Dare to Judge This Book:
Great Paperback Cover Artists

• JAMES AVATI
  Considered by some to be the "greatest cover artist of them all," Avati was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1912. He was a Fifth Avenue department store window display designer, a soldier in World War II, and an illustrator for magazines such as Collier's and The Ladies' Home Journal before breaking into paperback illustration in 1948. He produced dozens of covers for New American Library, notably for the Signet (including many well-known works of American authors) and Bantam lines.
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  Medium: His realistic, often emotionally-charged paintings were based on photographs which he took himself, done in oil on prepared hardboard, heavily influenced, he claimed, by the films he saw as a youth.
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  Works include:

• Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by Horace McCoy (Signet, 1949)
• Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (Signet, 1952)
  Come to the Cabaret, ol' chum, and check out a decidedly earthier Sally Bowles...
• The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone by Tennessee Williams (Signet, 1952)
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• RUDOLPH BELARSKI
  (1900-83)
  Belarsky was originally a quite-in-demand artist for the pulps, who made his big move up the food chain to become a very well-known and respected paperback illustrator, only to return, in 1952, to pulp digest and magazine illustrations in 1952.
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  Look for: Eccentric and dramatic points of views, and peculiar perspectives. His distinctive work was said to have influenced the entire Popular Library line, far beyond the fifty or so covers he did for them.
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  Works include:

• The Strangled Witness by Leslie Ford (Popular Library, 1946)
  Classic dead beauty sprawled across the cover.
• About the Murder of the Circus Queen by Anthony Abott (Popular Library, 1948)
  Off-kilter perspective (and doomed performer) flies through the air with the greatest of ease.
• Tales of Chinatown by Sax Rohmer (Popular Libray, 1952)
• Campus Town by Hart Stilwell (Popular Library, 1951)
  Perhaps Belarski's best known work (and one of his last for Popular Library) was this cheesy looking tale of a half-naked woman and a whip-wielding member of the KKK. It's got everything you need for a great cover: sex, sadism and social commentary. And a half-naked woman and a whip.
• Fantastic (Ziff-Davis Fantastic 1, Summer, 1952).
  A classic pulp digest cover, one of the first done when he returned to pulp digest and magazine illustrations in 1952. This particular issue included stories by Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler and Isaac Asimov. It sold for thirty-five cents which was about the same price as most paperbacks.
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• RUTH BELEW
  Of all the interesting features of early Dell paperbacks, one of the most striking was the back-cover map or diagram. These cartographic fantasies have given the books their nickname "mapbacks." Belew was a Chicago artist who is credited with producing at least 150 maps, probably many more, between 1942 and 1951. She prepared the maps twice size in black ink on white cardboard, complete with banners and lettering. Then she sent them to Dell for approval. The maps were checked against the text for accuracy, changes were made, and a litho artist colored them.
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  Works include:

• The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett (Dell 129, 1946)
  Includes detailed routes described in Hammett's stories.
• Beyond the Dark by Kieran Abbey (Dell 93, 1945)
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• EARLE K. BERGEY
  More a sci-fi guy than a mystery guy, Earle K. Bergey nonetheless left his mark on the whole field. He started his career in the 1940's, producing covers for pulp magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories. He moved up, from pulp magazines to the Popular Library publishing company and drew 16 covers for that firm between 1948 and 1952. After leaving Popular Library, he painted covers for Pocket Books.
  Look for: lots of reather big-chested women. Yep, Earle was a tit man.
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  Works include:

• The Big Eye by Max Simon Ehrlich (Popular Library,1950)
  Look out! It's a flying eye!
• The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine (Popular Library, 1948)
  Pay special attention to the nipple that launched a thousand ships. Collectors do.
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (Popular Library, 1949)
  Gee, men are such pigs. ..But hoo-boy, look at that cleavage!
• Behind the Flying Saucers by Frank Scully (Popular Library, 1951)
  Is the truth about UFO's being hidden from us? Did the author, Frank Scully, have a daughter called Dana? The Martians are attacking! Quick! Into the low-cut nightgowns!
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• RAFAEL De SOTO
  (1904-87)
  Born in Spain, Moved to Puerto Rico, and eventually New York City, where he studied to be an archaeologist, though he would have preferred to be apriest, de Soto was one of the most respected of the pulp cover artists, workinh for Street & Smith, Pines publications, Ace Magazines and, most notably, Populat Publications. He did over 800 pulp covers, and his covers were so good stories were often written about them, instead of the other way around. In later years, he eventually turned to religious art, and teaching the Bible using art.
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  Works include:

