SF Cover Art

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Flowering Bodies of Attilio Uzzo

/ Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments
  • Attilio Uzzo’s cover for the 1973 edition of Michael Moorcock’s The Ice Schooner (1969) (Galassia 163)

If you’ve ever browsed through an Italian SF catalogue, the name that springs out immediately is the fantastic Dutch painter Karel Thole (1914-2000). Thole’s surreal (and often stunning) covers dominated the Italian visual SF landscape for years and even appeared on a handful of American editions. However, the main Italian SF press Casa Editrice La Tribuna (with its Galassia series) frequently commissioned new artists, often fresh out of art school, for short runs of covers.

Galassia played an instrumental role in introducing Italian audiences to the New Wave movement. Issues often contained both translations of English-language authors and original Italian short stories and novels. Italian covers were often on the experimental side of the SF art spectrum. The styles changed on a dime. Cover art produced in Italy might be my second favorite after the United States for the 60s/70s.

Milan-based Italian artist, sculptor, and jeweler, Attilio Uzzo (unknown dates) created five covers for the Italian SF magazine Galassia (issues between -#176) in 1972. According to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database‘s (potentially incomplete) credits, Uzzo created two additional covers for Casa Editrice La Tribuna‘s Science Fiction Book Club series and one for Dall’Oglio’s SF Andromeda imprint. I’ve included all eight in this post. I could find little about him online. He has an old, and not very helpful, website with a few low-resolution examples of his art and jewelry. And here is a short video about a 1964 gallery exhibit in Milan with Uzzo’s work. In 1992, a book of his art title Attilio Uzzo: Pittore della Lealtà hit print. If anyone can find more information about him, let me know!

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Adventures in Science Fiction Art: Rodger B. MacGowan’s Approachable New Wave Art, Part I

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments
  • MacGowan’s illustrations for Neil Shapiro’s “Starman of Faraway Station” in Vertex (July 1975)

Rodger B. MacGowan (1948-2025), best known for his wargame art and design, passed away yesterday.1 Most of the memorial posts I’ve seen on social media focus on his later career paths in the board-gaming world. Thus, I thought it would be worthwhile to narrow in on his contribution to science fiction art. After graduating UCLA, where he studied art, motion pictures, and graphic design, MacGowan found work at an advertising agency and an opportunity to create art for one of their accounts, the short-lived Vertex science fiction magazine.2

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Mariella Anderlini’s Covers for Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber (Corwin) sequence

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments
  • Cover art detail by Allison (aka Mariella Anderlini) for the 1979 Italian edition of Roger Zelazny’s The Guns of Avalon (1972)

On twitter, I recently learned from Jay O’Connell (cover artist and author) that all of Roger Zelazny’s work will be back in print. What exactly “everything back in print” means in reality I’m not entirely sure–will it include only the best known novels? All the short stories? Are works Zelazny wanted to “kill off” like To Die in Italbar (1973) really going to get reprints? Regardless, I was inspired to look back at the non-English language covers his work has received over the years. Naturally, as I moved to the fantastic Italian presses, I re-encountered and fell in love (again) with Allison’s evocative take on Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber (Corwin) five-novel sequence.

What are your favorites?

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Pop Collage of Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann, Part II

/ Joachim Boaz / 6 Comments
  • Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann’s cover for the 1970 edition of J. T. McIntosh’s One in Three Hundred (1954)

In 2021, I posted Part I of my Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art series on the Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann. Between 1966 and 1971, they created a kaleidoscopic array of psychedelic visions for the German press Heyne Bücher. I described their art as follows: “Pop surrealism? Lowbrow art? The Andy Warhol effect? However you classify Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann’s covers […] they’re gleeful and sarcastic.” And despite a few readers who disliked their exuberant/chaotic hilarity (someone described them as the “very nadir in SF cover art”), I stand by my positive assessment. And I bring you Part II of my series!

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Ferruccio Alessandri’s Insectoid Visages and Other Nightmares

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments
  • Cover for Galassia #122 (1970). Contains Samuel R. Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965) and three short stories by Italian authors (Sergio Ostuni, Ivo Silvestri, and Lorenzo Iacobellis)

Italian artist, author, translator, and comic book critic Ferruccio Alessandri (1935-) created twenty-two covers for the Italian SF magazine Galassia (most of the issues between -132) in 1970. Galassia magazine was instrumental in introducing Italian audiences to the New Wave movement. Issues often contained both translations of popular English language authors and original Italian short stories and experimental visions.

