By many and various: edited and compiled by Rian Hughes (Korero Press)
ISBN: 978-1-91274-004-8 (HB)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Eyepopping, Mind-blowing Vintage Visions… 9/10
Very often the books we write about our comics and other related passions can be better than the stories and pictures themselves: memorable, intensely evocative and infused with that debilitating nostalgic joy only passing years and selective memory can bestow. It’s not only true of our childhood comics but also the toys and books we encountered and invested so much time in…
For much of Britain’s Baby Boomer population, much of that unharnessed energy went into the wealth of science fiction book and pulp magazines that began popping up around the same time as the Nazis. As hostilities ensued, the genre kept pace, before spectacularly increasing in the post-war years, when prose science fiction became a welcome refuge for millions with an eye on a better tomorrow… and unlike rationed food or sweets or a new wave of weekly comics, books were comparatively cheap and sturdily re-readable…
That in in no way meant to denigrate or decry the superb efforts of countless – usually unrecognised and generally unlauded – creators who briefly brightened the lives of generations (and created quite a few harmless hobbyist/obsessive collectors) with fantastic adventures and brain-bursting images on flimsy, easily damaged pulp tomes but rather because of an added factor inherent in them – sheer mystery. Who made this stuff?…
No kid buying or shoplifting these items had any idea of who did what and only a few even cared: the stories and their covers worked on a primal, visceral connection or not at all, and always promised spectacular escape from the here and now…
As seen in era-expert Steve (read his Bear Alley blog) Holland’s impassioned and informative Foreword ‘Cruisers of the Void (Flying Factories and Hand-Crafted Spaceships)’ the genre and market was a tricky one, with publishers uncertain if they were selling pap to kids or at the sharp end of a new literary movement. What mattered was catching punters’ eyes and separating them from their cash…
Nevertheless from such confused, humble – and often shady – beginnings, a renaissance in speculative fiction emerged to change society and the world…
The conceptual main course of this menu of miracles follows as designer, author and comics creator Rian Hughes (Dare, Typodiscography, I Am a Number, The Science Service) further deconstructs the context and marketplace: sharing his own experiences as a wide-eyed wonder-boy gradually morphing into a Serious Collector and Expert finding favourite stories by falling for captivating cover images in every possible place from specialist emporium to local jumble sale…
Detail-packed Introduction ‘His Raygun Spat Atomic Fire…’ is a splendidly expansive overview, taking us through the evolving epoch. Tracing the genre’s development. he lists writers, publishers imprints and especially those artists who spun their visual webs and caught so many of us before the superb and delicious dessert we came for is served up…
As beguiling and educational as finally knowing the names behind so many icons of an unsuspected communal past, the real joy here comes from the thousands of reprinted covers on books you have seen and those you have not: an exhausting compendium of lost treasures that adolescent minds must have boiled over to first encounter. Although concentrating mainly on the British market, there are also foreign editions and original US mainstream titles and their licensed reprints. At all times the guidance is watch and wonder!
Spanning decades, numerous nations and the infinite gulfs of space and time, this gallery of marvels is as much love story as detective mystery as forensic analysis of a phenomenon, but in the end what you’ll remember most is the astounding, amazing art of Stanley Nicholson, Ed Emshwiller, Ray Theobald, Gordon C. Davies, Norman Light, Ron Embleton, Ron Turner, Denis McLoughlin, Brian Lewis, Henry Fox, Chesley Bonestell, Everett Kinstler, Josh Kirby, Art Sussman, Robert A. Osbourne, Enrich, and so many more, known and unknown.
Welcome attention is also paid to games, magazines, comics and British Annuals, with Turner, Ron Forbes, Terry Maloney, David Williams, Ron Jobsen and more well represented through absolutely mouth-watering merchandise and publications.
This copious chronicle concludes with appreciatively fond Afterword ‘Mushroom Cloud Fallout’ by author, archivist, historian and literary agent Philip J Harbottle who revisits that time of changes and era of scientific fantasy via his connection to a stalwart of both worlds: artist and die-hard fan Ron Turner, who rode the mushroom cloud of sci fi illustration until the mid-1950s before moving primarily into comics such as Lion’s Rick Random and TV21’s The Daleks…
Perhaps short on depth but gloriously addictive in terms of breadth, variety and wide-eyed nostalgic wonderment, Rayguns & Rocketships is a compendium and catalogue of cover artwork encapsulating Britain’s golden age of science fiction. It will reduce oldsters to tears but should also be offered to younger generations before they get permanently locked into frantically planning their careers (so before they’re five is best) in hopes of reminding them that there’s so much more out there…
The only thing that could make it better is if there was also a tabloid sized poster-book version of all these rousing, evocative, inspirational and occasionally just plain silly images for us to enjoy. Maybe the global interwebs umbrella, some digit-y micro-technologies and these modern electronic calculator contraptions could all be deployed to facilitate that – eh Professor?
First published in 2022 © Rian Hughes/Korero Press Limited/Original Artists & Publishers. All rights reserved.