Sex, Rock & Optical Illusions (Hardcover)

~ Victor Moscoso (Author) "Victor Moscoso's posters are as illegible now as they were in 1967 when they advertised San Francisco's legendary rock halls..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The reason so many hippies burned out may not have been too many drugs but too many hours spent trying to read Victor Moscoso's posters for the first generation of psychedelic rock concerts in 1960s San Francisco. This oversize gallery of posters, splash pages for Zap Comix and Moscoso's own one-shot comic books, a few of the artist's comics "stories," and sketches acknowledges in its first sentence what those fry-brain longhairs should have understood before it was too late: "Moscoso's posters are as illegible now as they were in 1967." Illegible then, illegible now, illegible forever. But mind-blowing as only a thoroughly trained (Cooper Union, Yale) artist could make them. Flouting conventional color complementation, Moscoso juxtaposed electrically bright, pure colors to produce illusory vibratory effects. Married to swirling letter shapes and imagery borrowed from nineteenth-century experimental photography and cinematography, his color storms became the standard for all other psychedelic art. It helped that he was an ace draftsman, especially when he switched from posters to comics, but his extremely plastic visual imagination was and is his biggest asset. Few other artists of any period have produced work of similar formal fascination: Escher, Monet, and some upon whose masterpieces Moscoso plays variations--Krazy Kat creator George Herriman, Klimt, Piero della Francesca. Which doesn't automatically make his stuff great art. But oh man, like, wow. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Few other artists of any period have produced work of similar formal fascination. -- Booklist starred review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (May 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976578
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976578
• Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #589,023 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of one of the most creative poster artists of the 20th century, July 12, 2006

By	Charles R. Grosvenor Jr. "Music Fanatic" (Auburn, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been collecting rock poster books for about two years now, and have been awaiting this book's publish date the entire time. I collect the books, not the posters, because it's cheaper and I don't have the space to collect more than a handful of the real thing. I've got about 30 rock poster books now.

Unlike a lot of the other poster books I've purchased, this one features every piece of artwork on it's own page, with no commentary. There's a small blurb about each work at the end of the book from the creator. It's a great way to showcase the work, and I wish more collections opted for the layout. The descriptions at the end don't use page numbers, but image numbers (which don't appear on the page, argh!) which is a minor inconvience when trying to go back and forth.

The color reproduction is excellent. I saw a handful of these at the Boston MFA recently, and the colors in the book are just as vibrant and real as the ones I saw on display. Moscoso is a master of vibrating colors and after image. In one of the forewards of the book (one is by Milton Glaser) it's mentioned that Moscoso only produced 60 "psychedelic" posters in an 8 month period of the 60s. I don't think all 60 of them are represented here (didn't count them), but there were a few I haven't seen in other collections yet.

There's a couple of rough drafts used for some of the more famous posters leading up to the finished work. It's a shame that there wasn't more of these, as it helps to demonstrate the process used by the artist in the creation. A great example is the first Junior Wells poster he did for the Matrix. There's a black and white copy before he adds the colors, next to the finished one. The colors almost hurt when you view them, but you can see how strong the design is even without the colors.

The book covers more than his poster work, it also covers his album cover work and the comic book work he's done as well. I'm not much of a fan of his comic work, but the album cover design for Herbie Hancock's "Headhunters" is amazing. There's a great shot of the mask he has Herbie wearing on the cover.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid--but more comix, please!, June 3, 2007

By	Ronald Levao (Princeton, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Back in the 60s and 70s, much of my reading time was divided between Zap, etc., and the small, inexpensive Signet paperbacks of Shakespeare's plays, with Milton Glaser's evocative illustrations on the covers. So it was great to buy this book of Moscoso's work and find a brief, appreciative introduction by Milton Glaser, as if two sides of the brain were being brought back together. Amazon's general description and the long review here nicely tell prospective buyers what to expect, but I want to warn what isn't. Unlike the previous reviewer, I'm as much a fan of Moscoso's comix as of his posters and album covers, and while there are wonderful samples included, too much is missing. Zap 2, 3, and 4 have truly mind-boggling stuff in them, esp. no.3's "Camel" and centerpiece, which would be terrific in a larger format. But what's here is still great, and a pleasure to revisit!

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing, March 8, 2007

By	Cari Veach "carizilla" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was turned on to this artist by Andy Howell- (pro skater and artist)... It is one of his favs.