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Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration
Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc.
Published in hardback by Pop-Up Press
ISBN 1-888443-45-6
Do you remember those books you had as a child, whose stories were illustrated by ingeniously designed cut out pieces of card which would pop up when you moved to a new page, and sometimes allow you to provoke some limited animation by pulling tabs? Recently they've gone up market somewhat, allowing the reader to examine the workings of a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the human body to the Titanic.
Well, Elvis Presley Enterprises have obviously seen a possible as yet untapped source of profit in this concept of 3D books, and the result is "Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration."
The book is about the size of an LP and comes in its very own slip-case, which shows multiple images of the famous shot of Elvis in his gold suit, as used on Golden Records Vol.2. The reverse of the slip case is an advertising spread for the book itself. Removing the book from its slip-case reveals a cover-covering portrait of a pensive-looking Elvis of Love Me Tender vintage on the front, with the back cover festooned with numerous smaller photos of Elvis taken from throughout his career (though, in true EPE style, the seventies are ignored).
No more than 5 double-page spreads make up the whole of the contents, and although the slip-case advertising informs the world that the book "Includes rare photos!" I couldn't find any -- plenty of photos, yes, but rare, no! The spreads cover five stages of Elvis's career: the beginning, the fifties, Hollywood, the "comeback years", and the concert years (somewhat disparagingly referred to as "the jumpsuit tours").
Neither the 3D pop-ups nor the text is particularly inspired. Given the nature of the book, one can forgive a less than dynamic text, which is after all, of secondary importance. However, little imagination seems to have gone into the pop-up features, which are really what the book is all about: my pop-up edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is, well, more adventurous.
"Elvis Remembered: A Three-Dimensional Celebration" is expensive for what it is, both as far as quantity and quality are concerned, and can be recommended only for fans who really must have everything!
David G. Neale
Copyright January 1999