More scans from my personal library of future landfill:
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Category: Book/Magazine Covers (All)
Look Here: Five for a dollar
A local seller of used books currently has a sale shelf where everything on display is five for a dollar. Here are the books I selected (where I know the cover artist/photographer, the info is in the file name):
A couple of the books have a bit of damage, but as a Malzberg collector, I’d have paid five or six bucks for The Spread alone, and as an collector of paperbacks with interesting cover art, I’d definitely have paid a buck or two for Roger LaManna’s Black Hit Woman. Also, although I don’t usually buy covers with photos on the front, I made an exception in the case of To the Beat of Drum based on a sudden idiosyncratic insight (or delusion) that Dennis Rolfe’s composition is some sort of visual kissing cousin to the famous double portrait of Rene Magritte and his wife Georgette, The Shadow and Its Shadow (1932):
Not to mention Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in an Interior (1912-14):
Needless to say, I left the bookstore that day with a spring in my step — although I must admit, the short stack of SF paperbacks with cover art by Richard Powers that I purchased at the same time might also have contributed to my good mood.
BONUS SCAN:
The list of “Kozy Books” on the back cover of Water Witch is amusing, I think:
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Cozy up with Kozy Books!
Look Here: Four more Keith Laumer SF paperbacks with cover art by Richard Powers
Freshly scanned, by me, from my very own library:
To view all of the paperbacks with cover art by Richard Powers that I’ve posted over the years, start here and scroll through the pages.
Connections: Zurbaran, Dali, Vallejo, Foster
At first, I just planned to post a couple of covers by Robert Foster, scanned by me from my personal collection of SF paperbacks, but I have since decided that it might be more interesting to trace one warm line up through the chain of influence that led to Foster’s arresting illustrations for the front and back covers of Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man. So here goes:
The typography on the cover of Behold the Man perfectly complements Foster’s painting, don’t you think? The whole package, front and back, is a real stunner!
BONUS IMAGE:
Since I already scanned Foster’s collage-like Alternities cover, I suppose I might as well post that image, too:
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Connections: Vallejo vs. the unknown
I’m not actually a fan of Boris Vallejo’s work, but when I came across the Monica Hughes novel, Sandwriter, on the shelf at a local thrift shop, I knew I’d seen a better version of the cover image before, and here’s the ocular proof:
Notice that the unknown artist not only swiped the creature, rider, and composition from Vallejo’s painting but also saw fit to turn the somewhat phallic head and neck of the creature into a raging vein-wrapped erection, with the hint of a scrotum and elements of bondage thrown in to up the sexual ante. Because that’s what passes for creativity in some circles, folks. It’s not about what marvels you can conjure in your imagination and capture with the tools of art but about what you can get away with on the cover of a novel written for teenagers…
P.S. I don’t own either of the above novels. The Boris cover scan is from McClaverty’s flickr stream, the Sandwriter scan is from the Amazon website.
Connections: James Bama and Dean Ellis
The V. cover (1964) is by Bama; the Eleventh Commandment (1970) is by Ellis. Both are attractive and effective variations on a “surrealist” theme, and both were scanned earlier this morning by me from my personal library of folded, spindled, and mutilated paperback fiction.
Keywords: V., The Eleventh Commandment, surrealism.
Look Here: Two Raymond Chandlers with cover art by Tom Adams
Here are two covers freshly scanned mere minutes ago, by me, from my personal collection of old paperbacks:
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I have many more paperbacks with Tom Adams cover art, but, alas, none of them are from the Ballantine Books series of Chandler reprints. What I do have is a largish selection of Agatha Christie novels with cover art by Tom Adams, which I intend to scan and post in the near future. So if you’re a Tom Adams fan, you have that to look forward to here on RCN.
Rest in Peace: Joe Kubert (18 September 1926 – 12 August 2012)
From his precocious beginning in comics right up until his unexpected end, Joe Kubert drew with eyes of fire and a hand of rare mettle:
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“Drawing never dies, it holds on by the skin of its teeth, because the hunger it satisfies – the desire for an active, investigative, manually vivid relation with the things we see and yearn to know about – is apparently immortal.”
Robert Hughes (28 July 1938 – 6 August 2012)
See also:
Ragged Claws Network > Look Here, Read: “The Celebrated Joe Kubert” – an interview with Kubert from 1974.
Ragged Claws Network > Heads Up: WEIRD HORRORS & DARING ADVENTURES: THE JOE KUBERT ARCHIVES VOL. 1 – includes “The Mirror of Isis,” a 7-page story from Eerie #3 (Oct.-Nov. 1951) with art by Kubert.
Ragged Claws Network > Look Here, Read: “Pony Express,” with art by Joe Kubert – a 5-page story from Apache Kid #13 (April 1955).
Look Here: Two ultra-stylish Perry Mason covers with uncredited art by Robert McGinnis
I only have two of the paperbacks in this series of Perry Mason novels that was published by Pocket Books in the early 1960s, but I would definitely buy them all if I could find them at a good price. They’re lovely.
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Look Here: Three “Operator 5” paperbacks with lurid cover art by Robert Bonfils
From the musty pulp paperback collection of yours truly, here are today’s minty fresh scans:
I’m sure there are others on the Web who have scanned and posted all of the covers in the “Operator 5” series, but I only own three, and unless I run across them for sale cheap at a thrift store, I don’t intend to complete my collection. So if you’re hoping for more “Operator 5” here at RCN, you’re likely going to be disappointed.
My favourite cover of the “Operator 5” books that I own is the one for Blood Reign of the Dictator. The image is so extreme that when I first saw it, I burst out laughing. It probably sold a lot of books, though.
Notice that artist Robert Bonfils has taken the liberty of removing the movable part of the guillotine’s lunette, i.e., the device that holds the head in place, so the executioner can be depicted forcing the woman’s head under the blade with his one hand while he releases the blade with his other. Action, not accuracy, is the goal here.
In the real world, however, I suspect it is a lot safer to keep your guillotine properly maintained, with all essential components attached and in good working order, than it is to improvise in front of a madding crowd. Although if one were hell bent on destruction, who knows what ridiculous health and safety risks one might outface?
Ragged Claws Network 