The Beatles Story is a 56 page black & white graphic novel written by Angus Allan and illustrated by Arthur Ranson
Despite what it says on Amazon, the dimensions of this book are 8.5″ x 11″. The beautiful cover is white with black matte text and illustrations except for the title and the Beatles hair which is done is high gloss black.
This book starts at the very beginning with the story of all the young Fabs and includes their birthdays…except Paul McCartney’s. How this could have gone unnoticed, beats me. I admit I wasn’t too pleased with this book as I continued to read it. There were even more errors, starting with the now debunked claim that John Lennon was born during an air-raid and Mimi ran through the streets of Liverpool at night dodging bombs to see him in the hospital. The author also gives Stu Sutcliff a bigger part in Beatles history than he actually had. On and on the pages go until the John, Paul, George and Ringo decide to call it quits as a band.
So, I guess at this point it would seem that I’m about to throw this book and it’s author and illustrator into my list of books written just to make a dime off our beloved boys…but wait! At the end of the book is the Afterword by Rob Power. It was there that I learned that this book is actually a collection of a series that was originally printed in Look-In magazine back in 1981 (truth be told, I would have known this if I had just read the back cover first!). It was then that I realized that in 1981 it was still widely believed that John was born during an air-raid and as for the mistakes in the book, it wasn’t exactly like they could go back and correct 32 year old comics. It was left in its original form. Bravo to them for doing that…
As a collection and with it’s outstanding cover, I look forward to moving it onto my Beatles bookshelf. And for that reason…
I rate this book, 4 out of 4 Beetles!
Beatles-Freak's Reviews 
This book is ano other example of the change in the BEatles’ history and pro Lennon stand. Lennon was The Beatles – Paul McCartney less than a sidekick… the book doesn’t deserve 4 for original printing, it was hardly relevant at the time and it isn’t now. The graphics are not especially wonderful nor clever…
This book isn’t being released for at least another month. Curious, how do you know so much about it?
I have a zillion beatles’ related graphics/comics… including a lot those by Allan/Ranson… To promote my point of view I’d better not respond, but you know what I like books, and it is usefull in beatles’ land to separate the wheat from chaff… this belongs to chaff, because it has (to my humbled understanding) no historical nor artistic relevancy and the story is BS.