Casting a Wide Net for Links

• Raymond Johnson’s art featured regularly on mid-20th-century paperback covers, particularly those in the crime- and science-fiction categories. I’ve showcased Johnson’s paintings a number of times in Killer Covers, but have always been curious to know more about the artist himself. So I was excited to hear that Rubén “DaCollector” Azcona, a regular contributor to the private Today’s Inspiration Facebook Group page, would be conducting a YouTube interview with Lowell Wilson, author of a beautiful new feature in Illustration Magazine about Johnson. Their exchange can now be seen here in its 2.5-hour entirety. Wilson shares myriad examples of Johnson’s work, some of which graced more than one paperback front, and a few I didn’t know were done by Johnson. Promptly after watching this interview, I ordered a copy of the Illustration Magazine (#77) in which Wilson’s profile appears. How could I pass it up?

• I love it when the blog Pulp International delivers its irregular cover-theme posts. The latest one collects “vintage paperback covers featuring characters on both the giving and receiving ends of knives—or knifelike tools such as icepicks.”

• Speaking of art themes, Paperback Palette blogger Jeff Christoffersen looks back here at artist Rudy Nappi’s many Nancy Drew (ND) covers. As he explains, “In 1952, Rudy Nappi was assigned by publisher Grosset & Dunlap to create cover art for their original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. He concluded his stint in 1979 with what is considered to be the final volume in the original series, volume 56. … Nappi tried to honor the original existing cover art wherever he could, while also updating Nancy’s look as per his publisher’s instructions. Eventually, he followed his own instincts, and his wife’s, who actually read the books on his behalf, composing new scenes for some titles, and on others actual montages, a first for the series. Nappi painted most of these with gouache on board. Along a similar vein, and coinciding with the ND’s, Nappi produced more than 58 of the original Hardy Boys series covers for the same publisher.”

• For the blog Kevin’s Corner, author James R. Benn relates some of the history behind the covers featured on his World War II-era Billy Boyle books, including the 17th and latest installment, From the Shadows, due out next month from Soho Crime.

• Here’s another good reason to go on living! Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle, who have already published handsomely illustrated volumes about artists Samson Pollen and Mort Künstler, are preparing to release a new book focused on Brooklyn-born painter George Gross (1909-2003). Gross, writes Deis, “was one of the greatest of the many great illustration artists who created cover and interior illustrations for the men’s adventure magazines … In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Gross was also a top cover artist for paperbacks.” The authors debuted George Gross: Covered at the recent PulpFest in Pittsburgh, but haven’t yet made it available on Amazon, Book Depository, or other sales sites. Deis says he’ll post a preview of the work in his blog soon. Watch for it!

• Finally, Michael Stradford, the man behind Steve Holland: The World’s Greatest Illustration Art Model and Steve Holland: Cowboy, reminds us that not only did Holland serve as the model for “Doc Savage, The Spider, The Phantom, The Avenger, countless cowboys and other iconic fiction characters,” but he was also cast as “television’s first ‘Flash Gordon.’” Holland, of course, filled the boots of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond’s space adventurer in the DuMont Network’s 1954-1955 series Flash Gordon. If you’ve never seen any of that show’s 39 half-hour episodes, you’re in luck: Stradford has embedded a colorized example in his post here.

Just the Right Touch?

The Golden Touch, by Al Dewlen (Popular Library, 1959).
Cover art by Stanley Zuckerberg.

So this is how Killer Covers themed posts occasionally germinate: I was listening the other day to a National Public Radio broadcast, and this commentator came on to discuss the many downsides of our world’s present COVID-19 pandemic. One of the things she said she has missed most over the last year is touch—just the innocent, reflexive ability to reach out and touch somebody she knows, to make that common tactile contact. The coronavirus scourge, she observed, has stopped us from shaking hands, stopped us from patting each other on the back, taught us not to move too close to our fellow human beings, lest we contract or pass along the virus. In our efforts to save one another, she lamented, we have lost this valuable connection with each other.

She had a point, of course, and one that I’d heard expressed previously, if not as avidly. And it got me to thinking—but not about the gentle fingering of mortal flesh; rather, it reminded me that I had recently noticed more than one book cover, in my computer’s files, featuring the word “touch” in its title.

As it transpired, I found many more than one example. In addition to Stanley Zuckerberg’s cover—above—you will find fronts here illustrated by the likes of Saul Tepper (A Touch of Death, 1954, below and left), Rafael DeSoto (the gold cover from Don’t Touch Me, 1958), Paul Rader (1962’s Touch Me Gently and 1963’s The Cruel Touch), Robert Maguire (Touch Me Not, 1959), Rudy Nappi (A Touch of Depravity, 1960), Victor Kalin (Soft Touch, 1958), and Richard Cuffari (A Touch of Glory, 1964).