• H is for Heroin by David Hulbard (Popular Library, 1953)
  A downbeat, non-sensationalist treatment all the more powerful for its restraint. Give the junkie a halo, and this could be religious art.
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• GERALD GREGG
  The Dell Mapback Airbrush Guy! Gregg was born in 1907 in Lamar, Colorado and graduated from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee in 1928. He was hired to do cover illustrations for Dell paperbacks in 1943, and often used secretaries and stenographers as models. Gregg's highly-distinctive Dell mapback covers (he did over 170 of them) are unique among mass market paperbacks, and are among the most coveted mass-market collectibles.
  Look for: Extraordinary airbrush technique and an often-abstract approach, stylistic contrasts of light and shadows, with a few bright colors used to accentuate particular features of his characters. Gregg called his style "a combination of graphic design and stylized realism."
  
  Works include:

• Silent are the Dead and Killers are Camera Shy by George Harmon Coxe (Dell, 1948)
• I Was a Nazi Flier: A German Pilot's Actual Diary by Gottfried Leske (Dell, 1943)
  A Dell War Book, with one of Dell's most-beloved motifs: a grinning skull, and an early appearance of what would become one of the longest lasting paperback cover motifs of all time: a swastika.
• Curtains for an Editor by Thomas Polsky (Dell, 1945)
  An editor impaled on a spike of what might be rejection notices. Ouch!
• Ill Met by Moonlight by Leslie Ford (Dell, 1943)
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (Dell, 1943)
  Yet another impressive outing by Gregg, with some masterful airbrush work. Best part? No mention of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
• Dark Passage by David Goodis (Dell, 1948)
  Just a classic. Breathtaking in its simplicity.
• The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett (Dell, 1946)
• The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (Dell 1948)
  Serious literature gets the Gregg treatment, and proves to be a very popular edition.
  

• MITCHELL HOOKS
  One of my favorite artists, his covers for Bantam's late-seventies reissues of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels acted as the visual counterpoint to my descent into this literary obsession of mine. Imagine my glee to discover that, years later, Hooks illustrated (in a completely different style) another of my favorite series, Fawcett Gold Medal's printings of Peter Corris' series featuring Australian P.I. Cliff Hardy. One of the relative newcomers to these ranks, Hooks did illustrations for book covers and magazines from the late 1950's to the 1980's.
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  Works include:

• The Lew Archer series by Ross Macdonald
  A montage focussing on a vaguely modish-looking guy's head, often in a turtleneck, holding up a handgun, with one or two beautiful women circulating around him, and maybe some plot element, all clusted in the center of the cover, all rendered in a sketchy style. Looked sorta square at the time, but they ewere instantly recognizable. And they all had a photo of Macdonald on the back, trying to pose as a badass, complete with fedora.
• The Cliff Hardy series by Peter Corris (Fawcett, mid-eighties)
  Sharp, high contrast illustrative portraits of the P.I. and all the basic P.I. elements (the phone, the desk, the cigarette, the gun, the bottle, the neon signs) inset into black cover. Moody, evocative, traditional, but classy. I used The Marvelous Boy (1986) as the very first cover for this site, in fact, and Heroin Annie (1987) for the February-March issue.
• The Superspade series by B.B. Johnson (Paperback Library, seventies)
  How seventies can you get? This cat outshafts Shaft. And dig the afros!
• The 007 Logo and the original movie poster for Dr. No.
  In 1961, David Chasman, then director of marketing and advertising for United Artists, hired Hooks and Joseph Caroff to design the "007 logo" for Dr. No.
  

• ROBERT JONAS
  Born in New York in 1907, Jonas attended the Fawcett art school in New Jersey and New York University. Influenced by artist William de Kooning and other members of the "Abstract-Expressionist" movement. Went to work for Penguin, and remained there even after the departure of Ian Ballantine and several illustrators who left to found Bantam. When the New American Library arose out of Penguin Books in 1948 Jonas acted as art director for their new Signet Imprint until a permanent director could be hiredbut continued his work as a paperback illustrator until the mid-1950's, when he turned to hardcover work. His distinctive approach makes his work some of the most collectible.
  Look for: deceptively simple, often quite abstract work that offers little insight into the subject matter of the books themselves.
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  Works include:

• Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain (Penguin, 1946)
• The Rasp by Philip MacDonald (Penguin, 1946).
  

