Retro Spacetime Travel Posters

As a printmaker I really enjoy the graphic design of vintage travel posters and can see why they serve as a source of inspiration today. There are many retro style travel posters for all your favorite imaginary places (in every universe from Star Wars to Harry Potter). Today, I'm bringing you some retro travel posters for real places, with a planetary science twist. These destinations are far, far away in terms of either time or space, or both.

I really enjoy the posters Amy Martin created for the 826LA Echo Park Time Travel Mart. I have this one at home. (Funds from sales support literacy programs in LA).



'Life is Bigger in Pangaea' reminds me of The Dechronization of Sam MaGruder, published posthumously, by famed paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (a great read, by the way).




Time travel, evolution, and chaos theory (the 'butterfly effect' or SDIC, sensitive dependence on initial conditions) in that one!

Andy Rohr has created a series of retro travel posters for Mars. I particularly like the two moons, Phobos and Deimus next to the rocket.

Mars is a popular destination it seems. Ron Guyatt has done a series of retro travel posters for specific Martian destinations (available through his Etsy shop).

"This piece is a fantasy depiction of the Cryptic Region Geysers on Mars. Martian geysers are putative sites of small-scale jet-like eruptions that occur in the south polar region region of Mars during the spring thaw. These features are unique to the south polar region of Mars in an area informally called the cryptic region, at latitudes 60° to 80° south and longitudes 150°W to 310°W; this 1 meter deep ice transition area between the scarps of the thick polar ice layer and the permafrost is where clusters of the apparent geyser systems are located."

He's also imagined the famed Martian volcano Olympus Mons (amongst other sites) and made a series of Venus travel posters too.

Steve Thomas has many vintage style travel posters in his portfolio, including ones for Mars, Venus, the Moon, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Titan, Europa and even the asteroid belt. Wouldn't you love to sail the methane seas of Neptune?

magpie&whiskeyjack mentioned Steve Thomas' propaganda posters, earlier this year.

Riding Ostriches

Occasionally, I see something illustrated which seems wonderfully absurd. Like this staging of a mannequin wearing Iris Apfel's apparel (and signature glasses) riding an ostrich from the Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel of the Peabody Essex Museum. Then, somehow, I am reminded of this by, say, an illustration,


Yiiha! by Sabine Gebhardt

which in turn brings to mind, a prize-winning screenprint by local Toronto printmaker (and teacher at Open Studio) Daryl Vocat:


Daryl Vocat, Practicing Strategic Invisibility is an
Excellent Way to Mislead Enemies, screenprint

which I mistakenly remembered as someone riding an ostrich, but which is nothing of the sort (but too delightfully absurd to omit). This sort of thing prompts me to search whether this is a more common idea than I would have thought (having the strong impression that ostriches are not kindly animals, and would be ill-inclined to accepting a rider).


Detective Comics #67, Cover: Original Art by Jerry Robinson(DC, 1942)

According to io9, not only did the first Batman comic book appearance (1942, in Detective Comics #67) of the villain Penguin involve a cover illustration of the crook riding an ostrich, but when it came up for auction last November, bids exceeded $200,000!

I knew nothing of old school video game Joust, where "the player controls a yellow knight riding a flying ostrich from a third-person perspective" but I admire this propaganda style poster by illustrator Steve Thomas:



Much to my surprise, even the most cursory enquiry reveals that not only riding, but racing ostriches is a reasonably common occurrence, and something people have been doing for some time.



“They’re Off!” - Thrills of the Turf in Ostrich Racing (Modern Mechanics, September, 1929)

I should really know better than to be surprised, being familiar, for instance with Rule 34 of the Internet. Ergo, there should also be some corollary: if some artist illustrates a whimsical and ill-advised behaviour, some person has tried it (and posted it to the Internet).