Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Having a Galactic Christmas

To the delight of art directors everywhere, Galaxy, arguably the best science fiction magazine of the postwar era, is in the public domain (sort of) and is available on the Internet archive. The copyright situation is a bit complicated because most of the stories are very much not in the public domain, but the commissioned parts including the columns, reviews, and best of all, art are.

From Wikipedia:

Notable artists who contributed regularly to Galaxy included Ed Emshwiller, who won several Hugo Awards for his work, Hugo nominee Wallace Wood, and Jack Gaughan, who won three Hugos in the late 1960s, partly for his work in Galaxy. Gaughan was commissioned by Pohl to provide the cover and interior art for Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters in 1962; the resulting illustrations made Gaughan immediately famous in the science fiction field.


Wally Wood was one of a number of EC artists who showed up in the pages of the magazine including the unexpected but unmistakable Don Martin.

Throughout the 50s, December issues of the magazine featured Emshwiller's four-armed but otherwise reassuringly familiar Santa Claus on the cover. I thought this would be a good way to kick off the month.

Happy holidays.






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