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The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey - Thalamus Books

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:00 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
:shock:

Image

http://www.thalamus-books.com/Projects/ ... rtofo.html

Argh! This looks the part! :D
Half a year of my 'work' down the'drain though, I suppose. :?

You can download some extremely cool pdf's there.
Enjoy!

I hope it sells extremely well.
I'll look into it where I can get my copy over here, or through import.

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:37 pm
by CraigGrannell
Well, I'll buy that for sure. Shame the cover is, frankly, utterly, utterly dire. The image is hardly one of Frey's best and the graphic design is nothing short of appalling—I'm rather hoping it's a placeholder.

Two other things:

1. I'm seriously hoping my all-time favourite cover—#3 (Metro Force 1)—is included.

2. Although I doubt it'll be in the book, how great would it be to have the entire Terminal Man reprinted, but on decent paper? I tried, unsuccessfully, to get this in the Judge Dredd Megazine a few years ago, and it'd be a massive shame if it never again sees print. Surely, this book is the ideal opportunity for it to shine for one last time. (Sadly, I reckon all we'll get is a couple of choice pages.)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:07 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
CraigGrannell wrote:Well, I'll buy that for sure. Shame the cover is, frankly, utterly, utterly dire. The image is hardly one of Frey's best and the graphic design is nothing short of appalling—I'm rather hoping it's a placeholder.
I totally agree. :?
Let's hope for a better cover indeed.

Terminal Man: forget about it, I'm afraid.

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:26 pm
by CraigGrannell
Actually, having looked at the PDFs, some of the internal design leaves a little to be desired, but there you go. At least the art is decent. The website is pretty atrocious, though—here's hoping no visually impaired people ever try to use it, because all of the text is in image formats.

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:47 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
CraigGrannell wrote:Actually, having looked at the PDFs, some of the internal design leaves a little to be desired, but there you go. At least the art is decent. The website is pretty atrocious, though—here's hoping no visually impaired people ever try to use it, because all of the text is in image formats.
Ooooh, you are really picky hm? :) :wink:
I like the website, lots of stuff to check out and lots of pdf's too.
I didn't know they published so many history books, which is very interesting.
The image formats are annoying indeed, and I don't see why they use them. Oh well.
The book itself looks quite nice, not shocking designwise, true.
I wonder if they're looking for a handy InDesigner? 8) :wink:

edit:

• Famous artwork reproduced as it has
never been seen before.
• Contents divided into topic-specific
sections.
• Commentary on the paintings by the
artist.
• Art techniques revealed and
discussed.
• Internet web connections to sites
dicussing the work of Oliver Frey.


I wonder if they mean the Rrap? I don't know ANY other site discussing Oli's work?? I mean, not sites where I'd like to hang around. :wink:

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:13 pm
by Mayhem
And here's me thinking that was an April Fool :P

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:25 pm
by CraigGrannell
If it is an April Fool, then someone at Thalamus is very sad indeed, seeing as there are five double-page spreads available for download. However, I recall this book being mentioned a while ago—perhaps in games™—so it's likely genuine, despite the appalling cover. And I also wonder about the links to sites with Oli's art...

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:46 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Mayhem wrote:And here's me thinking that was an April Fool :P
No,no, no April's fool.
In one of the last Games TM Retro Section's you had this interview with Oliver, and there was the book already anounced.
I just e-mailed Roger to see if it's already out yet.

Btw, I just made an advertisement for it, here's a sneak-peek:
(patience, 100kb)

Image

Like it? 8)

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:28 pm
by CraigGrannell
Nice.

Maybe you should also have asked Roger why the cover's so terrible. Putting such a cover on a book of art is hardly going to fill people with confidence.

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:31 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
CraigGrannell wrote:Nice.

Maybe you should also have asked Roger why the cover's so terrible. Putting such a cover on a book of art is hardly going to fill people with confidence.
Alright, alright.
I'll try and ask him as politely as I possibly can. :D :wink:
I'll e-mail my C.V. as well. 8)
Maybe they let me do it. :wink:

Yuk,yuk!

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:51 pm
by Fab
Oliver is credited as co-author of "Complete Cronichles of the Emperors of Rome" (http://www.thalamus-books.com/Projects/ ... prome.html), a future title, along with Roger Kean. He is for sure the illustrator of the book.

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:29 am
by Lloyd Mangram
Fab wrote:Oliver is credited as co-author of "Complete Cronichles of the Emperors of Rome" (http://www.thalamus-books.com/Projects/ ... prome.html), a future title, along with Roger Kean. He is for sure the illustrator of the book.
Well, of course, Fab.
He's part of Thalamus books and illustrates for almost all of their titles. :)

Ciao!
Rob

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 10:54 am
by So Long Ago
CraigGrannell wrote:Nice.

Maybe you should also have asked Roger why the cover's so terrible. Putting such a cover on a book of art is hardly going to fill people with confidence.
Don't think the cover is that bad. The only bit i really don't like is the lettering for his name on the left.

My all time favourite cover image was issue 1 of crash. Can still remember seeing that for the 1st time. It was so different from anything around at the time that it totally blew me away.

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 12:07 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Like I said, I agree the cover isn't much.

Image

I'll tell what I think about it, and what it should look like IMHO.

First, the name 'Oliver Frey' on the left hand side is indeed a bad idea,
even worse is the way they put that Renegade drawing underneath it.

In fact all the type is bad.
The only thing I won't touch is the signature thingie, I like that, maybe in a different colour.

The used illustration isn't particularly bad, I like it, but there's so much better stuff to display on the cover. I wonder why they picked that one. If you want an attention grabber, and thinking of the target audience, they should pick one of the well known/famous or notorious (whatever you want) drawings.
Like So Long Ago said, perhaps the illustration for the Crash issue 1. Or like Craig said, Zzap's Dropzone cover, or the Red Moon one, something like that. His artwork for Sanxion was lovely too, would be a very nice and recognizable cover.
Even his lesser known Look and Learn stuff contains some stunning stuff.
But for the 30 somethings who only remember Oli because of his computergames work it's less powerful.

Personally I'd go for some sort of collage from all his best work during the different era's.
But who am I?

A very clever move would be to do introduce some sort of poll on the most important retro boards, asking for people's most favourite Oli artwork, rewarding 10 people with a (signed) copy of the book, to make sure they get it right. It should really stand out in book stores, and well, this cover isn't 'doing it'. That's for sure.

I wonder if it's already in production, I hope not.
But whatever happens, excellent cover or not, it's ace that a book like that is finally published.

The only shame is that I spent almost a year (and a small fortune) hunting down eBay for ancient Look and Learn magazines. Only to find most of the time that there was no Oliver Frey in it. 8)
Still I got more than 35 (some stunning, some boring) Oli drawings I never saw before. I guess most of them will be in the book now, tsk tsk. :)

Oh well... :wink:

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 3:23 pm
by CraigGrannell
I agree with everything you said, Rob: the typography is pretty awful, and the general design leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, it looks like it was knocked up in about 15 minutes, so I decided to challenge myself to do something better in that time, the results of which are below (and although my version is far from perfect, bear in mind I took quarter of an hour doing it, and that in that time I searched the internet for the art to use).

(By the way, the reason I didn't go for that Crash cover is because the Retro collection used it, and because I really like Metro Force 1!)

My 15-minute effort:

Image

And side-by-side with the Thalamus Books version:

Image