Gruss Gott!

I'm in Munich this week. After all the eating and drinking I did in Barcelona, I'm taking it easy. There's not much to report at this point, so I'm just going to post a couple of cool links, then disappear again for a couple of days.

The Palace of Culture presents, The Future We Were Promised, a collection of incredible retro-future artworks by illustrator, Arthur Radebaugh.

[Link][via]

Next up, the website of Untamed Highway, a self-published comic book that, in its own words, "is a road trip freak show slapstick mystery, cartoon noir, with tiki bars, Kreeps, Kustom Kulture, cars, shmoes, a poisonous drinking bird and an uptight sock puppet, freaks, Exotica, Film Noir, a secret Shriner like Society, hypnotism, gorilla mask, tikis, Roadside Attractions, and Tor!"

[Link]

Auf Weinersehen.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 5:38 AM | Permalink

I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow, so I thought I'd leave you with this creepy killer-doll from Monstruos Diabolicos, a weblog from Cordoba, Spain that showcases a set of groovy collectible monster stamps from the 1980s. [Link][via]

I'll be Catalunya-ized until Sunday, then I'm in Munich for 5 days on business. I'll have an internet connection during my travels, so I may post an update or three, time and inclination permitting.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I got a big kick out of this small collection of old print advertisements. The concept of "infectious dandruff" and "smooth cigarettes" seem pretty bizarre nowadays. It also makes a a nice companion piece to this collection of vintage body-odor ads I posted last year.

[Bad Ads: Link][via]
[Vintage B.O. Ads: Link]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 5:18 PM | Permalink

As promised, here's the 3rd, and probably final, entry in my World's Fair series: an album of 18 glorious color illustrations for the 1939 New York World's Fair, published by Krug Baking Company. Please wallow in its retro-futuristic goodness as you slide into the weekend! [Link]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Here's a little teaser for my next installment of World's E-fair-mera: an illustration of the Trylon and Perisphere from a color-picture album of the 1939 New York World's Fair that I plan on posting when I return from L.A.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:27 PM | Permalink

I made an amazing find today while browsing through my local antique mall; a 33 1/3-rpm red souvenir vinyl record in an illustrated sleeve from the Travelers Insurance pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair!

This pavilion contained an exhibit called The Triumph of Man, comprised of 13 dioramas illustrating the history of the human race from caveman to astronaut, and each diorama had a voiceover recorded by well-known narrator, Peter Thomas [Link]

After listening to the record and looking at the wonderful sleeve illustrations, I felt compelled to transfer it to a virtual format in an attempt to recreate at least a little of what it must've been like to stand in front of each diorama while listening to our humble narrator's ponderous retelling of The Black Death and Man's Leap to the Stars. After a few hours of scanning and wysiwyg-ing, I had my very own Triumph of Man virtual pavilion, which I now gladly share with you.

If you have a fast connection and a browser that supports embedded audio, click on the following link which will take you to a gallery of 13 diorama images from the record sleeve. Click on each image to view it in a larger popup window, then play the MP3 segment below to hear the uplifting saga that accompanies it. [Link]

If you're on a dial-up and don't wish to wait for all those MP3 clips to load, simply follow this link to the no-audio version. [Link]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)