Really?! That's interesting, as it's actually the logo of the Three Investigators, Nigel, a series that I can heartily recommend, in the event that you haven't had the good fortune to encounter it previously.Moonraker wrote:An extremely interesting thread, Ian (BTW, your avatar always makes me think of Dr Who).
I'll let Jupiter himself explain the significance of the question marks:
(From The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy.)“The question mark,” Jupiter said now in his most adult manner, “otherwise known as the interrogation mark, is a universal symbol for a question unanswered, a riddle unsolved, a mystery unexplained. Therefore we have made it our trade-mark. We will undertake to solve any mystery you want us to tackle. We cannot promise success, but we can promise to try.”
That's right - some of the original hardback illustrations could sometimes be described as curate's eggs, I suppose. Also, some of the superior paperback artwork was in print for such a short period of time that relatively few people have seen it.Moonraker wrote:It also made me think that as purists, we go on and on about how superior the original books are (which of course they are), however, as you say Ian, some illustrations from later reprints are much better.
These are the reasons why I started my Series Book Art website, which is an attempt to archive some of the rarer illustrative works from a selection of my favourite juvenile series. The Blyton page currently focuses on the early Armada illustrations by Charles Stewart:
http://seriesbookart.co.uk/blyton/index.php
Ideally, I would like this page to become complimentary to Tony's excellent work on the Book Listing pages. I plan to add further illustrations by other Armada artists such as Dylan Roberts and Dorothy Brook in the future.
I feel rather like one of those Greek plate spinners at the moment, Nigel - but I certainly WOULD like to write something for the journal on this subject at some point. I just wouldn't have a clue when...Moonraker wrote:I look forward to reading your article in a future Journal!