• RONNIE LESSER
  Lesser was the man who did the covers for many of Frank Kane's Johnny Liddell P.I. thrillers.
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• ROBERT MAGUIRE
  (August 3, 1921 - February 26, 2005
  In Maguire's half-century-plus career, he painted over 600 covers for such publishers as Pocket, Dell, Ace, Harper, Avon, Silhouette, Ballantine, Pyramid, Bantam, Lion, Berkeley, Beacon and Monarch -- virtually every mainstream publishing house in New York. He began his education at Duke University, but left to serve in World War II. Upon his return, he joined Art Students League, and graduated in 1949. His career took off almost immediately with his first work for Trojan Publications, doing covers for their line of small pocket pulps, such as Hollywood Detective Magazine (Oct. 1950). Maguire did three of the eight covers for this pocket pulp series. His speciality was babes, and he painted some of the best and most memorable femme fatales of the 50s and 60s -- his women are, according to his web site, "passionate yet somehow down to earth, approachable, though sometimes at your own risk. These images compel one to wonder what led up to that instant in time and where it will lead next, the very stuff of timeless art".
  
  Works include:

  The Brass Halo by Jack Webb (Signet #1556)
  Our January 2006 "cover"
  

  Black Opium by Claude Farrere (Berkeley G-120)

  Honey West: Dig a Dead Doll by G.G. Fickling (Pyramid #G540)

  Numerous issues of Manhunt

Related Links:

• R. A. Maguire Cover Art
  The only commercial, fully authorized web site dedicated to the artwork of Maguire, administered by his daughter Lynn. You can buy high quality prints, postcards and T-shirts of many of his famous covers -- and even some copies of original paintings that were never used.
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• LEO MANSO
  The most distinctive artist to work for Pocket Books between 1943 and 1945, Manso had a tremendous impact on the company's look. His version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, although not very exciting-three hands reaching for the black bird against an orange background-is one of the rarest and most collectible of all paperbacks.
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  Works include:

• The Judas Window by Carter Dickson (Pocket Books 231, 1943)
• The Glass Key (Pocket Books 211, 1943) and The Maltese Falcon (Pocket Books 268, 1944) by Dashiell Hammett
• The Lady in the Morgue by Jonathan Latimer (Pocket Books 246, 1944)
• The Canary Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine (Pocket Books 248, 1944)
• Phantom Lady by William Irish (Pocket Books 253, 1957)
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• ROBERT E. McGINNIS
  One of the all-time greats, and a relatively late starter, Ohio born-and-bred Robert McGinnis (born 1926) has painted well over 1,500 paperback covers since the1950s. Although much of his work was published well after the heyday of the many of the other mass-market paperback artists mentioned here, McGinnis' style and subject matter certainly fit in. He's best known for his crime and mystery covers, and his unsurpassed depictions of glamourous, elegant women (no disrespect here, or anything, but some of these women were just drop-dead gorgeous--you could eat some of these covers with a spoon).
  McGinnis has also painted a considerable number of covers for several other genres, including westerns, gothics, romance novels, historical novels and both movie and television tie-ins and a number of movie posters, including several James Bond flicks (which are not unknown to feature beautiful women). He even managed to get some of his work on covers by other artists: that's his portrait of Mike Shayne that was used as a logo in the upper right corner of all of those Shayne covers for Dell.
  And there's good news for McGinnis' many, many fans. The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis, featuring a "vast selection" of McGinnis' work, was released in April 2001.
  Look for: "Provocative, seductive, elegant women" is how McGinnis himself describes his favorite subject. Long-legged beauties are the focal point, and often almost the only element on the cover. And check out some of those expressions on some of those women. It's enough to make a old man itch and a young man faint.
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  Works include:

• Angel's Ransom by David Dodge (Dell, 1959)
• Don't Speak to Strange Girls by Harry Whittington (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1963)
• Covers for Edward S. Aarons, M.E. Chaber, Frank Kane's Johnny Liddell series, Erle Stanley Gardner (including several books featuring P.I.s Cool and Lam, under Gardner's "A.A. Fair" pseudonym), Richard S. Prather's Shell Scott, Brett Halliday's Mike Shayne and Carter Brown.
• Posters for the James Bond films Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun and Moonraker.
• Other film posters include Breakfast at Tiffany's and Barbarella.

Related Links:

• Robert E. McGinnis Gallery
  Maintained by McGinnis' son, Kyle.
• A McGinnis Fan Site
  Managed by Australian and fellow DAPA-man Graeme Flanagan.

