Ragged Claws Network

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 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.

Here’s some more early work by Jeffrey Jones, scanned from the RC library, and I have a strong suspicion, dear reader, that at least one of these covers will be new to you:

Frankly, I don’t trust the publication date in The Unending Night… but until I learn different, I’m going to leave it as is…

These are the only two “Ace Science Fiction Classic” paperbacks with cover art by Roy Krenkel that I own, so enjoy!

Frazetta’s Krenkel-influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs covers will be familiar to many, but his Maza on the Moon cover is somewhat less well known, mainly because the book’s author, Otis Adelbert Kline, never achieved any lasting popularity:

If Otis Adelbert Kline is known for anything, it is not the quality of his writing but the way he promoted his highly derivative adventure stories by surreptitiously circulating a rumour, reported in the fan press but later debunked, of a feud between himself and the pulp-fiction juggernaut he most closely styled himself after, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Next up: more Jones covers!

More scans from the library of you-know-who:

This past weekend, I finally located (and purchased) a copy of Gordon R. Dickson’s Wolfling, with cover by Jeffrey Jones, so now, at last, I can post this comparison of two very similar images by Jones executed in two different mediums, oil vs. ink:

The “Conan” frontispiece was published in Savage Sword of Conan in 1975, but the style and the signature suggest to me that it was created around the time of the 1969 Wolfling cover. Anyone know if the “Conan” frontispiece was published anywhere else prior to its appearance in Savage Sword?

Yesterday, Thom Buchanan over at his blog, The Pictorial Arts, posted scans of Sir William Russell Flint’s colour illustrations for The Odyssey of Homer. Click the image below to jump to Thom’s post:

Click here to view ALL of the work by Sir William Russell Flint that Thom has scanned and posted so far. It’s a real treasure trove.

I don’t have a lot of paperbacks with cover art by Frank Frazetta, but here are a few I do have…

Rogue Roman is an early cover painting by Frazetta that someone out there might enjoy seeing in its original format. The painting sans text appears in the Frazetta art book, Icon (Grass Valley, CA: Underwood Books, 1998), page 126. Looks a lot different there, too: the overall tone is much, much warmer. But I can’t decide if Rogue Roman is one of those pieces that was altered at a later date by Frazetta or not. And since there’s no mention of alterations in the discussion that accompanies the painting in Icon, it might just be a case of inaccurate reproduction on the paperback. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Of course, most Frazetta fans know that what makes the artist’s Moon Maid cover more than just a visually arresting illustration is that the original painting was substantially altered (though not, IMHO, improved) by Frazetta when he got it back from the publisher; which is to say, the painting as you see it here no longer exists.

The male model for The Mucker could easily have been Frazetta himself.

And finally, the central figure in Frazetta’s Tanar of Pellucidar was clearly swiped by Arthur Suydam for the painting that appears on the cover of his The Art of the Barbarian (Special Edition): Conan, Tarzan, Death Dealer. Look it up and you’ll see!

One bare foot… hm… perhaps it’s a sign… a symbol of some sort… if only I could think what it means…

ABOVE: Robert Kyle, Kill Now, Pay Later (New York: Dell, 1960), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.

ABOVE: Robert Kyle, Some Like It Cool (New York: Dell, 1962), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.

Sorry about the iffy scan on the second one. The book is a little bit warped, so the scanner created and caught a bit of glare.

BONUS COVER SCAN (added 14 August 2010):

This evening, as I was absent-mindedly browsing the paperback shelves in our basement, I came across a cover by an uncredited artist that had something about it that made me want to include it here…

ABOVE: Doris Lessing, In Pursuit of the English (New York: Ballantine, 1966), with cover art by Robert Foster (uncredited/attributed).

BONUS LINK:

Flickr > Kyle Katz > Robert Foster Covers

In my growing collection of vintage books, I have quite a few paperbacks with Robert McGinnis art. I posted a few last time; now, here are five more, in no particular order:

I usually prefer to display paperback covers in order of publication, but these Fawcett paperbacks mostly don’t include the year(s) of publication, only the year the book was copyright.

I bought these two paperbacks with covers by Richard Powers on Thursday morning at “Poor Michael’s Bookshop, Art, & Cafe” in Onanole, Manitoba, just south of Riding Mountain National Park, along with several increasingly-hard-to-find paperbacks with Robert McGinnis and Paul Lehr covers that I’ll post another time and a delicious cup of dark-roast coffee, black, no sugar. Actually, I have quite a few paperbacks from the fifties and sixties with McGinnis covers that I’d like to post. It’s just a matter of finding the time to scan them and type the captions…

To view all five of the covers by Richard Powers that I’ve posted so far, click here.

I purchased the following Andre Norton paperbacks with covers by Jeffrey Jones on Monday from a small shop in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. I found the shop totally by accident. My wife, our son, and I were en route to Dauphin, Manitoba, but since we were ahead of schedule and had some time to kill before lunch in Yorkton, we decided to drive around a bit and see what stores were open in the downtown area. We went up and down a couple of streets, and then we noticed a shop called “Thrifty Mama’s” that had a display of books in the window. Being a trio of bibliophiles, we couldn’t resist checking it out — and discovered that at least half of the floorspace in “Thrifty Mama’s” is dedicated to used books, mostly paperbacks. Score!

Now, I know I’ve posted the cover of Uncharted Stars before, but the book this time around is in much better condition. In fact, all four are really glossy and tight. And they all sport excellent Jones covers. Enjoy!

The cover of The Three Faces of Time, which I bought yesterday at a used book store in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, is uncredited, and no signature is visible, but it sure looks like the work of Jeffrey Jones, circa 1968-69, to me.

ABOVE: Jack Williamson, Seetee Shock (New York: Lancer, 1968), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

ABOVE: Frank Belknap Long, The Three Faces of Time (New York: Tower, 1969), with cover by Jeffrey Jones.

And yes, Jones fans, I know my inclusion of the above comparison under the category of “Swipe, Homage, or Happenstance?” is a bit cheeky. But, hey, I don’t mean nothin’ by it. I’m just saying it’s the same pose, that’s all.

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UPDATE (24 July 2010):

This just in: reader Patrick Hill points out in the comments section of this post that Jones informed him ten years ago that he (Jones) swiped the pose of the main figure in Seetee Shock and The Three Faces of Time from “H₂O World,” with story by Larry Ivie and art by Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel. Here’s the ocular proof:

ABOVE: Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel (artists), first page complete, "H₂O World," Creepy #1 (1964), page 10.

ABOVE: Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel (artists), first page detail, "H₂O World," Creepy #1 (1964), page 10.

If nothing else, the above news should make Maroto fans smile.

ABOVE: Howard Pyle, An Attack on a Galleon (c. 1905).

ABOVE: Reed Crandall, cover, Piracy #3 (February-March 1955).

Piracy, indeed…

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See also: Swipe, Homage, or Happenstance? Pyle, Wyeth, Frazetta

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: