Yellow Submarine

by Max Wilk, The Beatles

Physical description; 128 p. : col. ill., ports. ; 18 cm. Subjects; Illustrated books — British Isles — 1968. Paperbacks — Examples — British Isles — 20th century.

Genres: Music, Pop Culture, Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Amazon.com...
This 95 cent pocketbook appeared in 1968 and as most other books were 50 cents, why you will ask was this one so very expensive? There are two reasons....Design and color. This 128 li'l paperback is a quite the visual marvel of cutting edge (remember this is 1968) images and style and in full color. The story is explained in regular and cartoon text that bounce off each other while these words snake and slide around the great images from the film and drawings exclusive to this book that explain the world of Beatles, Jeremy Hilary Boob, Snapping Turtle Turks, The Deadly Flying Glove and (of course) The Blue Meanies that all live and a world known as Pepperland.
John, Paul, George and Ringo are on an amazing journey set in a waterworld of strange delights of sight and sound that are very unique and our lads are the heroes that will have to rescue this world from horrible and goofy evil baddies. The story is easier to follow here than what is found in the movie of the same name and you will need to play the expanded CD of the Yellow Subamrine soundtrack to keep your mood in the proper space and place. This is a great Beatles collectable and I'm surprised that these books can still be found forty three years later.
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[Michael Duane Robbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had this book as a child, recently re-acquiring it from a used book shop. A mix of text and pop-art images, some more over-sized than others, in some small way it mimics the psychedelic trip that is/was the Yellow Submarine movie, which this year celebrated its 50th anniversary. Not included in the movie was the book’s back-page contents such as ‘Care & Operation of a Yellow Submarine’, an insurance notice from the Society for International Trust & Respect [i.e. SITAR], a lost & found add for one Jeremy Hilary Boob, and a two-page essay on the true origins of the Yellow Submarine, with footnotes.

[Geneviève Flanagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excuse me, what was that?

[Rees · Rating 5 out of 5]

While my friend was finishing a project in her college library, I sat down and read Brokeback Mountain and this, and this was definitely a good choice to read latter. Super fun, psychedelic, and the art just made me feel like I was reading the Oz books with illustrations. I loved it. Nostalgia at its best.

[Jan C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Or how the Fab Four found Pepperland.

Cute.

[Benja · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tie-in to the hit 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine, this little book is overloaded with psychodelic visuals and The Beatles' dada irreverence, which champions love and shrugs off any form of critical thought (footnotes and appendixes are added purely as parody). That sentence just there, for example, would be decried as too cerebral, typical of the pedantic Nowhere Man. Anyway, it's a cute book and a fine example of sixties counterculture.

[David Macpherson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this for years because I was taken with the color and the typography. The design of the pages are great, but only I read it today and it was awesome. It told the story of an almost mad animated film as best it could and it has footnotes and little touches throughout. This is a really charming thing.

[Hakim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is supposed to be based on the song Yellow Submarine, and provides a backstory. It's... cute and definitely hallucinatory, with Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss vibes from start to finish. It's too short, but it's sweet. Think of this as the quasi-literary equivalent of a music video, with generic allegories.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute little book but without the effects that the firm had on mind altered viewers

[jada lee castillo marte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really beautiful and vibrant art. I loved every second of it.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

🔥🔥🔥

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acid-drenched artwork from the animated film of the same name. For me, the images have some resemblance to the grotesque cartoons in the work of Monty Python illustrator Terry Gilliam. Pepperland may strike the contemporary reader as sixties naiveté, but its utopian impulses resonate with the work of nonsense poets like Edward Lear and the writings of John Lennon himself. The darker story of the invasion of Pepperland by the Blue Meanies opens itself to allegorical interpretation—in addition to representing the clash between the forces of the establishment and the forces for change, the narrative could also be read in terms of nationalist history, for instance the Blitz during the Second World War.

Acquired Feb 9, 2007
Attic Books, London, Ontario

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute with images from the movie with some footnotes and an article "The Origin of the Yellow Submarine." (I don't think the footnotes really add anything nor does the article.) I remember seeing the movie in the theater. Did you know that there is a set of Yellow Submarine trading cards? Actually, two sets, one normal size and one 4 x 6 inches in size. You can probably find them on Ebay.