KING KOLORFORMS (1977)

King what? (Oh, settle on in my friend, we'll get there....)

Here's how it started:

One day, there I was, sitting around thinking about King Kong. Which is actually something that happens to me on a (surprisingly) regular basis.

Well. I think it happens to me more than it does to a lot of people, but I don't really know, not actually being those other people and only having me to compare myself with. But in theory, I think it does. Happen more, I mean.

To my point, this very last night, I dreamed I was at a work meeting, with a bunch of us sitting around a conference table trying to decide something or other, and all of a sudden the room blipped out--with that bit from King Kong '33 just after he's killed the Tyrannosaurus rex and is playing around with its jaw--blipping in to replace it.

What I mean is the dream conference room and everybody in it just disappeared for a second or two, I was hanging out in a dream jungle watching Kong do his thing (Hi, Ann!), and then lickety split I was back in the thick of conference room politics.

I have no idea what Kong killing a dinosaur has to do with my workplace. The headshrinkers would probably have a field day figuring it out. The point here is that when I tell you Kong randomly pops into my head (asleep or awake) on a fairly regular basis, this is a true-to-life fact.

Is this what I subconsciously want to do to people in work meetings?

So what was I saying? Oh yeah. I was sitting around thinking about Kong.

At the time, the new Kong: Skull Island movie was just out, and thinking about it had me wondering what Kong-related stuff I might or might not want to talk about here at the Brain.

I wasn't thinking of reviewing that particular movie, since I try to stay away from things already getting a ton of web-tention, and Skull Island certainly qualified on that score.

Of course I've seen the movie, and enjoyed it--even if I'm not sure I "liked" it--but truth be told any ambivalence I felt was more about the whole "let's make Kong a franchise" thing than it was any problem I had with the movie itself.

But this post isn't even about that movie, so... moving right along.

Let's see.... Oh yeah, wondering about Kong posts. So I knew I wasn't going to do anything with Skull Island. And of course the original film has been written-on-to-death as well, so not much to work with there. A few ideas did raise their heads over the course of my mental wanderings.

Maybe, I thought...

• I'd finally take a stab at King Kong '76, a much maligned movie I personally love for various and sundry reasons. (Still might do that.)
• I'd also enjoy doing a blow-by-blow show and tell of Famous Monsters #108. (Now that would be fun.)
• And of course doing a visual comparison of all the movie-Kongs (possibly with some illustrated renditions thrown in) would make the world a better place.

And maybe I'll flesh out and post those ideas at some point, or maybe not: the deadmansmuse has often been known to veto what I consider exceedingly fine post-ideas. And it's pretty tough to crank out a post if the muse is against it. Like swimming uphill or... something.

Anyway, time we put all this "what the post is not going to be about" stuff to rest and get on to what this post is going to be about, and that, my friends, is me sharing with you...

---

THE.      COOLEST.      BIRTHDAY.      PRESENT.      EVER.

(You saw the post title up top, and now you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

You see, right in the middle of all this Kong-Wondering (Kwongering?), my birthday happened. And the woman I love and share my life with walked into the room, plunked a largish-sized postal package in front of me, and said "Have a go at this, Love. Sorry it's not wrapped."

Of course I did have a go, and the following is what (rapidly) emerged from said package:

King Kolorforms, indeed....

"Oh," I said quietly.

Then I was silent. For too long, apparently. When I finally glanced up my wife had this vaguely anxious look about her, and I realized she was probably attributing my silence to something other than Nostalgic Awe.

"This is... I had this as a kid," I managed to squeak. "I loved this thing!"

And indeed I did (have it and love it).

Even as a ten year old, I was OCD-ish enough to be able to keep all the little plastic bits (that most Colorforms Kids lose in their first two weeks of ownership) around and available for my playing pleasure. Alas, participating friends and neighbors were less careful, so pieces ended up being lost over time, and at some point I suppose the whole set likely disintegrated from joyful overuse. I don't remember the day it officially went away, but I remember the seemingly countless hours re-creating film scenes from 1976's King Kong, and coming up with plenty of my own alternate histories to boot.

---

Okay, time for a quick Colorforms history lesson.

