Celebrating the Unpopular Arts
 

Did you know that sex sells?

And nobody knows that better than paperback cover illustrators, as you’ll see. First, this one by Roger Kastel.Here’s an uncredited cover that implies something really scandalous. My online research hasn’t turned up any answers as to what constitutes “the strangest relationship of all time.”
Next, one of Robert McGinnis’ covers for Carter Brown’s (actually Aussie writer Alan Yates) mystery novels. These covers held me spellbound whenever I stumbled across them as a teen. Funny, isn’t it, how that woman stands exactly where you can’t see anything too naughty?A bigger puzzle, why is one man shooting into the woman’s breast?
Skimpy clothes on sexy women sold science fiction magazines and paperbacks too. This one’s by Robert Gibson Jones.
#SFWApro. I’d planned more substantial posts for this week but my schedule’s been a mess.

5 Comments

  1. Edo Bosnar

    And expanding on Fraser’s point, I know I’ve seen a number of SF paperback covers of more recent vintage that I’ve really liked.
    Some that come to mind immediately are the original US paperback editions of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series (by artist John Harris):

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