As a unit, Alessandri’s covers convey a terrifying hellscape of insectoid visages (#122, #110, #128, #130), encounters with the surreal (#115), the oddly humanoid shapes (#119, #114, #116, #127), etc. Like searing flashes of a planet bathed under neon light, they are micro windows into the wonderscape of science fiction. While his Galassia covers are unconnected to the contents of the issues (to the best of my knowledge), I find their cumulative effect unsettling and alien.

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Architectural Fragments of Damian Petrescu

/ Joachim Boaz / 7 Comments
  • Damian Petrescu’s cover art for the 1st Romanian edition of Voicu Bugariu’s Lumea lui Als Ob (1981)

Damien Petruscu, a Romanian graphic designer, created science fiction and fantasy covers for a range of Romanian presses between 1966-1985. He also designed countless LP covers from 1966-1983–George Enescu to Latin pop–which you can browse over at Discogs. In my view, his SF covers gave him more opportunity to showcase his talents! I have curated a group that hint at architectural desires and artificial shapes: Urban plans, façades bathed in red mist, totemic uplifts, temples in delicate lines, surreal landscapes of buildings askew… My favorite, his cover for Voicu Bugariu’s Lumea lui Als Ob (1981), might be a direct references to the magisterial ruins of the Sasanian capital at Ctesiphon [below]. He evokes the same crisp façade, desert landscape, and delicate arch.

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Pop Collage of Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann, Part I

/ Joachim Boaz / 25 Comments
  • Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann’s cover for the 1971 German edition of Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah (1969)

Pop surrealism? Lowbrow art? The Andy Warhol effect? However you classify Atelier Heinrichs & Bachmann’s covers for the German press Heyne Bücher (produced between 1966-1971), they’re gleeful and sarcastic. I’d wager their cover for Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah (1969) above pokes fun at the US 1st edition by Jack Gaughan. The collaged sculpture giggles forth with its pastel halo like a Tiki-recast of Gaughan’s stoic monument to Muad-Dib. Gaughan’s mysterious orb now transformed as blue bubble-gum bubbles (or water droplets on a desert planet?). Regardless of whether or the design team saw the US 1st edition, this streak of impish fun runs throughout their covers.

In 2016, I covered The Cryptic Diagrams and Collaged Heads of Atelier Heinrichs. They too were possessed by moments of kitsch and collage. I’m assuming that Bachmann joined the team for the years 1966-1971. Atelier Heinrichs produced covers before and after Bachmann (isfdb link). I cannot find more information in German or English about the artists involved and the nature of their “atelier.” If you find anything, let me know!

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Johann Peter Reuter’s Surreal Forms Arrayed Across the Plains

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments
  • Reuter’s cover for the 1979 German edition of Philip José Farmer of To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

German painter and graphic designer Johann Peter Reuter (1949-) created fourteen credited covers for German SF presses between 1977-1984.  I have identified a potential fifteenth cover included below–the 1977 edition of Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation (1953)–that I believe fits his style and date range. From the information gleaned from his homepage, Reuter’s SF output occurred in the first few years as a freelance artist after studying art in Dortmund. He started as a figurative painter before evolving to non-figurative forms (brief artist blurb).

If you’re interested in his non-SF art, check out his fascinating series of paintings from 2004 on the visualization of the mass.

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Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Italian Tanith Lee Covers by Allison (aka Mariella Anderlini)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

Allison’s cover for the 1978 Italian edition of Tanith Lee’s Volkhavaar (1977)

Mariella Anderlini (aka Allison) (d. 1992) was a behemoth of Italian SF art (note 1). Her covers graced entire years of science fiction editions for various Italian presses—for example, she illustrated the complete Slan. Il Meglio della Fantascienza series for Libra Editrice. Her work was ubiquitous and fantastic.

Over the years, loose cover art post sequences emerge from the back catalog of my site (both conscious and unconscious)–and one topic I return to regularly are SF covers by Italian women. Female Italian cover artists in the decades I am most interested in (50s-mid-80s), made up a far larger percentage Continue reading →