Brace yourselves, aesthetes. Via Marble River comes the mind-shattering return of the Ed Wood of comics, Mr Fletcher Hanks. A complete, and bewildering, adventure, first published in Fantastic Comics #1, December 1939, can be found here. “The Brain wants all Earth people destroyed.” And Dianna’s space belt won’t work.

More of Hanks’ unhinged dramas here and here.

The Fletcher Hanks anthology, I Shall Destroy All the Civilised Planets, can be ordered via Amazon and Fantagraphics. (H/T, Journalista!)

Further to Friday’s post on The Planets series, here’s another short extract, taken from the episode Atmosphere. In it, we follow Joe Kittinger’s 1960 balloon ride to an altitude of 103,000 feet (20 miles / 32 km), where, technically, he became the first man in space. Thanks to automated cameras, we also follow Kittinger’s unorthodox – and perilous – return to Earth. Extraordinary.

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Parts one through six of The Planets can be viewed online here.

Related. And. Also. (H/T, The Thin Man.)

Book autopsies. By Brian Dettmer.

“I cut into the cover of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and other surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each page while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. The completed pieces expose new relationships of a book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.”

More. And. Also. Plus. Update: 1, 2. 

Via The Thin Man, here’s an extract from the first episode of the BBC’s acclaimed documentary series, The Planets. Broadcast in 1999, the series remains one of the most lavish and comprehensive accounts of astronomical discovery and space exploration, with previously unseen archive footage, most notably from Russia. There’s also a memorable score by Jim Meacock. Recommended.

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The first two episodes, Different Worlds and Terra Firma, can be viewed in full and downloaded here. Subsequent episodes should be posted over the next few days.

Sponsor my research. Those orbital weapons platforms won’t build themselves. 

Government clamps down firmly on a growing problem. (H/T, Mick Hartley.) // The Supreme Instruments Corporation. Imposing gadgets of a bygone age. (H/T, The Cartoonist.) // The thrill of electromechanical relays. (H/T, Coudal.) // French vision of the future. (1910) Automated ablutions, flying policemen, the warm glow of radium. // Stephen Petranek ponders the end of the world (and how to avoid it). Boredom, solar flares, scientific mishaps. // Filaments of space-time. Large scale density simulations. Very large scale. (H/T, Pruned.) // The Mystery of Time. (1957) // Great big holes. // Devil’s Kitchen on the wisdom of Harriet Harman. // Camille Paglia on scholarship, dogma and semen. // “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems.” // Ten years of Encounter magazine. (H/T, Dr Dawg.) // “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon.” No homosexuality, no Holocaust, no plans for nuclear weapons. Related. // The two faces of Al Qaeda. // Dalrymple on Islam as modern day Marxism. From Baader-Meinhof to Caliphate fantasies. // Death and probability. Lightning, earthquakes, bee stings. (H/T, Grow-a-brain.) // Biography of a Bee. (1965) // Via Coudal, the sci-fi paper model gallery. Parts and blueprints. Colour printer required. // Make your very own David Hasselhoff. Comes with microphone, choice of heads and removable chest hair carpet. // Tim Rudder’s photos of Tokyo. More. // 1966 Hulk cartoon. Toad men, tremors, theme tune from hell. // Missile base for sale. 57 acres, own silos. $1.5 million. // Tree houses. // Hey kids, it’s the magic wheel. “New cool urban product!” // Or, try Oryx. “It’s from the future.” // Johnny has his own psychobilly mo-chine.

The Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador. Photographed by Patrick Taschler. 

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day.

“Once we realize that it’s not a few bad products or a few egregious companies responsible for the social and ecological abuses in our world but rather the entire system we are working in, we begin to realize that, as workers, we are cogs in a machine of violence, death, exploitation, and destruction. Is the retail clerk who rings up a cut of veal any less responsible for the cruelty of factory farming than the farm worker? What about the ad designer who finds ways to make the product palatable? How about the accountant who does the grocery’s books and allows it to stay in business? You don’t have to own stock in a corporation or own a factory or chemical plant to be held to blame.”

On “voluntary joblessness”, from the manifesto of Freeganism.   

Via Coudal, the photography of Igor Siwanowicz.

Related. And. Also. 

Via Cognitive Daily, here’s the famous Dragon Illusion, one of the more potent variations of the Hollow Face Illusion. 

Make your own. Thrill your friends. Impress women. More.

Here’s Jonathan Ross’ excellent BBC4 documentary about his personal hunt for Spider-Man co-creator, Steve Ditko.

Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.  More on Ditko’s art and politics here.

If the YouTube clips disappear again, try via here, here, here or here.