SF Cover Art

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Philippe Curval’s 1950s Photo Collages, Part II

/ Joachim Boaz / 17 Comments

(January 1957)

Part II of my series on Philippe Curval’s SF art–check out Part I first if you haven’t already. In Part I, I included only his covers from 1956, his most productive year for the French SF magazine Fiction. In this post I include the rest of his 50s work, seven covers published between 1957-59. Curval published SF more and more as the 1950s progressed and I suspect writing was more lucrative than art….

This selection includes what I find to be his most disturbing and evocative cover–Fiction 47. Cyclopean imagery combines with odd textures and hair-like growths. I am partial to SF covers that explore skin, mutation, hands, heads, growths, eyes, etc…. And speaking of disquieting Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Philippe Curval’s 1950s Photo Collages, Part I

/ Joachim Boaz / 20 Comments

(February 1956)

In celebration of the French SF author and artist Philippe Curval’s birthday, I’ve curated a collection of his covers. Between 1956 and 1959 he produced eighteen (there could be others that I’ll have to identify based on style) fascinating photo collages for the main French SF magazine Fiction. They often blend pulp SF stylings with otherworldly insectoid imagery (Fiction 27, 31, 35). In other instances surrealist touches interrupt a more realistic artistic styles (Fiction 28, 33).

My absolute favorite December 1956 (Fiction 37) presages Cronenberg’s iconic television scene in Videodrome (1981) by a quarter century Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Otherworldly Textures and the Patina of Decay (the SF art of Philippe Jean)

/ Joachim Boaz / 25 Comments

(Cover for Fiction, 133 (1964), ed. Alain Dorémieux)

The four credited covers of Philippe Jean for the French SF magazine Fiction (between 1963-1964) show remarkable clarity of vision. Each explores the patina of decay made manifest in a haunting landscape that stretches across the page, still inhabited by small figures who weave among the ruined buildings and statuary. The detail from Fiction, #133 below shows a decaying recumbent form amongst brittle shadows of the masts of stranded ships — small human figures move around it.

In another instance, here Fiction, 121, Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: French comic book style 70s SF art by Serge Clerc

/ Joachim Boaz / 28 Comments

(Serge Clerc’s cover for the 1977 edition of The Dramaturges of Yan (1972), John Brunner)

Joachim Boaz compiling a post about SF comic book art? Wait. Wait. That can’t be, I remember reading in a comment months ago that he hasn’t opened a comic book once in his entire life. Oh, that makes more sense, the French artist Serge Clerc, who worked for Métal Hurlant early in his career, also created SF covers….

…and they are quite fun in their wacky way. In 1977 for the French Presses de la Cité – Futurama, Serge Clerc created eight covers–gracing works by Brunner, Octavia Butler, E. C. Tubb, and James Gunn–of which I’ve included seven in this post. My favorite is his 1977 edition of John Brunner’s  Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Three Tantalizing Australian SF Covers by Michael Payne

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

(Michael Payne’s cover for the 1978 edition of Envisaged Worlds (1978), ed. Paul Collins)

Michael Payne created a handful of covers for Australian SF presses in the 1970s. They are difficult to track down (especially in high-quality images) so I’ve provided three tantalizing covers that suggest potential if he had continued to produce SF art. They feature careful pencil work and an eye for the slightly surreal–especially the repeated human figures in Envisaged Worlds (1978) (my favorite of the bunch).

This post is also a call for any additional information you might be able to find about his career, non-SF art (if any), or even the Australian presses (Wren and Void Publications). The art for Beyond Tomorrow (1976) also appeared on the 1975 Science Fiction Monthly, July 1975 “AussieCon Special” edition. If someone has that copy of Science Fiction Monthly please let Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Italian Covers for Philip K. Dick’s Novels and Short Story Collections

/ Joachim Boaz / 35 Comments

(Karel Thole’s cover for the 1986 edition of The Divine Invasion (1981), Philip K. Dick)

Following close on the heels of my post on European (Italy, France, and Spain) editions of Robert Silverberg’s SF I present fifteen Italian covers for Philip K. Dick’s novels and short story collections. Karel Thole, as always, puts in the best shift. But there are some other gems—for example Libero Vitali’s cover for the 1974 edition of PKD’s wonderful (and terrifying) novel A Maze of Death (1970).  My favorite Thole cover of the bunch is for Urania #897 (1981), which contains contains various PKD short stories gathered by the Italian editors. Thole’s delightful ability to interject uncanny surrealist elements in his art matches perfectly PKD’s own stylistic tendencies.

Note: There’s a fantastic (but incomplete) resource that gathers thumbnail images of many of the PKD’s foreign editions. I have tried to find higher quality ones that also appealed to me for the sake of this post. But check Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: A Handful of French, Italian, and Spanish Editions of Robert Silverberg’s Science Fiction

/ Joachim Boaz / 13 Comments

(Uncredited cover for the 1977 French edition of Tower of Glass (1970), Robert Silverberg)

Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) has long been one of my favorite SF authors. Especially between 1967-1975 (i.e. his shift away from pulp and before his momentary retirement), Silverberg produced a prodigious and thought-provoking corpus of writing. The sheer number of brilliant works crammed into those few years is only rivaled by Barry N. Malzberg (1969-1976) and Kate Wilhelm (1967-c. 1976).

As I’ve been exploring other less known authors, I’ve not read a lot of Silverberg’s novel-length works recently. Tower of Glass (1970), Nightwings (1969), A Time of Changes (1971), The Stochastic Man (1975), Son of Man (1971), and Up the Line (1969) among others remain unread on my shelf. Rather, I’ve restricted my focus to a few wonderful short stories in various collections here and there—“Passengers” (1968), a haunting masterpiece story of alien possession; “When We Went to See the End of the World” (1972), suburban banter Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Body as Landscape

/ Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

(František Muzika, Z Českého ráje V (Ležící torzo), 1944)

František Muzika (1900-1976), a key member of the Czech New Wave scene, created haunting paintings that blended human form with the surrounding landscapes. His painting that heads this post inspired me to collect various science fiction covers (from a mix of English and non-English language presses) that showcase the interlacing of human and landscape — the body (or body parts) as landscape. There are many many many more covers on this theme and perhaps I’ll gather them for a later post. I am torn over my favorite! Leigh Taylor’s cover for the 1967 edition of J.G. Ballard’s The Disaster Area (1967) Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: Three early David Pelham covers in honor of his birthday

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments

(Cover for the 1971 edition of Fifth Planet (1963), Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle)

On twitter I occasionally post the birthdays of important figures in SF history (artists, authors, and editors). Every morning I scan The Internet Speculative Fiction Database’s birthday list on their main page and lo and behold a name immediately popped out for May 12th–the iconic 70s SF artist David Pelham (1938-present).  Enough has been written about his distinctive and surreal covers for Penguin that I won’t go into detail here. Instead I’ve included a few links if you wish to learn more below.

I invite my readers to link in the comments their favorite articles and tidbits about David Pelham and I’ll include any links I receive in my list as well.

I’ve chosen to include in this post his first three SF covers, which happen to be stylistically and thematically similar. Continue reading →