#Barlowes Guide To Extraterrestrials

[vintagerpg]

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (1979) is a fun little book that looks at aliens from a variety of science fiction stories through the (slightly) in-universe framing of a field guide, complete with notes on ecology and biological functions.

Artist Wayne Barlowe’s selections are an interesting cross-section of the genre (I don’t recognize a lot of them, honestly) and his interpretations (of the ones I do recognize) always walk the fine line between capturing something essential that I pictured in my mind’s eye while also being surprising or unexpected in many ways. Among the beasties I did not photograph are the Overlords from Childhood’s End, the Puppeteers from Ringworld, the Izchel from Wrinkle in Time, the Masters from the Tripod books and Ursula Le Guin’s Athshean.

In a way, the Guide feels like an extension of the larger interest in fantastic art in the ‘70s, embodied most in the Gnomes, Fairies and Giants books. It, and its Fantasy companion (see tomorrow) certainly wouldn’t come out today, but for me, they’re just amazing. They gave Barlowe a whole book to draw monsters and aliens; monster and alien enthusiasts like me got a pile of rad illustrations to look at; and a stack of sci fi writers got low-key advertising for their works. Wins down the line.

Worth mentioning that this is likely a direct inspiration for Call of Cthulhu’s pair of Petersen’s Field Guides (Cthulhu Monsters and Dreamlands), right down to little nuances of layout formatting. I would bet that they were also on someone’s mind when the Ecology articles began to appear in Dragon Magazine (those started in ’83 with the Piercer).

[titleknown]

Hot Take: Wayne Barlowe needs to do a Part 2 of Barlowe's Guide To Extraterrestrials for the nearly 40 years of aliens in literature that came after the first one was written.

Hotter Take: It should also cover aliens from other mediums. I want to see Wayne Barlowe draw a fucking Homestuck Troll.

[saucerkommand]

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrial Entities [FULL]

[70sscifiart]

Here's the Comparative Size Chart from Wayne Barlowe’s 1979 art book "Barlowe’s Guide To Extraterrestrials," which illustrated a bunch of classic sci-fi aliens.

[chernobog13]

TWO VERSIONS OF "THE THING"

Who Goes There? (1938), the novella by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart, is a classic of science fiction horror. It has been adapted at least four times for film - The Thing From Another World (1951), The Thing (1982; the famous John Carpenter version), The Thing (2011; a prequel to Carpenter's film), and Horror Express (1972) - but none of those films depicted the alien monster as described in Campbell's story.

Below are two of the most accurate representations of The Thing that I have found.

The first is this depiction by famed Hollywood storyboard artist (and HUGE monster fan) Pete Von Sholly. It was used as the design for a 4 1/2" model released by Dark Horse. The model itself was sculpted by his wife, Andrea Von Sholly. Below the model kit is an excellent, if fake, cover for an issue of Classics Illustrated that I'd love to own using Von Sholly's artwork.

The second image is by Wayne Barlowe from his seminal work Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (1979; revised 1987). It shows The Thing in mid-transformation into a sled dog, something we saw in both the 1982 and 2011 films.

[thecreaturecodex]

May I ask what reference materials you have at your disposal?

This list includes only books about monsters that I own and have used for the Codex at some point. It does not include books I've gotten from libraries (I have access to an excellent university library and one of the best public library systems in the country), nor does it include RPG books or books about science and nature. We'd be here all day, and this list already took like 90 minutes to collate.

