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

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  • 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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Short Story Review: Philip K. Dick’s “A Little Something For Us Tempunauts” (1974)

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The following review is the 8th post in my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay! I relish the act of literary archaeology.

Previously: Kris Neville’s “Cold War” (1949)

Up next: Frederik Pohl’s (as Paul Flehr) “The Hated” (1958)

  • Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition of The Best of Philip K. Dick (1977)

4/5 (Good)

Philip K. Dick wrote “A Little Something For Us Tempunauts” (1974) after a two-year hiatus. He explains that a friend brought by a copy of John T. Sladek’s brilliant “The Poets of Millgrove, Iowa” (1966) that spurred him to write again: “the first sf story in years that galvanized me into new life—like Kant reading Hume.” He further explains that Sladek’s satirical deconstruction of the cult of the astronaut “can stand in the ranks of the all-time great short stories in the English language” and that it “changed in a flash my entire conception of what a good sf story is” (source). I, too, adore Sladek’s story. One of three authors– along with Barry N. Malzberg’s general characterization of astronauts and the space agency and Samuel R. Delany’s “Aye, and Gomorrah” (1967) that inspired this series.

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Book Review: Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, Irene Schram (1972)

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  • ashes-ashes-we-all-fall-down-irene-schram-1972
    Lawrence Ratzkin’s cover for the 1st edition

3/5 (Average)

“And he shot a little duck,

Right through the middle of the

Head, head, head.”

—Nursery song (29)

Irene Schram’s near-future (?) shocker Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down (1972) subjects a fifth-grade class and their teacher to a terrifying series of violent travails at the hands of emotionless men. Told mostly from the perspective of the young students who write their thoughts in a school notebook, Schram presents a wide-ranging critique of contemporary American society (pollution, Vietnam, police brutality, et al.). Despite the resilience of children, society will win. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I found Ashes, Ashes an occasionally successful exercise in epistemological displacement and the effects of normalized trauma weakened by a lack of focus and moments of excess that verge on comical. 

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A SF “bande dessinée” Review: Paul Gillon’s The Survivor, 1 (1985, trans. 1990)

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  • Aude attempts to evade the automated police

Story: 1/5 (Bad)

Art: 3/5 (Average)

Paul Gillon’s La survivante (The Survivor) (1985-1991) is a four-part erotic SF “bande dessinée” marketed as “ADULTS ONLY.” The first two volumes were translated into English by Dwight Decker and published in 1990. This is a review of volume 1. It’s sexually explicit, post-apocalyptic, and French. It’s Barbarella (1962-1964) 80s style, but the new 60s sexual liberation of the later is recast as campy exploitation… Other than the front cover below, I have not included images of the kaleidoscope of sexual acts and nudity–male, female, and andromorphic robot–included within the mere 47 pages. Take my word for it.

Aude Albrespy emerges from her aquatic escape from a nuclear war to a transformed world. Her partner “died trying to escape” and his skeleton greets her emergence from the depths (1). Ravenous and nude, she traverses the scarred landscape hunting for canned food and survivors. A few humorous interludes transpire.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CCLXVIII (Norman Spinrad, J. G. Ballard, Jacquetta Hawkes, and Frederik Pohl)

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As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Low-Flying Aircraft and Other Stories, J. G. Ballard (1976)

  • Larry Rostant’s cover for the 1992 edition

There’s not a back cover or inside cover blurb on my edition

Contents: “The Ultimate City” (1976), “Low-Flying Aircraft” (1975), “The Dead Astronaut” (1968), “My Dream of Flying to Wake Island” (1974), “The Life and Death of God” (1976), “The Greatest Television Show on Earth” (1972), “A Place and a Time to Die” (1969), “The Comsat Angels” (1968), “The Beach Murders” (1966)

Initial Thoughts: I’ve been on a weird (for me) music kick as of late. I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s post-punk/new wave/goth music (Bauhaus, The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc.) and I came across the British band The Comsat Angels. And they’re named after a J. G. Ballard story! If you don’t know of the band but enjoy any of the bands in the above list, check out Sleep No More (1981) (cold, paranoid, hypnotic). This led me back to Ballard’s catalog to track down the remaining anthologies of his I don’t own.

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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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Short Story Review: Kris Neville’s “Cold War” (1949)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

The following review is the 7th post in my series searching for “SF short stories that are critical in some capacity of space agencies, astronauts, and the culture which produced them.” Some stories I’ll review in this series might not fit. And that is okay! I relish the act of literary archaeology.

Thank you Antyphayes, “Friend of the Site,” for bringing this story to my attention!

Previously: Theodore L. Thomas’ “Broken Tool” (1959)

Up next: Philip K. Dick’s “A Little Something For Us Tempunauts” (1974)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1956 abridged edition of The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology (1952)

“Cold War” (1949), 3.5/5 (Good). You can read it online here. I read it in First Step Outward, ed. Robert Hoskins (1969). Now let’s dive into the psychological hellscape that is militarized SPACE!

“The Government needs YOU!

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Updates: New Purchases No. CCLXVII (Joanna Russ, J. T. McIntosh, Jean d’Ormesson, and a Terry Carr anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 33 Comments

As always, which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Worlds Apart (variant title: Born Leader), J. T. McIntosh (1954)

Richard Powers’ cover for the 1958 edition

From the back cover: “ROG FOLEY had never seen Earth—and he never would. For all that was left of Earth was an atomic funeral pyre in the sky.

ROG FOLEY was a leader of the new generation of humans who were born and raised on Mundis, the distant planet circling Brinsen’s Star and to which the last survivors of Earth had escaped in a 17-year journey through space.

ROG FOLEY and his disciples were strongly Continue reading →

Book Review: Survival Ship and Other Stories, Judith Merril (1974)

/ Joachim Boaz / 22 Comments

Derek Carter’s cover for the 1st edition

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

Ever since I read Judith Merril’s “Daughters of Earth” (1952), I’ve been fascinated by her subversive takes 1950s-60s gender roles and classic SF tropes. Survival Ship and Other Stories (1974) contains twelve short stories and a never-before-published poem selected by the author.

In addition to the merits of the tales within, I found Merril’s brief reflections on her early work fascinating. For example, she ruminates on the failure of her planned novel based on the generation ship launched by The Matriarchy in “Survival Ship” (1951), “Wish Upon a Star” (1958), and “The Lonely” (1963). She also describes a magazine “cover story” commission. The author would be provided with the cover art and asked to write a story containing its elements! The following three in this Continue reading →