Curio: Fotonovels
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 3:20PM Alexa here. Seeing Super 8 this holiday weekend left me with nostalgia for its template, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And that brought to mind one of my favorite bits of 70s movie kitsch, Fotonovels.
Fotonovels were "a collection of books that were filled from front to back with photos from a particular movie" and had "a shorter life than disco itself." Like comic books, but with real photographs! They were so exciting to me as a child. Grease was my favorite; before I even saw the movie I wore out my copy. I also loved Ice Castles (I was especially taken with the "Lexie" embroidered on her collar). Recently, I scored a copy of the Close Encounters version. Here are some pictures of mine, as well as some I've spotted around the internet.
Click for The Champ and Ice Castles...
Close Encounters, Curio, Grease, Hair, Heaven Can Wait, Ice Castles, The Champ, books
Reader Comments (7)
I never had any of these but i remember people carrying the Grease fotonovel around. i think one of my friends had it, too. i was way too obsessed with Grease before i even saw it because all the big kids were into it.
Thanks to this post now I know this. Wouldn’t it be cool of DVDs now have this included?
I'd buy your fotonovel of CE3K for 10 dollars!
They look completely addictive. When I was in Paris, I found and bought some books that had major frame by frame photos and the accompanying dialogue below. (Les Enfants du Paradis, etc). I thought it would help me with my French. I loved those books.
I do remember that Grease one at the time and thumbed through it but didn't buy it - but my god, I had forgotten about fotonovels in general. What a blast from the past.
I guess a related trend(?) was the comic versions of movies Marvel was doing - I had their comic book version of Xanadu (I was an ONJ fan by then, if not specifically a fan of the film.) I guess I was curious how ONJ would look in a comic book. As it turns out - depends on the illustrator; and "Kira" looked completely different on nearly every page so I assumed there were several people collaborating. (Overall, it was rather bad, without the the redeeming "so bad its good" kitschy-pop quality of the fotonovels.)
Janice, I've seen various comic versions like that of some favorite films of yore, and yeah, they just don't have the same charm. And Gustavo, mine's not for sale, but you can buy one cheaper on ebay!
The Grease Fotonovel was my prized possession back in the day, and still occupies a place on my bookshelf.
I remember checking out the Hair Fotonovel in the bookstore because of the male nudity...<sigh>