So Sunday, April 24, James Bama died. He’s best known for his work as a Western artist but for me he’s first and foremost the definitive Doc Savage paperback artist.
I wasn’t aware of James Bama’s name when I first encountered Doc Savage, in the novel Devil on the Moon, but that cover had me hooked. Regrettably there’s no devil and the moon sequences are quite unconvincing but the novel has a lot to like, such as seeing Doc and his team from the bad guys’ viewpoint for several chapters.
Bama defined Doc Savage’s paperback look from his first cover for the first novel (though no, Doc’s hair is not blond). The ripped shirt, something Marvel’s B&W Doc Savage magazine joked about in one issue. The distinctive skull cap look of his hair (true to the books) and the widow’s peak (not). Bama’s Doc is what I think of when I imagine the Man of Bronze.
And some of his covers are just awesome, like The Squeaking Goblin —
—and The Thousand-Headed Man, a great lost race adventure (it almost became a movie!) but with heavy use of the slur “slant eyes.” 
Doc Savage was and is my favorite pulp hero. Without the covers I might never have picked him up — after all, I never picked up G8 and His Battle Aces or Operator 5 and they both had paperback reprint runs.
So thank you, Mr. Bama. Rest in peace.
#SFWApro.
Being the nerd adjacent spouse I am, Greg first introduced me to Mr. Bama’s work. He would tell me much of what you just wrote. It was always fun listening to Greg talk about people’s art and why he loved it so. Very stunning work.
It turns out he also did paintings for the Aurora monster model kits I knew as a kid (I had a couple but I found the images much more exciting than actually building them): https://www.cbr.com/doc-savage-artist-james-bama-obituary/