"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munro, "What is Remembered"
The Bud’s Art Books catalogue arrived today, and as I was flipping idly through the pages, I noticed something that seemed familiar in a tiny thumbnail image of a book cover (issue 1010F, page 67, item E). Here, take a look at the much larger images below, and see if you notice it, too.
Is this mere happenstance? Maybe, maybe not. You decide.
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When I saw that second cover with the raggedly applied paint, the swooping linear accents, and the colourful little shapes fluttering along the edges of the forms, I immediately was reminded of certain works by Bill Sienkiewicz and by his teacher/mentor, Barron Storey. Like this well-known cover, for instance:
But would either Sienkiewicz or Storey recognize Powers as an influence? I have no idea…
BONUS LINK:
The Powers Compendium — the images are tiny, but there sure are a lot of them! I see that the Compendium site also includes that same little scan of the wraparound Brain Wave cover.
To view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted so far, click here.
The painting on the cover of Thongor in the City of Magicians also appeared on the cover and foil-embossed slipcase of Night Images, a limited-edition collection of Robert E. Howard’s fantasy verse published by The Morning Star Press in 1976, with interior illustrations by Richard Corben. That same year, the Morning Star Press also published the hardcover black-and-white, first-edition of Corben’s Bloodstar, which was an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “Valley of the Worm.”
Now, did you know, dear reader, that a few years earlier, writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, along with artist Gil Kane and inker Ernie Chua (Chan), had produced a comics adaptation of “Valley of the Worm” for the third issue (April 1973) of the Marvel series, Supernatural Thrillers?
And did you also know that Gil Kane was co-editor at The Morning Star Press, along with Armand Eisen, of Corben’s Bloodstar, and that Kane himself was the one who suggested the hero’s name be changed from “Niord” to “Bloodstar” and designed the distinctive star mark on Bloodstar’s forehead?
Well, even if you didn’t know before, you do now!
Small world, eh?
P.S. I not only own several copies of the signed and limited first edition of Bloodstar but I actually have in my collection a beautiful copy of the slipcased, limited edition of Night Images. Lucky me!
Here’s a recent addition to our little library of vintage SF paperbacks, along with a bonus image taken from a profile of Leo and Diane Dillon published in Heavy Metal:
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To view the other ACE Science Fiction Specials with cover art by Leo & Diane Dillon that I’ve scanned and posted, click here.
To view ALL of the covers with art by Leo & Diane Dillon that have been featured on RCN, click here.
The first illustration posted below appeared on the inside back cover of Barbarian Comics #2 (1972) and the second appeared in Barbarian Comics #3 (1974):
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I wonder if the illustration from 1972 was one of the inspirations for the opening scene of Corben and Strnad’s New Tales of the Arabian Nights (New York: HM Communications, 1979), in which two brothers, Shahryar and Shahzaman, are blackmailed by a woman who was snatched on her wedding night by a giant jinni named Ifrit so that none might lay with her but him, and who takes her revenge on the beast by cuckolding him, whenever he sleeps, with whatever men happen to be available: “My lovers have numbered five hundred and seventy,” she tells the brothers with a leer, “and now I would count two more.” And since refusal means certain death at the hands of the jealous jinni, whom the woman has threatened to awaken from his sleep should she not get her way, the pragmatic brothers do what must be done to save their lives.
From Star*Reach #7 (1977):
Please don’t try to order anything from that old GbP address. I have no idea if GbP is still a going concern, but BWS has a lovely Web site, so it’s easy enough to contact him about his current offerings, such as his new print, Poetry, published by Glimmer Graphics.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the cover of the first edition of Herbert D. Kastle’s paperback original, The Reassembled Man, which I purchased for the princely sum of four bucks in a used bookstore here in the Queen City earlier today:
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Enjoy!
Here’s another justly forgotten Lin Carter novel, half of an “Ace Double,” with cover art mistakenly credited on the verso of the title page to Kelly Freas even though the art is clearly signed “Jones”:
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