[1969] Annual. Original price 12/6.
96 pages. Full colour contents.
World Distributors (Manchester) Limited.
Based on the US television series starring Gary Conway.
Cover photos (uncredited).
r: partial cover from
Land of the Giants (Gold Key) #
01 (Nov 1968).
Contents:
2 UNTITLED illustration by UNKNOWN (uncredited). / Indicia
3 Land of the Giants Annual title page. / Contents
4 Crash into the Unknown text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
10 The Name's the Same quiz; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
11 The Happy Return text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
17 Giants of Earth text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
19 Other Days: Other Giants text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
23 The Bigger They Are text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
25 The Toy Trap text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
32 Star Facts text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
33 The Mini-Criminals, part one, The Power Seekers w: Dick Wood (uncredited); p: Ted Galindo (uncredited), i: Tom Gill (uncredited).
r: Land of the Giants (Gold Key) #01 (Nov 1968).
47 Barry and the Bank Robbers text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
53 The Mini-Criminals, part two, The Torch is Lit w: Dick Wood (uncredited); p: Ted Galindo (uncredited), i: Tom Gill (uncredited).
r: Land of the Giants (Gold Key) #01 (Nov 1968).
65 All About Giants quiz; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
66 The Lost One text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
72 Man Made Monsters text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
73 The Bargain text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
80 Points of View text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
81 Nightmare in Giantland text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
86 Terror in the Woods! board game; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
88 The Mini-Spies text story by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
94 The Giant One text feature by UNKNOWN (uncredited); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
Young Barry Lockridge was the first to come to his senses after that tearing shock on the edge of space, when the sun seemed to increase its size twelve times, then fade into blackness, which slid into the greyness of oblivion. Chipper, his dog, was by his side when he recovered, and the dog was whining frantically. Barry stared round the large cabin.
Sub-orbital spaceliner Flight 703, from Los Angeles to London, would have brought tears to the eyes of her designers. In a word, she was a mess! Many of the fabulous instruments were smashed; the walnut trim of the room was ripped apart in places, and the unconscious figures of crew and passengers were sprawled in every direction. Barry scrambled to his feet in sudden panic.
Retelling the series' pilot episode in speedy fashion,
Crash into the Unknown gets across the central premise without attempting to rationalise events, and it is all the better for its haste - with the television series explaining events remarkably well, there is little reason for the recap other than giving readers a reminder of what has gone before. The set-up really could have been handled with a page-long summary, but this feels as if some energy has gone into fleshing out the moments after crash.
With the Spindrift at the bottom of an ornamental pool, Steve is concerned about the cabin pressure and air purifiers, taking the ship up and out of the water and up into the night. The hopes of some that this might get them back on course is quickly refuted:
"I'm afraid we are a long, long way from London, Mark," said Steve, in a level voice. "We are not even in the same dimension! This world of the giants is in an entirely different universe from ours. We have about one chance in ten thousand million of getting back home!"
Landing the craft on a flat roof so that the crew and passengers can get outside without having to dodge over-sized wildlife, to boost morale, and while considering their options Steve decides to return to the broken window in the laboratory to get back to Earth. When the ship returns, however, the way into the room is blocked...
Giants of Earth covers terrestrial monsters such as the Seward Glacier in Alaska, the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, Yellowstone Park, the Sahara, and Ayers Rock in Australia. While the geography lesson is handled intelligently, the sense of
scale isn't as clear as it could have been - we are told that these are large, yet the immensity isn't articulated in a manner which is easy to grasp. Large numbers are thrown around - the Amazon is 3,900 miles long - but without a human-scale to compare such vast distances it loses some of the potential impact.
Accompanying this is
Other Days: Other Giants, which concerns itself with dinosaurs. In specific, the Brachiosaurus, Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Titanotherium, Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, and the Mammoth. One can only wonder what the author would have made of the Alamosaurus or Argentinosaurus. Sizes are given in feet, rather than being described as X number of London buses long, which is (as any child knows) the proper way such measurements are meant to be given. When dates are presented ("one hundred million years ago") the sheer scale of the timeline is ignored.
Having some indication of humanity's existence in comparison makes timescales more impressive. Instead of presenting yet more impressive facts (going bigger, as it were), the next feature,
The Bigger They Are, falls back on "David and Goliath" battles. Ho, and indeed, hum.
The Toy Trap uses toys as comparison to the stranded humans, in a plot which must have taken all of ten minutes to think up, and which doesn't fulfill anything near its potential. While using toys as a means of making the size difference concrete in readers minds, the lack of originality, combined with a sense of the story being provided merely to fill pages, makes it a difficult story to like.
Star Facts, albeit a single page, finally gets to real immensity. Although the handful of facts presented are interesting, the piecemeal manner in which the page is presented detracts from what ought to have been the real treat. There is, despite all this, a small concession to the younger readers.
Imagine an Earth forty feet in diameter. The moon would be ten feet across and a quarter of a mile away. The farthest planet, Pluto, would be only twenty feet across but would be 3,600 miles from Earth.
Oh, for the days when Pluto was still a planet...
The comic strip, reprinted from the US series, is a strangely muted affair, with artwork which doesn't capture enough drama within its images. Too bright, and with stiff poses, it is a real disappointment.
Barry goes investigating in
Barry and the Bank Robbers, discovering a hatch which leads to the interior of a building. Far too relaxed in its telling, there isn't any sense that imminent death awaits the curious child, and without this tension hanging in the air there isn't much that the author can do to engage interest beyond describing the scale of the environment.
We get it. Everything is twelve times the size.
I'm impressed with the
All About Giants quiz, which treats readers more intelligently than the prose thus far:
1. Who was the owner of Doubting Castle in John Bunyan's book Pilgrim's Progress?
9. Can you name the demon giant of Hindu mythology reputed to have ten faces?
Escaping from a cat, Valerie and Betty encounter Tuftian Spicer, an Earthman who is the only survivor of a team of space explorers who set out from Earth in 1954. He has been living in a rabbit hole all this time, and might know where there exists a power source capable of getting them off-planet and back to Earth, though he is hesitant to reveal the location as he might be left behind.
I know this is based on an Irwin Allen show, but there really should have been someone involved in the annual with a smidgen of knowledge about history.
Man Made Monsters, as with the other features, picks out a handful of large constructions, though the choice of items is, to say the least, eccentric.
Perhaps sensing that comparisons to
Gulliver's Travels might be raised by readers regardless,
Points of View tackles the novel head-on. Unfortunately the text is more interested with
Land of the Giants, and most of the piece isn't actually about the novel at all. It begs the question of how this annual can simultaneously be so intelligent and so idiotic at the same time - had a little more care been taken in picking out important facts about the book, World might have pushed readers into hunting down a copy.
And there is no mention, while on the subject of literature, of Mary Norton's
The Borrowers series.
Terror in the Woods is one of the poorest board games in any World annual, with wonky lettering, lurid colouring, and an unnecessarily complex layout. Some of the imagery is, as expected, rather good, though the presentation falls down when examined closely. It is a shame that something as simple as a game feature can't be delivered properly.
Closing with a feature on the blue whale, this annual presents a lingering feeling that there really wasn't a great deal of heart put into this. There are good aspects here, but so buried under the presentation that one has to work somewhat to find enjoyable material. Missing entirely are features on the cast of the series, despite cover photographs displaying the actors. While the annual is sloppy, it is also very, very close to being a great tie-in, with most of the elements in place for a top notch read.
How they were fitted in remains the problem.
Disappointing.
Land of the
Giants Annual
[1971]