If you are aware of any other examples of vintage “touch” covers, I invite you to … well, get in touch.

FOLLOW-UP: Art Scott, the co-author of 2014’s The Art of Robert E. McGinnis, draws my attention to three additional “Touch” paperback covers, all of them carrying McGinnis artwork (and two of which have previously appeared on this page): A Touch of the Dragon, by Hamilton Basso (Popular Library, 1964); The Limbo Touch, by Jack Weeks (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1968); and an alternative front for MacDonald’s Soft Touch (Dell, 1962).

Another Look: “The Deadly Pick-up”

Warning: Artistic inspiration drawn from book titles may vary.



Left: The Deadly Pick-up, by Milton K. Ozaki (Graphic, 1954); cover illustrator unknown. Right: The Deadly Pick-up, by Milton K. Ozaki (Berkley Diamond, 1960); cover art by Rudy Nappi.

Pay Attention, Big Boy!

(Above) The First Quarry, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime, 2008), with cover artwork by Ken Laager. (Below, right) The Art Studio Murders, by Edward S. Aarons (MacFadden, 1964),
featuring an illustration by Robert K. Abbett.

Sexual seduction sells. Just ask the producers of TV commercials, or the editors of Playboy, or even the authors of myriad young-adult novels who have discovered they can boost their readership by filling plots with toothsome vampires. Book-cover designers are equally well-versed in the power of sensual temptation. That’s been especially true of those responsible for paperback cover art. From the early era of paperback books, publishers have understood that sales can be boosted if they decorate their façades with shapely legs, or smoothly rounded breasts, or—best of all—scenes in which one lightly clad individual seeks to inveigle another into carnal congress.

Nine years ago, in the diapered days of The Rap Sheet, I sought to make this point with a post showcasing sexy vintage paperback fronts. At the time, Hard Case Crime was preparing to release Max Allan Collins’ The First Quarry, the earliest of what will now soon be seven prequels to his original, 1976-1987 series starring a hard-boiled contract killer known only as Quarry. (The new Quarry’s Climax is due out this coming October.) I opened my 2008 Rap Sheet post with some brief remarks about Ken Laager’s cover art for Collins’ novel—embedded above—and noted that its concept followed a tried-and-true pattern. “[It] shows a man seated on a couch (presumably the aforementioned assassin), holding what looks to be a gun,” I wrote, “while a curvaceous brunette stands in front of him, quietly but seductively removing her brassiere—though he seems too involved in whatever he’s thinking to notice. This sort of cover illustration—of a sexy female with her back turned to the book buyer, displaying her virtues to some man … who is either surprised or distracted by other matters—has become something of a standard.” I then went on to feature eight examples of similar covers.

In the years since, I have amassed many more such paperback fronts. I always had it in mind to elaborate on my original Rap Sheet post, but only this week did I find time enough to edit that collection. Below you will find more than 110 covers on which women bare or prepare to bare their assets to men (and occasionally other women), either voluntarily or not, and with varying responses. This artwork was drawn from the Web and other sources, but I owe particular debts to novelist Bill Crider, in whose fine blog you’ll find older paperback covers posted every day, and Art Scott, co-author of The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (2014), who—while we were both attending last year’s Bouchercon in New Orleans—handed me a USB flash drive containing hundreds of paperback fronts on which women appear in states of dishabille. (I’m still looking for other ways to bring the rest of those images to the attention of Killer Covers followers.)

Among the artists represented in this gallery are McGinnis, of course, but also Harry Schaare, Charles Binger, George Ziel, Paul Rader, Robert Maguire, Mort Engel, Rudy Nappi, Carl Bobertz, Barye Phillips, Fred Fixler, Tom Miller, Ernest Chiriacka (aka Darcy), Everett Kinstler, Edward Mortelmans, Mitchell Hooks, Ron Lesser, Raymond Johnson, James Meese, Charles Copeland, Robert Stanley, George Gross, Harry Barton, Darrell Greene, Jerome Podwill, and Stanley Borack.

Click on any of the covers here to open an enlargement.

Additionally, there’s a subcategory of similar covers on which women pose in the altogether for (at least mostly) artistic purposes. One of my favorites among these is the 1968 Fontana Books edition of Shabby Tiger, by Howard Spring (shown at the bottom left of this set), with a cover illustration by Italian painter Renato Fratini. You can enjoy Fratini’s original art for that paperback here.




















Twentieth-century magazine editors, seeing how successful paperback publishers had been with this style of artwork, tried it themselves. Below and on the left is the cover from the July 1954 edition of Manhunt; while beside it is embedded the front from the November 1956 issue. Sadly, I don’t know who painted either piece.