one more for neil

by Jesse Marinoff Reyes:

Tranquility Base: Apollo 11 Lunar Module
Revell Model Kits, ca. 1969
Illustration: Possibly John Steel (1921-1998), see below

One More for Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

—Jesse Marinoff Reyes Design—

I had one of these when I was growing up—mine was slightly different, as it included the Lunar Orbiter mounted on a plastic stem that was sort of like a “swoosh.” I recall with vivid detail the amount of effort it had been to build it. It was smallish and the detail parts were fragile (like the gold tin foil on the side of the base). But I adored it and it sat on my desk for years and years.

The model kit boxes like this one were a wonder. Whether for WWII fighter planes and battleships or superheroes and classic monsters, model kit boxes all had exceptional illustrations. Revell’s boxes were no exception. For decades they sported the work of Scott Eidson (b. 1908), Dick Kishady (no biographical data available), Jack Leynnwood (1921-1999), and John Steel (1921-1998). It’s been documented that Leynnwood and Steel were more frequently used in the latter-1960s-through-the-1970s, and a cursory comparison of their styles leads me to believe this is one of Steel’s—but don’t quote me on that.

Sadly, beginning in the 1970s, a movement for “truth in advertising” resulted in the increased use of photographic depictions of the completed models on the boxes and bought on the waning of the Golden Age of packaging illustration—to which I ask a rhetorical “why?” As if any of us kids purchasing a model kit would ever think that we’d actually have the Lunar Module on the actual Moon or a Spitfire in the actual sky in the midst of a deadly dogfight! This is where manufacturers and/or regulators really jump the shark in terms of “good intentions,” especially since a photograph can be staged, retouched/Photoshopped to portray damn near any message the advertiser wants, be it whiter teeth, bigger breasts, or thicker hair for their tonics and perfumes and supplements. Leave us kids and the images that STIMULATED our imaginations alone!