Look Here: ELLISON WONDERLAND with cover art by Bob Pepper

14 December 201510 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

From my personal collection of 20th Century SF:

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**ABOVE:** Harlan Ellison, *Ellison Wonderland* (NY: Signet, 1974), with cover art by Bob Pepper.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · Steele Savage

Look Here: Two editions of Heinlein’s RED PLANET

7 October 201510 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Here’s a cover scan of a paperback picked at random from the piles in the room that serves as my study/studio. The artist here is Steele Savage, known to longtime readers here at RCN for his illustrations for Catharine F. Sellew’s Adventures with the Giants:

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**ABOVE:** Robert A. Heinlein, *Red Planet* (NY: Ace, 1971), with cover art by Steele Savage.

The Ace paperback edition of Heinlein’s Red Planet, 71140, does not include a publication date, but according to ISFDB, the book was published in 1971. Now, according to Wikipedia, Steele Savage was born in 1898 and died in 1970. So on the face of it, it would seem that that Heinlein cover was among the last illustration assignments that Savage ever worked on. Nice, clean, precise work for a 70-something year old artist!

And a nice touch that the design of the “outdoor costumes” of the colonists in Savage’s illustration is more or less faithful to Clifford Geary’s cover and illustrations for the 1949 first-edition hardcover of Red Planet. Here, for the sake of comparison, is a scan of the front cover of my copy, which I rescued from a library discard sale a number of years ago:

**ABOVE:** Robert A. Heinlein, *Red Planet* (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons), with cover art by Clifford Geary.

Red Planet was one of the first two science-fiction novels I ever read (the other was Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo, which I didn’t like anywhere near as much), and I read it in the exact hardcover edition that you see above. But it’s not that I am so ancient. It’s that our rural school library at the time — a tiny room lined with shelves with a table in the middle, and no librarian — was very badly out of date. As I recall, it was shortly after I read those two Heinlein novels that our school miraculously received boxes of new paperbacks in a variety of genres that were shelved at the back of the various classrooms. That was a big deal!

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here

Look Here: Pynchon’s V. with cover art by the great unknown

28 August 201510 August 2016 RC2 Comments

A couple of weeks of silence, and now here I am, back in the control room of RCN’s online headquarters, poised to post a gallery of one paperback cover, scanned by me mere minutes ago from my personal copy of Thomas Pynchon’s V. Earlier today, I searched high and low online for information about the Bantam Modern Classic edition V. in an attempt to determine if anyone out there knows who produced the uncredited, unsigned cover art, with no luck, none, nothing, zilch, but whatever… I’m going to post it anyway… and then perhaps I’ll offer a copy of the scan to ThomasPynchon.com, where the Bantam Modern Classic edition of the book is NOT currently listed:

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**ABOVE:** Thomas Pynchon, V. (NY: Bantam, 1968), with cover art by the great unknown.

If anyone out there knows for sure who the artist is here — by itself, the generic 60s illustration style points in any number of directions! — please feel free to post the information in the comments below.

P.S. The hot spot to the left of the figure is not glare from the glossy cover stock; rather, it’s a feature of the illustration.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · Richard Powers

Look Here: NIGHT OF LIGHT and three others with cover art by Powers

24 June 201510 August 2016 RC2 Comments

It’s been a while since I last scanned and posted some covers of paperbacks in my personal collection, so let’s give that a try:

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**ABOVE:** Philip Jose Farmer, *Night of Light* (NY: Berkley, 1972), with cover art by Richard Powers.

**ABOVE:** Harry Harrison, *The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World* (NY: Berkley, 1973), with cover art by Richard Powers.

**ABOVE:** Richard A. Lupoff, ed., *What If? Volume 1* (NY: Pocket Books, 1980), with cover art by Richard Powers.

**ABOVE:** Richard A. Lupoff, ed., *What If? Volume 2* (NY: Pocket Books, 1981), with cover art by Richard Powers.

In addition to RCN, I’m currently running three tumblr blogs and a twitter feed, and there are days when I think that, perhaps, I have taken on too much…

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · J. Lombardero · Look Here

Look Here: Two SF portrait covers with art by Joseph Lombardero

27 November 201410 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Neither of the following novels from the collection of yours truly includes a cover credit, and if the art was signed by the artist, the signature has been cropped out by the designer; nonetheless, it seems likely to me that the artist is Joseph Lombardero, whose Sax Rohmer covers were featured here at RCN back in May of this year:

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**ABOVE:** Neal Bell, *Gone to be Snakes Now* (NY: Popular Library, c.1974), with cover art by Joseph Lombardero (attrib.).

**ABOVE:** Poul Anderson, *The Worlds of Poul Anderson* (NY: Ace, c.1974), with cover art by Joseph Lombardero (attrib.).

As always, if you think/know that I’ve made an attribution error, I welcome your corrections in the comments.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · William Teason

Look Here: Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason, part 5

31 October 201410 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

This is the fifth post in a row here at RCN to feature a selection of William Teason’s Agatha Christie covers, which brings the total number of Teason scans in our collection to an uneven twenty one. Enjoy!

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**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Dead Man’s Mirror* (NY: Dell, 1966), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Murder at the Vicarage* (NY: Dell, 1970), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective* (NY: Dell, 1971), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Murder after Hours* (NY: Dell, 1973), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Murder in Mesopotamia* (NY: Dell, 1973), with cover art by William Teason.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look There · William Teason

Look Here: Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason, part 4

30 October 201410 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

More scans from the collection of yours truly, as usual:

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**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Regatta Mystery* (NY: Dell, 1973), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *An Overdose of Death* (NY: Dell, 1973), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Sad Cypress* (NY: Dell, 1974), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *They Came to Bagdad* (NY: Dell, 1975), with cover art by William Teason.

I have enough Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason for one more post, so if you’re a Teason fan, you might want visit RCN again tomorrow for that…

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · William Teason

Look Here: Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason, part 3

29 October 201410 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Tuesday Club Murders* (NY: Dell, 1967), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Appointment with Death* (NY: Dell, 1971), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Boomerang Clue* (NY: Dell, 1975), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Mysterious Mr. Quin* (NY: Dell, 1979), with cover art by William Teason.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · William Teason

Look Here: Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason, part 2

28 October 201410 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Four more scans, fresh off the flatbed:

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**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Murder in Three Acts* (NY: Popular Library, 1934), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *N or M?* (NY: Dell, 1968), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Moving Finger* (NY: Dell, 1968), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Moving Finger* (NY: Dell, 1979), with cover art by William Teason.

Two of the above novels — The Moving Finger (NY: Dell, 1968) and N or M? — include the following credit on the back cover: “Cover Illustration: Teason.” The other two covers are uncredited, but I believe they are also by Teason. If not, please let me know.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · William Teason

Look Here: Agatha Christie mysteries with cover art by William Teason, part 1

24 October 201410 August 2016 RC1 Comment

The cover art for the following mystery novels is uncredited, and I don’t see any sign of a signature, but my understanding is that the artist here is William Teason:

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**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Big Four* (NY: Dell, 1972), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Mysterious Mr. Quin* (NY: Dell, 1974), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *Murder on the links* (NY: Dell, 1974), with cover art by William Teason.

**ABOVE:** Agatha Christie, *The Tuesday Club Murders* (NY: Dell, 1975), with cover art by William Teason.

If my attribution of the above covers to Teason is incorrect, please feel free to post the proper attribution in the comments section below this post. I have quite a few more Agatha Christie mysteries with covers in a similar vein that I plan to scan and post in the very near future, so if the artist here is NOT Teason, I’d prefer to make the correction sooner rather than later…