Bradbury: An Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far Metaphor

This coffee table study of the celebrated SF writer focuses on his connections to media-pulps, slicks, radio, theater, film and visual art-and manages to be both gorgeous and highly informative. By Bradbury's own admission, he was influenced by movies from the age of three, and the book traces the shape of this influence through his long career. It also tracks how the visual media have represented Bradbury's work, ranging from the fanzine drawings that appeared before WWII, through the covers of the magazines in which his short stories were published and illustrations for the stories themselves, to the jacket art for nearly 50 years of hardcover and paperback books. Add to that posters and scenes from the many films based on his stories and the diary of making Fahrenheit 451 by director Francois Truffaut-and still there's more. Bradbury, who worked with EC Comics when one of their editors was William Gaines, the future founder of Mad, has had a long association with the stage, and is an above-average artist in his own right, as one short chapter here proves. Weist, a comics expert and artist, has ransacked memories, interviews, correspondences and art collections for the clear text and the well-reproduced artwork in this valuable supplement to other documentation of Bradbury's illustrious career. Color and b&w illustrations throughout.