There's a lot going on on the card art of this air and water rocket and that's just the bit we can see.
There's a powerful looking space plane bottom right, which looks great, but it's the two firing units further up that intrigue me. What are they? Nacelles? They look like they're contained within a gantry of sorts.
And I wonder what that craft is behind the toy. There's a hint of Thunderbird 2!
Do you like it? Anyone got one?
*
Postscript,
Mystery mostly solved!
Thanks to eagle-eyed Looey and Arto (thanks!) we now know the main image of the structures was by Patrick Woodroffe, as it appeared in his 1976 book, Mythopoeikaon (which I've got! Doh!)
It also graced the covers of Space Wars Worlds and Weapons.
That just leaves to space rocket bottom right to ID now.
That weird ship is a straight steal from a Patrick Woodrofe illustration.
ReplyDeleteI had the Merit water rocket as a kid and I remember the box art from that!
For complete illustration see pic 11/12 here
Deletehttps://www.ebay.com/itm/204214794474
Wow, thanks guys! Yep, Patrick Woodroffe Looey! And it was right under my nose, I got that book as a gift from my Dad in 1977 Arto! Doh! Still got it!
DeleteWater rocket
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0EczgLYS7I4&pp=ygUMU2NvdHQgTWFubGV5
Zero X
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=El-VJeSLTUk&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D&ra=m
Interesting stuff.
Deletetoy itself is a modern incarnation of the sixties Merit Lunar Rocket set.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/merit-lunar-rocket-cataloge-9220-516168192 Bill
ReplyDeleteAh, yes! What great art on the box. I'd forgotten the glorious launcjpad art inside too!
DeleteI had one of these as a kid and lost it atop one of the neighbor's roofs. As the homes on my block were tall, two-story flats, and many of them sat upon hills it was too far up to recover.
ReplyDeleteThe Patrick Woodroffe rocket was also used as the cover of the Simon Rack novel New Life for Old by Laurence James.
ReplyDelete