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Connections: Tim Hildebrandt and David Birkey
Look Here: Another cover with art by Lou Feck
On the one hand, the cropped Feck painting on the front of John Dickson Carr’s The Third Bullet violates two rules of pulp-fiction eroticism: 1) the woman is wearing no shoes instead of having one shoe on and one shoe off (one shoe on the ground doesn’t count), and 2) the shadow on her skin and on the ground is not in the shape of a man’s silhouette. On the other hand, who gives a rat’s ass?
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Heads Up: “Art” by Jeffrey Meyer
Slightly less than a month ago, on 15 June 2013, artist Jeffrey Meyer sent out an email announcement to his friends, colleagues, and collectors to let them know that he has a new website featuring his collage work, “including about 300 new pieces, as well as some mixed-media/painting experiments.” All of the work on the site is for sale (except for the pieces that have been sold already, of course). If you are interested in purchasing a handmade original, simply contact Jeffrey for a price list or with whatever questions you have, and he will get back to you as soon as he is able.
My personal collection of original art includes four of Jeffrey’s collages, which I purchased last summer, and although I do plan to post images of my purchases in the near future, I thought it might be interesting right now to take a look back at some of Jeffrey’s older work.
In a 2011 interview with the Notpaper blog, Jeffrey was asked to describe his “favourite piece ever created,” and he reluctantly replied as follows:
Well, the next day I disdain them all… but I think a few are successful, even pleasing: “Broken Dome,” “Sugar Lights,” “Cave at the Edge of the Park,” “Blush,” “Easter,” “Borealis,” “Hair 4,” “Arcade Nebula.”
Notpaper posted eleven images with the interview. Not one of them, however, was an image that Jeffrey mentioned. But never fear, citizens, because here I am to save the day, a mere two years, one month, and twelve days after the fact:
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The title, date, and size of each of the collages pictured above is in the file name, as usual, which means that the information will pop up if you hold your mouse pointer steady over an image for a moment or two.
But don’t just sit there gawking: BUY SOME ART!
BONUS IMAGES (THREE FROM 2013):
RELATED LINKS:
Look Here: One lovely cover with art by John Berkey
Here’s another old paperback that I picked up on our recent trip to Calgary; excellent work here from John Berkey, who is perhaps best known for his lively renderings of impossibly massive spacecraft “screaming” past cities, moons, planets, stars, galaxies, although in his long, productive, successful career in illustration, he actually tackled a wide range of subjects, historical and contemporary, as well as futuristic:
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ABOVE: Frederik Pohl, Drunkard’s Walk (NY: Ballantine, 1973), with cover art by John Berkey.
Fourth thing I noticed about Dunkard’s Walk, right after the author’s name, the title, and Berkey’s artwork, was the quotation at the top of the cover: “‘Easily Pohl’s most satisfactory effort.’ — N.Y. Herald Tribune.” Ouch! Was that really the best notice that Drunkard’s Walk had received between its original publication in 1960 and the 1973 reprint you see above? And did that lukewarm “cover quote” ever entice anyone to buy the book?
Look Here: One lovely cover with art by Fred Pfeiffer
This is the first cover with art by Doc Savage cover artist Fred Pfeiffer that I’ve scanned and posted here at RCN, and if I can find more with Pfeiffer cover art of a similar quality at a reasonable price, I’ll happily buy and scan and post those, too:
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Look Here: One lovely cover with art by Jeffrey Jones
Although I don’t travel very often or very far, and I have never gone on any kind of “book buying trip,” I am definitely a happier traveller when I am able to steal time from the “real” purpose of any trip I might take to visit a few stores that sell used books. Last Friday, for instance, my wife, our son, and I drove from Regina to Calgary, via Saskatoon, to attend a wedding, and over the next few days, return trip included, I managed to spend a couple of hurried hours browsing through a thrift shop and four different bookstores… although, unfortunately for me, only three of the four sold used books that I could afford. The fourth — which is actually the store in Calgary that I visited first, and only because it was located near a comics and Magic card shop that our son wanted to visit — was clearly designed to appeal to upper-middle-class bibliophiles with discerning taste and deep pockets, i.e., not me. I was fairly happy with both the selection of books and the prices at the two “Fair’s Fair” used bookstores we visited in Calgary, however, and very happy with the selection and prices at the store that we stopped at, briefly, in Saskatoon on the return trip.
And so now, here I am, typing this post while sitting about a metre from two-dozen vintage paperbacks, all newly accessioned to my collection, including this one, with cover art by Jeffrey Jones, which has been on my “want list” for a few years now:
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More later, of course!
Look Here: Three popular covers with art by Don Maitz
Here’s the third batch of cover scans from the collection of eight with art by Maitz that I mentioned in previous post; turns out, these paperbacks are collector’s items of a sort:
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“Cyteen won the Hugo for Best Novel. There was a paperbound publication that split the novel into three parts, but this has ended: the current and, by my wishes, all future publications, will have Cyteen as one unified book.”
— C. J. Cherryh
SEE ALSO:
Look Here: Three pocket books with cover art by Don Maitz
This is the second of three posts here at RCN that I plan to devote to the cover art of Don Maitz, whose excellence as an illustrator has often been acknowledged by his peers but is generally not of the kind that excites me very much:
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Solid, professional work. Yep.
Look Here: Two DAW SF covers with art by Don Maitz
I scanned eight different covers with art by Don Maitz earlier today for display here at RCN. Here are the first two:
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Look Here, Read: A day in the country on Paradise 9, as recorded by Nicole Claveloux
From Heavy Metal vol. I, no. 13, here is Nicole Claveloux‘s contribution to “Paradise 9 Magazine,” a compendium of short, journalistic visual reports by a select group of cartoonists who had recently been on “an all-expense paid round trip to Paradise 9, home planet of regular Metal Hurlant contributor Zha“:
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BONUS LINK:
Golden Haze > The Psychedelic Illustrations of Nicole Claveloux
The Nicole Claveloux category here at RCN is also worth a visit…
Ragged Claws Network 