Norman Saunders
(2008 - The Illustrated Press)

(by David Saunders (the artist's son)) A glorious book. Waaaaaay too big. Let me say that again - majorly too big. By my lights, if you broke this tome into two books, they would both be too big. Another way to express it - if you counted *only* the pages with well-presented, dominant single art pieces (219), it would still be too big - then add another 122 pages that collect multiple examples of his work - then add another 35 pages of photographs, text and checklists. You'll even find a number of un-repeated spot-drawings on the endpapers. It's big. But what other volume is focused soley on his body of work ? You'll find chapters pulling that body into pieces entitled Early Work, Pulps, Slicks, China, Post-War Slicks, Post-War Pulps, Comic Books, Paperbacks, Men's Adventure, Trading Cards, and Late Work. Much of the presented pieces are in the form of the actual cards, magazine or book covers that were their ultimate destination. All their captions detail the publication & its date and those of the original art indicate for what use it was intended (where known). It doesn't look like he got much opportunity to illustrate straight fantasy, but he certainly excelled in most of the other major genres: crime, horror, western, science-fiction, children & advertising. Another observation to share would be that as a big book, even the multiple-image pages are impressive because they are mostly held to four-to-a-page, making the "smaller" images 3.5 x 5 inches. Note that many of the 45 full-bleed pages are expanded-detail-extracts of particular paintings. Double-page spreads are used sparingly, but even two-thirds of them use the book's gutter well and remain satisfactory. One curious lapse is that while the text repeatedly indicates that sales to the "slick" magazines was the most desired work for a large part of his life, it somehow neglects to include listing his art for that medium in the eight pages of checklisted works found at the end of the book.