Christa Päffgen, known by her stage name Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, actress and model. She had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966). Reviewer Richard Goldstein describes Nico as "half goddess, half icicle" and writes that her distinctive voice "sounds something like a cello getting up in the morning".
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a 1988 graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the second game to use the SCUMM engine, after Maniac Mansion. The project was led by David Fox, with Matthew Alan Kane as the co-designer and co-programmer.
Kitsch is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal taste.
Fallout is a media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games—and later action role-playing games—created by Tim Cain, at Interplay Entertainment. The series is set during the 21st, 22nd and 23rd centuries, and its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and art work are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. A forerunner of Fallout is Wasteland, a 1988 game developed by Interplay Productions to which the series is regarded as a spiritual successor.
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series.
Odd Nerdrum is a Norwegian figurative painter, born in Sweden. His work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects, portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.
UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM: UFO Defense in North America and as X-COM: Enemy Unknown, is a 1994 science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse. It was published by MicroProse for DOS and Amiga computers, the Amiga CD32 console, and the PlayStation. Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to Mythos Games' 1988 Laser Squad, the game mixes real-time management simulation with turn-based tactics. The player takes the role of commander of X-COM – an international paramilitary and scientific organization secretly defending Earth from an alien invasion. Through the game, the player is tasked with issuing orders to individual X-COM troops in a series of turn-based tactical missions. At strategic scale, the player directs the research and development of new technologies, builds and expands X-COM's bases, manages the organization's finances and personnel, and monitors and responds to UFO activity.
Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Irvine, California. It was founded in June 2003, shortly before the closure of Black Isle Studios, by ex-Black Isle employees Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, and Chris Jones.
Elvis Presley has inspired artistic and cultural works since he entered the national consciousness. From that point, interest in his personal and public life has never stopped. Some scholars have studied many aspects of his profound cultural influence. Billboard historian Joel Whitburn declared Presley the "#1 act of the Rock era".
Loonatics Unleashed is an American superhero animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation that ran on Kids' WB for two seasons from 2005 to 2007 in the United States.
Joshua Eric Sawyer, more commonly known and credited as Josh Sawyer, J.E. Sawyer, or JSawyer, is an American video game designer, known for his work on role-playing video games.
Dogmeat is a character featured in the post-apocalyptic role-playing game series Fallout. An NPC, Dogmeat was introduced as an optional companion to the player character in the original Fallout (1997), and made cameo appearances in the sequel Fallout 2 (1998). Other versions of Dogmeat are featured and serve similar roles in Fallout 3 (2008) and Fallout 4 (2015).
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. In a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a global nuclear war between the United States and China, Fallout's protagonist, the Vault Dweller, inhabits the underground nuclear shelter Vault 13. After customizing their character, the player must scour the surrounding wasteland for a computer chip that can fix the Vault's failed water supply system. They interact with other survivors, some of whom give them missions, and engage in turn-based combat where they battle until their action points are depleted.
Fallout 3 is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring the rights to the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. The game marks a major shift in the series by using 3D graphics and real-time combat, replacing the 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat of previous installments. It was released worldwide in October 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
"Black Velvet" is a song written by Canadian songwriters Christopher Ward and David Tyson, and recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Alannah Myles. It was released in January 1990 as one of four singles from Myles' 1989 eponymous album from Atlantic Records. It became a number-one hit for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1990 and reached number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart, as well as number ten in her native Canada and number two on the UK Singles Chart. The power ballad also reached number one in Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland and was a major success in several other countries. It contains blues verses with a rock chorus.
Edgar William Leeteg was an American painter often considered the father of American velvet painting. He immigrated to French Polynesia in 1933, where he spent the rest of his life painting the local life on black velvet.
Isle of the Dead is the best-known painting of Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901). Prints were very popular in central Europe in the early 20th century—Vladimir Nabokov observed in his 1936 novel Despair that they could be "found in every Berlin home".
A velvet painting is a type of painting distinguished by the use of velvet as the support, in place of canvas, paper, or similar materials. The velvet provides an especially dark background against which colors stand out.
Istvan Pely, is an American computer artist and game developer. He works at Bethesda Game Studios, specializing in art direction and 3D graphics.
