Denber.wbst@XEROX.ARPA (06/25/84)
"Anyone out there with a collection of Queen albums might like to dig out the one showing a remorseful robot with blood on its hand. The art is adapted from an old Kelly Freas, and the robot is Gnut." The illustration is from the cover of Astounding Science Fiction, Oct. 1953 (although the story named on the cover is "The Gulf Between", by Tom Godwin). This and nine other cover illustrations are reproduced in a strange book called "The Compleat Computer", whose subtitle continues: "being a compendium of tales of the amazing & marvelous, poetry, informative news items, articles for edification and enjoyment, cartoons plus many other illustrations with a special section of SPLENDIFEROUS SCIENCE FICTION ART in full color", Dennie Van Tassel, ed., SRA, 1976, ISBN 0-574-21060-1. It's organized along the lines of Ted Nelson's famous "Computer Lib/Dream Machines". Some of it is amusing for lines like "And, similarly, many computers are now virtually desk-top machines. How small will they get?". (I vaguely recall bringing this up here a few years ago (or maybe it's just deja-vu (this comment homage to Lisp))). Anyway, besides Gnut, they have "The Doom from Planet 4" by Jack Williamson (Astounding Stories, July, 1932) featuring a spider-like robot shining a green light on a naked man (!) while a Tesla coil-type power station glows eerily on a cliff in the background. My favorite though is "Waldo" (Astounding, Aug. 1942 (25 cents)) showing a huge wheeled two-armed robot looming over a man in the foreground. The robot is evidently performing some sort of welding operation with sparks flying. The position of its arms mimic exactly the man's. "GoodBYE, Dr. Jones! (har har har)" - Michel