Month of McGinnis: “The Dreadful Lemon Sky”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Dreadful Lemon Sky, by John D. MacDonald (Fawcett, 1975).

As Chris Ogle explains in his blog, John D. MacDonald Covers: “This was the Big One. John D MacDonald’s first best seller. This one put him on the map. The book was so popular that Fawcett redesigned every other JDM book in print to promote Lemon, each with the same Seventies-looking font for his name. Robert McGinnis again. Not his best effort ever, but probably one [of] his best known.”

Month of McGinnis: “Pop. 1280”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Pop. 1280, by Jim Thompson (Gold Medal, 1964).

READ MORE: “Urban Decay” (Pulp International).

Cover Affairs

Later today, in The Rap Sheet, I shall post the larger part of an e-mail interview I did recently with Art Scott, who wrote the text for the beautiful new book, The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan). During the course of our exchange, I asked him to identify his 10 favorite paperback covers by artist-illustrator McGinnis. He sent me 12, instead, beginning with one he says “has to be on everybody’s list!”

Brooks Wilson Ltd., by J.M. Ryan (Gold Medal, 1966). McGinnis’ full, fabulous wrap-around artwork is featured here.


Slab Happy, by Richard S. Prather (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1973); Bats Fly at Dusk, by Erle Stanley Gardner (1960).


Judith, by Brian Cleeve (Berkley, 1979); Oh Careless Love, by Maurice Zolotow (Avon, 1959).


The Savage Salome, by Carter Brown (Signet, 1961); Letters from Philippa, by Anne Graham Estern (Bantam Skylark, 1991).


On the Run, by John D. MacDonald (Fawcett, 1963); The Case of the Reluctant Model, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket 1963).


Don’t Speak to Strange Girls, by Harry Whittington (Gold Medal, 1963); Blood on Biscayne Bay, by Brett Halliday (Dell, 1960); below -- Backwoods Teaser, by Gil Brewer (Fawcett, 1960).

Doing Double Duty

If you think the illustration fronting the new book The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan), by Robert E. McGinnis and Art Scott, looks familiar … well, it ought to. That painting of a long-legged blonde seated, with her cigarette and an empty champagne glass, in front of an armed, confident-looking man with a drink was originally used on the 1960 Dell paperback Kill Now, Pay Later, by Robert Kyle (né Robert Terrall)--the third of his five novels featuring New York City private eye Ben Gates. Below, you’ll find that Eisenhower-era cover as well as a scan of McGinnis’ original artwork.





The two images below come from Hard Case Crime’s 2007 edition of Kill Now, Pay Later (this time featuring Terrall’s real name on the front). As in 1960, McGinnis created the artwork. A scan of his original painting for Hard Case is at the bottom of this post.

Month of McGinnis: “Nymph to the Slaughter”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Nymph to the Slaughter, by Carter Brown, né Alan G. Yates
(Signet, 1971).

Art Scott notes in The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan) that the Brown crime novels represented “a high point in McGinnis’ paperback career. He painted an even one hundred covers, from 1961 to 1972.” You can see other covers from the Carter Brown oeuvre--many featuring McGinnis’ artwork--by clicking here.

Month of McGinnis: Catch As Catch Can

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Above: Catch a Spy, edited by Marin Allen Karp (Popular Library, 1965). Below: Catch Me a Spy, by George Marton and Tibor Méray (Popular Library, 1969).

Month of McGinnis: For Better or for Worse?

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Above: The Burning Air, by Eugene Mirabelli (Popular Library Eagle, 1958). Below: The Damnation of Adam Blessing, by Vin Packer, aka Marijane Meaker (Gold Medal, 1961).

Month of McGinnis: “The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker,
by Otto Binder (Bantam, 1967).

While this paperback original certainly deserves points for being the first Marvel Comics novel adaptation, it hardly wins universal respect. One critic grouses that “this tale would’ve been dated the day it was published.” Others have noted that “though [the characters] Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were pictured on the excellent cover, painted by noted paperback cover artist Robert McGinnis, they did not appear in the book.” Oops.

Month of McGinnis: “A Choice of Assassins”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



A Choice of Assassins, by William P. McGivern (Bantam, 1964).

Month of McGinnis: “The Wow Factor”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Wow Factor, by Robert Terrall (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1970).

Month of McGinnis: “Assignment—Sorrento Siren”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Assignment—Sorrento Siren, by Edward S. Aarons
(Gold Medal, 1963).

Art Scott writes in his forthcoming book, The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan), that “McGinnis did a series of covers for the Sam Durell ‘Assignment’ spy series, beginning in the 1960s and ending in the mid-’70s. Most of the stories were set in foreign locales, allowing McGinnis to work interesting local color into the backdrops.”

