astounding galleries

a couple of days ago when i was posting about charles fort i came across a french site which offered a gallery of covers from astounding stories magazine, which fort evidently contributed to. anyhow today i took the time to look closer at the site. initially i was simply impressed with their run of astounding which begins with the 1930 first issue, continues through it’s transformation into analog, science fact and fiction (at one point in 1960 the covers had both titles simultaneously, one overlapping the other), and goes all the way to 1973. fascinating to watch the style of both illustration and design evolve over 40 years. when i dug deeper though… well i have to say i was just blown away.

the site is by far the most expansive gallery of sci-fi / fantasy pulp covers i’ve ever seen. on the sci-fi side they present long runs of american titles like galaxy, infinity, if, imagination, galileo, nebula, beyond, planet stories, even omni just to name a few. on the fantasy side there are galleries of amazing stories, weird tales, unknown, startling stories, etc. but as amazing as these galleries are they’re really just the tip of the iceberg. the site offers galleries of specific pulp publishers like ace, ballentine, bantam, dell, and pocket books. they offer a nice section of hard cover sci-fi classics. they even offer a gallery of sci-fi reference titles. perhaps best of all though, seeing as how it is a french site, they offer a large gallery selection of french as well as italian publications and translations, including, in some cases, not only covers but interior spreads. if you’re a designer, an illustrator, or just a fan of the pulps or classic sci-fi there is some really wonderful and inspiring stuff to see. the sheer volume of images is, in fact, astounding. i spent a good two hours digging into this stuff and i’ve got some nonist project ideas brewing.

anyhow if you take your time you will come across both periodical and proper novel covers for some beloved heavyweights including: p.k. dick, sturgeon, asimov, bradbury, clarke, herbert, heinlein, pohl, stapledon, even the likes of james blish, robert silverberg, and alfred bester. seeing their work illustrated in “real time,” that is, seeing the visuals applied by illustrators working when these stories were originally published, is really enjoyable. if you happened to have been reading sci-fi when any of these were originally published you may have a seizure. just seeing some of those old omni magazines gave me a little shiver.

though normally i’d round up a bunch of images and post them here for your enjoyment there really are too many goodies for me to bother. so just take a look for yourself: here is the google translation of noosfere. here’s the original french page if you prefer. scroll down to the bottom for links to all sections. enjoy.