Terrifying 1906 Illustrations of H. G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’

Flavorwire ^ | April 26, 2015 | Alison Nastasi

[Boogieman]

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of. That kind of art has inspired all sorts of modern “erotica” based on it in Japan, but the early stuff dates to the 19th century, so an artist in 1906 might have been familiar with it.

I was thinking of posting an image from wikipedia of that famous woodcut to show the similarity, but even though it’s “art”, the mods would probably frown on the graphic nature...

[tet68]

Something to keep in mind is that the impressionists
were influenced by the japanese woodblock prints that
were sometimes used to wrap ceramics in for shipment
at the turn of the century and japanese prints appear
in many impressionist works.
So it is entirely possible he was aware of them.

[Boogieman]

To me, the more modern takes on these kind of stories, even if well done, usually miss the mark. I think it’s because the stories themselves were suited to a certain era, so it might be better to see them in black and white, or grainy, than high definition with all the modern bells and whistles.

For example, take “King Kong”. Just the nature of that story, a giant ape coming to gleaming New York City and wrecking it, it’s not a “modern” story. It reflects the subconscious of it’s time, just like “Godzilla”’s radioactive monsters reflected the subconscious of Japan after a humiliating defeat and nuclear attacks. So, even though I like Jackson’s remake of Kong, it is missing something, despite being set in the same era, and having most of the shots intentionally duplicated. It’s a nostalgic piece now, but that wasn’t true for the original.

[Borges]

Jaws doesn’t really have many special effects. You hardly ever see the shark.