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While compiling our list of fan campaigns that saved TV shows, we stumbled across a group of Quantum Leap fanatics known as "The Leapers." And they ruled. More »
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Old-school cosplayers were fucking rad. They'd spend hours constructing costumes, sometimes with zero guarantee that anybody would know who the hell they were. In this day and age, everyone's got the internet hooked up to their earmuffs. Imagine trying to explain who the Dirty Pair were when a hearty portion of the population still communicated via two tin cans and twine. More »
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From 1976 to 1978, the true inspiration for transforming cars ruled the Saturday morning airwaves: Wonderbug, from legendary TV creators Sid and Marty Krofft. Their Krofft Supershow brought you Land of the Lost, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, and most importantly, Wonderbug. More »
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The selling point of Yakov Protazanov's 1924 silent film Aelita: Queen of Mars isn't its plot, but its elaborate Constructivist sets and costuming that were highly experimental for the 1920s and predated the futurist aesthetic of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. More »
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The best thing about cosplay in the 1970s was that everyone alive was secretly cosplaying — they just didn't know it. Here's an assortment of retro cosplay radness that wouldn't be entirely out of place in Studio 54. More »
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In 1967, model-making kit manufacturers Revell ran advertisements for "the wildest, way out prize ever awarded in any contest." What was the prize? Your own 19-foot-long prototype of a Gemini capsule. The winner also got a guitar! More »
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If you picked up the second issue of 2000 AD in 1977, you'd be the proud owner of these retro-ridiculous Biotronic stickers. And if you missed it, here's a second chance to print out and tape on that third eye. More »
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DC comics is bringing back letters to the editor. Will you take advantage? More »
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Thomas Allen takes the art from old paperbacks and turns 3D in the best way imaginable. Check out more of his stuff here and here. More »
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In 1977, famed make-up rockers KISS teamed up with Marvel Comics to produce KISS, the only comic book in history to feature Paul Stanley psychoanalyzing Dr. Doom. Also, the comic was printed using the band's blood. Literacy, ahoy! More »
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Justin Van Genderen's minimalist travel posters had us ready to book a cruiser to Hoth. In his latest set of posters, he invites us to hit the great comic book cities, where superheroes roam and disaster strikes. [Flickr via ComicsAlliance] More »
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In 1943, Clue Comics featured a two-issue arc about the Boy King of Swisslakia, his friendly giant golem, and their arch-rival, a robotic Nazi dinosaur. In short, don't expect this comic to make any damn sense whatsoever. More »
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You probably know that the Cannon Group tried to make a Spider-Man film back in the 1980s, but have you ever seen the preview for this never-made monstrosity? Here's a brief snippet of the eight-legged bullet we dodged. More »
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In 1968's Silver Surfer 3, this advertisement for the Digi Comp I Electronic Computer Brain, hawked a psychic computer that used for telling the future and "studying space age miracles." Oh, 1960s copywriters, unencumbered the laws of reality. More »
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In this obscure Jack Kirby strip from 1957's Alarming Tales 1, a man chases a burglar into a geometric hellhole, where he falls in love. It's a priceless, wondrously nonsensical example of Kirby's pre-Marvel work. More »
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In March 1911, a federal lawsuit against Coca Cola (The United States Government vs. Forty Barrels, Twenty Kegs Coca-Cola,) began in Chattanooga. How come? The US government alleged that Coke's added caffeine was a deadly poison. More »
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The latest Tron Legacy image is channeling classic 80s movie posters - including the posters for the original Tron. (Thanks to all the commenters who pointed this out.) Do you like this epic retro look? [Yahoo] More »
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19th century inventor Charles Babbage never lived to finish his analytical engine, a punchcard computer that was decades ahead of its time, but now Babbage aficionados are finally building this device. Jennifer Oullette of Cocktail Party Physics has the details. More »
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In 1964, Sports Illustrated ran a piece on scientists experimenting with LSD for commercial fishing applications. Researchers hoped that LSD could both facilitate the removal of invasive carp and dope up commercial fishing populations on a large scale. More »
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If you were a strapping gent looking to improve your virility in the early 20th century, one such option would be the radium suppository. Nothing says "lothario" quite like shoving a radioactive pellet up your rectum. More »