A Field Guide to the Little People—Arrowsmiths and Moore Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials; Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy—Barlowe The Dictionary of Demons—Belanger Monsters in Print—Benedict Ghosts Monsters and Demons of India—Bhairav and Khonna The Mwindo Epic—Biebuyck and Mateene, ed. The Beast of Boggy Creek; Momo—Blackburn Bigfoot: Life and Times of a Legend—Buhs The Hidden—Christopher and Austin The Unexplained!—Clark Ghostland; The Unidentified—Dickey Prehistoric Monster Mash; Dinosaur Memories II—Debus After Man; The New Dinosaurs; Man After Man—Dixon Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology—Eberhart Welsh Monsters and Mythical Beasts—Ellis The Book of Yokai; Pandemonium and Parade—Foster Encounters With Flying Humanoids—Gerhard The Leprechaun’s Kingdom—Haining Meeting With Monsters—Hlioberg and Aegisson Dragons—Hogarth and Cleary Monster Atlas Volume 1—Hyland and Kay The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials—Hyughe Bestiarium Greenlandica—Kreutzmann Evil in Our Midst—Jones The Natural History of Unicorns—Lavers Legends of the Fire Spirits—Lebling Travels to the Otherworld and Fantastic Realms—Lecouteaux and Lecouteaux Cowboys and Saurians 1 and 2—Lemay Medieval Monsters—Lindquist and Mittman The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures—Matthews and Matthews The Night Parade of 100 Demons; The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits; The Book of the Hakutaku; The Fox’s Wedding—Meyer Hunting Monsters—Naish Cryptozoologicon Volume 1—Naish, Koseman and Conway Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology—Newton The United States of Cryptids—Ocker Chasing American Monsters—Ofutt Iberian Monsters—Prado The Creatures of Philippine Mythology—Ramos A Wizard’s Bestiary—Ravenheart Giants, Monsters and Dragons; Spirits, Faeries, Leprechauns and Goblins—Rose The Encyclopedia of Monsters—Rovin Bad UFOs—Schaeffer JaPandemonium Illustrated—Sekien, translated by Yoda and Alt Dragons: A Natural History; A Manifestation of Monsters; The Beasts that Hide from Man; Flying Toads and Snakes with Wings; Extraordinary Animals Revisited; Mirabilis; A Menagerie of Marvels; The UneXplained—Shuker Dangerous Spirits—Smallman Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginies—Smith Monsters of the Gevaudan—Smith A Chinese Bestiary—Strassberg Mummies Cannibals and Vampires—Sugg The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters—Weinstock, ed. Mythical Creatures of the USA and Canada—Wyman The World of Kong—Weta Workshop Mystery Animals of China—Xu

Appearing on this list does not necessarily constitute a recommendation. Carol Rose's books, for example, has a lot of gaps and are responsible for a number of myths and misconceptions that have circulated around the internet. And A Wizard's Bestiary by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart is more worthwhile as a curiosity than as reference material.

There are a lot of internet sources, of course, but I'm linking my top choices. If you're not already aware of A Book of Creatures and Yokai.com, you need to be.

[synthlet]

if there is any design i would want to adopt from another artist its this alien demon Wayne Barlowe drew . i love this thing and when i read barlowe’s guide to extraterrestrials in 5th grade i was obsessed with it

[darkfiretaimatsu]

I deal with monsters, and only the terrestrial sort. It’d be a bit unfair to list all aliens as such just because they come from another planet~

If you’re really in need of a book, the mod’s real life library includes Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, you might look that up~

[thatsgoodweb]

Wayne Barlowe, Old One, from Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, 1979

[abrahamshipwreck]

In other news DO I need another book of speculative evolution? No. But there is a compendium of alien biology in various media out there that I really wanna get my hands on

Really my bookshelf is mostly encylopedias of fake shit and not like novels or anything. Encyclopedia referrence books and short stories. You can tell how shit my attention span is.

ANYWAY the book is 'Barlowe's guide to Extraterrestrial Entities' for those that wanna peep into it

[vintagerpg]

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials was well received and won a couple of awards (and a second edition, I think in ’87?). It took a little while for the sequel to emerge: Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy hit shelves in 1996.

Even though I am not super widely read in either fantasy or science fiction, Barlowe’s fantasy book is the one I really vibe on. Maybe because it allows him to do stuff like Grendel from Beowulf and Gorice from The Worm Ouroboros. Wouldn’t have expected Gideon Winter, the antagonist from Peter Straub’s odd novel Floating Dragon to be included, but he was. Other surprises are the Psammead from Five Children and It and the Saw Horse from Oz.

One of the coolest things about these books is the fold-out size comparison charts. I love a good size-comparison (and again, this is a big feature of those Petersen’s Guides for Call of Cthulhu, and I am sure it came directly from here).

[titleknown]

A Thing That Needs To Exist: Barlowe's Guide To Extraterrestrials Fighting Game

[grapejuicyjuice]

source

[funnyanimalarchives]

From the Confurence 5 conbook (1994)

[classicallassitude]

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature

by Wayne Barlowe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I had come across this book as a kid, I would have spent hours pouring over the pages -- imagining my own stories for each of the aliens pictured, inspired to create my own worlds and creatures in encyclopedic form. Evokes a particular nostalgia, unfounded in that I've only read a handful of the source texts. I especially loved the sketchbook drawings at the end.

View all my reviews

[chernobog13]

Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials is an essential part of the syllabus during the first year at Starfleet Academy.