Ragged Claws Network » Look Here

Look Here: Four more SF covers with art by Paul Lehr

RC — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:51:47 +0000

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.

Look Here: Four more paperbacks, all with cover art by Jeffrey Jones

RC — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:07:53 +0000

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…

Look Here: Two Ace SF Classics, with cover art by Roy Krenkel

RC — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:12:39 +0000

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

Look Here: Three Ace paperbacks, with cover art by Frazetta

RC — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:12:42 +0000

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!

Look Here: Four Ace SF Specials, with cover art by Leo & Diane Dillon

RC — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:13:32 +0000

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

Look Here: “Wolfling”/”Conan” art by Jeffrey Jones

RC — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:37:11 +0000

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?

Look Here: “Make Beautiful Hair Blecch”

RC — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:50:53 +0000

The “Make Beautiful Hair Blecch” ad parody, which featured Frank Frazetta’s classic portrait of Ringo Starr, was the back cover of issue #90 (October 1964) of Mad Magazine:

The story is, Frazetta’s “Ringo Starr” portrait caught the eye of United Artists films, which then commissioned Frazetta to do his first poster art for a movie, What’s New Pussycat?, a 1965 comedy written by Woody Allen. I don’t have a copy of that poster, but I did purchase an LP, in very good condition, of the What’s New Pussycat? Original Motion Picture Score, with music by Burt Bacharach, last month from a local Value Village store, and have been waiting for the right moment to post it. Now might be the time:

ABOVE: Although this scan appears to be the same width as the previous one, it is actually a bit larger/wider.

Guess it’s lucky for fans of Frazetta’s movie posters that the “Ringo Starr” portrait appeared in a beautifully designed fake advertisement on the magazine’s back cover, where it could be reproduced in “glorious technicolor,” because buried inside the magazine, where it would have had to appear in black and white, the portrait probably would not have attracted the attention from Hollywood that it did, and Frazetta’s lively and lucrative side-career as a movie poster artist would not have gotten off the ground.

BTW, sorry about the lousy image quality: the album wouldn’t fit on the scanner bed, so I had to scan in pieces, stitch together the panoramas, and touch up (very roughly) around the edges. The results aren’t the best, but I’m not scanning (or photographing) for print reproduction, only appreciation.

Look Here: “Early One Morning in the Jungle”

RC — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:33:19 +0000

The following single-page comic, written by Don Edwing and drawn by Frank Frazetta, was the back cover of issue #106 (October 1966) of Mad Magazine:

Look Here: Five Random Covers, with art by Frank Frazetta

RC — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:58:56 +0000

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!

Look Here: Two “Ben Gates Mystery” Novels, with covers by McGinnis

RC — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:17:35 +0000

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