"Hi Paul,
A true tour-de-force investigation on the origins of SWORD box art, congratulations! It seems that many roads lead back to the Time-Life picture syndication, since Ed Valigursky's illustration of the Booster Rocket - as featured in the Life Science Library book "Man and Space" (1964) - quite obviously was an inspiration for the SWORD Booster Rocket box art.
One single most exciting detail about Bob McCall's illustration of the Nuclear Ferry for me is how the cross-section image of the front cockpit & seating area translated into a transparent *window* in the SWORD toy version - what an endearing misunderstanding! Unless intentional, of course.
Above is a picture of the Finnish version of "Man and Space", called "Ulos avaruuteen" (1972). Exactly the same A.C. Clarke -edited version with all those glossy Valigursky illustrations.
Cheers
Arto"
Thanks for the kind words Arto! I love the overall LIFE magazine/Time-LIFE book link you've made! SWORD might as well be called PROJECT LIFE! That's also an excellent and plausible observation about the inspiration for the toy Ferry's clear canopy too. What do other reader's think? WOTAN has also alerted me to some brilliant Nuclear Ferry cab art on reader John (Sisson's) wonderful Dreams of Space blog. The b/w pictures are as good if not better than those in SOLO! Or is that fighting talk? BTW has anybody got the MAN AND SPACE book in other languages? That's English and Finnish in the bag but any others? I'd love to see the Booster Rocket, NOVA Rocket and Moonbase pictures captions/descriptions in other languages too for posting!
I'm not convinced it was a misunderstanding. More likely they simply wanted to make this a wonderfully exciting toy, and that clear canopy adds so much to the sheer attractiveness of the craft. Wo couldn't want one! ^_^
ReplyDeleteGosh - that artwork in "Space Base" is marvellous, isn't it? Thanks for alerting us, WOTAN!