A Bit of This, a Bit of That

• Before we venture too deep into 2020, let’s look back for a moment at 2019’s “best” book covers, as judged by the sites Literary Hub, Spine, and The Casual Optimist. What do you think?

• Hah! Just as we thought all along: “Why Do So Many Book Covers Look the Same? Blame Getty Images.”

• “When it comes to book covers,” grouses James Davis Nicoll of the science-fiction site Tor.com, “sales departments have often had more clout than the poor beleaguered author. Covers are designed to catch the eye and spur sales; any resemblance to what is actually in the book may be coincidental. … It would be easy (like shooting fish in a barrel) to offer examples of hilariously inappropriate cover art from the days of my youth. I could eke a compelling essay out of the covers that forced me to explain (yet again) to my teachers that no, I had not brought pornography to school. I’ve decided to take the high road: Here are five covers that delivered exactly what they promised (even if that might seem unlikely …).”

• The fine James Bond-oriented blog Artistic License Renewed conducts an interview Michael Gillette, the San Francisco-based artist “who created a beautiful set of officially licensed James Bond book covers for the Ian Fleming Centenary in 2008.”

• That same page recalls the typography on early editions of Ian Fleming’s Bond tales, published in the UK by Jonathan Cape.

• Since its inception back in December 2018, The Stiletto Gumshoe blog has become a favorite of mine. Partly because its anonymous author seems to share my fascination with book-cover illustrations. Recently, he (or she) introduced me to Bertil Hegland (1925-2002), “a Swedish illustrator known in the Scandinavian market for popular children and teen book series covers—including the Nancy Drew series (apparently called ‘Kitty’)—as well as hard-boiled mystery and crime fiction covers.” The blog has so far posted two compilations of Hegland’s arresting work, which you’ll find here and here.

• By the way, if you’d like to enjoy more Hegland fronts, check out this small gallery in Pulp International and these pages showing his efforts on behalf of John D. MacDonald.

• Finally, let me say a slightly tardy good-bye to Minnesota-born industrial designer and visionary artist Syd Mead, who passed away on December 30. As The Architect’s Newspaper explains, “Mead began his career in the late 1950s and early ’60s at Ford Motor Company before going on to create designs and illustrations for brands like U.S. Steel, Phillips, Sony, and others, including architecture firms. He is perhaps best known, however, for his enduring, iconic designs on sci-fi films like Tron, Star Trek, Alien, and most famously, Blade Runner. His elaborate cars, spaceships, robotic suits, and cities—all hand-drawn and colored—presented futures that were utopian and dystopian at the same time, sleek and gritty, fantastical and real. As he told Curbed in a 2015 interview: ‘I painted architecture as a visual romance.’” Mead died at 86 years of age, reportedly from complications from lymphoma cancer.

If Only I Read German …

Hurrah! Artist Michael Gillette, who created such beautiful covers for Penguin UK’s 2008 centenary editions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, and who recently brought forth new artwork for German editions of John Gardner’s 14 original Bond continuation tales, has a couple more of those Gardner Bonds on the way. Click here to see his seductive fronts for No Deals, Mr. Bond and Scorpius.

Fetching Flemings

I spent this last weekend on a mini-vacation to Victoria, British Columbia, a quite beautiful and historic small Canadian city located just a few hours north of Seattle, on Vancouver Island. During my time there, I was introduced to Chronicles of Crime, a mystery-fiction bookstore on Fort Street that’s a treasure trove of used and vintage paperback novels--some with covers that are destined to show up on this page in the future. And of course I made a pilgrimage to Russell Books, a double-level, warehouse-like joint (also on Fort) that’s packed, floor to ceiling, with new and previously owned titles. (Amazingly, I walked out of Russell’s with only one book--and that one non-fiction, not even a crime novel.)

However, I also visited the local Chapters chain outlet and Munro’s Books, on Government Street, one of my favorite independent bookshops. It was at those latter two stores that I came across paperback copies of Penguin UK’s 2008 re-releases of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. These are the editions sporting Michael Gillette’s amazing cover illustrations, all built around curvaceous young women. Although it was never released in the States, I have been collecting this set of 14 books over the last few years in trade paperback format. Yes, I already own another full set of Fleming’s 007 novels, but it doesn’t compare with these eye-catching Gillette editions.

I wrote about Penguin’s Fleming re-releases in The Rap Sheet four years ago. Yet I haven’t ever featured all of Gillette’s covers in one of my blogs. So I am going to do so here, if only to remind myself that I need to pick up the works still missing from my collection.

Click on any of the covers in this post for an enlargement.













READ MORE: “Bond Babes Invade Berlin,” by J. Kingston Pierce
(The Rap Sheet).