Also:

• The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis...Buy this book
  (2001, Pond Press)
  Compiled by long-time fans Art Scott, and Dr. Wallace Maynard, and featuring a foreward by Richard S. Prather, this book offers a wide range of covers by one of the truly great paperback illustrators of all time. With close to 300 colour reproductions, if someone you love loves old paperback covers, this is the one for him or her.McGinnis has painted well over 1,500 paperback covers since the1950s, and is best known for his crime and mystery covers (he did tons of covers for Prather's Shell Scott, Brett Halliday's Mike Shayne and Carter Brown) and his unsurpassed depictions of glamourous, elegant women (no disrespect here, or anything, but some of these women were just drop-dead gorgeous--you could eat some of these covers with a spoon). "Provocative, seductive, elegant women" is how McGinnis himself describes his favorite subject. Long-legged beauties are the focal point, and often almost the only element on the cover. And check out some of those expressions on some of those women. It's enough to make a old man itch and a young man faint..
  

• DENIS McLOUGHLIN
  (1918--)
  Unknown to most crime fiction readers in North America, British illustrator Denis McLoughlin is much beloved in the U.K. for his comic book work, but has only just begun to get some recognition for his excellent and powerful hard-boiled detective book covers. Bio-bibliographer David Ashford claims "In the history of British Illustration there is no one who can be reasonably compared to him. He does not fit anywhere into the British tradition...McLoughlin is simply the best."
  McLoughlin began his career as a professional artist in 1932, working on advertising and catalog art until 1940, when he was drafted into the army. During his war years, McLoughlin painted murals and portraits, acting as something of an unofficial regimental artist. He began his publishing career by providing cover art for paperback books, most notably over a hundred hardboiled covers for the publishing firm of T.V. Boardman from 1948 to 1967. He also produced about 550 monthly Bloodhound Detective Story Magazine covers, and hundreds of other pulp and book covers. He has a distinctive, hard-edged style that demonstrated his mastery of juxtaposing light and darkness, and the influence of the American pulps and True Detective-style magazines he collected during the 1930s.
  In addition to his cover art, he also began working in the comics field after the war, painting covers and drawing interiors for Boardman Books's comic wing (and, indeed His first story, based on Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn, was just the first of many comics that would deal with historical topics. He also did a series of adventures featuring a hard-boiled detective named Roy Carson, whose occupation seemed to slide back and forth between private detective, amateur sleuth and police officer, depending on the vagaries of the plotline. McLoughlin continued producing comics in the adventure, crime, science fiction, and western genres for years, and, in fact, as of 1998, was still cranking out Commando, a war comic.
  Look for: Lots of dramatic light and shadows, and strong, powerful lines, often rendered in black and white. Vaguely cartoonish at times. In fact, Francis Hertzberg's book about McLoughlin refers to him as "The Master of Light & Shade."
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  Works include:

• Lady, That's My Skull by Carl Shannon
  Pictured here. Despite the almost-cartoony exaggeration of this black-and-white cover, there's no denying the implicit sense of menace present in the shadows. A coloured rendition was used for Francis Hertzberg's bio/bibliography of McLoughlin.
• Tweak the Devil's Nose by Richard Deming
  Ho! What fun! What a babe! And then you notice, right under her friendly, "Here-they-are, boys!" breasts, how McLoughlin's worked in a crime scene.
• Murder Can Be Fun by Frederic Brown
  A gun with a silencer, a dossier, a Santa mask, all caught in a spotlight. Simple, but effective..
  

Related Link:

• Denis McLoughln Home Page
  Matthew Gore has a nice site devoted to McLoughlin's life and work. There are a few samples of McLoughlin's crime-novel and comic book work, and even a complete Roy Carson comic story.
  

• RAFAEL PALACIOS
  Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Palacios worked for American newspapers as an illustrator and translator of comic strips. In the mid-forties, he shared a studio with several other freelance artists and did a number of covers and endpapers for Bantam. His endpapers had a strong cartographic quality and served a similar purpose to Dell's mapbacks.
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  Works include:

• The Gift Horse by Frank Gruber (Bantam 2, 1945)
• The Fog Comes (Bantam 23, 1946) and Dead Center (Bantam 62, 1946) by Mary Collins
  

