Ubik (Use As Directed)

Awesome can of Ubik created by an unknown fan of PKD's classic sci-fi novel.

**

BOB PEPPER (NAKED)

Detail of some cover art for Solar Lottery, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik by illustrator Bob Pepper (sans masthead for detail).

Awesome.

**

Where The Magic Began

This is Philip K. Dick's typewriter and coffee mug. Hard to believe he wrote all those great short stories and over 30 novels on this thing.

Epic.

**

BLADE RUNNER INSPIRED

SYD MEAD DESIGNS FOR BLADE RUNNER

VINTAGE UBIK ADS

MY BIG SCORE: BLADE RUNNER SOUVENIR MAGAZINE & AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER

Yesterday I discovered this treasure you see above at Frank & Son's Collectible Warehouse. Each magazine pictured (the Blade Runner Souvenir Magazine and the American Cinematographer) were each $5 so I snatched them up.

Inside I discovered pages and pages of full color (and some b&w) photos and interviews with PKD, Ridley, cast and crew, etc. and some images (shown above) that are not normally seen (at least by me) in the regular stock photos from the Blade Runner production.

The one image that really sets me off is the street scene image which at first looks like it must be one of Syd Mead's paintings but upon closer inspection is actually a photgraph of the set itself. Gorgeous!

Of course, I checked on Ebay (and you're welcome to do the same) and discovered that each of these is currently going for about $100 each. I got both for $10.

SCORE!!

(Don't hate me)

My Big Philip K. Dick Treasure

I was able to find these 4 vintage Sci-Fi Magazines for $2.00 a pop! They each feature PKD short stories.

The black cover "A Glass of Darkness" is worth about $75 and the others around $10 each, give or take.

Pretty awesome, huh?

Found Treasure

On Saturday I picked up a handful of old SF pulp magazines featuring PKD short stories for about $2 each(!) and one of them was the December 1956 edition of Satellite Science Ficton magazine with a cover story by PKD entitled "A Glass Of Darkness".

The story is the first published version the entire novel "The Cosmic Puppets" (about 95 pages).

Anyway, I went online to see if it was worth anything and couldn't find anything (no, not even on Ebay). But I did come across a listing on Amazon.com where someone was selling a used copy for $159. I couldn't believe it.

Turns out that it's probably more realistically priced around $75, but hey, that's still a good bargain.

This Saturday I'll head back to the same seller to pick up a couple more of these pulp SF magazines also featuring PKD short stories.

Woo-hoo!

FIRST LOOK: PKD'S "ELECTRIC ANT" Graphic Novel

First issue of this 3 part mini-series releases in April from Marvel Comics.

Written by David Mack (after the PKD short story)
Covers: Paul Pope
Interior Art:Pascal Alixe

READ MORE
HERE

HOLLYWOOD LOVES PHILIP K. DICK

Do you love the scene in “The Matrix” where Neo wakes up in an embryonic chamber, connected to wires and floating in a nutrient bath? Do you love films like “Stranger Than Fiction” or “The Truman Show” where the main character discovers that reality isn’t to be taken at face value? Do you enjoy stories like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” where the process of erasing someone from your memory triggers a realization that true love is really all about accepting someone – warts and all?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you are already a fan of Philip K. Dick stories. You just don’t know it yet.

In many of the hundreds of short stories and novels by prolific author, Philip K. Dick, the concepts of flawed perception, fluctuating reality, and evolving humanity are central themes. While Dick did not directly write any of the stories found in the films mentioned above, his influence on every single one of those films is unmistakable.

In fact, there are key moments in all of these films which could easily be traced back to the short stories and novels Dick published decades earlier. Which is probably why Hollywood is so in love with Philip K. Dick these days.

At the moment, several of Dick’s novels have been optioned for film production, including “Ubik”, and “Flow My Tears the Policeman Said”. Production on the film adaptation of his novel “Radio Free Albemuth” wrapped recently and is slated to release later in 2010. His short story “The Adjustment Team” has just been optioned by Matt Damon’s production company under the title “The Adjustment Bureau”.

There are also two biopics based loosely on his life story. One, “Your Name Here” starring Bill Pullman bears the dubious distinction of being a fictionalized take on his life, (read, “the unauthorized version”) and the other, “The Owl in Daylight” stars Paul Giamatti and is being produced under the watchful eye of the Dickian Estate.

