Philippe Druillet – Page 8

Salammbô illustrated

Salammbô by Alphonse Mucha (1897).

Alphonse Mucha’s gorgeous rendering of Flaubert’s Carthaginian heroine isn’t included in the many illustrated editions at this Salammbô site but plenty of other adaptations are. Examples range from faithful renderings by George Rochegrosse and Mahlon Blaine to drawings which are less successful or even downright bad. Also included are panels from Philippe Druillet‘s bizarre science fiction adaptation from the 1980s, a version which is often closer to Frank Herbert than Gustave Flaubert although many of the compositions are striking. One of these was used for a sleeve illustration by Richard Pinhas on his excellent East West album in 1980. And by coincidence, Druillet’s site mentions a forthcoming exhibition of his Salammbô nudes at the Galerie Pascal Gabert on May 20th.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Mahlon Blaine, 1894–1969
• Druillet meets Hodgson
• The music of Igor Wakhévitch

Grandville’s Un Autre Monde

Un Autre Monde by JJ Grandville is a satire from 1844 whose wittily inventive illustrations were among that select group of prior works which received praise from the Surrealists. Some of them also act as early examples of humorous science fiction, and the two pieces shown here have been reprinted endlessly, they even turn up in histories of astronomy. The other illustrations are rarely seen, however, so it’s good to find a Flickr set with scans of the entire book. Comic artist Philippe Druillet took the bridge between worlds as the inspiration for his Lone Sloane story Torquedara Varenkor: The Bridge Over the Stars in 1970, turning the already unlikely construction into a galaxy-spanning edifice.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Druillet meets Hodgson

Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Image-heavy post! Please be patient.

Four designs for three bands, all by the same designer, the versatile and brilliant Barney Bubbles. A recent reference over at Ace Jet 170 to the sleeve for In Search of Space by Hawkwind made me realise that Barney Bubbles receives little posthumous attention outside the histories of his former employers. Since he was a major influence on my career I thought it time to give him at least part of the appraisal he deserves. His work has grown in relevance to my own even though I stopped working for Hawkwind myself in 1985, not least because I’ve made a similar transition away from derivative space art towards pure design. Barney Bubbles was equally adept at design as he was at illustration, unlike contemporaries in the album cover field such as Roger Dean (mainly an illustrator although he did create lettering designs) and Hipgnosis (who were more designers and photographers who drafted in illustrators when required).

Colin Fulcher became Barney Bubbles sometime in the late sixties, probably when he was working either part-time or full-time with the underground magazines such as Oz and later Friends/Frendz. He enjoyed pseudonyms and was still using them in the 1980s; Barney Bubbles must have been one that stuck. The Friends documentary website mentions that he may have worked in San Francisco for a while with Stanley Mouse, something I can easily believe since his early artwork has the same direct, high-impact quality as the best of the American psychedelic posters. Barney brought that sensibility to album cover design. His first work for Hawkwind, In Search of Space, is a classic of inventive packaging.

Update: BB didn’t work with Mouse in SF, I’ve now been told.

Hawkwind: In Search of Space (1971).

It’s fair to say that Hawkwind were very lucky to find Barney Bubbles, he immediately gave their music—which was often rambling and semi-improvised at the time—a compelling visual dimension that exaggerated their science fiction image while still presenting different aspects of the band’s persona. In Search of Space is an emblematic design that opens out to reveal a poster layout inside. One of the things that distinguishes Barney Bubbles’ designs from other illustrators of this period is a frequent use of hard graphical elements, something that’s here right at the outset of his work for Hawkwind.

This album also included a Bubbles-designed “Hawklog”, a booklet purporting to be the logbook of the crew of the Hawkwind spacecraft. I scanned my copy some time ago and converted it to a PDF; you can download it here.

Continue reading “Barney Bubbles: artist and designer”

Druillet meets Hodgson

French comic artist and illustrator, Philippe Druillet, illustrates British horror novelist William Hope Hodgson. As anyone familiar with Hodgson’s work knows, this kind of imagery predates Pirates of the Caribbean by nearly a century. More pictures here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• War of the Worlds book covers
• The music of Igor Wakhévitch
• Le horreur cosmique
• Davy Jones

War of the Worlds book covers

Continuing the cover art theme, here’s a whole gallery of covers devoted to one book only, HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds, from 1898 to the present. Once again it’s fascinating to see how styles evolve and how different artists and designers approach the task of providing art for the same book. The most common approach with this particular novel has evidently been to depict the tripod machines laying waste to the Home Counties. The samples here follow the pattern: the uncredited 1967 Penguin edition above was the one I read originally (I still have a copy); the other is a cover by Philippe Druillet from 1973 showing a particularly heavy-footed and tentacular Martian vehicle. The site also includes some great interior illustrations.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive