Photonovels.

OldeCinemaSoz

Does anyone here else remember these?

The paperbacks which featured an episode of a tv series
or indeed a whole film like INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS
or ALIEN?

I began picking them up in the late '70s with the STAR TREK
ones.

I oft wondered why during the video nasties dabacle in the UK
they didn't put out the more notorious numbers in this format?

:rolleyes:

They were great fun. Well, maybe not; LORD OF THE RINGS wasn't
really up to much!



Anyhoo...does anyone remember them?

Fysh

There's a difference between novelisations of films - which are still done in some cases today, for example the Wachowski's V for Vendetta had a novelisation (despite being loosely adapted from a comic in the first place) - and tie-in novels based on existing film or television franchises.

If you want a bit of a headwreck, go and read about the history of the Doctor Who novels that were the canonical continuation of the tv series when it was axed in the 80s. Characters were developed and spun off into their own series of books, which got very interesting when the publishing rights expired - in at least one case the original publisher retained the rights to the new character but they couldn't mention any of the original characters or settings (ie no Daleks or TARDIS).

As for the video nasties...part of the point was that they were released on VHS at a time when regulation hadn't caught up with technology - lots of people could rent a VHS player and a tape from a local shop, so a relatively cheaply-produced "notorious" film could reach an audience interested because they knew the material wouldn't get shown anywhere else. If they wanted a video nasty in book form, there were already splatterpunk novels being published. The target audience wouldn't be likely to pick up a book.

OldeCinemaSoz

I doubt i'll ever part with my ALIEN
A4 size fotonovel.

Fysh

D'oh! I just realised I completely misunderstood your original post and somehow dropped the "photo" part.

Anyway, I do remember photonovels - as a kid I had a copy of the Explorers one and really liked it. (I'm sure I would've preferred a copy of the film on vhs, but whatever...)

I still don't think they would've worked for the video nasties side of things - producing a book to look decent has only relatively recently become cheaper, at the time of the video nasties there was no real desktop publishing industry to speak of so putting together such a book for any kind of wide distribution would be expensive.

OldeCinemaSoz

It's a pity that they only put a few select few out
in the STAR TREK series.