"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"
So many covers to scan… so little time…
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ABOVE: Arthur C. Clarke, Dolphin Island (NY: Berkley, 1971), with cover art by Paul Lehr.
ABOVE: Dean R. Koontz, Nightmare Journey (NY: Berkley, 1975), with cover art by Paul Lehr.
ABOVE: Richard Rohmer, Separation (NY: Bantam-Seal, 1977), with cover art by Paul Lehr.
Freshly scanned from the collection of yours truly, here’s one of Paul Lehr’s best covers with a close-up shot of a human being, which may seem like I’m damning it with faint praise, since most of Lehr’s classic covers are populated with tiny figures dwarfed by technological wonders, strange lands, alien life forms, the cosmos itself, but that is simply not the case. So let me say it plainly: Crompton Divided is one of Lehr’s best covers, period:
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To view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted over the years, start here and click back through the (p)ages. I think you’ll like what you find there.
BONUS IMAGE:
Nice colour here; subject matter is a bit underdeveloped, like concept art for an animated movie, but it’s evocative enough, I guess:
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.
More covers, freshly scanned:
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To view all of the paperbacks with cover art by Paul Lehr that I’ve scanned and posted so far, click here.
More “treasures” from my personal paperback collection, scanned just for you, dear reader:
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To view all of the paperbacks with cover art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted over the years, start here.
From my personal library of disintegrating pulp:
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My favourite image in the above group is Lehr’s wraparound cover for John Boyd’s The Rakehells of Heaven, even though the display font used for the title and author name is overbearing and, in places, difficult to decipher! To view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted so far, click here.
None of the following three covers with art by Paul Lehr really hits the mark. The painting on the cover of Hellstrom’s Hive (1982) is especially anemic; as far as I am concerned, it has very little of interest to say about Frank Herbert’s novel, the SF genre, Lehr’s chosen subject matter, or anything else other than, perhaps, the vain hope that slick technique alone would be enough to fulfil the brief. (Yes, I understand the idea here is that the viewer is supposed put together the visual clues to realize that the red barn, farm house, windrows of hay, etc., are actually located on a planet that is not earth, and that the tiny figures on the hill are not merely your typical human farmers but something more sinister; however, when such a simple idea is so blandly and schematically worked out, how can the viewer’s reaction be anything but boredom?) The fact that Lehr’s hypothetical hope turned out to be not so vain after all — the painting, obviously, was published — seems to me to have been less likely an endorsement of the painting as an effective cover illustration and more likely a tribute to Lehr’s long track record as a distinctive, reliable, and admired SF cover artist.
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Click here to view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted so far.
To view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted so far, click here.
A nice variety of covers by Lehr this time around. I especially dig Lehr’s 1967 cover for Margaret St. Clair’s The Dolphins of Altair, even if the exact location of the dorsal fin on the central dolphin (who, to Lehr’s credit, really looks like he is carrying a weight on his back) is slightly mysterious. I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to chalk this one up to artistic license… the fin is entirely hidden by the woman’s body and that’s all there is to it…
Click here to view all of the covers with art by Paul Lehr that I’ve posted so far.
Somebody out there likes Paul Lehr’s work; I know this not because people post to tell me they like it but because the Ragged Claws Network blog stats show regular visits to the Paul Lehr category. So, on with the show:
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