Oh No, Mitchell Hooks Is Gone

This is sad news, indeed. Canadian artist Leif Peng reports in his blog, Today’s Inspiration, that noted U.S. illustrator Mitchell Hillary Hooks--whose work has been showcased several times on this page--has died. I don’t see any obituaries online, but according to Wikipedia, Hooks perished on Monday, March 18, at age 89.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1923, Hooks was influenced early on by newspaper cartoon strips--Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9, and especially Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. “I’ve always had an affinity for anatomical drawing,” he later explained, “and, in retrospect, I can attribute my abilities to the long hours spent studying Raymond’s beautiful drawings.” After graduating from Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Hooks worked for General Motors, converting two-dimensional blueprints into three-dimensional drawings. Following a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II, he relocated to New York City, where he found opportunities in the commercial art field before winning magazine-illustrating assignments (from The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, etc.) and establishing a career painting artwork for paperback book jackets.

Over the years, I’ve collected a number of crime novels featuring Hooks’ work; in fact, I just ordered a copy of the 1963 Signet softcover edition of Wade Miller’s Guilty Bystander, because it boasts a beautiful Hooks cover (though I understand the story inside is also quite good). After hearing that the artist had died, I went through my scans of his book fronts and pulled out just a few of my favorites, which I am posting here. As far as I’m concerned, his talent cannot be celebrated frequently or fervently enough.

If you would like to learn more about Hooks and his career, I recommend digging up the posts Peng has written about this artist over the years. You should find them all by clicking here.

UPDATE: A short obituary for Mitchell H. Hooks has finally been posted here. It doesn’t tell much more than we already knew about his career or the circumstances of his having “died unexpectedly.” But this obit does correct the date of his death--March 18, not the previously listed March 17 (I’ve fixed that information above). And it reinforces the sense that Hooks was generous with his time and talents. “Inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1999,” the item reads, “his warm and unassuming manner encouraged many hopeful young artists who sought his inspiration. A fan remarked, ‘He was such an iconic figure in the golden age of illustration.’” Hooks will certainly be missed.

READ MORE: The James Bond-focused Web site MI6 notes that artist Mitchell Hooks gave the world [its] first look at a stylized Sean Connery as 007 on the 1962 Dr. No poster ...”

Full Steam Ahead

British author Andrew Martin, creator of the railroad-related Jim Stringer series of historical detective novels, has benefited from an attractive series of book jackets rolling out over the years. Steve Holland has now put together a galley of those covers here.

Rollin’ Out the Old Gold

An editor at Litro, the self-identified “little London literary magazine with a big worldview,” asked me recently to submit a selection of my 12 favorite vintage crime-novel covers. I hesitated to take the assignment, knowing that to pare my extensive collection down to a mere dozen choices was not going to be easy. Sure enough, in the end I left plenty of sacrificial carnage on my office floor in order to give the editor what she wanted. You’ll find those results here.

But since I know how to blog about covers myself, I am installing below the picks I didn’t have room for in Litro. Enjoy!

And to My Beloved Husband, by Philip Loraine (Pocket, 1953)
Artist: William Rose



The Butcher’s Wife, by Owen Cameron (Dell, 1956)
Artist: William Rose



Call Me Deadly, by Hal Braham (Graphic, 1957)
Artist: Walter Popp



Murder in Majorca, by Michael Bryan, (Dell, 1957)
(Bryan was a pseudonym used by Brian Moore.)
Artist: Unidentified



Let Them Eat Bullets, by Howard Schoenfeld (Gold Medal, 1959)
Artist: Barye Phillips



Bare Trap, by Frank Kane (Dell, 1960)
Artist: Harry Bennett


Solomon’s Vineyard, by Jonathan Latimer (Pan, 1961)
Artist: Sam “Peff” Peffer



Guilty Bystander, by Wade Miller (Signet, 1963)
Artist: Mitchell Hooks



Incidentally, my post about vintage covers is just one of several mystery- and crime-fiction-themed pieces appearing this month in the pages and on the Web site of Litro. A number of other free posts can be found here, including several short works of fiction worth reading when you find a spare moment or two.

Favor of the Months

Anyone who has kept up with this blog knows that one of my favorite paperback and pinup artists is Ernest “Darcy” Chiriacka. So, naturally, I noticed when Pulp International posted scans of Esquire magazine’s 1952 calendar, featuring “twelve luscious lovelies in full color,” all by Chiriacka himself. I presume that men who originally purchased copies of this “Esquire Girl” almanac (at 50¢ apiece!) flipped through its offerings regularly, and saved the work for later reference.

The Line on Hooks

This morning brings us the final segment of a five-post series in Today’s Inspiration, based around a 1988 Paperback Parade interview with noted American illustrator Mitchell Hooks. Over the course of these posts we hear about Hooks’ early days painting paperback covers, his favorite painting medium and his work with models, his fronts for a series of Ross Macdonald softcover reprints, some thoughts on his fellow artists, and much more. Blogger Leif Peng has peppered in plenty of Hooks’ art, so readers get a better sense of what the man accomplished over his three-decades-long career.

You can leap immediately to the full run of Peng’s posts at these locations: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.