From Wikipedia: Colorforms is a creative toy named for the simple shapes and forms cut from colored vinyl sheeting that cling to a smooth backing surface without adhesives. These pieces are used to create picture graphics and designs, which can then be changed countless times by re-positioning the removable color forms.... Sets initially featured basic geometric shapes and bright primary colors on black or white backgrounds. Eventually, however, the Colorforms line evolved to include full-color illustrated play sets, games and puzzles, interactive books and creative activity sets for children of all ages. The licensing of media properties related to contemporary pop culture became integral to the product and company's success.

Mel Birnkrant, Colorforms' Creative Director for more than 20 years, has a website that includes personal reminiscences of the various projects he was part of, including this "Super Colossal, Kong Sized Colorforms Set" we're looking at here, from 1977's catalog.

Mere glimpses of Gargantuan Goodness could be seen
from the catalog images...

...and this must've been a prototype cover - noticeably
different than what shipped.

Oh. Incidentally, I found an additional Kong-related Colorforms product there, tucked away in the 1976 catalog. 3D Kong... Cool.

Clearly Superman sold better than Kong...

...as noted by catalog size discrepancies.

At any rate, Birnkrant's whole site's well worth a look.

Okay. History lesson over.

---

So needless to say my wife knocked it out of the park with her birthday giftness this time around. (She always does quite well, way better than she gives herself credit for, but this one--truly exceptional.)

Alright. Let's take a closer look at this baby. You pop off that lid and here's what you see.

What we see immediately after opening our Kongtainer.

We look to be in good shape as far as actual color forms variety goes. We've got Kong himself to rampage about the set with--couple of different heads, so he can angrily look both left and right; couple of different sets of arms, so he can hold things and not hold things--all very cool.

We've also got a nice setup for the film's big (?) Kong/snake fight going on here. (You know, this film has been, unjustly, in my opinion, derided over the years, but one criticism I have to admit bears up is the movie's lack of other giant/prehistoric beasts being seen on the island. Just can't argue that one....)

Let's see, what else? We got plenty of tiny people for Kong to stomp on interact with--four Dwans, two Jacks (running and vine-hanging), a Shifty Fred, various island natives (including Ape Mask Guy), sundry ship's crew and some National Guard soldiers.

Round it all out with three helicopters--two flying and one crumpled, a couple of fire/explosion-y shapes, some backpacks--always good for island exploration--and even a set of Pteranodons. (Those last guys weren't even in the movie as I recall--not even seen flying in the background. If memory serves, we really did get nothing at all but that aforementioned giant boa constrictor. Hmm. Wonder how long that boa was...?)

At any rate. Clearly there's plenty o' color form figures to go around, here. 

Oh, and let's unfold that instruction booklet for a closer look. (Per usual you can click any image to see it--dare I say--Kong-sized.)

ehn-struk-shuns

Buh. Enough instructions, let's get a look at that play set surface. Or should I say... surfaces?

We start out with a decent rendition of... well I guess it's a conglomeration of that beach everyone first arrives at and the wall/gate as seen from inside the native village. We'll call it...

The Gate!

I don't recall that wall being quite so close to the beach, but whatever. Still cool, right?

And this is cool. We can put little guys pouring oil on the big slidey bolt, natives running up and down the ramps and ladders. We could even do our best to recreate Kong busting through that gate--now that would be cool.

PDN (Pretty Darn Neat) so far, yet we are not even close to being done exploring this play set, no not close at all. Open up those gates on the initial surface and we get...  

The Island Interior!

Skulls and altars and logs, oh my!

Now this is an amazing (especially to a ten year old kid) spread. So much to do, here! We got the skull cave and cliff for Jack and Dwan to dive from; we got the altar where we can recreate Kong's first big reveal; we got the log--picking up, shaking and screaming/falling surely to ensue--well, it would if the actual log was a color form instead of just painted on, but still.

Don't know what that little inflatable boat is doing there on the left, but it adds play value so I'm cool with it. Oh, and a nice detail: We got the twin rock towers and full moon there in the background. Pretty sure there was no actual mountain-shaped-like-a-skull in this movie, though. They totally lifted that from 1933's film, didn't they....

Okay, two play surfaces in and we're not done yet: fold that interior closed so we see the gates again, then flip the whole thing over on its back and... oh my god it's...

The Twin Towers!

