3-D eyeglasses and 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison'

3-D Eyeglasses and The Illustrated Harlan Ellison

The 3-D experiment with Steranko and “Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman”, whatever you may think of it, there are people I know, I swear, with very, very highly developed artistic sense, I mean, they are people who have hanging in their homes Mark Rothkos, Picassos, I mean, they know art, they are not dilettantes, and they look at the Steranko stuff and they say, “This is fine.” Other people say [in a weaselly voice]: “What the hell is this? I don’t understand it.” I have a beef on the plates in the special limited edition portfolio [of “Repent, Harle­quin, Said the Ticktockman”]: The Thoreau quote was cut. I mean, you can cut my words if you want to on those damn plates, but for Chrissake, you don’t cut Thoreau. You don’t edit Thoreau because the lines don’t fit. And we can’t really figure out whether it was Steranko who did because he didn’t like the art layout or if Byron allowed it… But it doesn’t matter. It happened. So, I have my minor beefs, my minor cavils.

But I really like that book. I am pleased and proud of it. And Byron Preiss did it. He was the one who did it, dammit. He ramrodded it, he put it together, he babysat the goddamn crazy artists, he sat with me through my crazinesses where I insisted on things. It’s a book that I’m pleased to add to my oeuvre. And I read these incredibly pompous, sententious, powder-pigeon martinet analyses by schmucks I never heard of. God knows what the fuck they do for a living. They pack ice cream at Baskin-Robbins or something and in their spare time they write you a review. And they sit there and judge those who are their betters. Because Byron Preiss is one of the best, man. You know why I think he’s one of the best? Because he takes the chances. Byron did the Weird Heroes series, Byron did Empire, Byron did The Stars My Destination, Byron did The Illustrated Ellison. Byron did all these things. Some of them may be failures, but goddammit, he did them! He didn’t just sit down and do fuzzy-footed little creatures for “Weirdworld.” And I think he is deserving of respect and deserving of respectful attention for the intent and for the execution. If he fails, it’s possible to say, “This was an attempt, it was an interesting attempt, it failed. It failed for these reasons.” That’s okay.

-interview of Harlan Ellison, conducted in 1979 by Gary Groth

Copies of The Illustrated Harlan Ellison (the Baronet Books 1978 trade paperback, not the Ace Books mass-market, abridged, paperback edition from 1980) still can be had for under $30, but are fast increasing in price.

One of the more imaginative chapters of the book is Jim Steranko's 3-D illustrations for the short story "'Repent, Harlequin !' Said the TickTockMan".

If you are going to invest in the book, I recommend you also get a pair of cheap, plastic 3-D eyeglasses from amazon for $10 a pair (the book provides its own pair of cardboard 3-D glasses, but they don't work nearly as well as the plastic pair). 

Once wearing the 3-D glasses of any kind, you have to gaze at the page for a bit before your eyes adapt to the meshing of the images (Steranko cleverly provided a tiny '3-D' cube in each of his illustrations to serve as a visual cue for the '3-D' effect). But soon the magic of 3-D will be revealed to you !

Of course, the 3-D glasses from amazon work just as well for those other eccentric books that feature 3-D artwork, such as Alan Moore's The Black Dossier (2007).