Submitted by: aka.attrition
Closer Than We Think
Closer Than We Think is a 2017 documentary that tells the story of Arthur Radebaugh, a futurist illustrator and imagineer whose ability to extrapolate and prognosticate has kept his work relevant for nearly a century.
It is a documentary about the golden age of post-WW2 futurism explored through the life of Radebaugh, the visionary artist behind the comic strip Closer Than We Think.
The documentary was the winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival and the Comic Con International Film Festival.
This was the stuff of my youth and, I suspect, those of many here on TBP. Here’s a little look back at his great art predicting the future. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did re-discovering these and many other images of the future from our youth.
How many did he get right?
I reckon he got about 15 right in the series of pictures above, not bad for a random selection of 20 images. I also notice some things missing in all these scenes … can’t quite put my finger on it … hmm … something, something, something about our strength … hmm
Documentary Info:
IMDB: IMDB – Internet Movie DataBase
Amazon: Amazon Video
I wish I had kept all those comic books that I bought as a child back in the day. They would bring a pretty penny today.
Thanks for posting this. I need to find that documentary and watch it.
Very cool. Nickola Tesla needs more attention.
Fascinating!
Men would get pregnant. Women would have dicks. — He missed those two.
In the future it’s OK to be White.
Maybe the secret to a successful future is to get rid of all POC’s?
get rid of all POC’s?
Emily Latella “What’s all this talk about allpox? I thought they got rid of the allpox?”
Jane Curtain “It’s smallpox Miss Latella”
Emily “Oh…………..Never mind.”
Automobile color change for $1.50…….Wow, how far the dollar has fallen. What a hoot aka, excellent.
Earl Scheib was astounded.
They actually did some decent work back in the day.
Sheib’s prices were sort of reasonable until his son got busted in San Bernardino area with over 6 tons of weapons, ammunition and explosives in the ’80s (?) … then they went up precipitously to pay for sonny’s legal defense …
Thanks for nothing. Tired of all that…..
Most of the ideas above are about killing people, so they got that bit right.
Sci fi books and movies over estimate future large scale engineering (rocket ships and architecture) while under estimating the electronics. The ship control panels, tri-corders and phasers in star trek are much less impressive than an iPhone.
I remember reading “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons in the early 1990’s. Buying and selling was conducted using a Uni-card which just required your touching the card of the person you were doing business with to complete the transaction. I thought that was a neat idea. About 20 years later I had one.
3/20 … hardly most
NatGeo predicted high tech farms in 1970:
https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=904770
One of the ‘Closer Than We Think’ strips I recall showed how stormy seas would be calmed for oceangoing vessels by gigantic robot devices that sprayed oil (!) on the sea surface. There’s one that Radebaugh got very, very wrong!
You’re never more than one heartbeat away from Eternity. I’m content to wait…for now.