Hmm. I see that the shadow cast by Kong's back leg (seen on both versions of the box art) is missing here. That's a good thing. Kong was big, but he jumped across that 200 foot divide--no way he could've straddled it.

Violent and tragic death-place of Kong himself! But we will give those copters the fight of their lives before we go down for the count! (Won't we! Those bastards!)

Well, this is icing on the cake, here. Right? Not only do we get the gate to crash through, no only do we get island shenanigans, we get the big fight scene--the tower finale--as well. Whew! What a play set!

And mind you, I had other Colorforms play sets back in the day--they were little single scene deals half this Kong set's size. This thing was truly a kid marvel. (And, clearly, I'm still partial to it.)

And... that's it: Best Birthday Present Ever. The End. Almost. No. Too abrupt.

---

Let's see, what can we do to finish up the post and give this set a proper send off...?

I know! We'll recreate John Berkey's (amazing) promotional art with our King Kolorforms set! (This is a great idea!) For those not in the know, John Berkey is this guy:

Okay. Here goes. Obviously, the Berkey art is first, followed by the... wait. No, I guess the Colorforms is actually the...

HOLY COW I CAN'T ACTUALLY TELL WHICH IS WHICH THAT'S HOW GOOD THESE COLORFORMS ARE AT FILMIC RE-CREATION

No that's not true. I can tell. But can YOU?

If only that snake fight were half this cool in the movie...

...or even half this cool.

Were those natives really thinking that wall would keep that giant ape out if it ever wanted to come in? Oh. Thanks to The Kong Files - the only place I could find purportedly original artwork for this particular piece.

Kong is either climbing over that gate or standing on a big rock he put there just prior.... Okay, the ape looks dumb here, but I'm super proud of my putting the little explosion-y shape on the bolt to signify it cracking.

And speaking of cool original artwork - this is the full piece as done by Berkey. They cropped it for the film's poster.

Hey. This actually isn't a bad re-creation. Huh.

And now... our work here is done.

---

Actually, not quite. There were a few additional Berkey Kong pieces I found that, sadly, didn't lend themselves to Colorforms Cloning. So here those are, for completeness-sake.

Hmm. Kong did wade across a river in the movie. He was being stealthy, though, and definitely not doing any boat smashing.

Okay. That's... REALLY cool. I can see why they went for the other image as the main poster, but this one's pretty amazing.

And again, the promo art outshines the film (that's usually the case, isn't it?). Although the train scene in-film was good.

Alright. Now we really ARE done.

Till next time.

Bookstore Saturday: The Quickening

Yes, we do indeed have a sequel-title-reference thing going on with these bookstore posts. (It just happened. Accept it. So much easier than resisting, which is - as we know - futile.)

Today's title reference is nothing to do with any of the books below -- it just popped in-head as I was casting about (fly fishing of the mind) for a suitably catchy, sequel-y title....

What's a Bookstore Saturday (BSS), you ask?

1. It takes place on a Saturday (somewhat negotiable)
2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new allowed)
3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing (is it even possible to do less?)
4. Store must honor Used Bookstore Gods in look, feel and browsing experience

If you're (a) bored or (b) interested, you're welcome to check out All Things Bookstore Saturday, right here. Otherwise, on to today's bookstore loot:

---

Whaaat? This book was GOOD.

Okay, usually Bookstore Saturdays consist of me writing about books I've just purchased and not had time to read, but take a look at the dates for this post and the one before it--been like six months or some damn thing.

Truly, Other Life Endeavors (you know, the ones generally responsible for getting in the way of being able to just do what you want all the time) have been at my forefront for a while now. Still are at the forefront, truth be told, but I'm feeling rebellious this morning, and busting out with some for-myself-writing-time regardless. So there.

Which is a long-winded (my usual) way of saying this Bookstore Saturday actually happened a while back and I've totally already read this particular book.

AND IT WAS REALLY GOOD.

Which is to say, I didn't think it would be.

Not that I knew anything about the author's previous work--no inside information to put me off before I'd given it a try--I'm just old school (stubborn) when it comes to King Kong. I love the story of it all--the Story of Kong, I mean.

For me, Kong is as much his myth as he is an overgrown ape: Ann Darrow, Jack Driscoll, the Venture and that harrowing Empire State death. And, y'know, Kong dies at the end of his story. And I'm unapologetically recalcitrant when it comes to separating this particular character from his myth, for almost any reason at all.

