The Walking Dead

Some covers of the comic book series "The Walking Dead". One of my favorites. In my humble opinion the covers are really great art.

Robert’s Ruins

Hubert Robert (1733–1808) was a French painter who marks the transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism. Like many artists of his time he traveled to Italy to visit and study there architecture, museums and landscape. Soon ruins became his favorite subject, which earned him the nickname "Robert of the Ruines".

Interior of the Temple of Diana at Nimes (1771)

Roman Ruins (c. 1760)

The Old Bridge (c.1775)

But even though he chose classical ruins as subjects he painted them in a romantic manner. It’s a sweet decay reminding of greater times which have long passed by.

Disaster Architecture

The Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pasadena, California was designed by the Californian firm of architects Morphosis and finished in 2009.

The terra cotta facade is fragmented and reminds of buildings after earthquakes. To me it looks like the quotation of disasters like that in Chile 2010 – in this case more a kind of anticipation.

Atomic Apocalypse

Back in the Fiefties fear of a nuclear war was real. So Collier’s published a series about how New York would look like after an atomic bomb. Reminds of the more romantic post apocalyptic stuff from today.

Terminator Styling

I stumbled upon this Dior advertising. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that it’s possible to show an eye like this without quoting good old Arnold.
This red mechanical eye is already an icon, which was even quoted by the last Terminator film.

Industrial Gothic

Industrial Gothic is a comic book series illustrated by Ted McKeever and published in 1995. The story is settled somewhere in a dystopian future with lots of nice ruins.
The images are from volume 1.

Old Fortress

Abandoned pre World War One fortress in Lorraine (France). It’s closed but abandoned in the forest. The gun towers are exploded.

The Walking Dead on TV

Finallly The Walking Dead will premiere on Halloween (October 31, 2010) on TV. I expect much, because the comic book series is really great. So probably there will be a lot of abandoned places, death and decay…

Doomsday

Few days ago I watched the film Doomsday (2008) by Neil Marshall. I didn’t expect too much because the film received a lot of mixed and even bad reviews. But I liked it. It's nothing genuine new much more an homage to the classical post-apocalyptic films like Mad Max, Escape from New York and others. And last not least Rhona Mitra is a gorgeous kick ass heroine like Milla Jovovich from Resident Evil.

I think it’s a good action movie for all who appreciate the good old post-apocalyptic stuff. The message ist simple: civilization is rotten and corrupt. The savages on the other side of the new Hadrian Wall are the better men.

Dead Mermaids

The August 2010 issue of Vogue Italia published this editorial by Steven Meisel. Called "Water & Oil" reminds of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf. Though it pretends to be critical it looks to me a lot more like an exploitation of the subject.

Anyway I appreciate a lot the cool style of Meisel’s photos and the quotation of the mermaid-subject. And there are his romantic roots, which seems much more important to him than this actual desaster.