SOLVED. Childrens' picture book from late 80s / early 90s with intricate drawings of surreal factories/machinery that moved around raw materials and produced various odd gadgets. [s]

[Jordan]

Childrens' picture book from late 80s / early 90s with intricate drawings of surreal factories/machinery that moved around raw materials and produced various odd gadgets. All I remember is that they had a copy at the dentist's office when I was a kid in the late 80s / early 90s.

[Jordan]

An example of what I mean by "intricate" is this book: https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Biesty...

[AquaMoon]

I wouldn't call it a "children's" book, but my library has it in the teen/YA area: The Arrival

[Jordan]

Thanks for that suggestion. The book which I'm looking for is actually just drawings/illustrations (IIRC) so there's no text or story or anything like that. Kindof like Where's Waldo.

[Jordan]

It's possible that my book would be considered teen/YA as well, I'm not sure but I remember it from my childhood and I was probably around ten years old at the time (just guessing).

[Rainbowheart]

Still looking, Jordan?

[Jordan]

Yes, still looking and still a total mystery!

[Kris]

Sounds like it's inspired by W. Heath Robinson's "mechanical" illustrations with pulleys/etc., but with the whimsical, more-cartoon look of Where's Waldo Now??

[Jordan]

Kris that sounds like a good description. I'll have to check out Robinson's work now!

I do have an update, I was shocked to see this book lying around my parents' house:

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Inventio...

Once I saw the cover I thought this must be the one, but was disappointed when I opened it and found the contents of the book weren't illustrations, so this wasn't the one. But the cover is exactly the kind of thing I remember, so I thought maybe this John Huehnergarth must be the illustrator I had in mind. But I scoured the web looking through his work and still can't find the book I had in mind...but this has to be a big clue.

You can see a really detailed version of the cover here:

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Sma...

Look at the contraption on the right, and look at the tube on the left side. It's sputtering out little balls and cubes and pyramids. This is exactly the kind of thing I remember. This has to be the guy. So why the heck can't I find this book? So close!

[Jordan]

So...it turns out this must have been it after all:

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Inventio...

I thought it wasn't because I was asking someone to flip through it and show me the pages over videoconference, and it turns out that most of the pages don't, in fact, have any of the drawings I had in mind, but asking to flip through it once more a single page at a time revealed that a number of pages did have these drawings of contraptions that I had in mind. And the publish date of 1984 lines up in terms of the timeline.

Apparently the decades-old memory was also fuzzy enough that I thought I had seen it at the dentist's office when, in fact, it was lying around my parents' house all along. Maybe it had also been at the dentist's office but who knows.

So let's call it mystery solved! As a kid I found these kinds of drawings really cool so I guess they left an impression on me:

https://media.mutualart.com/Images/20...

Thanks again for your help.

[Rainbowheart]

Glad you found it!

Small Inventions That Make a Big Difference for the trackable GR link.