By Norman I. Platnick and Audrey V. Buffington
Enchantment Ink is pleased to introduce the first volume of "American Belles: A Collector's Guide to Earl Christy," by Norman I. Platnick and Audrey V. Buffington. This first volume attempts to draw together all of the images Christy created for magazines - covers, illustrations, and advertisements - over his long and prolific career as an illustrator. Included are his works for such varied titles as Ainslee's, American, Associated Sunday, Fashionable Dress, Illustrated Sunday, McClure's, Modern Romances, Modern Screen, People's Home Journal, Photoplay, Pictorial Review, Popular Songs, Puck, Radio Stars, Red Book, Screen Album, Screen Romances, Shadoplay, and Sweetheart Stories, along with his advertising work for such companies as Princess Pat Cosmetics and Mulsified Shampoo. The 109 8.5x11" velo-bound pages include a brief biography, over 650 color images, and a detailed check list/price guide.
Click here to download this guide, for free.
Hello Enchantment Ink visitor. On April 8th, 2020, the author of all these books, my father, Norman Platnick, died of complications due to a serious fall.
Words cannot describe the amount of pain my family is in right now. My father was a wonderful, humble, loving, passionate and intelligent man. He had 3 passions in life: my mother, spiders and collecting.
As a way of honoring my father's legacy in the illustrated artwork community, I will be turning as many books of his as possible into PDF files and distributing them online, for free.
If you have found these collector's guides useful, I ask that you make a donation to the Norman I. Platnick Memorial Fund, which will be setting up a scholarship in the field of arachnology, my father's career.
If you'd like to learn more about my father and his amazing life (such as skipping middle school and high school and going to college when he was 12), I'd like to lift up just a few pieces:
NY Times: Norman Platnick ObituaryConcord University Magazine Fall 2018: Friendly Neighbordhood Arachnologist page 20
NY Times: The Exciting Adventures of Spider Man
Daily News: NYC'S real-life spider man
NY Times: For Some, an Appliance; for Others, Art
The Wall Street Journal: Warming Up to Spiders