Connections: Gustav Klimt and Robert Foster (and Jim Steranko)

15 October 201211 August 2016 RC1 Comment

Here’s another paperback that I purchased at a recent church rummage sale:

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Now, that’s a very strong cover, no doubt, but I think that anyone who is familiar with the work of Gustav Klimt will tell you that the composition of Foster’s illustration owes a clear debt to Klimt’s Medicine (1901), a large-scale ceiling painting that was destroyed in a fire started by the Nazis and is known to us only by a black-and-white photograph of the finished work and a small colour preliminary:

gustav-klimt_medicine_destroyed-1945 — **ABOVE:** Gustav Klimt, *Medicine* (1900 – 1907), oil on canvas, 300 x 430 cm. Destroyed by fire in 1945.

gustav-klimt_medicine_prelim_1897-98_oil-on-canvas_72x50cm — **ABOVE:** Gustav Klimt, *Medicine* colour preliminary painting (1897 – 98), oil on canvas, 72 x 50 cm.

Although at first glance you might be tempted to conclude that, in addition to being inspired by Klimt’s composition, Foster flat-out swiped the figure of the woman suspended in space in the upper-left-hand quadrant of Klimt’s painting, I think a closer comparison of the two figures suggests that what Foster actually did was hire his own model and instruct her to strike a pose similar to one Klimt chose for his model.

Ragged Claws Network > Connections: Zurbaran, Dali, Vallejo, Foster

Ragged Claws Network > Connections: Gustav Klimt and Jeffrey Jones

BONUS IMAGE (Added 21 October 2012):

Just came across an illustration (with collage elements) by Jim Steranko, published in 1970, that obviously shares a strong family resemblance with the cover illustration by Foster, published in 1968, featured above:

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BONUS IMAGE, TOO (Added 27 October 2012):

I definitely think Foster shot his own reference for the figure of the floating woman in the New Writings in SF4 cover:

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

Look Here: Three SF novels with cover art by Paul Lehr

14 October 201211 August 2016 RC1 Comment

Went to a church rummage sale yesterday. Picked up three LPs and a small stack of paperbacks, including three with covers by Paul Lehr. Scanned the Lehr covers a few minutes ago. Uploaded the JPEGs to RCN. Typed a few lines of nonsense. Published the post. Tweeted the link. Sat back and admired my busywork.

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To browse through all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted thus far on RCN, click here, scroll down, click the link to the next page, scroll down, etc.

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

Look Here: Another fantasy novel with cover art by Richard Corben

11 October 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

I purchased The Point Man by Stephen Englehart for three bucks from a local seller of used books last weekend, and not because the author is a well-known comics writer. No, the reason I bought the book is because the cover art is by Richard Corben, and although the painting is, frankly, not one of his best efforts, I’m enough of a Corben collector that I couldn’t pass it up. Of course, the fact that the book is a first edition, and in great condition, was also a factor…

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Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Book/Magazine Covers (Jones) · Illustration Art · Jeffrey "Jeff" Catherine Jones · Look Here

Look Here: An obscure occult novel with equally obscure cover art by Jeffrey Jones

10 October 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Here’s another “treasure” from the library of yours truly. As far as I am aware, the painting on the cover of Devil Soul has not been reproduced in any form in any collection of the work of Jeffrey Jones published to date. Enjoy!

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As you can see, my copy of the novel is truly in excellent condition! It makes me happy just to know it is on my bookshelf. Is this what people mean when they talk about “pride of ownership”?

