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Fantastic Planets
(1979 - Reed Books)

[-BELOW THE LINE-] (by Jean-Claude Suarès, Richard Siegel & David Owen) In the wake of the tsunami that was the film release of STAR WARS, a number of books were released celebrating science-fiction, or at least the science-fiction that could be found among movies & television. This one has a painting as the cover and enough paintings spread about the project that one might perceive it as an acceptable art/photo hybrid, but, alas, that perception falls apart, if you look closer. Out of 160 pages, nearly two-thirds of this book is photographs, sequential art and black-&-white reproductions of colored art. A bunch more pages are taken up with the text, which is broken up into chapters entitled; The Lure Of Other Worlds, The Moon, Mars, The Solar System, and Beyond The Solar System. That leaves you with only 44 pages devoted to art, with 12 displaying multiple images and 32 featuring a singular large reproduction. Those pages include five double-page-spreads (of which two don't work satisfactorily with the gutter). The captions are somewhat haphazard, trying to supply a quick bit of context to the display, but sometimes neglecting to identify the artist. The artists found here 'well presented' are: Hannes Bok, John Butterfield, Bob Clampett, Reed Crandall (2), Don Davis, Elliot Dold, Virgil Finlay (2), Frank Frazetta*, Kelly Freas*, Brad Hamman, Tom Kowal, Jeff Kronen, Mark Marchioni, Leiji Matsumoto, Robert McCall, George Méliès (2), Paul Orban, Frank R. Paul, M. Snyder, Chris Spollen, Ed Valigurski, Albert Whitlock, Wally Wood (2), and UNKNOWN (3). Also, don't get confused by this one, if what you actually want is THE FANTASTIC PLANET.