Sean from creepsylvania.com sent me an awesome surprise this month, a colouring book I've actually been looking forward to seeing for years.
The Monster Gallery Colouring Book is an early seventies masterpiece illustrated by Mark Savee (with text by Leah Waskey) and each page is a stunning tribute to a famous monster of either screen or legend.
A lot like the Bernie Wrightson Monster Colouring Book we reviewed a while back, this is a real cut above the standard fair. It's beautifully put together and honestly if you owned this, I doubt you'd put crayons to it.
Frankenstein here is a great example of this great art in this book but 70s toy dorks like myself have even more interest in this book for a very specific reason:
Some of Savee's designs were swiped and used as packaging illustrations for Tomland/Combex (A UK division of Marx) "Famous Monsters of Legend" Toy Line.
Tomland Morlock has an ascot for some reason, like a cannibal Mr. Furley
The Yeti figure is a little off model to the artwork.
Cyclops, I doubt any royalties were paid to Harryhausen.
Unlike almost every other colouring book I've covered here, this one is too good and too much great artwork to cover here, so I've created a gallery page highlighting all the great artwork in this fun book, just click here to visit The Monster Gallery
Thanks again Sean! This made my week.
Previously reviewed Colouring Books
If you have a colouring book you'd like to guest review, I'd like to hear from you!
SPEAKING OF MONSTERS
Today is the last day to enter in my "Save Frightenstein" contest, I could really use some help here and you could win a cool prize, so click here for details...
12 comments:
I have this one on my bookshelf--I remember how desperately I wanted it the moment I first saw it.
The oversized, heavy cardstock pages seemed too precious to put crayon to. This book really was a cut above the rest, especially after filling Planet of the Apes coloring and activity books with every color in the brown and green range, the Monster Gallery just seemed too special to do the same to.
I forgot this existed! Mine is long gone. My 12 yr old daughter inherited my love for the classic monsters. Wait till she sees this!
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
Wow. I totally forgot about this coloring book, yet remember loving it when I had it as a kid. I think The Fly was my favorite.
Thanks for posting this.
Those FM figures are AWESOME!
Oh I loved these toys.
And I still miss my Horrible Mummy doll!
ABSOLUTE JOY! I had this remarkable coloring book (had two or three actually) when I was a kid, and they all got colored with care and patience and Dr. Martin's inks... and they all got lost! Now I can see them again, thank you!
An earlier version of this coloring book had a picture of satan for coloring, but it was left out of the later versions.
I was wrong. The monster gallery never had the picture of satan. it was actually titled "the devil" and it was in a different troubador press coloring book publication entitled "Beasties"
can any one tell me what this book " never colored" is worth? Its in good condition with some wear on the cover
I loved this book as well as it's companion book Science Fiction Anthology, especially a Brave New World panel...fond memories indeed, thanks guys...if you get your hands on a copy of that one, I'd love to see the scans.
I loved this book and it's companion Science Fiction Anthology, especially the Brave New World panel..great work guys, and if you can get your hands on the scans for that one it would be greatly appreciated.
I had this book once, as a kid; and sadly, I did put crayons (actually colored pencils, if memory serves) to it.
Does anyone know how in heck the publishers got the rights to names and images owned by so many different companies?
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