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Tag: pulp

Why Star Wars?

In the most recent installment of the Laser Age, the Dissolve’s fascinating history of science fiction films from the 1960s to the 1980s, Keith Phipps turns his attention to Superman, Star Trek, and Flash Gordon — three movies released in the immediate wake of Star Wars. It’s a great read if you are at all interested in this stuff,  but it’s also a perfect excuse to revisit Phipps’s earlier — but oh, so timely — essay, ‘Why Star Wars?’:

Why? Of all the science-fiction films released in the long wake of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet Of The Apes, why did Star Wars take hold in a way no film before it had? None of the many answers are entirely satisfying. But combining a few of them lets us make some sense of the question.

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10+ Flickr Groups for Book Design and Inspiration

10 Websites for Vintage Books, Covers and Inspiration” is one of the most popular posts on The Casual Optimist, and here, at long last, is the promised follow-up: “10 Flickr Groups for Book Design and Inspiration.”

There are a lot of amazing photostreams with book sets — Covers etc, insect54, Kyle Katz, mjkghk, Montague, Paula Wirth, and Scott Lindberg to name just a few that I’ve come across — but I’ve decided to focus this post on my favourite group pools because they collate the best of these individual streams together.

I’ve also decided to highlight groups that are about specific subjects, genres, publishers, or designers, because I think these are more useful than the more general (but still interesting) book pools such as A+ Book Covers, Book Cover Club, and My Books

ABC Verlag Graphic Design books

1. ABC Verlag, Zurich — A collection of scans and images from Zurich-based ABC Verlag who specialized in graphic design and fine art books between 1962 to 1989.

1627

2. Antique Books — images of books, covers and illustrations that are a hundred years old or more.

Design and Paper: Number 13: Spread

3. Designers’ Books — “what’s on the shelves of designers and other smart creatives.” Not to be confused with the also excellent designers-books.com pool or Book Design pool.

Literature in America

4. Alvin & Elaine Lustig Design — celebrates the work of Alvin and Elaine Lustig, both renowned for their incredible book cover designs.

They Shoot Horses Don't They

5. The Penguin Paperback Spotters’ Guild — An astonishing collection of vintage Penguins, Pelicans, Peregrines, and Puffins. Also of interest: The Great Pan! Illustrated Pan Book Covers and Vintage Fontana Books.

Playback by Raymond Chandler Cover art by William Rose

6. Pulp Fiction — As you would expect: detective novels, crime fiction, adventure comics, trashy romance, weird science, blaxploitation and more. See also: The Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers and The Crime & Mystery Book Covers.

Thoughts on Design by Paul Rand

7. The Paul Rand Modern Graphic Design Fan Club — Like the Lustig Design group, this is not just a book pool, but it does, however, include many of Paul Rand’s iconic book designs, making it essential to this list in my opinion.

I Know an Old Lady, by Rose Bonne. Pictures by Abner Graboff.
8. The Retro Kid A collection of cool illustrated children’s books from the mid-1940’s through the mid-1960’s, curated by The Ward-O-Matic illustrator Ward Jenkins.

metropolis thea v marbou

9. The SciFi Books Pool Vintage science fiction covers from the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

computers

10. Vintage Paperbacks — The place for amazing paperbacks that aren’t Penguins. Curated by graphic designer and art director Gregory Boerum, the focus is on quality stuff with design interest from the 1960’s and 70’s.

So there we have it: 10 of my favourites. What are yours?

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10 Websites for Vintage Books, Covers and Inspiration

1. A Journey Round My Skull — “Unhealthy book fetishism from a reader, collector, and amateur historian of forgotten literature.”

2. The Art of Penguin Science FictionA comprehensive collection of Penguin sci-fi covers from 1935 onwards.

3. BibliOdyssey“Books… Illustrations… Science… History… Visual Materia Obscura… Eclectic Bookart.”

4. Book (Design) Stories — Felix Wiedler’s incredible collection of modernist design and typography books from Germany and Switzerland 1925–1965.

5. Book Worship — “graphically interesting, but otherwise uncollectible, books that entered and exited bookstores quietly in the 50s, 60s, and 70s”.

