italy

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Flowering Bodies of Attilio Uzzo

/ Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments
  • Attilio Uzzo’s cover for the 1973 edition of Michael Moorcock’s The Ice Schooner (1969) (Galassia 163)

If you’ve ever browsed through an Italian SF catalogue, the name that springs out immediately is the fantastic Dutch painter Karel Thole (1914-2000). Thole’s surreal (and often stunning) covers dominated the Italian visual SF landscape for years and even appeared on a handful of American editions. However, the main Italian SF press Casa Editrice La Tribuna (with its Galassia series) frequently commissioned new artists, often fresh out of art school, for short runs of covers.

Galassia played an instrumental role in introducing Italian audiences to the New Wave movement. Issues often contained both translations of English-language authors and original Italian short stories and novels. Italian covers were often on the experimental side of the SF art spectrum. The styles changed on a dime. Cover art produced in Italy might be my second favorite after the United States for the 60s/70s.

Milan-based Italian artist, sculptor, and jeweler, Attilio Uzzo (unknown dates) created five covers for the Italian SF magazine Galassia (issues between -#176) in 1972. According to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database‘s (potentially incomplete) credits, Uzzo created two additional covers for Casa Editrice La Tribuna‘s Science Fiction Book Club series and one for Dall’Oglio’s SF Andromeda imprint. I’ve included all eight in this post. I could find little about him online. He has an old, and not very helpful, website with a few low-resolution examples of his art and jewelry. And here is a short video about a 1964 gallery exhibit in Milan with Uzzo’s work. In 1992, a book of his art title Attilio Uzzo: Pittore della Lealtà hit print. If anyone can find more information about him, let me know!

Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Mariella Anderlini’s Covers for Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber (Corwin) sequence

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments
  • Cover art detail by Allison (aka Mariella Anderlini) for the 1979 Italian edition of Roger Zelazny’s The Guns of Avalon (1972)

On twitter, I recently learned from Jay O’Connell (cover artist and author) that all of Roger Zelazny’s work will be back in print. What exactly “everything back in print” means in reality I’m not entirely sure–will it include only the best known novels? All the short stories? Are works Zelazny wanted to “kill off” like To Die in Italbar (1973) really going to get reprints? Regardless, I was inspired to look back at the non-English language covers his work has received over the years. Naturally, as I moved to the fantastic Italian presses, I re-encountered and fell in love (again) with Allison’s evocative take on Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber (Corwin) five-novel sequence.

What are your favorites?

Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Ferruccio Alessandri’s Insectoid Visages and Other Nightmares

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments
  • Cover for Galassia #122 (1970). Contains Samuel R. Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965) and three short stories by Italian authors (Sergio Ostuni, Ivo Silvestri, and Lorenzo Iacobellis)

Italian artist, author, translator, and comic book critic Ferruccio Alessandri (1935-) created twenty-two covers for the Italian SF magazine Galassia (most of the issues between -132) in 1970. Galassia magazine was instrumental in introducing Italian audiences to the New Wave movement. Issues often contained both translations of popular English language authors and original Italian short stories and experimental visions.

As a unit, Alessandri’s covers convey a terrifying hellscape of insectoid visages (#122, #110, #128, #130), encounters with the surreal (#115), the oddly humanoid shapes (#119, #114, #116, #127), etc. Like searing flashes of a planet bathed under neon light, they are micro windows into the wonderscape of science fiction. While his Galassia covers are unconnected to the contents of the issues (to the best of my knowledge), I find their cumulative effect unsettling and alien.

Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Italian Tanith Lee Covers by Allison (aka Mariella Anderlini)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

Allison’s cover for the 1978 Italian edition of Tanith Lee’s Volkhavaar (1977)

Mariella Anderlini (aka Allison) (d. 1992) was a behemoth of Italian SF art (note 1). Her covers graced entire years of science fiction editions for various Italian presses—for example, she illustrated the complete Slan. Il Meglio della Fantascienza series for Libra Editrice. Her work was ubiquitous and fantastic.

Over the years, loose cover art post sequences emerge from the back catalog of my site (both conscious and unconscious)–and one topic I return to regularly are SF covers by Italian women. Female Italian cover artists in the decades I am most interested in (50s-mid-80s), made up a far larger percentage Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Women SF Illustrators of the 1960s/70s, Part III: The Galassia Covers of Allison, A.K.A. Mariella Anderlini

/ Joachim Boaz / 30 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-07-23 at 4.01.50 PM

(Cover for Galassia #97, January 1969)

Two of my recent Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art posts fit (retroactively) into a linked post series on women SF illustrators from the 1960s/70s—which includes The Diagrammatic Minimalism of Ann Jonas and Donald Crews and Haunting Landscapes and Cityscapes: The 1970s Italian SF Art of Allison A.K.A. Mariella Anderlini.  This post is a continuation of the latter and explores the twelve covers Alison created for Galassia in 1969 that showcase her vivid creativity.

Galassia was one of the primary Italian SF publications for most of the 1960s (consult Michael Ashley’s Transformations: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1950-1970, 311) and introduced translations of English-language Continue reading →