Way back in 1970, I read a lot of comics on a weekly basis. To offset this and possibly to keep himself amused, my dad bought me a mag called 'Tell Me Why'. It was a Look and Learn style magazine, large format with lots of historical stories and nature articles. Being a fan of space and stuff, I found it as dull as dishwater. I'd dutifully scan the pages under his watchful eye, feigning interest until one weekend, I spotted something that stopped me in my tracks.
At some point around this period, id seen George Pals 1954 film, 'War of the Worlds' and been scared witless by the snakelike arm that emerged from the fallen meteor in the pit, thrumming and pulsing before unleashing the deadly heat ray. Seeing Pals saucer like war machines and cyclopean aliens, I assumed that this was how H.G Wells had envisaged the invasion and that the film was an accurate depiction of the rather stuffy looking book. However, Tell Me Why had been running a series called 'Great Books' which contained a serialised version of classic novels, illustrated at salient points in the story. In January 1970 they began a five issue run of the story, two pages each week with large illustrations.
What caught my eye from the first glance was the big, colourful painted panels depicting key moments in the story and one of the first paintings showed a baleful, glistening creature resting on a nest of tentacles in the pit. Suddenly, I was attentive and reading. This wasnt the comic book style interpretation i'd been lead to believe was right by Mr Pal, here was someting much darker and sinister. The aliens shown here were malevolent and truly 'alien' and also closer in look and feel to one of my favourite toys - Teachers Pets, small rubber monsters that were available in plentiful supply from most shops.
What I found most striking though was the look of intelligence on the faces of the martians and the implacable intent of the marching tripods. The illustrator was never credited and ive never come across the illustrations anywhere else, even though War of the Worlds has been depicted in many books and other media. The loose, almost abstract style of the paintings had a profound effect on my artistic style of the years and I struggled to capture the same kind of drama and tension in the rough strokes in my own paintings.
My two favourite panels have to be the long panorama of the Martian Handling Machine painstakingly digging in the pit near the house and the aggrieved expression on the leathery martian in the foreground. Second to this would be the awesome mechanical tripod looming over the figure as it crests the hill. The black, windowless body elicits the same thoughts that Gigers Alien did when it first appeared; eyeless, yet all seeing and relentlessly deadly.
The Spielberg movie steered the story in still another direction with its big budget treatment, making the tripods actually appear menancing and powerful, but mired in a plot so full of holes you could shoot an asteroid through them. The Tell Me Why picture will always stay with me as being the definitive interpretation of Wells novel and as an artistic inspiration toboot.
Stop Press - Thanks to Mavericks sharp eye it seems that the mystery artist is probably the late, great Terrence Cuneo. Famous his D-Day art and the glorious paintings on the Triang Hornby catalogues (thanks again Eviled!).
