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Teenager’s Hero

By ElvisNews.com/ Kees, January 30, 2009 | Book

 

Steve Rino compiled a massive 400 pages book on Elvis’ first six months in 1956. Is big beautiful?

Design

The design follows an illustrated day-by-day format which is a good choice for a book like this. The A4 sized book has black as the main color; this gives the book a very dark and gloomy look. The use of black and white pictures on a black background or black text over an illustrated page doesn’t make the book very readable. Many pictures are not sharp, have a scanning raster or are simply blown up too big. Many images are available in much better quality in other books. Design-wise I couldn’t help but thinking that this was a nicely done home project.

 

When this book came in the mailman also brought a few Ger Rijff photo book I found on-line to complete my collection. And boy do you see the difference. Only a handful of changes could turn this gloomy book into a bright and readable book.

Content

Steve Rino must be applauded for collecting all the images, data and newspaper clippings illustrating the first six months of Elvis’ big breakthrough year. It never seizes to amaze me how much material survived the fifty years since they were created; especially the newspaper clippings. Usually it is news on the day it is printed and one day later the fish is wrapped in that particular newspaper. In these six months Elvis Presley really conquered America and the world starting out touring the south-west and ending up on television before trying out for a starring role in the movies. The dates are nicely illustrated and documented. Unfortunately I didn’t find any new images in this book browsing through it several times.

Conclusion

Big could be beautiful; but this book is still a little "ugly duck". Let’s hope volume 2 will be a bit brighter and turn into the beautiful swan.

 

 

wayup wrote on January 30, 2009
Kees, in other words, it is s**t - or not? How about the english? No new photos? Producers promoted it as a book where are many new photos... scanning raster .... means these photos were stolen, ah, BORROWED from other books? I am still waiting for my copy.... so any more info will be nice.
Steve V wrote on January 30, 2009
Damn - I just ordered this because it sounded so promising!
Jerome-the-third wrote on January 30, 2009
great to any collection (old paper)..
JerryNodak wrote on January 31, 2009
Yet another book. Yawn!
HangLoose wrote on January 31, 2009
Got it today,will sell it tomorrow:( Amateur job.
SnOwMan wrote on January 31, 2009
A friend of mine have this book,i've checked it out and i couldn't find anything that i haven't seen before. So nothing new here. Kees,if vol. 2. is from the same people,then it definitely won't be any brighter. Though i have a feeling that after the disastrous vol. 1. not too many fans will buy vol. 2. (if there will be vol. 2. at all...)
wayup wrote on February 04, 2009
Got this telephone book today morning.... no time to study it in detail but I have found the 'copyright text' at the beginning of the book being very strange. Author wrote that most of 400+ photos printed in this book is previously unpublished which is simply untrue. These photos are used without permission of the photographers or previous publishers and OBVIOUSLY scanned from various books that I have in my collections for years. Any unpublished photos? Maybe a few, but 99 % of them I have. More details later.
Lex wrote on February 06, 2009
Whatever the value may be content wise, the design is so terrible that it is impossible to enjoy it.
I am Buffalo-Horn! wrote on February 06, 2009
There is black print over even blacker photos making some articles are impossible to read, while most of others are hard & unpleasant to read. This could have been a good book, but it's a printing disaster.. as for the quality of the photos, some of them are so bad they look solarised. Others are totally out of focus, due to the poor enlargement methods used here. Also mind you don't get ripped off on the postage too... some people are charging £10.00 & a quick glance at the stamps tells you it's nowhere near that. Avoid!!
JungeElvisfan wrote on February 12, 2009
How much does this book cost ? And is this the same Steve who always send in his comments on everything ? Is it published din Holland or in the UK ?
Harvey Alexander wrote on February 16, 2009
I've just seen a buddy's copy of this. So glad I didn't buy it myself. It's bloody horrible! All the photos are dark and the design is pathetic. Virtually all of the photos are common and the text is as horrible as the printing. The guy who wrote it can't spell to save his life. Forget about it and read a Ger Rijff book instead.
Steve V wrote on February 24, 2009
Just got mine the other day. Its not as bad as you say. Yes, a lot of pictures arent the sharpest and some of the text is hard to read, but Ive never seen so much material gathered on just a half a year. It seems every newspaper article written in the first half of 1956 is reprinted here along with record , concert ads, etc. A big book. Also why I like it, is because it is the real Elvis we see in this book, not the Blue Hawaii, Clambake or the Vegas 70's version. The real deal is here and shows why he became the phenom idol of millions.