Comet Atomic
Author's posts
Oct 18 2025
Albert Frey: Desert Modernism in Palm Springs
Born on October 18, 1903, in Zurich, Switzerland, Albert Frey became one of the architects most closely associated with Palm Springs and the development of Desert Modernism. He arrived in California with firsthand experience of European modernism, an enthusiasm for industrial materials, and a belief that architecture should respond intelligently to contemporary life. What he …
Oct 17 2025
Luiz Bonfá: Bossa Nova, Guitar & the Music of Black Orpheus
Born on October 17, 1922, in Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Bonfá became one of the great Brazilian guitarists and composers of the 20th century, helping introduce the sounds of Brazil to an international audience just as bossa nova was beginning to transform popular music. His lyrical melodies, sophisticated harmonies, and extraordinary command of …
Oct 16 2025
Nico: The Velvet Underground, The Marble Index & a Voice Like No Other
Born on October 16, 1938, in Cologne, Germany, Christa Päffgen—better known simply as Nico—traveled one of the strangest paths through 20th-century popular culture. She was a European fashion model, an actress in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, a presence in Andy Warhol’s Factory, the mysterious voice on several of the Velvet Underground’s most enduring recordings, …
Oct 16 2025
The Rise of Monster Magazines
In the late 1950s, monsters suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and other creatures from Hollywood’s past were returning to television just as movie theaters filled with aliens, radioactive mutants, giant insects, and other Atomic Age terrors. Children who discovered old horror movies on late-night television wanted to …
Oct 12 2025
Serge Clerc: Rock, Comics & the New Clear Line
Born on October 12, 1957, in Roanne, France, Serge Clerc became one of the most distinctive illustrators to emerge from the explosion of French comics culture during the 1970s and 1980s. His world is populated by sharp-suited detectives, glamorous women, musicians, robots, futuristic automobiles, cocktail bars, record shops, modernist furniture, mysterious nightclubs, and characters who …
Oct 09 2025
Universal Monsters on Television
By the middle of the 1950s, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man belonged to another era of Hollywood. Their most famous films had been made during the 1930s and 1940s, and American horror had moved toward flying saucers, radioactive mutations, giant insects, and other distinctly Atomic Age nightmares. Under ordinary circumstances, the …
Oct 07 2025
Herbert List: Surrealism, Greece & the Art of Photography
Born on October 7, 1903, in Hamburg, Germany, Herbert List became one of the most distinctive European photographers of the 20th century by creating images that seemed to exist somewhere between documentary observation and dream. Ancient statues cast long shadows across Greek ruins, mirrors fractured reality, young men appeared beside classical sculptures, ordinary objects acquired …
Oct 02 2025
The Mummy in Classic Horror
Few classic monsters are as instantly recognizable as the Mummy. Wrapped in decaying bandages, moving slowly through darkened corridors, and carrying the weight of an ancient curse, the Mummy became one of the defining figures of Hollywood horror. Yet the familiar image owes surprisingly little to ancient Egyptian belief and a great deal to twentieth-century …
Sep 28 2025
Brigitte Bardot: Cinema, Style & the Making of an Icon
Born on September 28, 1934, in Paris, Brigitte Bardot became one of the defining faces of postwar European cinema and one of the first French stars to become a truly global pop-culture phenomenon. With her tousled blonde hair, ballet-trained movement, unmistakable pout, casual clothes, bare feet, bikinis, and apparent indifference to convention, Bardot represented something …
Sep 26 2025
Marty Robbins: El Paso, Gunfighter Ballads & the Fast Lane
Born on September 26, 1925, near Glendale, Arizona, Marty Robbins became one of the most versatile stars in country music history, moving with remarkable ease between cowboy ballads, country-pop, rockabilly, Hawaiian music, gospel, romantic ballads, television, movies, and even NASCAR racing. His smooth baritone could sound intimate on a love song, dramatic on a Western …
