FIRST CONTACT

Alongside books, I enjoyed weekly comics and sometimes magazines. My father insisted on a well rounded education and bought us the 'Tell Me Why' magazine, a weekly general knowledge and history journal, which mostly went over my head. Now and again, however there would be an interesting space article or something to pique my interest such as the December 1968 issue, which had a cool section on flying saucers. The standard of illustration in the magazine was always excellent and the article did unsettle me slightly, with its vivid portrayals of UFO's.

However, in January 1970, they serialised a truncated version of H.G Wells 'War of the Worlds'. At the time, I had already seen George Pal's 1954 film version, which scared me witless with its cobra-like heat ray emerging from the pit, along with its groundbreaking sound effects.

What I hadn't realised at the time, was that Pal had interpreted the story with a contemporary twist and changed the essential nature of the martian invaders. Pal's aliens were stunted (presumably bipedal) creatures with tri-partite eyes, who swept across America in saucer-like craft on repulsors.

Although 'Tell Me Why' had foreshortened Wells's seminal tale quite considerably, to fit in five issues of the magazine, they were true to the original; although the setting was more contemporary and not Victorian. I was very surprised when I read it to find it was a completely different beast to the B-Movie classic I was familiar with, but what really made an impression on me were the attendant paintings which illustrated the story.

My favourite would be the installment when the cylinder falls on the protagonists house, trapping him in the ruins. The description of the martian digging and handling machines is covered in a fabulous splash page painting, showing the martians busying themselves in the pit, with a stunningly rendered leathery martian glaring out of the frame .

At the time of publication, I was very fond of collecting rubber monsters and the 'Teachers Pet' collection included many great space aliens. The paintings in the magazine depicted the martians as Well's had described them - tentacled brain-like creatures - which echoed some of the designs of the rubber monsters I collected. As a result, I was fascinated and although I didn't invest much time reading the actual story, I pored over the painted artwork meticulously.

The proliferation of monsters and aliens in the sixties, meant that their imagery was everywhere, in every conceivable shape and size. For me though, I always loved the octopoid creatures or the more outlandish aliens as seen in the Outer Limits card set. I received a full series in an album when I was about 6 or 7 and was so fundamentally terrified by some of the cards, I found it hard to look at them!

As can be seen from this rare photograph of me in the garden with my rubber monster collection, some of the creatures bear a close resemblance to the paintings. Its also clear to see a small plastic train at the front of the table. Again, my father had a strong influence here, being an avid train fan. He bought lots of Triang and Hornby trains, ostensibly for me, but more to satisfy his own desire and collected the catalogues for the models, religiously. I used to enjoy leafing through the catalogues with him, discussing various layouts. One thing struck me with the earlier sixties catalogues was that the painted covers were almost always atmospheric night scenes of locomotives and stations. I thought these were delightful and amazingly realistic, and when I saw the paintings in the War of the Worlds serial, I noticed a parallel.

It wouldn't be till I posted the illustrations on Moonbase Central, that someone kindly pointed out that they were probably by renowned railway artist Terence Cuneo, who did the covers for Triang catalogues. Cuneo was famous for signing his artwork with a tiny mouse painted somewhere in the scene to be found. Although it was never confirmed, I am almost certain the Wellsian paintings are by Cuneo.

The deep, luxuriant colour and mixture of fine detail and painterly strokes appealed to me greatly, but also unnerved me, as the sinister, towering tripods and glistening, inimical martians looked so real.

I don't think I ever read the story itself and it wouldn't be till I heard Jeff Wayne's musical version of the story, that I got a fuller idea of the plot.

The story has been serialised many times - both in book and film form and in a couple of TV series, but for me, it will always be the marvellous artwork of Cuneo which captures the essence of the martians and their war machines so well.

 

RENDEZVOUS IN ORBIT

 One of the most exciting things I noticed as a boy, growing up in the space race, was the close connection between toys and the space books, that I loved. Obviously there were the marketing tie ins with TV series and toys and annuals, but every now and again, I would find a toy that was 'unofficially' based on a NASA design or illustration from the pages of one of my favourite books.

 

The two main culprits for this were Project SWORD toys and Triang Spacex, but other companies such as sweet and cereal producers took advantage of the wealth of space imagery in the news at the time.

This was great news for me, as I could easily obtain actual models and toys based on the fabulous machines I was seeing in the books. It would be many years later, after the advent of the internet and the publication of Moonbase Central blog, that I would finally be able to identify the connections between the toys and their respective origins, but at the time, it was an intriguing mystery for me to pursue.

Kelloggs Space Age Miniatures and Triang Spacex Molabs

Even today, part of the drive to find early space books is the hope that in their pages, I will discover more illustrations which relate to my favourite toy lines. Most of the origins have now been established, after several years of dilligent research by the Moonbase Central team, and they are available on the blog, but there are still plenty of connections to be made.

Easily one of the best examples of referencing material is the excellent 1964  Time Life book 'Man and Space', with text by Arthur C. Clarke and illustrations by Ed Valigursky. Aside from being a wonderful primer for the space programme, it contains some absolutely lavish full colour paintings, which clearly influenced the design of the Project SWORD and SPACEX toy ranges.

The book has several large painted illustrations by Valigursky, which were the direct inspiration for space toys in the sixties, made by both Triang and Century 21, who both had connections with the Gerry Anderson franchises.

Unproduced Sword Moonbase Playset

Valigursky's Moon Base

I first came across the book in the local library and marvelled at the gorgeous painted interpretations of the Explorer MEV 2 and Booster Rocket. Shortly after I became a contributor to the Moonbase Central blog, I became aware of several books which had a strong connection to the toy world and Man and Space was one of the main referents. It then became a mission to try and find these books for sale, so I searched ebay and other second hand book sites to find them. Luckily, the Time Life series had a wide publication, so it was fairly simple to find a good copy.

