Gerald Scarfe's excellent "The Making of Pink Floyd: The Wall" has rightly received much praise from the Floyd community. For those who haven't read our review of the original version of the book yet, click here to find out more about it, and to see what we thought.
On November 10th, 2011, the book arrives in paperback format from the publisher's Phoenix, with a newly designed cover.
Irrespective of which edition you go for, we're sure that you'll love the insider's view of working on The Wall, along with the insights that the likes of Roger Waters provides along the way.
For those yet to purchase this excellent book, and indeed for those who already have the original hardback, we've taken a good look at both to compare and contrast, and our thoughts are below.
First off, a heavily redesigned cover greets you: now a white wall with various "missing bricks", giving a variety of familiar images rather than the first edition's blue cover dominated by the screaming face and marching hammers.
Internally, the books are identical, apart from the briefest of biographical details added to the credits and copyrights pages, and the printing glitch which affected the very early copies of the hardback (a repeated image page later in the book) has been rectified.
The book is full of early visual concepts, alternate artwork, proposed film and stage directions, and more, which intrigues and delights throughout. To be able to follow each aspect as it developed is a rare treat, and one that Floyd fans will thrive on.
The book includes later Wall projects including the 1990 Berlin extravaganza, and the preparations for Roger's mammoth 2010 North American tour, no stone is left unturned with Gerald's (at times) very critical eye and wit covering each aspect with humour and candour.
With The Wall being such a major part of the Pink Floyd story (and persists to this day for Roger, of course), it's a blessing to have such a thorough, entertaining, and enthralling book documenting it. It really does represent an essential item for all Floyd fans, and will equally find favour with animation enthusiasts for its comprehensive narrative.
We know that some of you have been hoping for a paperback release of this book, so the publication of this edition will come as good news for you. Pricewise it is worth shopping around if you wish to pick up this great, and pretty essential, addition to your Floydian bookshelf.
The cheapest we've found at time of writing is at Play.com
who do ship to many countries, although you can also order it from the
following, which may well be cheaper once shipping to your home is
factored in:
Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Espana and Amazon Italy.
Finally, in case you've not seen these yet, here's a trio of exclusive interviews done for Brain Damage by Gerald, talking about The Wall...
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