Evening BlueSky. Today’s #ZombieSkulltober was a bit more light than recent entries and inspired by the week ahead.. in fact if I stuck a beard on it it could almost be a self portrait.

#art #horror #zombie #undead #coffee #horrorart #cartoon #bskyart

This is what is left of Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.

If you haven’t seen it, this footage from @apnews.com is incredibly important.

The intent here seems unmistakable, in two ways: (1) just read the genocide convention, here it **absolutely** is, and (2) this level of infrastructural destruction is, no question, meant as pre-development demolition.

In this week’s newsletter, Michael Whelan original art comes to auction at Heritage including two Poul Anderson covers and a color study for Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov!

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/michael-wh...

GenAI truly was the worst technology to come along at this moment.

An energy and water guzzler when we most urgently need to take climate action.

A disinformation machine as our journalism fails.

A bias machine as fascism takes root.

A job killer in a cost of living crisis.

Hey, sci-fi and fantasy folks, if you happen to know folks who are involved with various estates in the field, do tip them a hat about the Anthropic settlement. Agencies do not get $ out of the deal and may not remember to talk to estate clients. My agent was worrying about estates not being alerted

Went to see a tiny library about a ghost infestation.

So flippin cute. 👻

we can sneak around town / hunting working folks down / I hear they got a great benefit plan

join ICE boy ain’t it nice / join ICE take my advice

www.tiktok.com/@jessewelles...

Mamdani talking lucidly and passionately about trans rights and history in a video that should frankly shame every politician who has hemmed and hawed and triangulated and said, "Well, but sports..." It's not that hard to tell the truth and stand for what's right. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvV...

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

👀 You have my attention ‼️

The smears of color later caught my eye and motivated me to fish the board out. Intrigued by the possibilities, I saved it to make into this little painting. 2/2

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/20...

ELRIC AT THE FORGE OF FOREVER (2019)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 14 ½” x 6 ½”

When I tossed out the old container of paints used to do the cover painting for WORDS OF RADIANCE, it landed upside down in my wastebasket on a piece of paperboard I had been using as a palette for something else. 1/2

😂

Cover illustration for FRIDAY by Robert Heinlein (Del Rey) 4/4

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/fr...

Upon exhibiting the painting, I received numerous requests for the model’s phone number. While I did pose someone in a jumpsuit to study the fabric and folds, the face and figure are from my imagination and Mr. Heinlein’s! 3/4

The attendant details support her and hint at these other aspects: The planet where she settles down in the end (the center of which is at her heart), the egg-shaped window (motherhood), and, of course, the zipper pulls (her vibrant sexuality). 2/4

FRIDAY (1982)
Acrylic - 30” x 20”

Robert Heinlein does create memorable characters!

Not even halfway through this book, I had a nearly photographic image of Friday in my mind. By the time I finished, I felt confident about the substance and approach my painting would have. 1/4

All I want in life is to persuade everyone, when encountering politics & culture, to ask, "why are we talking about this?" I mean that very literally: anything you encounter on your screens reflects a choice. Someone covered that, talked about that, rather than the many other things out there. Why?

Cover illustration for TALES FROM PLANET EARTH by Arthur C. Clarke (Bantam Spectra) 5/5

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/in...

I sent the art to them to reshoot, and the next day someone called me up to say, "Where's the ship? It seems to have turned into an egg!" 4/5

My answer was to paint the spacecraft on removable tape. When I got the painting back, I peeled off the ship and restored the piece to its intended state. In the interim, the book company decided that their transparencies weren't good enough. 3/5

He was interested in seeing if the painting could be made to work as a cover, and indeed it all worked out. The only glitch was a little submarine/spaceship object that had to be included. It was needed to make the painting work as the book cover, but I wanted to keep the egg in the painting. 2/5