That being said, I (of course) saw the movie, and enjoyed it--great effects, decent story, fun to watch--but that ape wasn't really Kong, not to me. It was a completely different character, using a well-loved name, to decent effect. So. Now we know how I feel about that.

Thing is, having seen the movie (and enjoyed it well enough for what it was), I was completely unprepared to have this novelization surpass the film the way it did for me. And we're not talking by a little bit--this novel was amazingly well-written, and raced past it's source material by ridiculous, heaving, lumpy amounts (not sure what that phrase means, exactly, but I'm sure it's good).

So much more characterization going on--for Kong, the other beasts, and the story's human characters--than the film could ever have hoped to provide--this book seriously hummed along its path and was an absolute joy to read.

So. Even if I'm not a fan of separating Kong from his myth, I'm a fan of this particular novel.

Nuff said.

---

Yep. Read this one too.

I'll tell you right up front (digression alert!), I enjoyed Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk movie (which this book is the novelization of) a lot more than most folks seemed to have done.

For all my talk up there on keeping Kong tied to his myth, that stubbornness is really an exception to a rule--I'm generally pretty open to watching and reading new interpretations of well known/well loved material. (hulk film to kong: digression within a digression...)

And (back to original digression) such was the case with Lee's film--he and writer James Schamus did a courageous thing, I thought, interpreting characters the way they did, and people seemed to judge the movie (harshly) more because it was different and unexpected, than due to it's own merits or lack thereof. But we're not talking about Hulk films, Lee's Hulk (2003) or Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (2008) here--not really. Suffice it to say I enjoyed both films quite a bit, but enjoyed the 2008 movie a little more.

I had assumed it'd be the same with the film novelizations (both written by experienced Hulk-scribe Peter David, and hey, we made it back around to the pre-digression subject of this bit!), but things flip-flopped (as things sometimes do) and I ended up enjoying this first film's novelization over the second film's one, by a fair amount.

With this particular novelization, I thought David took interesting, unusual premises, and did interesting, unusual things with them--I mean he expanded on Lee's source material in intriguing ways. And his novelization of the second film was more "straight up adaptation of straight up Hulk story." Enjoyable, but not as intriguing. To me.

---

aaah-ooooooooooooooh[coughcough]whine... whimper

Yep, I already read this one, too. (This Bookstore Saturday really was a long time ago... TOO long, Dan, TOO long.)

I was super excited at the thought of new-Universal-Monsters-ness-to-be-had as I picked this book up. Sadly, doing so resulted in a Catastrophic Double Whammy of Regret (CDWoR).

Not only did the book suck when I recently read it, turns out I'd totally read it several years ago and forgotten. Well, the re-read brought it all back to memory. I actually remember being pissed I'd spent money and time on it, back in the day.

(Nothing against the author: he's written other stuff I've read and enjoyed more....)

---

Como Mexico No Hay Dos

Now this one I have NOT read yet. (It's not really a "read straight through" kind of book anyway, but regardless I've just lightly browsed. So far.)

The book is a (fully bilingual, as it turns out) collection of Mexican movie posters, starting at 1957 and going up through 1990. (So, sixties, seventies and eighties, basically.)

Amazing artwork abounds, and I always love love love catching a glimpse of another culture's collective consciousness through its art. Seriously, some cool stuff in this book.

With chapter titles like "Lawless Youth," The World of the Dead" and "Pum!," how can you go possibly wrong?

(Answer: You can't.)

Author runs a sadly-not-open-to-the-public archive of Mexican film-related stuff. Maybe some day it will be. Open to the public, I mean....

---

Step right up! Test yer Vintage Horror Chops right here!
Six movies on the cover - name 'em all and win yer very own Good Guys doll...

Same with this bound-page fellow--I haven't journeyed with him cover-to-cover, yet. But just look at 'im!

mmmm... horror...

Now, the book was published in 2010, so obviously it only covers films up through that point, and is a countdown of (the author's) top 100 horror films of all time. And it's chock-full of gruesome goodness.

Really. Sooo many great films in this thing. (And, by the way, that cover is a collage of the book's top six movies--you miiiight be able to guess said author's very favorite just by looking at it....)

