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.