THE creator of Pink Floyd’s album art since the 1960s has revealed the comic scenes behind some of the band’s most famous album covers and opened up his portfolio of designs that were never used.

Storm Thorgerson disclosed that he originally favoured a different design for Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973. It showed a figure similar to Silver Surfer, the Marvel cartoon character, sipping a cup of tea while riding a mighty wave.

However, the band members took just three seconds to choose a prism and rainbow of light for their most famous album. Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright made a unanimous decision in front of a gallery of seven rough images pinned to the wall of London’s Abbey Road studios.

The album went on to sell more than 30m copies worldwide over 35 years.

A prototype for the 1977 album Animals, which featured a 32-ft high inflatable pig flying over Battersea power station, was originally intended to feature a young boy walking into his parents’ bedroom to discover them having sex.

Shooting the album cover for 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason involved dragging 700 hospital beds onto a beach in Devon. Rain interrupted the shoot and they had to repeat the exercise two weeks later.

“It wasn’t one lapse of reason, it was two,” said Thorgerson, 63, whose retrospective is at the Oxo gallery in London in July.

The cover for 1994’s The Division Bell was the most ambitious, featuring two Easter Island-style statues. An alternative included a magical junk floating above an estuary.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

Editor's choice

• Burning Bush with W
• Revolution at the new Saatchi Gallery
• Boy George on sex, drugs and Amy Winehouse