Thursday, October 3, 2013

Space Jockeys of the 1970s

As with all things paranormal in the 1970s, there were two paths you could wander down, that of "true-tales" or the one that produced some of the best comics, movies, and music of that era.  Two of my favorite alien-related fictions from that time are The Eternals comic book and the film Alien.

Others have pointed out this before, but I still find the similarities between the first page of The Eternals #1 by Jack Kirby, published in July of 1976:


 and the fossilized "space jockey" in Ridley Scott's Alien, released in May of 1979 to be remarkable:


Both images tap directly into the 1970s uni-mind that was obsessed with UFO, alien encounters, and abductions. But both also recognize that story and myth are better matched to these kinds of ideas than trying to exploit and sensationalize them.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would look remarkably like that, if it wasn't already a direct three dimensional representation of an image from H.R. Giger's Necronomicon published in 77' which Scott was given as an art reference. I suppose one COULD accuse Giger of the copy.

Anonymous said...

I read "The Eternals," and saw Alien, but never once thought Ridley Scott "borrowed" anything from Kirby's work. They both stand apart...

Robert Beerbohm said...

All this guy is stating is the space alien looks directly inspired, not the thrust of the entire story. I happen to agree with the blogger pointing this out. Guess one would have to have "been there" in the mid 70s to be able to accept the connection Geiger channeled Kirby

wmmvrrvrrmm said...

I believe that I've worked it out. As far as I can work out, HR Giger and Jack Kirby ought to have known each other because they both seemed to be referencing one anothers work. I've started an index page on my Alienexplorations blog about Kirby and his work and you'll find the links to various pieces of art that connect with Giger's, either him basing on Giger's and vice versa. So it seems that Kirby would do something inspired by Giger and Giger would look through The Eternals comic books during the time of Alien, and would take notice of things that Kirby had based upon his work. It has been a bit weird for me to discover this recently, and perhaps I'm still a bit mind boggled. I think Giger started being inspired by Kirby's work in 1975. http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/1994/02/jack-kirby.html