Friday, November 20, 2015

Friday Finds: “The Diamond Boomerang”

Another in our growing line of vintage book covers we love.

The Diamond Boomerang, by Lester S. Taube (Pocket, 1970).
Illustration by Robert Foster.


From what I can tell by searching the Web, this novel was originally released in 1969 by British publisher W.H. Allen under the title The Grabbers. Its author, Lester S. Taube (1920-2013), was born in Trenton, New Jersey, to Russian and Lithuanian parents. During his teens he joined the U.S. military, and in World War II fought with the Marines on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Following that war, Taube ran an electronics company in California, then a paper stock enterprise in Pennsylvania, and eventually a logging operation in Canada. He went back to serve as a military adviser and intelligence officer during the Korean War, and ended his armed forces career amid the chaos of the Vietnam War, when he found himself stationed in Europe as “a general staff officer working in intelligence and war plans.”

(Right) A much less attractive, 1970 UK edition of Taube’s novel.

Settling once more into civilian life, this time in France, Taube apparently opened a “chain of coin-operated laundries … that would become the largest in Europe.” It was during this later period of his life that he started penning fiction, ultimately putting his name to eight novels, the last of which was The Grabbers, described on what looks like the official Taube Web site as “a diamond theft thriller.” Here’s a brief plot account:
Dan Baldwin, an ex-colonel whose life has crashed, is rescued from a gutter in North Africa and finds himself elected at gunpoint to the company of a purposeful trio about to raid the secret diamond field of a relentless south-west African cartel. He contrives to locate the diamonds, and, for his pains, is left for dead by the gang’s treacherous leader, who has conspired to secure the entire illicit haul for himself.

The furious climax is reached in London, where Dan, after a tempestuous clash and torrid love affair with the beautiful, blonde Ingrid Talaanger, daughter of the diamond cartel’s head, discovers that for all his violence and cynicism, he can again love a woman devotedly and be changed by her.
Apparently, the lithe, topless lovely depicted on the 1970 cover of the retitled Diamond Boomerang is not Ingrid, for the hue of her hair is all wrong. Nonetheless, the illustration certainly suggests that the adventure inside is fraught with risk and possible romance, all set against a territory made foreign by the endeavors and ethics of its inhabitants as much as by its natural environment. The painting is credited to Robert Foster, an accomplished (but now largely forgotten) artist who, after working during the mid-20th century as a popular instructor at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, relocated to the East Coast. He taught for a while with the Famous Artists School Correspondence Course in Connecticut, hoping to build up a portfolio that would gain him entry into the illustration market in New York City. As Tom Watson, a now-retired West Coast illustrator, art director and educator, who studied under Foster in San Francisco, recalls in this 2010 piece for the blog Today’s Inspiration,
[Foster’s] original intent was to break into the magazine illustration field, where the spotlight of modern illustration had been centered throughout the 1950s, but that market was starting to shrivel and gave less opportunity for the new guy in town. So he found a lucrative niche illustrating mostly pocket book covers for the major publishers and had built a substantial reputation, particularly in the science-fiction market.

Frederik Pohl was a well known sci-fi writer at the time and Bob did many illustrations for the covers of his books. One of his crowning achievements was a series of the first four covers for John Norman’s famous (sci-fi) “Gor” series. He illustrated the covers for other well-known writers of the day, such as Doris Lessing, Paul Gallico (
The Poseidon Adventure) and Somerset Maugham, to name a few. …

Depending on the subject, his illustrations varied in their degree of realism, and some were rendered quite painterly. He was one of the very few successful sci-fi illustrators who used a unique surrealistic technique, ideal for that market. He used his anatomical knowledge to depict and render accurate human form, and blended innovative elements and backgrounds reminiscent of surrealism in a dramatic theatrical setting. Bob’s illustrations were carefully designed, positioning his figures and props to visually flow together, and to contrast and complement each other. In several examples, he extracted shapes and forms from small watch parts, gears, wheels, etc., enlarging and altering them for unique background props.
Watson’s multi-installment recollection of his time with Robert “Just Call Me Bob” Foster is well worth reading, if you’re at all interested in this artist. Follow these links to find his complete series: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV. Watson notes, amid his memories of the illustrator’s three-piece suits and use of his students as studio models, that Foster “passed away of a heart attack in 1977, at the age of 49, after having progressively poor health.”

I don’t usually provide, in these “Friday Finds” posts, galleries of work by the principal artists under consideration. But I am quite struck by Foster’s exceptional talent. So below, you’ll find 13 of the paperback fronts he created during his career. These include his off-kilter cover for The Dakota Project (1971, which like other of his covers, features the model Steve Holland), the stunning back and front images he created for the 1970 Avon edition of Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, his artwork for Dell’s 1972 paperback release of The Poseidon Adventure (a copy of which I happen to have in my own library), and his illustration for 1969’s Muscavado, a West Indies slave revolt tale touted in its time as “more explosive than Mandingo,” Kyle Onstott’s rather racy novel of the antebellum South (later turned into a movie of the same title).

Click on any of these images to open an enlargement.















Obviously, Robert Foster is an artist who deserves much greater recognition than he has received in recent years.

READ MORE:Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Art of Robert Foster, Part I” and “Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Art of Robert Foster, Part II,” by Joachim Boaz (Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations).

