This lovely piece was created by a Graphic designer out of Ventura CA for his web-comic adventures of the 19XX. a comic set in a steam-punkish alternate America. When I first saw this on an image hosting blog I assumed it was related to Bio-shock Infinite (a video game who's planned to be released within the next year or so) but I was surprised to find out it was of it's own world, that of 19xxad.com the imagery of a Columbia crying sword in hand is a striking one if you'r familiar with early twentieth century propaganda. Colombia was simply put, Uncle Sam's female counterpart and had been featured in a number of posters during WWI, asking for war bonds and service of course. Her name is derived from that of Christopher Columbus, the man thought to have discovered and colonized North america. The name is used for many institutions such as our own Columbia college of Chicago. She is used here in a propaganda piece that shows us some of the values and ideals of this fictional world the writer and artist asks you to step into. With buzz words like faith, unity, prosperity, and strength and the images of zeppelins streaking across the air we begin to get some idea that this is a world like our early twentieth century but not quite, things seem a bit off. please do check out the site its an oddity as a serious web-comic and the art, of what I've seen of it, is pretty good. If you're wondering if this is a ploy to capitalize off of Bio-shock infinite's upcoming release, I wouldn't know, but it is wetting my whistle for the eventual release of Irrational games' game next year.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Propaganda in fiction, 19XX poster/cover art
This lovely piece was created by a Graphic designer out of Ventura CA for his web-comic adventures of the 19XX. a comic set in a steam-punkish alternate America. When I first saw this on an image hosting blog I assumed it was related to Bio-shock Infinite (a video game who's planned to be released within the next year or so) but I was surprised to find out it was of it's own world, that of 19xxad.com the imagery of a Columbia crying sword in hand is a striking one if you'r familiar with early twentieth century propaganda. Colombia was simply put, Uncle Sam's female counterpart and had been featured in a number of posters during WWI, asking for war bonds and service of course. Her name is derived from that of Christopher Columbus, the man thought to have discovered and colonized North america. The name is used for many institutions such as our own Columbia college of Chicago. She is used here in a propaganda piece that shows us some of the values and ideals of this fictional world the writer and artist asks you to step into. With buzz words like faith, unity, prosperity, and strength and the images of zeppelins streaking across the air we begin to get some idea that this is a world like our early twentieth century but not quite, things seem a bit off. please do check out the site its an oddity as a serious web-comic and the art, of what I've seen of it, is pretty good. If you're wondering if this is a ploy to capitalize off of Bio-shock infinite's upcoming release, I wouldn't know, but it is wetting my whistle for the eventual release of Irrational games' game next year.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is pretty epic. I like the use of light and all the symbolism. Makes me prouuud to be AMERICAN... woo...!
ReplyDeleteI can't stop looking at the face in this piece. As a whole your eyes move through it really well but I always end up back at that face, there is just so much emotion in it.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff. Yeah...at first I thought it was Bioshock Infinite too (Which I'm stoked for). Expect a lot of hits to his site and art after that game comes out!
ReplyDelete