Strange Science

Virgil Finlay's Strange Science; Virgil Finlay (Underwood-Miller, 1992, ISBN 0-88733-154-8, cover by Virgil Finlay).

I had commented recently about some of my favorite "pulp artists". Regarding one of them, Virgil Finlay, I had used the following quote:

To imagine Virgil Finlay painstakingly stippling a two-page illustrations, knowing in advance that it would be manhandled by the Street & Smith pressmen and printed on paper roughly equivalent in quality to Scott Towels, is to picture a man as his own tormentor.

I've been able to buy (second-hand) this volume, and what a treat it is. A nice selection of Finlay's work, with commentary by both Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison. Only the front and back covers are in color, but that's all right, Finlay does superb work with pen-and-ink, color is icing on the cake, but the cake is just fine by itself, thank you very much. The illustrations are a mix of single panels (portrait orientation) and double panels (landscape orientation). Each lists the work if fiction, if any, it supported, or the original publication. In most cases you realize where the quality of some of these stories lay...not in the tales, but in the illustration. Does Loot of the Vampire ring a bell? How about The Ho-Ho-Kam Horror? The stories may have faded, but the art is still wonderful. (There are plenty of familiar stories and authors...H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Brian Aldiss, Clark Ashton Smith and others. But the majority of titles and authors will forever be a mystery!)

These pictures lend to staring and studying. Cross-hatching leading to detailing leading to wonder. Seek the book out and gape in wonder!