Vintage ads of fictional futures: a contest

'The Road' Baby FoodI spotted a Photoshop contest that looked like fun, so I thought I’d have a go at it (with a Skwibbish twist, of course.) You can see the results to the right. (Original ad here. Synopsis of THE ROAD here. [wiki]

In the original contest, the idea was to take modern products and display them in a vintage advertising light. (You could reverse that too, but boring.) So, find some vintage ads, and then insert a product from a fictional future — it can be from a book, movie, TV, etc. The only proviso is that it has to have been written by someone else, so none of your own bizarre fictional futures. It doesn’t have to be as grim as THE ROAD, by the way. If you’re more of an optimistic Star Trek kind of person, then I’m happy to see Oil of Olay ads featuring Warf, or ear-hair trimming systems endorsed by Quark.

The Rules:

  1. create your masterpiece
  2. post it to your blog
  3. link to this post (or let me know where it is via email)
  4. wait for the aplomb and/or ridicule of your peers.

What, pray tell is the prize? Well, if you win, you can choose from:

  • a prominent walk-on role in my next novel
  • a copy of THE AMADEUS NET
  • a “mystery” item from within the bowels of my desk.

The second-place winner will choose from the remaining prizes, and the bronze winner gets whatever is left. Worth playing for? The contest will run until (Sunday, April 20).

For more information, you can check out the original contest here. I’ll post a few more ads like THE ROAD baby food in the next week. I fully expect most of the wackaloons at humor-blogs.com to enjoy this one, but just to be sure, I’m going to tag a number of them, just to get the word out. Note this is not a meme. There are prizes, so that makes it a contest, so I don’t want any sword-wielding, hobbit-torturing, cubicle ghosts coming after me. Let the tagging begin, in no particular order: Bagel, Chelle, The Frogster, Brent, Rickey, Diesel, Don, Lobo, Quelqoth, Ellison, Rachel, Jon, Hurty, Alenja, Fiar, Bob, Mr. Snitch!. Finally, thanks to exnovo for the original baby food ad.

, , , , , ,

14 Responses to Vintage ads of fictional futures: a contest

  1. Qelqoth April 5, 2008 at 6:43 pm #

    Please…no more tags, lol. I don’t want to go through all that again. 🙂

  2. bagel April 6, 2008 at 11:57 am #

    Ok, I’ll play.

  3. Mark A. Rayner April 6, 2008 at 6:29 pm #

    No worries Qulqoth, it was just an FYI. Woo-hoo Bagel!

  4. Qelqoth April 7, 2008 at 6:25 am #

    But I have returned the favour for you Mark.
    The Skwib is now available Wikipedia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satirists_and_satires#Internet

  5. bagel April 7, 2008 at 2:40 pm #

    Seems my pingback didn’t come through.

    Here.

  6. Mark A. Rayner April 7, 2008 at 4:51 pm #

    My server had a bit of a meltdown, so it probably had something to do with that.

    Love the soma ad! m.

  7. Mister Snitch April 7, 2008 at 9:24 pm #

    “NOW WITH MORE BABY!”

    That better not be Laughing Baby. Laughing Baby gives me gas.

  8. Mark April 9, 2008 at 7:37 am #

    I like the idea of this competition.

    My entry, perhaps only the first depending on how inventive/stuck for a real post idea I am:

    A Vintage Fictional Future

  9. Rickey Henderson April 9, 2008 at 4:46 pm #

    Holy hell, Rickey’s a tad late to the party, but if he’s reading this correctly, you mean to say that Rickey is responsible for doing something? Okey dokey then. Rickey will get right on it.

  10. Mark A. Rayner April 10, 2008 at 10:58 am #

    You’ve got lots of time Rickey! The deadline isn’t until April 20th.

  11. Christine Gio April 20, 2008 at 10:16 pm #

    Check out the beverage of the future of the past, Douglas Adam’s Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster!
    http://spreaditon.wordpress.com/

  12. hp mini 210 August 27, 2011 at 5:14 pm #

    Each time I see blogs as very good as this mainly because I must stop bludging and commence working on mine.Thanks

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. A Vintage Fictional Future | neOnbubble: Bubbly. And Neonny. - March 13, 2011

    […] Vintage Fictional Future competition is here. Go and enter. You know you want […]

  2. A Vintage Fictional Future | neOnbubble - March 14, 2011

    […] Vintage Fictional Future competition is here. Go and enter. You know you want […]