• BARYE PHILLIPS
  One of the cover artists for the early Fawcett Gold Medals, Phillips started doing paperback cover work in 1943, after working in the advertising department of Columbia Pictures in the early 40's. His work was much in demand, and he did covers for Avon, Bantam, Dell, Pocket Books, and Signet, although he is most remembered for his numerous Gold Medal covers, including some of the early Shell Scott's.
  His speed (he consistently turned out four finished paintings a week) and his ability to work in a variety of styles lead to his being referred to throughout the industry as "The King of the Paperbacks".
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  Works include:

• Case of the Vanishing Beauty by Richard Prather (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1950)
  Typical, even generic shot of a woman in distress, but very effective use of fog. Eerie. Later both the covers and the books got much sillier...
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Signet, 1958)
• The Big Caper by Lionel White (Frederick Muller Gold Award, 1961)
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• NORMAN SAUNDERS
  (1907-89)
  One of the most successful pulp artists of the century (and BOY! Could he do babes!), Saunders moved effortlessly from the pulps to paperback illustration. He was born in Minnesota, and took a mail-order art course, which eventually landed him a job at Fawcett Publications from 1928 to 1934. But he left there to go study art under Harvet Dunn at the Grand Central School of Art in New York, with dreams of becoming a freelancer. He succeeded. He had a sold rep for being able to do it all, do it all extremely well, and, even more important, doing it on time. He did westerns, mysteries, detective, sports (his baseball covers-- full of weird angles and offbeat perspectives-- are especially exciting) , weird menace and science fiction (under the name of Blaine). during his heyday, he routinely cranked out over a hundred paintings a year, all of great quality. After World War II, Saunders moved to the burgeoning paperback field, doing covers for Ace, Bantam, Dell, Ballantine, Lion and Popular Library.
  Saunders also worked for the Topps, creating the notorius Mars Attacks bubblegum card series, and Wacky Packs, which lasted through most of the seventies, and made millions for Topps.
  

• Related Link:

• normansaunders.com/
  A new website devoted to Norman Saunders, created by his son David. Includes countless covers for pulp detective magazines and currently the most complete checklist and archive of his work.
  

• ROBERT STANLEY
  By far the most prolific Dell artist -- besides Gerald Gregg -- was Robert Stanley. Stanley worked for Dell from 1950 to 1959 and his covers were a major component of the publisher's "look" of the fifties. Concentrating on mysteries and westerns, Stanley always produced covers with action (men fighting, cowboys riding, women threatening or being threatened). Most of the men on his covers he patterned after himself; his men are serious, stern, and usually fully clothed. He patterned most of his women after his wife Rhoda; they are alluring, menacing, terrified, and occasionally semi-nude. Stanley's daughter and father-in-law also stood in as models from time to time.
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  Works include:

• Michael Shayne's Long Chance by Brett Halliday ((Dell 866, 1955)
  Bob Stanley as Mike Shayne.
• The Long Escape (Dell 405, 1948), Plunder of the Sun (Dell 478, 1949), and The Red Tassel (Dell 565, 1950) by David Dodge
  Bob Stanley as Al Colby.
• Nightmare Town (Dell 379, 1950), A Man Called Spade (Dell 411, 1950), and Blood Money (Dell 486, 1951) by Dashiell Hammett
  Bob Stanley as Sam Spade.
• Fools Die on Friday by A.A. Fair (Dell 542, 1951)
  The only altered Dell cover -- a painting that appears in two different versions. The original is blatantly sexual; the revised cover (Dell 1542, 1953) is considerably tamer. The reason for the change is unknown. Either the hardcover publisher (Morrow) or the author (Erle Stanley Gardner) may have objected to the original.
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• Related Link:

• A Robert Stanley Cover Gallery
  This is a great site, with plenty of paperback covers, done by Thrilling Detective Web Site contributor Randal Brandt. Check it out!

RELATED LINKS

• Paperback Cover Art Illustration Display
  A great overview of some of the very best paperback artists, with selected samples of their work.
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• Collectible Paperbacks
  Gary Lovisi's intriguing and informative 1995 essay on collecting paperbacks is a nice overview and introduction, for those just starting out. Part of the Paperbacks, Pulps & Comics web site.
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• The Pulps, Paperbacks & Short Fiction
  Some suggested books for those interested in further reading. Part of our bibliography section.
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• The Thrilling Detective Mystery Links For Pulp and Paperback Collecting
  A handful of links to get you started. Yes, we'lll gladly accept other suggestions.

Thanks to Randal Brandt for his big helping hand with this one, including entries on Ruth Belew, Leo Manso, Rafael Palacios and Robert Stanley.