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

Look Here: An obscure SF cover with bizarre art by John Cayea

5 October 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Before today, I had never heard the name John Cayea, but thanks to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB), I was quickly able to find out that Cayea created the expressive but bizarre art featured on the cover of Eando Binder’s Night of the Saucers, which I purchased earlier this morning for a dollar and four cents:

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One’s first impression of the above cover is of an attractive human couple about to kiss, but closer inspection reveals that what we’ve got here are two severed heads, each of which is suspended from a flying saucer by lines lashed to its hair. And what’s more, each dead head has not one but two faces, one human and the other bestial, that look in opposite directions like the two faces of the Roman god Janus. Judging from the copy on the back cover, I would venture to guess that image is intended to convey the idea of hidden identities, of aliens masquerading as humans, or maybe aliens as the puppeteers of human hosts, although I must admit that don’t intend to read the book any time soon to find out for sure. I just sampled a couple of pages at random and that’s quite enough for me: the writing is dreadful.

Anyway… turns out that Night of the Saucers, published in 1971, is the earliest listing for Cayea in the ISFDB; the latest is his Bosch-inspired cover for Stephen King’s The Stand, published in 1990. Since I can’t find any earlier work by Cayea on any other sites, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Night of the Saucers was (probably) one of the first cover illustration jobs of John Cayea’s career, and as such, I’d say it was a fine effort.

ISFDB has a small selection of covers with art by Cayea, published between 1971 and 1980 (although someone should tell the site admin that not all of them display properly). What one notices immediately as one browses through the images is that Cayea’s later covers are quite far removed, both technically and stylistically, from the cover displayed above; in fact, if one didn’t know better, one might think they were done by a different artist. To give you an idea of what I am going to call Cayea’s “mature style,” here are three of the best that ISFDB has to offer:

My favourite of the three is the cover of A Wreath of Stars — excellent work!

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

Look Here: Moore, Clifton, and Cooper, covered by Powers

4 October 201210 June 2022 RCLeave a comment

Here are three more covers with art by Richard Powers, scanned (as usual) by me from paperbacks in my personal collection:

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Richard Corben

Happy Birthday, Richard Corben!

1 October 201211 December 2020 RCLeave a comment

Richard Corben is 72 years old today. And to the delight of his many fans, he continues to draw and paint with undiminished enthusiasm and skill. Now if only Corben would allow Fantagraphics (or anyone else who would do a proper job of it) to publish a complete hardcover collection of his underground and self-published comics!

In celebration of Corben’s birthday, here are the front and back covers of the Den graphic albums, published by the artist’s own Fantagor Press and scanned by me from my very own copies:

Rock on, Gore. Rock on.

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

Look Here: Ellery Queen shadowbox covers, post 3 of 3

20 September 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

What follows is the final group of four paperbacks from the Signet series of Ellery Queen novels that I have in my personal library:

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The novels were published in the early 1970s by The New American Library of Canada Limited, Toronto, Ontario. The scans are my own.

NAVIGATION:

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

Look Here: Ellery Queen shadowbox covers, post 2 of 3

19 September 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Here, as promised, is the second of three posts devoted to the Signet series of Ellery Queen mystery novels that appeared in the early 1970s. I have twelve of the novels in the series in my collection. I posted my scans of the first four yesterday. And I’ll post the final four tomorrow.

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The oversized props really do lift the concept for those covers to a whole new level of wacky.

NAVIGATION:

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

Look Here: Ellery Queen shadowbox covers, post 1 of 3

18 September 201211 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

I have twelve of the paperbacks in the Signet reprint series of Ellery Queen mystery novels that appeared in the early 1970s, published by The New American Library of Canada Limited, Toronto, Ontario. What attracted me to the series was the puzzling low-budget editorial decision to tie the books together visually with cover photographs — the photographer is uncredited — of individual women in various costumes (and various stages of undress), holding various symbolic props, mostly oversized, and standing in what I would describe as multicoloured shadowboxes. Unfortunately, I don’t have all of the books that appeared in the series, but since I really don’t have any intention of hunting the rest of them down to complete my collection, I’ve decided to go ahead and scan the covers of the books that I do have. So here, for your viewing enjoyment, is the first group of four, presented in order of publication, with eight more covers to follow, also presented in groups of four, so stay tuned for that:

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NAVIGATION: