Saturday, April 1, 2017

Tow-Headed Teases and Troublemakers


The Black-Eyed Blonde, 1944. Illustration by Reginald Heade.

My recent post on this page about the 1963 paperback edition of Atomic Blonde, by Monte Steele, reminded me that I have long thought to update a piece I put together back in 2010, focusing on assorted book fronts featuring blondes—particularly of the more nefarious female sort. When I originally assembled that gallery, I had 38 covers in my files to showcase, but since then, I have come across many more, painted by such familiar talents as Robert Bonfils, Ernest Chiriacka (aka Darcy), Robert Maguire, Denis McLoughlin, Mort Engel, Reginald Heade, Barye Phillips, Victor Kalin, Robert Stanley, Paul Rader, Robert K. Abbett, and Rudy Nappi.

Over the last few years, I’ve gone back to enlarge this blog’s collections of “kiss covers” and “leggy covers,” as well as those highlighting summer, suburban sin, and nymphs. It’s been a real treat to revisit themes from Killer Covers’ past, and to bring the formatting of older posts into accordance with my present preferences. Today, I am rolling out a much-expanded selection of books that include the word “blonde” in their titles. From the 38 such façades I called attention to in 2010, I have now boosted the offerings to 90 works, all of which you can enjoy by clicking here.

1 comment:

Art Scott said...

A while back you highlighted a website featuring Heade's art. Even better, a new, gorgeous and definitive book, The Art of Reginald Heade by Stephen James Walker, has been published by Telos in the UK. Difficult to get a copy in the US, Amazon doesn't have it, but it should be available here from specialty dealers (DreamHaven and Bud Plant had it at the LA Paperback Show).