EXTRACTS: illustrators issue 3 © 2013 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

80 Told in Pictures was a tagline prominently displayed on the covers of the pocket libraries; the small British paperback series making their reappearance in the early 1950s. Before the intervention of World War II, the libraries had been largely text publications running to ninety-six pages set in newspaper-size body type. After the war, with the paper shortages, manpower shortages, and the consequent widespread closures of periodicals, tastes had changed. The returning new lines were intensively illustrated, sixty-four-page booklets where art and text were employed to tell stories in comic-book style. Thus a latter-day verdict that artwork and storylines were “equally dire” or “pure crap” would be damning. Such opinions should be backed only by overwhelming evidence that a body of work had no redeeming features, and is therefore totally unworthy today of a connoisseur’s interest. Yet the “equally dire” verdict, and others of similar, sweepingly dismissive nature, are not uncommonly passed in collecting circles One-time Micron editor Keith Chapman reveals that there was a lot more to the oft maligned pocket library than meets the eye. Told in Pictures ABOVE: Micron’s debut as a serious contender in the war pocket library market, was distinguished by its lurid cover art, and the addition of a red strip running down the side of the artwork to help differentiate it from its rivals.