Dare to Judge This Book:
Some More Great Paperback Cover Artists

Phantom Lady by William Irish (Pocket Books 253, 1957)

ROBERT E. McGINNIS

One of the all-time greats, and a relatively late starter, Ohio born-and-bred Robert McGinnis (born 1926) has painted well over 1,500 paperback covers since the1950s. Although much of his work was published well after the heyday of the many of the other mass-market paperback artists mentioned here, McGinnis' style and subject matter certainly fit in. He's best known for his crime and mystery covers, and his unsurpassed depictions of glamourous, elegant women (no disrespect here, or anything, but some of these women were just drop-dead gorgeous--you could eat some of these covers with a spoon).
McGinnis has also painted a considerable number of covers for several other genres, including westerns, gothics, romance novels, historical novels and both movie and television tie-ins and a number of movie posters, including several James Bond flicks (which are not unknown to feature beautiful women). He even managed to get some of his work on covers by other artists: that's his portrait of Mike Shayne that was used as a logo in the upper right corner of all of those Shayne covers for Dell.

And there's good news for McGinnis' many, many fans. The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis, featuring a "vast selection" of McGinnis' work, was released in April 2001.

Look for: "Provocative, seductive, elegant women" is how McGinnis himself describes his favorite subject. Long-legged beauties are the focal point, and often almost the only element on the cover. And check out some of those expressions on some of those women. It's enough to make a old man itch and a young man faint.

Works include:

Related Links

Also:

DENIS McLOUGHLIN
(1918--)

Unknown to most crime fiction readers in North America, British illustrator Denis McLoughlin is much beloved in the U.K. for his comic book work, but has only just begun to get some recognition for his excellent and powerful hard-boiled detective book covers. Bio-bibliographer David Ashford claims "In the history of British Illustration there is no one who can be reasonably compared to him. He does not fit anywhere into the British tradition...McLoughlin is simply the best."

McLoughlin began his career as a professional artist in 1932, working on advertising and catalog art until 1940, when he was drafted into the army. During his war years, McLoughlin painted murals and portraits, acting as something of an unofficial regimental artist. He began his publishing career by providing cover art for paperback books, most notably over a hundred hardboiled covers for the publishing firm of T.V. Boardman from 1948 to 1967. He also produced about 550 monthly Bloodhound Detective Story Magazine covers, and hundreds of other pulp and book covers. He has a distinctive, hard-edged style that demonstrated his mastery of juxtaposing light and darkness, and the influence of the American pulps and True Detective-style magazines he collected during the 1930s.
In addition to his cover art, he also began working in the comics field after the war, painting covers and drawing interiors for Boardman Books's comic wing (and, indeed His first story, based on Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn, was just the first of many comics that would deal with historical topics. He also did a series of adventures featuring a hard-boiled detective named Roy Carson, whose occupation seemed to slide back and forth between private detective, amateur sleuth and police officer, depending on the vagaries of the plotline. McLoughlin continued producing comics in the adventure, crime, science fiction, and western genres for years, and, in fact, as of 1998, was still cranking out Commando, a war comic.

Look for: Lots of dramatic light and shadows, and strong, powerful lines, often rendered in black and white. Vaguely cartoonish at times. In fact, Francis Hertzberg's book about McLoughlin refers to him as "The Master of Light & Shade."

Works include

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RAFAEL PALACIOS

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Palacios worked for American newspapers as an illustrator and translator of comic strips. In the mid-forties, he shared a studio with several other freelance artists and did a number of covers and endpapers for Bantam. His endpapers had a strong cartographic quality and served a similar purpose to Dell's mapbacks.

Works include:

BARYE PHILLIPS

One of the cover artists for the early Fawcett Gold Medals, Phillips started doing paperback cover work in 1943, after working in the advertising department of Columbia Pictures in the early 40's. His work was much in demand, and he did covers for Avon, Bantam, Dell, Pocket Books, and Signet, although he is most remembered for his numerous Gold Medal covers, including some of the early Shell Scott's.
His speed (he consistently turned out four finished paintings a week) and his ability to work in a variety of styles lead to his being referred to throughout the industry as "The King of the Paperbacks".

Works include:

NORMAN SAUNDERS
(1907-89)

One of the most successful pulp artists of the century (and BOY! Could he do babes!), Saunders moved effortlessly from the pulps to paperback illustration. He was born in Minnesota, and took a mail-order art course, which eventually landed him a job at Fawcett Publications from 1928 to 1934. But he left there to go study art under Harvet Dunn at the Grand Central School of Art in New York, with dreams of becoming a freelancer. He succeeded. He had a sold rep for being able to do it all, do it all extremely well, and, even more important, doing it on time. He did westerns, mysteries, detective, sports (his baseball covers-- full of weird angles and offbeat perspectives-- are especially exciting) , weird menace and science fiction (under the name of Blaine). during his heyday, he routinely cranked out over a hundred paintings a year, all of great quality. After World War II, Saunders moved to the burgeoning paperback field, doing covers for Ace, Bantam, Dell, Ballantine, Lion and Popular Library.

Saunders also worked for the Topps, creating the notorius Mars Attacks bubblegum card series, and Wacky Packs, which lasted through most of the seventies, and made millions for Topps.

Related Link:

OWEN SMITH

Who says they don't do 'em like they used to? Long before Hard Case Crime made it safe for pulp cover art, again San Francisco fine artist and illustrator Owen Smith was keeping the flame alive.

I've been a fan of Smith and his pulpy cover illustrations for books and magazines for a long time, ever since I first noticed his work on the cover of The Low End of Nowhere, a novel by Michael Stone featuring his hard-ass Denver bounty hunter and sometime private eye Streeter.

Smith's work subsequently appeared on a few other Streeter novels, but then I began to notice his work -- he has a very distinctive style -- popping up all over the place. An Aimee Man album cover (for which he won a Grammy). Maureeen Dowd's Are Men Really Necessary?. Numerous magazine covers, including The New Yorker and, I think, Sports Illustrated.

Owen's illustrative work is a marvel of swirling, pulpish impressionism that harkens back to the days of public works programs and working class murals as much as it does pulp magazines. It's not really "realistic," but it's vibrant and muscular and there's a throbbing, almost disturbing visceral energy about the way he portrays the people in his paintings. There are no wimps or pretty people in his work -- everyone's built like a bruised brick shithouse.

Notable Works include

ROBERT STANLEY

By far the most prolific Dell artist -- next to Gerald Gregg -- was Robert Stanley. Stanley worked for Dell from 1950 to 1959 and his covers were a major component of the publisher's "look" of the fifties. Concentrating on mysteries and westerns, Stanley always produced covers with action (men fighting, cowboys riding, women threatening or being threatened). Most of the men on his covers he patterned after himself; his men are serious, stern, and usually fully clothed. He patterned most of his women after his wife Rhoda; they are alluring, menacing, terrified, and occasionally semi-nude. Stanley's daughter and father-in-law also stood in as models from time to time.

Works include:

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OTHER RELATED COVER ART LINKS

Thanks to Randal Brandt for his big helping hand with this one, including entries on Ruth Belew, Leo Manso, Rafael Palacios and Robert Stanley. And to Mark M. Reid for his eagle eye.

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