All in all this book is yummy. Like seedless grapes. And chocolate peanut butter ice cream. Not together; that'd be gross.

---

Restful Roars (Gronk!)

---

THIS

Five-bucks-on-ebay-silk-fabric-poster-print (two of 'em)...

---

PLUS THIS

...long-ago stolen inadvertently-removed-from-airplane travel pillow...

---

PLUS THIS

...diminutive Vietnamese woman running hole-in-the-wall alterations shop...

---

EQUALS THIS

...COOLEST. CHAIR. PILLOW. EVER.
(EV. ER.)

amiright?

By the way, that poster print is from a 1966 Italian re-release of the 1933 picture--artwork by Renato Casaro, if Heritage Auctions has anything to say on the matter (and they do)....

---

That's What He Said

I woke up this morning with a few of these quotes running through my head. (That happens to me.) Then I thought "what if I made these into a list and it was a quiz?" And just like that it went from being in my head to being real and on this page.

Here's the rules: You get, um, five points for every quote where you know what movie it's from (without looking anything up), and you get double points for every one where you know which character said it. Ooh, and triple points if you know the the name of the actor who played the character, on top of everything else (wow!).

Now this adds up to a lot of points, and you could potentially walk away from this whole thing very highly pointified, and since everybody loves points, I wish you the best of luck. But here's the bad news. Most of these quotes are obscure as hell and not easy to grock. The labels at the bottom of the post might (might) help you out some.

So here we go:

1. "Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name into the National Geographic."

2. "A naked American man stole my balloons."

3. "Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy!"

4. "Now I'm going in there to waste some teachers! Are you with me?!"

5. "I don't care if he killed a hundred people! We are scientists not moralists!"

6. "Oh, I wish we'd stuck to the road; these shoes just aren't made for hiking!"

7. "I'm only a head, and you're whatever you are. Together we're strong. More powerful than any of them."

8. "So, you have wounded me. But I must grow a new claw. Well and good, for I can do it in a DAY! But will you grow new lives when I have taken yours from YOU?!"

9. "Sir, I suddenly find your cognac as distasteful as your manner."

10. "Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics."

(Well, well? How many'd you get?)

Jaws Covered

Not to long ago, the missus and I embarked on that sublime adventure known as a Jaws movie marathon: a lazy weekend day and evening completely devoted to Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, Jaws: The Revenge and, as a bonus, Deep Blue Sea.

I know. And living with someone who enjoys doing things like this is just one aspect of the charmed life in which I live.

Of course, the pendulum swings both ways. Our most recent marathon involved Ladyhawke, Pride and Prejudice, and The Bridges of Madison County. So she does get her turn at the wheel. (We actually started with just Ladyhawke and Pride and Prejudice, but once the word "marathon" began being bandied about, we were forced to add one more, so as to meet our personal three-film minimum for the term. Two movies is just not a marathon.)

Anyway, other than realizing Jaws: The Revenge may not actually be worse than Jaws 3-D, what I took away from this marathon was a desire to compare the mechanical sharks used in each film in a blog post. But that's not what this post is going to be. Why?

Because, as usual, my mind took a simple idea for a quick post and went down a dark and winding rabbit hole with it, ending up in a dirt cavern where lived way to many ideas for way-too-complicated Jaws-themed posts, scores of downloaded images, bookmarked links, and so on. And I don't want to spend the next year doing nothing but Jaws posts.

So, while I figure out how to tone the whole project down to manageable proportions, I thought I'd start off with a collection of covers from the various editions of the Jaws novels (because, during the madness, I somehow ended up with about forty of 'em). So. Without further ado, and without a ton of commentary, here they are.

Oh. To set things up, there were three novels associated with the four films. Peter Benchley's novel, Jaws, came first and inspired Spielberg's amazing film. The other two novels, Jaws 2 and Jaws: The Revenge, were based on screenplays from their associated films, which came before the books. Jaws 3-D never had a novelization done of it. Too bad. Probably would have been better than the movie. I tried to find large images you can click through to see more detail, and was (mostly) successful. So click away.

Here we go. No wait. I have a site to mention. I trolled all over the web for images, but a fair number of what I'm using came from JawsCollector.com. Since the fellow there went through the trouble of finding all these treasures in the first place, I thought I'd give him a shout-out.

