Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a weasel — I couldn’t pick three out of the thirty excellent submissions on the gallery. I had trouble getting it down to ten, and there are still some that I wish I could include. Here is the short list of finalists, and a web thingy you can vote with — remember, you can pick your favourite three! (You can click on the thumbnails for a larger view.)

(And if any of the artists would like to explain why their submission is superior, please feel free to do so in the comments.)

Pan-Galactic

Spindizzy

Spice

451

Palanquin

Carousel

E-Secretaries

Soma

Nexus 6

Holodeck

There are prizes!

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.

Voting ends at 8 am, April 28th!

The full gallery of entries is here. Everyone from humor-blogs.com is invited to vote early and often.

The last updates are on the gallery page.

Thanks to everyone who has put together a product, service or concept from a fictional future with a vintage ad — there are 30 entries all told, and boy the judging is going to be tough. I’ll post the finalists tomorrow morning, and then let you all vote on who wins. What are the stakes? Well, they’re listed below.

In an effort to keep this page from crashing again, I’ve done a collage of just a few of the entries. Click on it, or here, to see all 30 entries:

The Rules:

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. (Someone else’s bizarre future is fine, so all you William S. Burroughs fans are not barred from competition.)

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

There are prizes!

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).

You may want to check out plan59.com or Flickr or Photobucket for inspiration.

You can find my original post about this here. All the artists at humor-blogs.com are invited!

We’re running a contest. The idea is to find a vintage ads (the one pictured above is from an 1975 USPS stamp ad), and then insert a product (or service) from a fictional future (or past) — 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 (or unlikely) as THE POSTMAN, 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. Or you may be interested in zombies.

Original image. More info about The Postman [wiki]

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 fully expect most of the wackaloons at humor-blogs.com to enjoy this one, especially the zombiephiles. Note this is not a meme. There are prizes; that makes this a contest, so I don’t want any sword-wielding, hobbit-torturing, cubicle ghosts coming after me.

I 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.