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In late 2009, two intrepid bloggers visited a museum of Soviet arcade games outside of Moscow. What did they find? A subterranean den of gaming classics from behind the Iron Curtain. More »
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The Kickapoo Indian Dream Book was a mail-order catalog from the 1800s that sold quack cures for ailments like dyspepsia and tapeworm. The best part of this pamphlet was the poetically absurd dream taxonomy, which warned readers about sinister bacon. More »
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Need to whip up a flier with that pulp panache? Adam Levermore has written this fun tutorial on how to create old-school scifi posters. Now your birthday party invitations will look like they have H.G. Wells' tales tucked inside. [Craftzine] More »
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Over at HiLobrow, io9 contributor Joshua Glenn has been posting scans of books from his collection that include the letter X in their titles. Not surprisingly, many are scifi. Where are all the X titles of today, I wonder? More »
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In the early 1940s, Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons gave the Man of Steel an Art Deco flair and plenty of robots to defeat. Here's a brief history and some episodes of the cartoon. More »
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In 1997, X-Men: The Ravages Of Apocalypse hit stores. The game was a Marvel-sanctioned total conversion of the bloody first-person shooter Quake. You played as a cyborg Magneto built to kill Apocalypse's army of X-Men clones. Eat rocket launcher, bub!

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Ah, old chemistry sets. So many illustrations of happy moppets playing around with strange substances sans adult supervision or protective eyewear. The Chemical Heritage Foundation's Flickr is chock full of these awesome vintage kits. [Spotted on Nerdcore] More »
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This device from a 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics seems comically impractical nowadays, but back then such circumspection was warranted. After all, the automobile was (gasp!) "the most dangerous article in America" back then. [Modern Mechanix] More »
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Back in the day, fraternal organizations like the Freemasons and Woodmen of the World would haze new members in bizarre rituals using electric carpets and exploding furniture. Fantagraphics' upcoming book, Burlesque Paraphernalia, reprints a catalog of these sadistic inventions. More »
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Imagine being stranded in a harsh, gun-crazy, pyramid-obsessed alternate reality with your immediate family — think you'd be in the mood for a little desert two-step while on the run for your lives? More »
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In the 1950s, the recreational use of amphetamines like Benzedrine and Dexedrine was legal, and even Disney characters got in on the uppers game. In the following comic, Mickey and Goofy go to Africa to sell crank. It transcends wrong. More »
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The Grand Canyon itself is, of course, utterly stupefying. Vintage footage of the Grand Canyon from the 1920's, that most romantic era of National Parks travel, completely knocks my socks off. And here it is in all its monochrome glory... More »
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On the left, according to Retrolicious, "Yasutaro Mitsui poses with his own steel humanoid, Tokyo, Japan, in 1932." And on the right, Hiroshi Ishiguru poses with his "Gemenoid" in 2006. It's robot evolution in action. More »
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What exactly is happening in this 1947 issue of Life magazine? Did a swarm of the undead stumble into Grandpa Clovis' 70th birthday? Is this how Charlton Heston's family celebrated Thanksgiving? Is this an artifact from a far-off, genteel post-apocalypse? More »
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There are many things to recommend about the live-action Amazing Spider-Man series that aired in the late '70s — okay, well, Nicholas Hammond was a good-looking kid — but ol' Webhead's ability to rapidly foil crime isn't one of them. More »
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We recently posted the greatest intergalactic play-fort of all time. Here are some more spaced-out playplaces, replete with robots, spaceships, tetanus, fractured sternums, and lawsuits waiting to happen. More »
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Old Italian comics - or fumetti - were filled with lusty vampire babes, horndog mummies, and Frankenstein getting truckloads of ass. They are the apotheosis of total sleaze. Don't you want to see some? More »
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Back in the 1980s, no right-minded child wanted to be Han or Chewie. If you were smart, you wanted to be the expendable Stormtrooper. Then you could commandeer this insane Imperial walker play fort and lord over your peon friends. More »
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Need to know who Jason Voorhees killed before he went to Hell or became a cyborg? This chart from a 1993 issue of Cracked magazine is your fix. Find out who was "stabbed in neck while eating banana by road!" More »
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