The Book of Alien

Mentioned Alien a few weeks back and here is a book that, if you’re interested in the topic, is well worth getting your hands on. Written by Paul Scanlon and Michael Gross – the first edition was published in 1979, it is a large format paperback which includes photographs, illustrations and articles on the film.

A friend of mine had it and I recall whiling away hours in the Summer of 1979 poring over the Chris Foss, Ron Cobb and Giger and Moebius illustrations. I was particularly taken by those of Foss the page below shows some of his work – the idea of a spaceship that could land with ship like deck balconies as seen in the drawing was particularly attractive to me for some reason.

There’s lots on the alien itself and also the model work used in the film. And there’s an odd sense of potential alternative Aliens, films that were never shot that would have been led primarily by the work of Foss or Moebius. As I said in the previous post I find the world conjured up primarily Giger and Cobb to be a wonder, I’ve no doubt that Foss and Moebius would have done likewise. And in any event their fingerprints are all over the finished film as it stands.