During the early to mid-1960s, publisher Dell assigned two American painters to create compelling cover artwork for Frank Kane’s then best-selling mystery series starring New York City private investigator Johnny Liddell. You can see Harry Bennett’s paperback fronts in this Killer Covers piece published a few months ago. Today we look—above and below—at Ron Lesser’s illustrations for 10 mostly different Liddell yarns.
Lesser’s wife of four decades, Claudia, posed for the covers of both Bare Trap (1965) and Hearse Class Male (1963). The artist adds that “the models for Fatal Undertaking were Lisa Karan”—previously seen on Blue Mascara Tears—“and Steve Holland. Lisa Karan also posed for Johnny Come Lately.”
3 comments:
Lisa Karan (I think that's the correct spelling) was a favorite model of Bob McGinnis also (e.g. The Venetian Blonde for Gold Medal).
Thanks for that spelling correction, Art.
And for everyone else, here's the cover in question, from A.S. Fleischman's The Venetian Blonde: https://killercoversoftheweek.blogspot.com/2016/02/mcginnis-at-90-venetian-blonde.html
Cheers,
Jeff
Lisa Karan was also a favorite model of several men's adventure magazine artists, especially Norm Eastman and Bruce Minney, and a pinup photo model. She sometimes went by the name Lisa Kamish in men's mag photos and in a couple of soft core porn movies. I've been trying to find out if she's still alive. I'd like to interview her for my MensPulpMags.com blog. Does anyone know if she's still around?
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