Deserted Pathways

Just about every image on this page was cover art for a month on Pariah Online. My philosophy for doing images for Pariah was, and is, basically two-fold: first, the image must be science-fiction related, and second it must be something that inspires the imagination by causing those who see it to ask questions. Each image, I feel, is just a snapshot of a larger story, and that story is for the viewer to write. Since Pariah was created by and for writers, it seemed like a perfect combination.

The name, Deserted Pathways, comes from Pariah’s motto: “A path for your mind to wander.” Each of these images was a gateway for one of those paths down which your mind was free to wander. Since they’re time has come and gone, they are now deserted pathways.

Many of my earlier images dealt with the theme of something that seemed out of place. This was possibly one of the first of those images. The small astronaut figure has just discovered a structure similar to Stonehenge on one of the moons around Saturn. I took a structure that is mysterious in our day and age, and placed it in an even more bizarre location. This little astronaut is a favorite of mine, and I try to stick him in where I can. He has so far appeared in two images, the second one being “Solitude.”

Pretty self-explanatory. Not one of my better images. I can do a better black hole than this.

An explorer stumbles upon a detailed map of the solar system painted on a cave wall. Hmmm…

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” While not the most brilliant quote of all time, that is the theme of this particular image. When you look at all the things they predicted about the year 2000 and then what it actually looked like, you may remember a distinct lack of flying cars. No matter how much our technology advances, there will always be pockets of society that live in the past, accept that change is going on around them, but remain content to stay where they are.

I chose a picket fence and an image of future technology reminiscent of the Flash Gordon visions of the future they had in the fifties.

A naked hand protrudes from the icy surface of one of the moons of Jupiter, testifying of a lost struggle. Where did the person come from, how did they get there, and what happened to them in their final moments?

This image ran in a December issue of Pariah, and was one of my first serious attempts and making the cover art look halfway decent. The image was inspired by the Christmas tale of the wise men following the star of Bethlehem, but can be applied more broadly. It could be any ancient seeking illumination by looking beyond this mortal realm.

All the human figures presented in the art on Pariah are, themselves, pariahs. Outcasts have a special place, or rather non-place, in society. Those that are eternally separate from their own have a unique, if sometimes distorted, perspective. In this picture I give the anatomy of a pariah. You see a scan of the brain and DNA, but you also see something of the eternal within the figure. The torso is composed of a star field, and a galaxy is show to the left. The figure is faceless, an eerie light pouring out of where the eyes and mouth should be.

A lone astronaut sits on the tail fin of his wrecked spacecraft on a barren, air-less, and isolated world. He is staring up at the vast, beautiful starscape above him, most likely to be his last sight. This is probably one of my favorite images ever, and I am sorry I did not make it larger. It is at once both comical and tragic. It is the essence of being a pariah; an outcast not by choice or social rejection, but rather by ironic circumstance.

I don’t have any idea what a wormhole would look like, but I like swirling energy vortexes, and we needed a wormhole to do our ratings at Pariah. I debated making the hole itself black or glowing white. A decided on the black. As you can see, this is just the opening.