Some more illustrations from the fascinating comics series Hombre written by Antonio Segura and drawn by José Ortiz. Here our hero is smoking on the ruins of Lady Liberty while the vultures are circulating above New York. But it's no peaceful world at all.
Bloody Mary is a crude comic book series written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra abot an nun who is also a highly trained soldier. Returned to New York she finds it destroyed by foreign facists She fights the enemies, turning more fascist like these.
Anyway it’s an especially stupid comic, only of some interest because the iconographic Lady Liberty in ruins provides the whole topic of it.
An edition of a Transformers comic book. We see once more Lady liberty as the icon of destruction. “Humanity at it’s lowest point”, as it is called.
Breaking Bad is at the moment my favorite television series. It’s about Walter White a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. To secure his family's financial future he started producing and selling methamphetamine with his former student Jesse Pinkman.
This pivotal topic is reflected by the impressive beauty of the images of abandoned parking lots, decaying buildings and behind all a vast western style landscape. Above all because of the images Breaking Bad is also a profoundly romantic series, confronting human decay with the beauty of nature.
And last not least there is Saul Goodman Walt and Jesse's criminal lawyer. Above his shabby office there is flapping a trashy Lady Liberty, in this form a well known symbol of American decay.
"Rebel" is A graphic novel by the Spanish comic book artist Pepe Moreno. Rebel was first published in Heavy Metal magazine in 1985 and then in the following year as a graphic novel.
So it was done long before 9/11. And though Moreno left great parts of the Twin Towers standing he converted other parts of Manhattan in ruins. Anyway his illustrations seem really prophetic compared to later photos.
From the Resident Evil movies "Extinction" is the post-apocalyptic one. Mankind has nearly disappeared and only few survivors are trying to make their way through an infested country. And if there wasn’t Milla Jovovich like an avenging angel nobody would made it.
That’s a nice occasion to show the glamour of Las Vegas in ruins. Like relics of a bygone civilization there are the Eiffel Tower and Lady Liberty.
Mighty Samson is a kind of superhero who has to fight with evil humans and mutated monsters. Here in #4 he’s defending New York against foreign scrap robbers. Despite I don’t understand why anybody should fight about metal scrap in a world full of ruins, it’s nice to meet Lady Liberty again and to see that she will be defended by our hero.
Once more it’s Lady Liberty who bears witness to a bygone history of mankind.
The series is neither well drawn nor is the story very interesting. Kamandi looks like many of the usual superheroes and meets similar looking enemies.
To me the most interesting thing of the whole series is the cover of the first issue showing the usual rests of Lady Liberty.
"Escape from New York" (1981) directed by John Carpenter
"Dream Warrior" (2003) directed by Zachary Weintraub
"Cloverfield" (2008) directed by Matt Reeves
Astounding (1941)
Fantastic Universe (1953)
Tales of the Unexpected (c.1957)
Amazing Stories (1964)
As the film ends Charlton Heston discovers the remnants of the Lady Liberty, half-submerged on the shore. Today that wouldn’t be so impressive because the ruins of New are just well known icons. But in 1968 it was probably the first time that it was used by Hollywood.
Above all it was this image, which made the film famous, much more than the quoted apes.
In my opinion the film “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004) is a typical example for that fascination with ruins and the own decay. Sure it pretends to be a warning against the effects of global warming. But essentially the film itself and probably every viewer is much more attracted by the beautiful images of the destroyed New York. All that politically correct nonsense about global warming or cooling (who will believe that it could be happen like this?) is a lame excuse to present the frozen New York.
