Villordsutch reviews The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey (Extended Edition)…
For anyone who enjoyed gaming during the 1980’s and 90’s then the work of Oliver Frey is quite possibly something you’ve looked at and studied for a fair amount of time, and in this latest book – from Fusion Retro Books – The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey (Extended Edition) by Roger M. Kean, you’re going to be treated to some rather beautiful images from this wizard behind the palette.
I was a child of the 1980’s and I’m more than aware of this rather magnificent artist’s commercial illustrator’s work; though I was a Your Sinclair reader that never stopped me admiring each and every cover of Crash magazine which sat beside my monthly periodical. Yes the covers on Your Sinclair, when not parent baiting, were on occasion splendid but they were never Oliver Frey splendid, who managed to deliver slices of his imagination that fuelled your own tenfold.
Roger Kean doesn’t just deliver pages from every issue of Crash and Zzap64! however – you’ve got numerous magazines including Amiga Force & Sega Force, Thalamus games inlays, Look and Learn illustrations, the opening cartoon pages for Richard Donner’s Superman and also the Oxford University Press Junior History Series. It was the latter that really struck a chord with myself as I could feel long since dead neurons in my mind spark back to life, as the image of the bloody Scottish’vs’English battle swim back to me. Oliver Frey’s work was even part of my childhood before the golden Spectrum era had arisen!
Before we’re treated to nearly two-hundred pages of beautifully printed artwork, Roger Kean takes us through Oliver’s life from childhood in Switzerland. With my mind permanently in a state of immaterialism, to discover that both Oliver and Roger had a fascinating life before the world of Crash, and are continuing to do so afterwards is somewhat bizarre. You hear stories of people in the 1980’s waking up to becoming coders or publishers, and then making their fortune and that’s it. Here however both Frey and Kean where either making horror films, drawing war comics for wages more than an everyday teacher, or editing Wimbledon footage – and that was before Sir Clive even thought of a ZX80!
The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey (Extended Edition) is truly a beautiful book to own. To flick through each image and to see your favourites and perhaps pick up some new ones, mine being the Head over Heels one, is really is something that every fan of Oliver Frey needs.
Rating:- 10/10
The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey (Extended Edition) by Roger M. Kean is available to purchase from Fusion Retro Books here.
Originally published October 21, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
