RIP Ron Cobb, who passed away yesterday. Here's a thread celebrating his work, beginning with the interstellar pictograms he designed for 'Alien'. https://wharferj.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/ron-cobbs-alien-semiotic-standards/

Here's a brilliant blogpost about the inspired design team on 'Alien' ("He was hung over from an LSD trip and I felt kind of guilty, but I had to have those designs...") https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/space-truckin-the-nostromo/

Cobb's ornithopter design for Jodorowsky’s 'Dune'.

Cobb's design for the DeLorean time machine in 'Back to the Future' http://www.roncobb.net/17-Back_To_The_Future.html

He also made many cartoons for underground/countercultural publications. Some were playful satire, others were unflinching http://roncobb.net/cartoons.html 

I first encountered Cobb's work with 'Aliens', without yet knowing his name. It felt so lived-in and so labyrinthine, fantastical and believable at the same time. I must have been about 7 or 8 when I first saw it. Been thinking about it ever since http://roncobb.net/21-AlienS.html 

"Get your ass to Mars", "I got five kids to feed", "See you at the party, Richter", "Come on Cohaagen, you've got what you want. Give these people air", "Two weeks..." etc etc http://www.roncobb.net/28-Total_Recall.html

Vogon poetry reading from an unmade adaptation of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'.