Edit: I got tired of looking up information on all those overseas books. That's why publishing houses and dates kind of peter out towards the end. And, as far as getting the right publisher, date, or even language and country: I did the best I could. Most are pretty dependable, some are educated guesses, and a few were just me putting words from a cover into Google Translate and letting it tell me what I was looking at.

Besides, we're here to look at cool covers, right? If you want to be really certain on origins, do your own search and see what you come up with.

Now, here we go.

---

Jaws - U.S. Hardcover Initial Jacket - 1974

I know I said "without a ton of commentary," and I'm starting out with a bunch of commentary. But the stuff I uncovered around these intial covers was just too good to pass up.

So this was Doubleday's initial jacket design for the book. I like it, and I think it reflects the contents of the novel pretty well. The story actually focuses as much (or more) on Amity and it's people as it does the shark, and this cover tells me that. But. This cover was rejected shortly before the book went to press. Why? You will *never* guess.

The New York Times Magazine had this to say about it:

The sales managers loved the book and the title, but there was considerable resistance to the jacket. It made them think of Freud's classic dream of castration, the vagina dentata.

Really? Was vagina dentata maybe more a part of cultural consciousness back in the 70s than it is now? Because that is not a term that springs to mind for me at all, let alone when looking at this cover. But, okay.

---

Jaws - U.S. Hardcover Final Jacket - 1974

Here is the jacket Doubleday ultimately went with.

And it's a great cover. Hits you right in the gut, gives you both a claustrophobic and dangerously-wide-open-and-exposed feeling at the same time. Shivery. But as visceral as it is, I still think the original cover captures the feel of what's actually between the covers more than this one does. Just sayin'.

Doubleday's thoughts on this one? That same Times Magazine article quotes editor Thomas Gongdon:

"We realized that the new version looked like a penis with teeth, but was that bad? I placated [design director Alex Gotfryd] by buying him a $17 necktie at Paul Stuart."

Huh. I guess the fellas at Doubleday held to a double standard: penis dentata is okay; vagina dentata is not. Does that scream 1970s Male to anyone but me?

---

Jaws - U.S. Paperback - 1975

And here's the cover people always think of when you mention Jaws. Universal Studios eventually used it for the movie poster, which is why people always think of it, but it was actually created by illustrator Roger Kastel for the novel's paperback release.

And it's definitely another great cover. A very different feel than the Doubleday jacket, but just as powerful. As paperback covers are wont to do, it's going for lurid sense of (quickly) impending doom, versus the hardcover's more restrained approach. Looks damn cool though. And I definitely remember straining my eight year-old eyes at that nude swimmer, willing them to take in more detail than actually existed on paper.

---

Jaws - U.S. Paperback - 1991

Okay. Commentary is mostly over. There have been a lot of reprints of Jaws over the years, most of them very slight variations on Kastel's admittedly iconic cover. But I'll try to focus, as we go, on those that tried to do their own thing.

Like this one, from Fawcett Crest. Ferocious looking beast, even if it doesn't scream Jaws to me like the Doubleday and Bantam covers. Well, I guess it does scream Jaws, what with the word right there in big red letters and all. But you know what I mean.

---

Jaws - Australian Paperback - 1976

Now we'll get into some non-U.S. covers, which are often quite unique and pretty cool. Like this Australian paperback from Pan Books.

---

Jaws - French Canadian Paperback

Couldn't track down a publication date for this one, which'll probably be the case for a lot of these overseas editions.

But this is interesting if you're me: The site I found this cover on lists it as a French book. But when I googled "Les Éditions internationales Alain Stanké," I found out it was a publishing house created by Alain Stanké. He was born in Lithuania but migrated to Montreal, where he started several publishing companies among other things. So I'm assuming the book is actually French-Canadian. Anyway, he's an interesting fellow, a bit of a renaissance man. (Have to use Google Translate with that link, if you don't read French.)

Anyway, the cover looks (to my unpracticed eye) like maybe an original painting, but obviously following the Bantam cover pretty closely. Or maybe it's just pre-digital cut and paste. Kudos for doing something to differentiate from the U.S. version.

---

Jaws - French Hardcover - 1975

Here's an actual French (as in the country of France) hardcover, published by Hachette. The cover's a little weird. It puts the shark in a secondary role, visually, which is fine. But the girl looks really young. Is she supposed to be the swimmer from the book's first attack? Be curious to know the why's behind this one.

