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ABLE ERY
Serendipity
Of course I was side-tracked away from the task in hand; I just could not resist the temptation to take a closer look at the contents of the box. Rummaging through photocopies of patents for movable and pop-up books, one looked particularly interesting: a certain Lothar Stanetzki had been granted a patent in 1948 for a picture book. The introduction to the patent states: "Patent 809 162 protects picture books or similar products where the figures or parts thereof portrayed on the individual pages are arranged so that they can be moved and so that they are connected to a pull-tab which enables them to be moved. The invention refers to some technical details, which are
2003
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Waldo Hunt Los Angeles, California
Loxstedt, Germany
written his diploma project on paper engineering.
MAY
John Joseph Strejan, 1933 2003
Peter Schiihle
Last Christmas I had to clear out the attic room to have new beams put into the roof. This room holds my collection of pop-up books and this meant emptying quite a few bookshelves to get ready for the builders. At the very back of one shelf I came across a box full of letters, cards and various papers. Most of them had been given to me in 1994 by Thomas Fischer-Stumm, a designer who had
VOLUME 11 NUMBER 2
John Strejan died of cancer on March 26, 2003. He was 70 years old.
John, known world-wide by his
"Silverblade"
moniker, passes on his Xacto-knife skills to the young
John Strejan, 1998 paper engineers of the dimensional Los Angeles Movable Book book trade. He Society Conference was considered by many as one of the world's best paper engineers, as well as being a first class designer and illustrator. John was born in Detroit, on March 7, 1933. He attended Portland State University in Oregon. John started his creative career in preparing ads for Viewmaster and White Stag in Oregon and at Carnation, Convair, and Max Factor when he came to Los Angeles in 1958.
At the Elgin Davis Art Studio in Los Angeles, John worked on his first dimensional projects. Elgin Davis was a founder of Graphics International; a packaging company that created a new line of pop-up books in the late '60s which required hand assembly. Die Vogelhochzeit essential for the production of the books, the smooth and efficient functioning of the mechanism and also their durability. I was intrigued. Who was Lothar Stanetzki, how did he come to construct these books and what made him apply to have his invention patented in the first place? Did the patent disappear in the archives like so many others? Continued on page 10
John worked freelance for Graphics International in New York and Kansas City from 1965-1973. The company returned to Los Angeles in 1974 and became Intervisual Books. John's outstanding paper-engineering talent was demonstrated on the famous National Geographic classic series of pop-up animal books that were published from 1987-1989. The National Geographic dinosaur book alone had 200 glue points. The book series was purchased by 13 international publishers and today is recognized as the best quality interactive line ever published. Continued on page 2