In Search Of: A Sci-Fi/Fantasy Art Book from K-Mart, circa 1979 (SOLVED!)

THE FANTASTIC PLANET – A WORLD OF MAGIC AND MYSTERY

Many thanks to commenter, Travis Mcferrin, for solving this mystery! The book is from 1980 and is by Steven Caldwell. The imprint seems to be Galactic Encounters, and as soon as I find a copy of this book to purchase, I shall be looking for others in this series… if there is a series. I am SO stoked right now!

For over a decade, I have been searching for this book. I have vague memories of it, which is odd for me since I have such a vivid memory for inconsequential things. I have no idea what the book was titled, but I do recall certain pieces that stick out in my memory but I cannot describe them well enough to preform a successful image search for them, apparently. From time to time I try to search 70’s Science Fiction and Fantasy artwork.

I picked the book up from a K-Mart in the greater Sacramento area around 1979. The memory of the book haunts me because it was such an inspiration to my creative endeavors. The book was reduced to mere pages, I had read it so much. It had art on one page and copy on the opposite. It had a very Thundarr the Barbarian vibe to it with a Sci-Fi Sorcery theme.

It wasn’t until this year when I actually found some pieces that were actually in the book! It was a very exciting discovery. Now I have more than just a recollection of some of the contents of the book, which is more to go on than I’ve had for years.

I pulled a few of these images from the wonderful 70’s Sci-Fi Art Tumblr.

7 comments

    1. THANK YOU! This isn’t quite right the right one BUT I suspect that the book I had, made for younger readers, was almost an abridged version of the one you pointed me to.

      Thanks again ๐Ÿ™‚

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