4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

I've certainly seen that brilliant BEHOLD THE MAN cover before, and perhaps a few of the others...wow, though, 49 starts to feel very young indeed as I continue to grinf past that age.

MannyLunch said...

I'm a big fan of these classic 50-70s fantasy/sci-fi cover artists: Powers, Krenkel, Jeff Jones, Frazetta, and Steranko. I also like some work by Gaughan, Freas, Morrow, and very rarely Emsh.

Imagine this fan's shock when I came across two of the Gor book editions from the late '60s - Outlaw Of Gor and Priest-Kings of Gor - that made me think Steranko had started his paperbacks cover painting career earlier than 69-70! Same approach to skin tone/musculature contrast coloring, same compositional collage sense - look at Steranko's Infinity One cover, for instance. (My comments of comparison DO NOT include the work Steranko did for The Shadow covers, a different style altogether from his other painted work).
I brought some Foster covers to a convention and spoke to Jim about Foster: he knew of him very well, and said the various art directors would be pissed to have the mixed-medium collage/paintings brought in, as they were paying him to PAINT and not cheat by pasting in images. HAH! Those poor jokers-in-charge didn't get it at all ...But Jim did stop short of acknowledging any undue influence

MannyLunch said...

I now have over 50 books with covers by Robert Foster - most have no credit inside, or signature outside, but my eye, which I trust, has spotted these while i go through stacks at vintage book emporiums - the only ones I have doubts about are the two covers for the Ballantine-Piers Anthony books

His Name Is ...Savage #1 [cover painting for 1968 b&w comic magazine; Adventure House Press/Gil Kane,]

Mr. Christopoulos - Charity Blackstock [Ballantine u2129]
False Witness - Helen Nielsen [Ballantine u2150]
The Love Department - William Trevor [Ballantine u6130]
Davy - Edgar Pangborn [Ballantine u6018]
The Main Experiment - Christopher Hodder-Williams [Ballantine u6049]

The Squares Of The City - John Brunner [Ballantine u6035]
Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey [Ballantine u6124]
Light A Last Candle - Vincent King [Ballantine 01654]

Omnivore - Piers Anthony [Ballantine 72014]
Cthon - Piers Anthony [Ballantine U6107]

Thorns - Robert Silverberg [Ballantine u6097]
The Masks Of Time - Robert Silverberg [Ballantine u6121]

Tarnsman Of Gor - John Norman [Ballantine u6071]
Outlaw Of Gor - John Norman [Ballantine u6072]
Priest-Kings Of Gor - John Norman [Ballantine 72015]
Nomads Of Gor - John Norman [Ballantine 01765]

The Age Of The Pussyfoot - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01732]
Drunkard's Walk - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01743]
Slave Ship - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01744]
A Plague Of Pythons - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01745]
Tomorrow Times Seven - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01746]
Turn Left At Thursday - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01747]
The Abominable Earthman - Frederik Pohl [Ballantine 01748]

A Man And Two Women - Doris Lessing [Ballantine u6032]
In Pursuit Of The English - Doris Lessing [Ballantine u5047]
The Habit Of Loving - Doris Lessing [Ballantine u5020]

The Dakota Project - Jack Beeching [Dell 1711]
A Wilderness Of Stars - William F Nolan, ed [Dell 9582]
The Burning - James E Gunn [Dell 00861]
The Poseidon Adventure - Paul Gallico [Dell 7006] 1st printing ONLY!!
Muscavado - Eleanor Heckert [Dell 6155]
Daughters Of Earth - Judith Merril [Dell 1705]
The Human Zoo - Desmond Morris [Dell 3913]
Generation - David Gerrold, ed [Dell 2833]
Alternities - David Gerrold, ed [Dell 3195]
Mythmaster - Leo P Kelley [Dell 6216]
Retief: Emmisary To The Stars - Keith Laumer [Dell 7425]
The Beastly Beatitudes Of Balthazar B - John P Donleavy [Dell 0471]

Imaginary Friends - Alison Lurie [Avon n191]
Something Evil - Arthur Hoffe [Avon s368]
Ring Of Violence - Douglas R Mason [Avon s399]
Watch The Northwind Rise - Robert Graves [Avon v2296]
Behold The Man - Michael Moorcock [Avon v2333]

New Writings In SF4 - John Carnell, ed [Bantam f3763]
Theatre (aka Woman Of The World) - W Somerset Maugham [Bantam f2822]
The Female Man - Joanna Russ [Bantam 11175, 1978]

The Diamond Boomerang - Lester S Taube [Pocket Books 75450]
The Narrow Corner - W Somerset Maugham [Pocket Books 75336]
Over The Edge: Stories From Somewhere Else - Harlan Ellison [Belmont Tower (BT) 50282]
Sexmax - Hughes Cooper [Paperback Library 64-174]
Taurus Four - Rena Vale [Paperback Library 63-253]
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Pedlock & Sons - Stephen Longstreet [Delacourte Press, HC]

Christian Moore said...

Hi my name is Christian Moore I worked with Bob from 67 to 75 we did about 360 covers & 4 movie posters & a few notional ads. Bob was my best man at my 1st. Wedding. He was supper talented great imagination & learned a lot from him.miss him