---

Jaws - French Paperback -1974

Another French cover with a non-swimming woman up front and the shark in the background. Also published by Hachette.

---

Jaws - French Paperback - 1976

And yet another French cover, from Le Livre de Poche, which was also an imprint of Hachette. No short shrifting the shark here, but all they've really done is flip the Bantam image around. I guess, points for doing something.

---

Jaws - French Paperback - 1976

Another French cover by Hachette. This was an edited version of the novel marketed to teens. Wonder what bits they left out?

---

Jaws - Italian Hardcover - 1974

Hmm. A hardcover from Italy, published by Mondadori.

Seems to me that overseas folks were less afraid of going fanciful with a cover than folks in the U.S. Which is good, otherwise this post would be forty book covers, all with Roger Kastel's artwork on them. And that would be dull.

---

Jaws - Portuguese Hardcover - 2015

Yikes! Now that's an attention grabbing cover. It's from Portuguese publisher, Darkside. And new. Just out last August.

---

Jaws - Portuguese Paperback

Interesting. Another Portuguese edition. This one is much older--but obviously not older than 1978, because it's using Jaws 2 cover art. ( ! ) I think it was put out by a publisher called Editora Nova Cultural.

---

Jaws - Soviet/Russian

Found this, and the one below, on a sociologist's Twitter page. Since it's Twitter, there wasn't much information, but I've heroically passed on what I know. This one is... kind of cool in it's peculiarity.

---

Jaws - Soviet/Russian

This one is also peculiar, but also kind of amazing. I like it's tongue-in-cheekiness. Reminds me of Land Shark. ("Plumber, ma'am.")

---

Jaws - Russian

Here's a scarier Russian cover that's really just a closeup of... Roger Kastel's shark. But they did cool things with it, like making the shark be above water vs. under the surface. I like the duo-tone, too.

---

Jaws - Spanish Comic Book - 1975

Okay. Technically this isn't the cover of a novel, but it was so awesome I had to include it. And it's awesomeness requires no explanation other than itself, so here are it's opening pages:

Brutal. So, the cover says it's an erotic comic. But these pages didn't seem particularly sexualized to me. After all, the novel's swimmer was nude as well. So I did a little searching to see if the word "erotic" was just a gag to boost sales, or what. And...

I didn't find anything more on this particular comic, but I did find out it was part of a series, with each comic doing it's take on a popular movie of the time. As to whether or not the series was actually meant to be erotic, that question was answered when I came across it's version of King Kong.

Way more than I wanted to see of Fay Wray. (Only partially true.)

Oh my. And if you really want to see two women undress, kiss each other, then be grabbed and eaten by a giant gorilla, click here.

---

Jaws - Spanish Hardcover - 1974

Another Spanish cover, from El Círculo de Lectores. I like it. Simple, understated, gets the point across.

---

Jaws - Argentinian Hardcover - 1976

But I like this one even more, because it adds the town, up top. Let's you know it's not just a shark we're dealing with here, it's a shark mixed up with a town. And towns have people. Crunch!

---

Jaws - Swedish Hardcover - 1975

Ooh, I really like this one. Being under water with the shark and looking up from his perspective is cool. Great color scheme, too.

---

Jaws - Swedish Hardcover

Same language, and looks like the same artist, even. But I don't like this one quite as much. Still has that cool color palette, though.

---

Jaws - Turkish paperback - 1975

Here's a Turkish paperback. What I found on this one said it was published in 1975, but it's a dead ringer for the design on that 1991 U.S. paperback, way up at the top:

Could be coincidence. Or maybe the U.S. version just got its inspiration from the much older Turkish edition. We will never know. Probably.

---

Jaws - UK Hardcover

Oh, now this is cool. A UK cover that features Quint's death in the novel--very different than his film death. Weird way-to-big-headed-shark, but big points for originality, here. (Welcome to "Dead Man's Brain," the blog where everything's made up and the points don't matter.")

---

Jaws - UK Hardcover

Okay. Many kudos to the UK folk. This is another extremely cool cover. And a wraparound to boot!

---

Jaws - UK Paperback

A UK paperback. Maybe that almost identical Australian one was a UK import of this one....

