Ray Bradbury, Ellis, and Zallinger

[Extollager]

Gotta love this art:

Now here is the magnificent (fanciful) Yale mural by Zallinger:

 

[dask]

The Bradbury illo appears on some of my Bantam editions. Pretty cool. (They never did for to Asimov, at least until his mag where they plastered his face all over the first few issues.)

The Zallinger is great.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, that illustration was a staple for Bantam's Bradbury for many, many years... and I love it dearly. It suits Ray to a "t", with his love of dinosaurs (which is how he and Ray Harryhausen became such friends), his magical Martian landscapes, the Gothic underlying of so many of his tales... even the fevered prose of much of his early work, which often crossed the boundaries between prose and poetry. I still treasure those old editions of his tales, and pick up any I don't already own whenever I have a chance....

(They even used it with the anthology he edited, Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow -- which is really quite a wonderful collection of tales, which also openly displays some of Ray's primary influences -- though I don't believe they ever did so for another anthology he edited, The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories.)

Thanks for bringing this one in... oh, how it brings back such wonderful memories.....

 

[Extollager]

"Kids these days" are bombarded with images, and I don't suppose these two examples of art would exert the fascination that they exerted on some of us older readers. It seems likely to me that seeing portions, at least, of Zallinger's art as a youngster did much to propel me towards science fiction and fantasy ever after. Thus, when seeing the Bradbury image later on, an imaginative association could be felt.

By the way, if the Zallinger art means as much to you as it does to me, you might want to look out for this book

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0912532769/?tag=brite-21

which presents the mural as a foldout about 5 feet long. It is just a little bit disappointing to me in that the image seems, at least 'round about the brontosaurus section, a tad too dark; but it's nice to be able to see Zallinger's art in this format.

I do wonder if Ellis was consciously influenced by the Zallinger mural.

 

[j d worthington]

It would not surprise me in the least....