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Searching for a Great Holiday Gift Idea?

Posted on: Thursday, 30 October 2003, 06:00 CST

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 10/30/2003 -- If you want to wrap up your holiday gift giving in one dazzling package -- why not put one of these six lavishly spectacular coffee-table books under the Christmas tree this year? Here is Dateline News Service book reviewer Terry MacDonald's list of favorites:

1. "Master Storyteller: An Illustrated Tour of the Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard" by William J. Widder (Galaxy Press, $49.95). This sumptuous, meticulously designed, richly illustrated coffee-table book explores the versatile scope of L. Ron Hubbard's hallmark body of popular fiction in over 250 novels and stories in genres ranging from adventure, western and mystery to pacesetting works of science fiction and fantasy -- lavishly embellished by a gallery of prized collector's art, literary and visual landmarks of Hubbard's remarkable career are illuminated and underscored by technologically enhanced reproductions of covers and illustrations from the legendary pulp fiction magazines -- including treasured rarities and many of the world's foremost artists -- to contemporary futurist art created by such masters of the field as Frazetta, Cartier and Kelly Freas.

2. "Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Sundays 1954-55" by Frank Frazetta and Denis Kitchen (Dark Horse Comics, $18.95). Before legendary artist Frank Frazetta became famous for his lush paintings, he was drawing muscular hillbillies and sparsely clad women for the comic strip Li' Abner, which boasted 60 million readers a day. For anyone interested in revisiting a Golden Age of this uniquely American art form, you couldn't ask for a better place to start than this.

3. "Greetings From Earth: The Art of Bob Eggleton" by Bob Eggleton and Nigel Suckling (Sterling, $21.95). This book features this multi-Hugo artist's new art collection of previously published cover art, private commissions and self commissioned work. As Bob Eggleton says about this book, "If I was to be able to send a message to aliens, about Earth, then this is what I would present to them, in terms of content, to tell where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. And in doing so, it's a little of my own history as well. It was a fun book to create."

4. "The Silver Age of Comic Book Art" by Arlan Schumer (Collectors Press, $49.95). Designed using a distinctive graphic style, actual comic book art is enlarged to full and double-page spread, giving a comic book look and feel. This book is the definitive art book that pays proper homage to this great era of comic books and the amazing artists responsible for it.

5. "Frank Kelly Freas: As He Sees It" by Frank Kelly Freas and Laura Brodian Freas (Paper Tiger, $29.95). One of the most popular and prolific science fiction artists of today, Frank Kelly Freas's work is both gritty and realistic and set a new agenda for magazine and book covers in the 1950's -- which artists still follow. More than 24 publications featured his work. He also did the original, definitive 3-D bust of Alfred E. Neuman, Mad magazine's mascot. This volume contains all the best of his work from 1984 to the present.

6. "The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate" by Vincent Di Fate (Collins & Brown, $29.95). This collection from one of the world's best known and most respected illustrators concentrates on Vincent Di Fate's career as a leading science fiction artist. Over one hundred illustrations, drawn from all periods of the artist's career, are organized into lavish picture galleries. No lover of science fiction art or of illustration in general will fail to find it absorbing and profoundly satisfying.

So for gifts sure to be treasured -- these are Terry MacDonald's top six picks for the Holidays.

CONTACT: Beverly Tanner Dateline News Service 310-821-0309 datelinecom@yahoo.com

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