Alvim Correa's War of the Worlds 1906 — Fleeing the Martian Heat-Ray

Drawn for the landmark 1906 Belgian edition of H.G. Wells's 'The War of the Worlds,' this frenetic pen-and-ink scene captures desperate Londoners scrambling in blind panic as the Martian invasion tightens its grip. A wild-eyed man cowers against a wall while a woman in full Victorian dress and a rifle-armed soldier lunge headlong down rain-slicked steps — the scratchy, kinetic linework perfectly embodying the chaos and dread Wells wrote into his alien-invasion masterpiece.