6. I Was A Bronze Age BoyComic books, crime fiction and pulp magazines curated by Mark Justice. Awesome name. Awesome blog.

7. Killer Covers of the Week — Pulpy goodness and vintage crime fiction covers expertly curated The Rap Sheet‘s J. Kingston Pierce.

8. The Pelican ProjectThings Magazine‘s collection of Pelican paperbacks organized by decade.

9. Pop Sensation — Rex Parker appraises, critiques and generally ridicules his vintage paperback collection.

10. Spanish Book CoversSpanish pulp: detectives, masked gangsters, pin-ups, skeletons, and zombies! (French language)

AND BONUS! 11. French Book Covers — But not entirely safe for work… It’s French. You have been warned.

Let me know if I’ve missed any other great vintage book cover sites. AND  I’m working on a list of book cover related photostreams and groups on Flickr so please pass on your recommendations! Cheers.

modernist book design in germany and switzerland 1925–1965 (and beyond)

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Something for the Weekend, August 28th, 2009

Now, About That Cover — Ted Striphas, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University, discusses the cover of his new book The Late Age of Print, which uses a dramatic photograph by artist Cara Barer:

The Late Age of Print is a book about the past, present, and future of book publishing, and so I knew early on that I wanted some type of cover image that would represent the themes of permanence and change.  Much later, as I looked at the books about books appearing on my bookshelf at home, I decided that I wanted a more abstract type of design, since many titles in my opinion overly-literalized their subject matter.

Another other Cara Barer’s images can also be seen on the cover Michael Greenberg’s  Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life released in September.

You can download a PDF of Striphas’ book under a Creative Commons license from his site, cunningly called The Late Age of Print.

Why Are Artists Poor? — Author and professional  contrarian Andrew Keen (The Cult of the Amateur),  looks at how the creative class make a living in the “new digital economy” for The Telegraph.

Keen is as provocative as ever, but his conclusions — that self-promotion is a requirement for all artists and that being paid for content can be replaced by getting paid to perform in person — are a little underwhelming.  Ernesto Priego offers more thoughts on Keen’s article in his blog post “Portrait of the Artist as a Digital Native”.

And finally…

Having mentioned the  Richie Fahey illustrations that adorn the covers of  Megan Abbott‘s crime novels earlier this week, it would be remiss of me not mention the remarkable R.A. Maguire Cover Art site, which includes an amazing collection of the artist’s book covers, paintings, and source photos from the 1950’s and 60’s:


(And if you can’t get enough of pulp covers and vintage paperbacks, you probably should check out the slightly potty-mouthed Pop Sensation.)

Self promotion and making money in the new digital economy

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Megan Abbott Noir Covers

For all my love of clean lines and Swiss modernism, I’m also a total sucker for trashy pulp paperback covers and film-noir movie posters, so when I stumbled across these covers illustrated by Richie Fahey for Megan Abbott‘s crime novels, I thought I should post the series:

Meg Abbott interviewed in 3:AM Magazine.

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Somthing for the Weekend, May 8th, 2009

Anything But Saintly — More pulp goodness seen at The Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers Flickr pool.

The Decline and Fall of Books — Nicholas Clee, editor of Book Brunch, dons “The End is Nigh” sandwich-board in The Times:

A Gutenberg-style revolution is not… expected in the next few months. But if you are a lover of well-stocked bookshops, then you should enjoy them while you can.

Poets Ranked by Beard Weight — Or why I <3 the internet (via eightface).

Penguin Automaton made by artist-maker Wanda Sowry to celebrate Penguin’s 70th anniversary and available from Art Meets Matter . Apparently winding the handle “causes the Penguin to drink from a mug, its flippers to waggle and a piece of 70th Birthday cake to rise magically from the table” (via the lovely tweeps at New Directions ).

Good Typography is Invisible, Bad Typography is Everywhere — Stephanie Orma talks to five acclaimed designers about the art of type in the SF Examiner. Interesting to see some conflicting/contrasting opinions in the mix…

7 Habits of Highly Effective People I Know — A nice list from Noisy Decent Graphics Ben Terrett.

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