Vacation in the Golden Age & New Artwork

I have mentioned before the ambitious blogging project of author Jamie Todd Rubin: to review the classic era of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, issue by issue, starting with the July 1939 edition.

Jamie has now reached July 1942, when Astounding published the first of three Bradbury stories. "Eat, Drink and Be Wary" is a very slender story, which Bradbury submitted for the "Probability Zero" section of the magazine. This section was editor John W. Campbell's place for publishing short-shorts from new writers. I believe there was no payment for appearing in this column; the reward for the writers' efforts was publication!

Jamie's review includes the Bradbury piece, and detailed reviews of all the longer pieces in the magazine, which include efforts from such SF luminaries as A.E. Van Vogt and L. Sprague de Camp.

Patrick Leger is the artist responsible for the artwork on the recent Simon & Schuster editions of Bradbury's The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles. What I hadn't realised was that Leger's design decisions were consciously influenced by Joe Mugnaini. Mugnaini's artwork is inextricably linked to Bradbury's fiction through the iconic cover of Fahrenheit 451 and over books, and through the line drawings he produced for Golden Apples of the Sun.

Leger talks about his new designs in his blog, and includes some of his preliminary sketches.