---

Jaws - UK Paperback

I like this, too. Somebody's doing their own take on the original U.S. covers, kind of combining the hardcover and paperback designs.

---

Jaws - UK Youth Paperback

And, our last actual Jaws cover. The rest are from Jaws 2 and Jaws: The Revenge. This was another edited version, aimed at teens or tweens.

---

Jaws 2 - U.S. Hardcover - 1978

So. Jaws 2, the novel, was written by Hank Searls, from a very early screenplay that changed quite a bit before shooting on the film actually started. So it's almost like reading a novel that isn't taken from a film. Which is a good thing, because often film novelizations suck. This book didn't, and I think I may actually like it better than the movie.

It came out a few months before the film opened, in hardcover and paperback, and you could get the paperback with or without the water skier on it.  I don't know why they decided to do that, but thank god for Berserker Books and their exquisitely thorough and entertaining look at Lou Feck, the fellow who painted this cover, for giving me an explanation for the variant. I was going nuts trying to find any information on it at all, and their post saved me from nut-ness.

Bantam published Hank Searls' novelization of Jaws 2 in the Spring of 1978, just a few months shy of the film's debut in theaters. Readers had a choice between two variant Feck covers, one with a skier and one without. You can see where the art department's removal of the skier left behind a blurry, less detailed water splash in her stead. For subsequent printings though, Bantam wised up and used only the unexpurgated cover. Sex always wins out in the end, as we all know.

If Feck made any impression outside of publishing it's because of his association with Jaws 2. The cover art he created for the novelization was in turn used for the film poster (a rare double commission, if you will). Feck's painting, which is a direct salute to the original Roger Kastel paperback cover of Peter Benchley's novel Jaws, is now part of our nation's entertainment legacy.

Not a ton of variation out there for Jaws 2 or Jaws: The Revenge covers, but I pulled together a few of the more interesting ones. Other than the hardcover above...

---

Jaws 2 - U.S. Paperback - 1978

Here's the paperback cover, as Feck originally painted it....

---

Jaws 2 - U.S. Paperback - 1978

And here's the cover, sans skier. I prefer the one with the skier, but my guess from what Berserker Books said is the non-skier cover is a bit harder to find, only being included with the first release and all.

---

Jaws 2 - French Paperback - 1978

Here's a French paperback, with skier...

---

Jaws 2 - French Paperback - 1978

...and another without the skier.

---

Jaws 2 - Spanish Paperback - 1978

Here's a Spanish paperback, for Jaws 2, that's using the shark from the the U.S. paperback edition of Jaws.

---

Jaws 2 - Italian Paperback - 1978

Aha! Here's something a little different. This Italian cover is taken from an alternate movie poster design. That water.. it's so red! Is it just the reflection of the setting sun, or... is it... an ocean running red with blood?!

---

Jaws 2 - Thai Paperback - 1978

And this one is cool just because it's Thai.

---

Jaws: The Revenge - U.S. Hardcover - 1987

Jaws: The Revenge was also written by Hank Searls, which is nice for continuity. It also came out a bit before the movie itself, and was based on an early, arguably better, screenplay than the one that ultimately made it to the screen. At least it explained more as to why the hell a shark would target a specific family and chase them around the world. That counts for something, right there.

Not much in the way of variety with this one. Everything I found had the shark from Kastel's cover, but breaking the surface instead of being underwater. We had this hardcover...

---

Jaws: The Revenge - U.S. Paperback - 1987

...and this paperback.

---

Jaws: The Revenge -  Spanish Paperback - 1987

A Spanish one, mixing things up a tiny bit.

---

Jaws: The Revenge -  Spanish Paperback - 1987

And more of the same, in brighter colors.

---

Jaws: The Revenge -  UK Paperback - 1987

And, finally, the UK paperback, which just swapped red lettering for gold and called it good.

---

And that's it, really.

And, in case you were wondering, I've read Jaws and Jaws 2 in the (distant) past, but recently re-read 'em so as to bone up for all these shark-related posts rattling around in my head (which may or may not ever see the light of day).

I also, more recently, bought Jaws: The Revenge. I haven't read it yet, but if the Jaws 2 experience holds true, my guess is I'm gonna like it better than the movie it's taken from. We'll see, and then I'll be back for more Jaws posts in general.

Until then.

---