage of implacable destruction. And All Will Be Well.

Man, am I glad I left the day job.

Anyway, this began its life as an idea for a Retropolis Transit Authority t-shirt but couldn’t be stopped until it had plowed its path of destruction through an archival print, a poster, greeting cards, and a malevolent coffee mug because once that Giant Robot gets going, brothers and sisters, it is no mean feat to stop it. Which is as it should be.

Conflicting and confusing reports are emerging about a new Buck Rogers film project. Some of the releases claim that Frank Miller’s to direct – which could be a great thing – but that’s apparently either not true or not certain. There’s a bit of other information that runs through the coverage, though, which makes me want to run and hide.

It’s this sort of thing:

The cheapness of the low-budget effects will be a running joke in the movie, which will retain the campiness of the 1980s TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century starring Gil Gerard. (from IGN)

Okay, what’s right about that sentence? Answer: the grammar.

The Variety piece is less alarming and seems to have checked its facts, which was apparently beyond IGN. The IGN version’s been regurgitated in loads of places already, including the io9 blog.

Any new incarnation of Buck Rogers that even admits there was a cheesy Gil Gerard version will leave me crying in my beer, mainly because it’ll be nigh impossible to try to get it right again for a couple of decades afterwards. “Getting it right”, admittedly, is a pretty subjective aim – but this, which sounds so much like Sci Fi’s Flash Gordon reboot, will not be it.

A pall of silence falls over the retro-future, and the people mourn.

In the demented mad science project that is Lockwasher Design you’ll find a treasure trove of fantastic ray guns, robots, rockets, and autos that are assembled from the sort of bin-diver’s paradise that we dream of. Well. Some of us.

Vintage containers, Electrolux vacuums, spray guns, gauges and unidentifiable parts are here recombined into a retro-futuristic collection of bizarre and engaging sculptures.

There’s a stand-alone gallery site and a larger series of Flickr streams, all full of these wonders. Partake.

Via Boigboing, Via Neatorama, Via Aurelia. Nope, I got that last one from Rudyard Kipling. Via the Romans.

I was working on a side project, a downright heroic propaganda poster for the Retropolis Fraternal League of Robotic Persons, when I did this side-side project spin off from the idea.

The line “Although I am a servant, I am not your servant” is one that I read somewhere – I have no idea where – years ago. It’s always stuck with me.

I invented the Fraternal League of Robotic Persons in a news item at the Retropolis Transit Authority (it’s got an “On This Day in the Future” feature on the front page). Here’s what I decided I knew about the robots’ union:

On this date in 2033, robots throughout known space collectively formed the Fraternal League of Robotic Persons – the first instance of a labor union for manufactured beings.

This caused some confusion among biological citizens, none of whom had had to work for a living for decades – and in fact even the robots had labor-saving devices of their own. When asked why they felt compelled to unionize, the robots replied that they’d seen Metropolis and they weren’t taking any chances.

So while my original big image isn’t done yet, I spun this version off into a poster, t-shirts, a clock (!), mugs, and other gewgaws. You know me, I’m just like that. But I really ought to be working away at my City of Nova York. It continues to lumber on ahead at its own massive, deliberate pace.

Steve Forde has added some new work in progress photos of Go Hero‘s upcoming classic Buck Rogers action figure. The latest are some views of the head and helmet.

In fact since my last post about this, he’s also done some nice work on the gloves, shirt, and pants… and, come to think of it, the boots, too.

The body sections are still based on an off-the-shelf action figure body and that’s due to change. (In fact I’m slightly confused about how that’s going to work. But “slightly confused” is pretty much where I live, so I’m not worried about it.) Looking good!

All’s been preternaturally quiet around here, but there have been good reasons for that. I’ve been preoccupied with a couple of things that have kept me off the blog, you see.

 

At left is one of those distractions. It’s a closeup, or at least closeup-ish, view of the City of Nova York from my Empire State Patrol comics project – the city is the largest set for the story and I started it nearly two years ago. I’m hoping that I might be finished with the whole of Manhattan Island in early July, on its anniversary.

This is what I’ve called the “medium resolution” version of the city – the highest res at which the whole city would be visible – and it’s divided into large sections. The idea was that I’d use my low resolution version in the distance, and this medium resolution version closer in, with the addition of some “hero buildings” for the truly close-up bits that might show in a given image. Since I’m now on a much manlier computer than I was when I started I’ve begun to wonder whether I’ll need the low res version at all. We’ll just have to see.

One thing that’s typical of something that takes this long is that I may need to go back and rework the earlier sections of the city. The newer blocks are more detailed and, though they use the same materials as the old buildings, they don’t quite match. I’m working on a large number of rectangular blocks that make up Nova York’s outskirts. At the center of the city – which occupies the area of what’s now Midtown Manhattan – the streets are laid out in concentric circles that ring the Empire State Building. That’s the one remaining bit of our old New York.

My other recent distraction is an advertising campaign for my T-Shirt sites, Retropolis Transit Authority and Saga Shirts. I’ve had wonderful success this time around by advertising on webcomics and blogs – but online advertising is often a handy way to bleed money faster than you can count it, so the ads have taken quite a bit of my attention.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories once again thrills! and amazes! me with a collection of covers for Big Little Books featuring Buck Rogers, dating from 1933 to 1943.

They’re divided into sequential posts – as everything there is – so here are permalinks to the three collections:

Buck Rogers, Part One Buck Rogers, Part Two Buck Rogers, Part Three

This is a concept piece for my huge, looming, and intimidating comics project, “Empire State Patrol”. Which I think will take about as long to finish as the cathedral at Chartres. Go on, look it up. I’ll still be here.

There’ll be a common layout for all ten covers, which I think will be pretty much what we see here, and I’ve added an illustration for a scene in the second chapter. Since this is the cover for issue #2. I’m probably not really done with it, but finishing things like this makes me feel like I might be getting something done. Silly, silly me.

That’s Jake Rothman up on the rock, Marco Lippi down below, and Clay Hooper out back. They used to be construction workers. Now they’re rocket pilots. Life’s just crazy that way.