Valigursky's Moon Vehicle and Spacex MEV2 toys

I had owned a copy of the Project SWORD annual since its release in 1968 and was very familiar with the amazing artwork and actually owned some of the toys. The advent of ebay and internet research made it practical to obtain more of the toys and a second copy of the annual, as my own had suffered over the years.

Once more Valigurskys paintings had been used as the basis for toy designs, as the Sword and Spacex Booster Rocket toys clearly show.

Valigurskys Booster Rocket 

One of the most enigmatic toys from the Project Sword range was the Nuclear Ferry. This was shown in the product catalogue which came with each toy and was widely advertised in comics, but was never available in the stores.

Once more, it appeared in print, initially I discovered it in an edition of Look and Learn magazine, but I discovered much later that it had already appeared in Life magazine around 1966 and the illustration was by Robert McCall. Again, many years later a toy appeared on Yahoo auctions Japan, the only instance of the toy ever seen. Since that date in the mid 2000's, only four models have been found, one of which I am very lucky to own.

The Triang Spacex series also included a small plastic version of the craft too, which also surfaced for the first time around 2004. It would be around this time that I contacted David Portree who ran the 'Beyond Apollo' space blog and he identified the design as being a proposal by Ling Temco Vought for a nuclear shuttle, which McCalls original painting in Life magazine illustrated and which became the inspiration for both toys.

There are many other instances of toys and models copying or referencing book illustrations, both intentionally and without acknowledgement. Hong Kong toy companies were notorious for blatantly lifting pictures and applying them to toy packaging. Even other book publishers re-used existing illustrations, or slavishly copied them for their own use. See this full page illustration for an extreme environment space suit, originally shown in 'Man and Space' but copied for the 'Daily Mirror Book of Space'.

REFLECTING ON MIRRORS

A major milestone on my book collecting journey is this apparently unassuming 'annual' - the Daily Mirror Book of Space, from 1970. An xmas present at the time, it would have been on my list at the time as something I had spotted in the shops and looked forward to on the day. A little larger in format than the average annual, its packed full of colour and black and white photographs and illustrations. Written by Maurice Allward and illustrated by Gordon Davies - who also contributed to 'Rockets and Missiles' by John W.R Taylor, re-using some of the artwork for both books.

From the outset, one thing puzzled me greatly and this was the photograph on the cover. As it had a distinctly bluish tinge and is taken from a very odd angle, I struggled as a kid to identify, which spaceship it was - assuming it was a Gemini capsule, especially as the astronauts helmet was red. Many years later, I came back to the image and quickly realised that it was taken from the cockpit of the LEM, looking back along the Service Module of the Apollo vehicle. Seeing the full uncropped image, makes it much more obvious. It shows David Scott conducting the Emergency transfer test from the Apollo 9 capsule in a orbit around Earth, taken by Russell Schweichart aboard the LEM. 

The book is unusual as rather than just show well worn and often used NASA imagery, Gordon Davies depicts some of the more diverse spacecraft and vehicles connected with the programmes.

This spread shows the classic image of  the Ranger series Probe, with the conical cowl over the landing capsule. Early Bird and Telstar as well as french satellite Alouette are also depicted.

Davies illustration of the Moon Lander from Rockets and Missiles

Its notable for its inclusion of many future projects, such as the Mars Viking Lander, shown in the annual as a conceptual diagram, rather than the actual vehicle.

For me, where it really excelled was its examination of the space shuttle concept. It was exciting designs like these Lockheed and Boeing concepts that led me to expect something really cool within the next 15 years, rather than the jumbo jet style shuttle which we were eventually presented with.

I loved the piggy backed delta shaped design, which was so reminiscent of Gerry Anderson shows in the sixties and influenced the design of toys around this time.

Kellogg cereal premiums made by Rosenhain & Lipmann in Melbourne, Australia, included some wonderful little models of space vehicles, including this 'Hooty Toot' Whistle in the shape of the delta ferry, a Molab vehicle and a small, but accurate Apollo and LEM.

Besides the shuttle concepts, Maurice Allward also included some information regarding space rescue, such as proposed lifeboats and rescue craft capable of reaching stranded astronauts, probably influenced by the Apollo 13 disaster that same year. Once more, toy companies used information such as this to produced models in keeping with current trends, such as the Tri-ang Space Rescue Craft.

The book has some unusual space station designs and lunar exploration vehicles such as the POGO and FLEEP platforms, which would surface as toys in the Airfix Astronauts figure set.

The Bendix lunar rover concept depicted in the book is shown here being driven by Werner Von Braun himself in a rare publicity photo.

Once more, I was quite disappointed by the eventual choice of design for the Lunar Rover, having seen so many varied designs for wheeled vehicles, the actual electric go-kart design was pretty uninspiring. The Flying Lunar Excursion Platform or FLEEP was another design included in the Airfix set.

Naturally, astronauts and space suit designs are always a topic included in space books and the Daily Mirror annual was no exception, including the egg-shaped hard shell suit to protect the wearer from micrometeorites and cosmic radiation and also a drawing of  Allyn “Hap” Hazard's revolutionary lunar work suit, shown here being tested in the Mojave desert in 1960, as featured in Life magazine that year.

Mattel toys took the initiative and included the design in their hugely successful 'Man in Space' series with the 7" Major Matt Mason figure. Mattel's toys were always innovative and well made, with a host of realistic action features, such as pneumatic rubber arms on the moon suit.

Seeing so many of my favourite space toys depicted in books and magazines, as real or projected designs was a major influence on my collecting habits of toys and models and was something which would be explored much more fully, decades later via the Moonbase Central blog.