Month of McGinnis: “Not Dead Yet”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Not Dead Yet, by Daniel Banko (Gold Medal, 1972). This was a finalist for the 1973 Edgar Award for Best Paperback. Banko published only one more novel, 1975’s Very Dry with a Twist. He died in 1987.

Month of McGinnis: “The Long Knife”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Long Knife, by Louis A. Brennan (Dell, 1960).

Month of McGinnis: “The Young Marrieds”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Young Marrieds, by Judith Heiman (Crest, 1962).

Month of McGinnis: “If the Shoe Fits”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



If the Shoe Fits, by “Lee Roberts,” aka Robert Martin
(Crest, 1960).

When he supplied me recently with a scan of If the Shoe Fits, Art Scott, co-author of the forthcoming work The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan), also sent along this note: “Years go, when putting together The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis [2001], Paul Langmuir (that book’s publisher and designer) and I noticed a gimmick that McGinnis often used. This is the first time he used it (1960); whether it was suggested by the book’s title, I have no idea. We called it the One Shoe Off gimmick (or motif, if you prefer). There are at least 24 One Shoe paperback covers, and it turns up in his magazine pieces, posters, and gallery nudes as well. You have already (unconsciously, I assume) selected two for the Month of McGinnis tribute [look for those here and here]. And of course the painting on the jacket of the new book (from Robert Kyle’s Kill Now, Pay Later) is another one.”

Without turning (too) obsessive about it, I managed to dig up another eight examples of this One Shoe Off motif from my collection of McGinnis book scans:

Spinning Around the Web

• “Peter Mendelsund estimates he’s designed ‘somewhere between 600 and 1,000 book covers,’ ranging from Crime and Punishment to [The] Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But the self-taught, sought-after designer says he spends a lot of time reading, too. ‘It’s always surprising to people when they come to my office or they walk by my door and they see me with my feet kicked up with a manuscript,’ he tells Fresh Air’s Dave Davies. ‘But I read constantly from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.’” You can listen to all of the interview with Mendelsund, who works for Alfred A. Knopf and Pantheon books, at the National Public Radio Web site. Also check out this other interview with him, from The New Yorker.

• Showcasing Penguin’s “A” to “Z” series of classic novels.

• I guess that when you really get down to it, modern book-cover design can be for the birds. Note these examples of the theme.

• The James Bond-oriented blog Artistic License Renewed talks briefly with artist Bill Botton, whose “work is most recognizable from John Gardner’s Bond novels Icebreaker and For Special Services, as well as Christopher Wood’s Bond screenplay novelizations The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker.”

• And ever since the first book jackets were created back in the 1830s, “with the sole purpose of protecting books during transport between the printer and the bookstore,” artists and designers have taken it as their charge to make them more beautiful. AbeBooks selects what it says are 30 of the best examples of the breed.

Month of McGinnis: “Killer’s Payoff”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Killer’s Payoff, by Ed McBain (Permabooks, 1962). McGinnis illustrated the fronts for a number of McBain paperbacks issued by Permabooks, including this one, this one, and this one.

Month of McGinnis: “The Wrong Ones”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



The Wrong Ones, by James McKimmey (Dell, 1961).

Art Scott, who is the co-author--with McGinnis--of the forthcoming book The Art of Robert E. McGinnis (Titan), remarks: “I love the design of The Wrong Ones. It’s one of the more imaginative solutions to the ‘how to integrate text with image’ problem. I’ve seen the original, and it’s stunning. And I wonder whether it was deliberate by McGinnis, or maybe subliminal, in that it serves as a tribute to turn-of-the-century illustrator Coles Phillips, whose signature gimmick was ‘The Fadeaway Girl.’”

See Legs

Most loyal readers of this blog won’t notice, but occasionally I go back and modify older Killer Covers posts. This is usually done because since I started working on the blog, I’ve learned some useful lessons about sizing and standardizing cover images.

Recently, for instance, I refined the layout of a post about Michael Gillette’s James Bond novel fronts. And just yesterday, I put the finishing touches on an expansion and reworking of the layout for a piece I wrote back in 2010 about the focus on shapely women’s legs in older paperbacks. Originally, that post contained 40 pieces of cover art; now it boasts a whopping 58, many of which I have only discovered in the four and a half years since I put what I thought were the finishing touches to that post.

If you’d like to see what I have done, click here.

Month of McGinnis: “Epitaph for a Tramp”

Part of a month-long celebration of Robert McGinnis’ book covers.



Epitaph for a Tramp, by David Markson (Dell, 1959). Two years later, Dell published a sequel, Epitaph for a Dead Beat, the front of which was also illustrated by McGinnis.