Product Description

Heath Robinson was one of Britain's most successful graphic artists. His work has had a huge influence on comic art in this country, but also on the image and self-image of the British. As the champion of pragmatic man, Heath Robinson presented a vision of the British as an unflappable, ingenious and slightly demented breed of inventors that persists to the present day. The British are still a nation of garage-haunting amateur engineers who will recognise the inhabitants of Heath Robinson's world, with their pot bellies and pots of tea, archaic faces and sturdily commonsensical approach to the problems of existence. How to hunt tigers by elephant, how to get an even tan, rise with the sun or put out a chimney fire, these and many more pressing questions are answered in the pages of Contraptions. With illustrations salvaged from the family archives and commentary by Heath Robinson expert, Geoffrey Beare, "Contraptions" is the best possible introduction to the work of one of Britain's great comic talents.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14547 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
"'Your absurd, beautiful drawings... give me a peculiar pleasure of the mind like nothing else in the world' H.G. Wells, in a letter to Heath Robinson in 1914"

The Sunday Times
'One of the 20th century's most prolific comic artists'

Metro
'Genius ahead of his time'

Customer Reviews

Delightfully Eccentric Robinson for the Masses (and about time!)
This is a delightfully illustrated book that was printed to coincide with the Heath Robinson Exhibition that took place at The Cartoon Museum in London in 2007. (FINISHED IN OCTOBER)

It is NOT the official publication for that exhibition and the content differs in that there are fewer earlier works represented here, and not so many wartime sketches which are very funny indeed and worth tracking down, what with 'The Enemy' always being portrayed in traditional Prussian garb, pot-bellied and complete with comical spikey-helmet!

However this book, as the title suggests is probably the best (and only) readily available book on the subject of Heath Robinson contraptions and will delight and amuse all ages. it is a Hardback at about A4 size and has an attractive Dust-Jacket (seen in the Amazon Illustration). There is a small introduction with some biographical detail, and then from page 9 to 191 a continuous sequence of excellent illustrations at nearly full-page with some in full-colour, limited colour, or black and white (as most of them would have originally been seen. It is printed on good quality paper. If you don't find these pictures funny, you may need to see a doctor as they are all excellent, obsurd, hilarious (delete as applicable)

The only thing missing is perhaps a bit more information on the illustrations, and some more wartime cartoons, but this is a very minor quibble as the official exhibition catelogue more than fills these gaps.

Highly recommended.

smudga's opinion
This was bought for my son the engineer as an xmas pressy but I have read it since and would recommend it for anyone wether a fan of the mans work or not. The illustrations are incredible and the background story to his life is highly readable, a good purchase and well worth the money.