Whopper Space Stories (1955)

This was a Children's Annual with stories, games, and cartoon strips.  It had a couple of striking illustrations.

Boyd, Edward and Allward, Maurice. Illustrated by North, T E, Branton, R.A. and Gaffron, Bruce. Whopper Space Stories. London : Children's Press. (62 p.) 26 cm. Softcover. 1955


IA softcover reduced version of “The Giant Book of Amazing Stories" 1952. Still includes the articles by Maurice Allward with a comic strip and several fictional space stories. Has the same cover and illustrations (for the included articles) but no color plates.



The cover show the varieties of thought about what a space station would eventually look like. I would love to watch that "von Braun/Bonestell" ship dock from the railing of my space hotel. It was painted by T.E. North (Thomas Edward). He did a number of children's books and covers as described here: http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2009/08/t-e-north.html

While very primitive in some ways I like the feeling of "brave explorer" that this illustration gives.

See the 1952 book at: http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2009/06/giant-book-of-amazing-stories-1955.html

I also like this very classic rocket illustration with the windows on the front of the rocket. You can see how rocket design really missed the boat when they stopped emulating the latest streamlined cars. Now that the old fleet is being retired  "Shuttle Prius" anyone?