Project: Telstar

It must be said that the folks at AdHouse love books, although as a "boutique juggernaut" that's not many people. I still wish they'd print a few more, or perhaps that's reprint a few. Still, I have gotten hold of the book that inspired my previous rant (Project: Telstar) for only somewhat above cover price. I also got hold of another of the set (Project: Romantic) for my regular discount. I will not be getting the last of the set (Project: Superior) unless it is reprinted. At $50 for a library copy (ooh, it's come down), I'll just have to be happy with my free comic with part of it from a few years ago. It's the Joel Priddy part anyway.

So I hold in my hands a copy of Project: Telstar, which is A Spacial Robotic Anthology. The detail that has gone into this is just delightful. There's a busy little scene of robots and workers bustling about on the cover. Over the subtitle, little ones and zeros are printed in clear, a reminder for those who look of what makes a robot tick. Cute rounded corners, but heavier than it looks because it's actually printed on good paper. It all gives a good feeling, and so you open it up.

And there's more art on the end pages. In fact, it turns out that the front cover was the first page of a wordless story contained on the covers and end pages of the book. The book itself is printed in two colors, traditional black and a metallic blue. It's a choice that just makes sense.

The various authors utilized the two colors to varying degrees. There is some wonderful work in this taking advantage of ink. I do particularly like the work by Jay Geldof and Rob Ullman. There's also a few that would have been better off to have the colors printed in the opposite order.

There's almost nothing I didn't like in this. There's three portfolios contained in the book, which I didn't care for although I felt my heart softening for the third one. Still, they're not stories! Meanwhile, lots of wonderful, creative robot stories.