Who had these back in 1971. I remember seeing them all in my local WHSmith's at the time and didn't pick them up, preferring to buy the paperback UFO books instead
To be honest, I wasn't that enamoured with the activity books' underwhelming covers.
Nowadays, I'm still not impressed with the covers, but right now I'd gladly add them to the collection!
Yes, those are some powerfully ugly covers! Probably nobody kept them back in the day, which is why they are worth a king's ransom today! SFZ
ReplyDeleteYou said it, Zigg, they can be a tad expensive nowadays.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both.
DeleteI remember seeing one of these in a newsagent -- at a time when I had the pocketmoney to buy them -- and passed them by.
When you consider the stylish and enticing covers Century 21 Publishing provided for the earlier CHAMPIONS and JOE 90 activity books, these are surprisingly lazy and unattractive.
A good colour shot from the series (of which there were many) would have been far more effective -- and quicker to assemble -- than these, which required the creation of painted illustrations.
It seems unlikely that no colour shots were made available to the publishers... but who knows?
Dal C.
Intreresting points you raise, Dal. As you say, the Century 21 Activity books like the Captain Scarlet and The Champions ones had colour photos on the cover, and looked very glossy and modern for the time, but the UFO ones just looked cheap, unlike the two UFO paperbacks which used several colour photos and looked to have the feel of the series. Oddly enough, I do like the painted covers on the later Space:1999 activity books, although one of those does have colour photos on the front.
DeleteThe painted cover art is serviceable, but the composition on the spacewalk is ugly.
ReplyDelete...and I know there is no up or down in space, but any kid would have told you SID orbits Earth aligned to it's surface!
Some cover designers did like to upturn poor old SID, Lewis. ;D
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