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Amberstar: An illustrated cosmic odyssey
Paperback
First published February 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
August 20, 2017
I exhumed AMBERSTAR from a cairn of books in my closet today and reread it.
I'd just discovered Bruce Jones when AMBERSTAR came out in early 1980. He wrote a slew of weird tales for the Warren Magazines; my favorite being 'Stand-In,' a story with a clever twist ending, I mean O. Henry league stuff. As a Bruce Jones fan I bought AMBERSTAR without hesitation, it has a nice resolution too. In the 35 years since it appeared I've never seen anything quite like it. It's a graphic novel although the graphics are tinted photographs. I counted 94 unnumbered pages, 65% of them profusely illustrated with cheesy cut-and-paste photos (a laughable centaur and cyclops, dinosaurs, spaceships, etc.). Jones delivers a good nothing-is-what-it-seems story that the oddball photography complements well; the photographer deserves equal credit alongside Jones.
There are no word balloons, Jones' story can be read in an hour, appearing as blocks of manuscript interspersed among the pictures. This was a storytelling experiment presented in an untried text/photo medium. The experiment was a failure, the clumsy format looked amateurish in 1980 and still does today. Yet there's an artistic sincerity in every photo that displays an intense willingness to explore and expand something new, to create something original. In short, the AMBERSTAR project is charming the way black-and-white Universal horror films and the original Dark Shadows soap opera are charming. They still generate enthusiasm to this day. So does AMBERSTAR, look how much sellers want for it on the internet. Seeing copies of the book at Amazon priced between twenty and a hundred bucks sure make me glad I only paid $7.95 when it first came out.
Is it worth $100? No. Will I put my copy on the market to make some big bucks? No. Will I read AMBERSTAR and enjoy it again in the future? Definitely, and I won't wait another 35 years.
I'd just discovered Bruce Jones when AMBERSTAR came out in early 1980. He wrote a slew of weird tales for the Warren Magazines; my favorite being 'Stand-In,' a story with a clever twist ending, I mean O. Henry league stuff. As a Bruce Jones fan I bought AMBERSTAR without hesitation, it has a nice resolution too. In the 35 years since it appeared I've never seen anything quite like it. It's a graphic novel although the graphics are tinted photographs. I counted 94 unnumbered pages, 65% of them profusely illustrated with cheesy cut-and-paste photos (a laughable centaur and cyclops, dinosaurs, spaceships, etc.). Jones delivers a good nothing-is-what-it-seems story that the oddball photography complements well; the photographer deserves equal credit alongside Jones.
There are no word balloons, Jones' story can be read in an hour, appearing as blocks of manuscript interspersed among the pictures. This was a storytelling experiment presented in an untried text/photo medium. The experiment was a failure, the clumsy format looked amateurish in 1980 and still does today. Yet there's an artistic sincerity in every photo that displays an intense willingness to explore and expand something new, to create something original. In short, the AMBERSTAR project is charming the way black-and-white Universal horror films and the original Dark Shadows soap opera are charming. They still generate enthusiasm to this day. So does AMBERSTAR, look how much sellers want for it on the internet. Seeing copies of the book at Amazon priced between twenty and a hundred bucks sure make me glad I only paid $7.95 when it first came out.
Is it worth $100? No. Will I put my copy on the market to make some big bucks? No. Will I read AMBERSTAR and enjoy it again in the future? Definitely, and I won't wait another 35 years.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review