Ex Libris Wotan:TTA

Back in 1978 before the heady days of the internet, i'd scour the shops for books arriving on the wave of Star Wars fever. Usually, given the renewed interest in all things space, this was never a problem. What was difficult, was finding the good quality books among the mass produced dross. Sci-Fi paperback sales were going through the roof and the world and his dog were churning out mass market stories and old classics were being dusted off and remarketed to a new audience. As a consequence of this, sci-fi illustrators started to drop out of the air with new and exciting styles and designs. Whereas previously the likes of Chris Foss had held sway with his iconic covers for Asimov and E E Doc Smith, other new artists began to appear on the shelves. Whilst a lot of the artwork produced by the artists found its way onto paperbacks, the new vogue for 'coffee table artbooks' of pure illustration, meant that artists could showcase their work in dedicated volumes. Besides the standard artbook, I came across something a little different one day on the way home from college, the first in a series of Terran Trade Authority data books, which showed the craft from a fictional space force and gave details and backstory to each ship. The author, one Stewart Cowley, had apparently taken the used paperback artwork from a multitude of different artists and written a story and fictional basis for the vehicle in the painting. The text was of variable quality and generally tended towards the hopelessly romantic as opposed to the true hard sci-fi I preferred, but the artwork was always good.

For the next couple of years, a sequence of related volumes appeared, 'Great Space Battles', 'Spacewreck' and 'Starliners'. These were supported by what seemed to be a series called 'Galactic Encounters' prepared by a 'Steven Caldwell', which I always assumed to be a pseudonym! These were of lesser quality, but along similar lines. The major problem with the books was that some of the illustrations were clearly not suitable for the series, but may have been all that was available at the time, so one or two or the more exotic or less thematic illustrations meant that the text had to be pretty silly to shoehorn in avian birdmen or daliesque surrealistic images of weird landscapes.

However, with the advent of the second volume, Great Space Battles, Cowley showcased a peculiar and fabulous talent in the shape of one Peter Elson, a clearly 'Foss' influenced illustrator who crammed his imagery with detail and action. Each painting always had a small ideograph 'PE' in the corner in the fosslike style and all his ships and vehicles had tiny, intricate details and insignia which gave the paintings a really authentically 'sci-fi' look.

I especially loved the way Elson added in mythical imagery to his hi-tech style such as the demon headed snake above and the all seeing eye on the cruiser below.

Peter Elsons style went on to influence my model making and the 'stellar cow' Tanker under attack from fierce red fighters below directly informed the rather rubbish paint job I attempted on the 'Alligator' in the Airfix Cosmic Cruiser kit.

The books included some beautiful artwork by other artists such as Jim Burns, Tony Roberts and Angus McKie probably most notable for his 'Interstellar Queen' paintings. Also, have a look at this amazing TTA tribute website which has modern cgi rendering of some of the ships from the first book! (Thanks Ray!) And Master Modeller Kev Davies just sent me this neat model of the Interstellar Queen/Hooded Swan ship too!