I got this book when I was 12 or 13 years old. It has the wonderful and simple title Horror and was published in Germany 1971 by Deutscher Bücherbund, mit Genehmigung der Goverts-Krüger-Stahlberg Verlags GmbH Stuttgart. With 77 illustrations by Günther Stiller.
The book is a compilation of short stories written by Frank Belknap Long, Robert Bloch, H. G. Wells, Eric Frank Russell, H. P. Lovecraft, and others. Nothing too serious really, nothing to suggest a 12-year old will go bonkers after reading the book. It's just a book after all.
But the illustrations. They freaked me out. In fact, they scared me shitless. Those creepy illustrations by Günther Stiller. They gave me the most incredible nightmares ever. I think those illustrations were one of the reasons why I eventually went to study Graphic Design.
Of course, looking at them now, this sounds incredibly stupid. However, Stiller's illustrations are still amazing, and they don't look like a simple cut and paste job of old Victorian illustrations. In fact, I think those are all painstakingly cut into lino.
I couldn't find much about Günther Stiller on the web. There's a tiny entry on the German Wikipedia: [...] "und Günther Stiller u. a. Stiller gehörte in den 60er- und 70er-Jahren zu den experimentierfreudigen Buchkünstlern. Er arbeitete mit Linol- und Kunststoffschnitten sowie Laubsägearbeiten oder zeichnete direkt auf die Offsetplatte, wie er es bei seinen mehrfarbigen Illustrationen für Kinderbücher getan hatte." Perhaps one of my readers can help out? M. Kranz probably?
What follows now is a selection of a few of Günther Stillers 77 illustrations for the book Horror, which scared me so much when I was a kid. I hope I won't be sued for any copyright infringement; the book's from 1971, and is probably still available via eBay, Amazon or ZVAB. But I doubt Günther Stiller will ever see any money coming from those sales.
One question remains though: who on Earth is Günther Stiller?         
10:52:04 AM  Art & Advertising, Literature | |
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