This isn't part of the contest [seriously, how lame would that be to magically pull my name out of the hat and give myself a prize?], just a coincidence too good to pass up.
Like Byron Barton's Airplanes, Art Seiden's 1972 The Airplane Book is all about the joy of taking a plane ride. The difference? The passengers are all extras flying home from the set of Diamonds Are Forever.
Ward Jenkins, an animator in Atlanta, found this diecut Golden Book at a thrift store and scanned it in. He gets pretty excited about how jarring the artwork is, but I have to confess: I like it. Definitely of its time, but the whacked out color combinations also remind me of some currently hot contemporary artists like the NY painter Dana Schutz.
The Airplane Book: a horror of color [wardomatic, via scrubbles]
See the scans in The Airplane Book photoset on flickr [flickr.com]
To buy a copy, skip Amazon, and try abebooks.com instead. There are four right now (including one for $35, almost 100x what Ward paid.)
So I am looking at the slideshow and the first thing that occurs to me is how sad it is that airplane travel hasn't really changed in over 30+ years.
But then I realize, no it has changed. Its gotten worse. I'd love to get a 1972 size airplane meal these days. And I prefer Disco pants and african print tops, to sweat pants and flip flops.
[yeah, that giant t-bone steak. and they didn't have to take their flip-flops off to go through security, either. -ed.]
I knew you'd work in an out-of-print children's book somewhere :) I didn't think it was all that bad, myself. Looking at some of the Scandinavian design magazines of the same time period is much much more jarring.