Of course, the saddest thing is that Dick never lived to see any of this. He died a few months before his book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” released to theaters as “Blade Runner”. Thankfully, this meant that he also died before having to endure “Paycheck” with Ben Affleck or “Next” starring Nicholas Cage. Not all of this ideas have survived the Hollywood treatment. Only “A Scanner Darkly” and “Total Recall” (based on his short story, “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale”) can stand alongside “Blade Runner” as faithful, and nearly intact, adaptations of his work.

While “Minority Report” may have earned a lot at the box office, thanks mainly to the star power of Tom Cruise and the presence of Steven Spielberg, the film itself bore little to no resemblance to Dick’s original story.

Still, the spirit of Philip K. Dick lives on in films where reality is questioned, perception is altered, and memory is untrustworthy. Perhaps this is why, as a long-time PKD fan, I love movies like “Memento”, “Adaptation”, “Time Crimes”, “Brazil”, “Fight Club”, and “12 Monkeys”. When we question reality and test our perceptions, we are exploring our own souls and mining for truth. I’m just thankful that people like Philip K. Dick had the courage to get this process in motion.

RARE FOOTAGE OF PKD'S ANDROID

5 PAGE PREVIEW: PKD'S "DO ANDROIDS DREAM..?" COMIC

The first 5 pages of the new comic version of PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" are now online
HERE

Not sure how I feel about the constant and unnecessary "he said/Iran said" on every word balloon, but the art looks great and having a comic version of this amazing novel is enough to push me over the edge.

Especially since there's the chance that the success of this comic novel could mean future PKD projects down the road and I'd love to read a comic book version of "Flow My Tears" or "Ubik".

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

Boom! Studios Announces new 24 issue comic book mini-series based on PKD's classic novel.

Written by Phillip K. Dick, art by Steven Dupre, covers by Dennis Calero, Bill Sienkiewicz, Moritat and Scott Keating.

The book that inspired the film Blade Runner comes to BOOM! with backmatter by Warren Ellis!

Visionary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" has been called "a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today" and served as the basis for the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner.

The Story: San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. The World War killed millions, driving entire species to extinction, and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic fakes: horses, birds, cats, sheep -- even humans. Rick Deckard is an officially sanctioned bounty hunter tasked to find six rogue androids -- they're machines, but look, sound, and think like humans, clever, and most of all, dangerous humans.

Rick Deckard, Pris, The Voight-Kampff Test, Nexus 6 androids, the Tyrell Corporation: join BOOM! Studios as the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, groundbreaking 24-issue maxi-series experiment.

Coming in June.
32 pages, $3.99.

THE UNTELEPORTED MAN by Philip K. Dick (A Review)

While visiting my parents in El Paso I ran across two great paperback editions by PKD, one was "The Unteleported Man" and the other was "The Eye in the Sky". I picked up both for $5.00 which was awesome and I started reading "The Unteleported Man" immediately.

The first 100 pages of the book are seriously amazing. I was all prepared to declare it one of my favorite PKD books, up until page 100 when the story took a complete left turn into stupidity.

Apparently the book has been published in various forms over the years with the additional material (where things get really stupid) being added in by the author himself to expand a short story which originally appeared in a sci-fi anthology as a long-form short story.

Those first 100 pages are good enough to inspire a feature length film, as long as the adaptation avoided the detour added in to pad the story.

I would recommend the book to those who already love PKD as I do and who are patient enough to plow their way through the second half of the book to get to the ending which was part of the original short story.

For the record, these are my favorite PKD books in no particular order:

*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
*Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
*The Man Who Japed
*Ubik

I might also note that I have read but not particularly enjoyed "The Man in the High Castle" and "A Scanner Darkly" which are often hailed as some of PKD's greatest novels.

Of course, I have barely scratched the surface since he wrote over 40 novels and hundreds of short stories in his lifetime.

I am currently reading the "Paycheck" collection of short stories by PKD and have just finished "The Eye of the Sybil" collection.

While I'm in a list-making mood, here are my favorite sci-fi films of all time:

*Blade Runner
*Brazil
*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
*Children of Men
*Gattaca
*Alien
*Aliens
*Terminator
*The Matrix

-kg

SOONER OR LATER - SHORT SCI-FI FILM

This 10 minute short sci-fi time travel film will warp your brain like a PKD short story on speed. (Which PDK was on most of the time).

Check it: