Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values? 25 25

[OtherEric]

1 hour ago, frozentundraguy said:

Another book just came in. I ordered it two weeks ago. Into Plutonian Depths has another of the great covers for early Avon books. No artist is credited. Does anyone know who the cover artist might have been?

 

I've got this crazy theory that Wally Wood might have had a hand in a couple of the Avon SF covers around then.  This mostly stems from the Earth Man on Venus cover; he drew the comic book version that came out around this time for the same publisher.  And the "Lost Scientist" on the back cover looks a LOT like Wood's work to me.  If he did that, he may have done at least some work on the front cover, and if he was involved on Avon 285 he could have been involved on Avon 281 as well.  At this point I'm not just out on a limb, I'm suspended in mid-air with the Bugs Bunny calling my attention to gravity... but I can't shake the impression.

[Surfing Alien]

22 hours ago, frozentundraguy said:

Another book just came in. I ordered it two weeks ago. Into Plutonian Depths has another of the great covers for early Avon books. No artist is credited. Does anyone know who the cover artist might have been?

 

R. Crowl is who is listed on the copyright information submitted by Avon. He is also credited with the covers of Avon Fantasy Reader 14 & 16 and the Avon Science Fiction Reader No. 1. The full name is likely Robert Crowl, even less personal information is known on this painter than Ray Johnson but he painted in a somewhat similar style with cruder shading. There is a known New York artist with this name but I haven't seen anything like this commercial art in the things available to see, much more simplistic stuff. He painted a famous mural of New York classical theater personalities on a bar wall in New York but they're nothing like these beautiful fantasy works for Avon.

Of course, the copyright office credits could be wrong  as we've discovered they are in several instances already. Those entries were submitted by scriveners who were subject to errors and omissions.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Surfing Alien

[Surfing Alien]

21 hours ago, OtherEric said:

I've got this crazy theory that Wally Wood might have had a hand in a couple of the Avon SF covers around then.  This mostly stems from the Earth Man on Venus cover; he drew the comic book version that came out around this time for the same publisher.  And the "Lost Scientist" on the back cover looks a LOT like Wood's work to me.  If he did that, he may have done at least some work on the front cover, and if he was involved on Avon 285 he could have been involved on Avon 281 as well.  At this point I'm not just out on a limb, I'm suspended in mid-air with the Bugs Bunny calling my attention to gravity... but I can't shake the impression.

It's tempting to want to defy gravity, but Occam's Razor and all the evidence point to Ray Johnson painting this cover rather than Wally Wood. When doing attribution, we've learned that you look at 2 things really:

1. What are the elements of the cover that make it likely that it was painted by your suspect? and

2. Who else was painting for that publisher at that time and could it be one of them?

so:

1. The shading on Avon 285 is the same almost airbrushed, sophsticated shading Ray was doing on all his work at this time. The guy's head is the same one Ray used on multiple covers in his 1949-51 golden period with Avon. The kewpie faced woman has the same highlighted, rounded hair, curled under, and the high pudgy cheeks that was his signature look, although more amorphous, pudgier, but similar to the woman on Avon 315.  Finally, the scientist on the back cover is cut directly out of the front cover of Ray's cover for Avon 254,  "Flame Vine" which features a more usual Ray looking woman with all his usual features and the guys, who are both classic Ray gents.

What we've learned from studying Avon 315 "The Metal Monster",  this Avon 285, Avon 413 "Dwellers in the Mirage" and Avon 235 "Seven Footprints to Satan"  (all currently being attributed to Johnson in this project) is that when Johnson did these scifi covers, he rounded out or stylized some of the women's faces in order to create an alien effect, while keeping a lot of his other hallmark style cues.

2) I love Wally Wood up and down but there's no evidence he ever did any paperback covers in the early 50's for Avon or anyone else. The fact that the Avon comic is by him would be a real point to look at him as the painter, but the stylistic differences and the points in #1 above make the simple answer the highly likely one.

The other possible painter of Avon 285, on point #2 that is known and possible, imho, is the very same R. Crowl, discussed above. But having looked at over 400 Johnson covers and the few R. Crowl is credited with, there are distinct differences in features and shading techniques, and the points in #1 above, that all point to the simple answer as the correct one.

I'm typing out some of these long winded points because they help me lay out in writing, the discussions Bruce Brenner and I have about attributing Johnsons works (and the other little known Avon artists) and hopefully we can cannibalize them one day into the essay/tribute we're hoping to put out.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Surfing Alien

[Pat Calhoun]

nice analysis above. here's evidence of a Wally Wood early '50s pb cov...

[OtherEric]

@Surfing Alien, You have far better arguments than I have; as I said I was wildly speculating... although I think my first couple of steps weren't totally out there.

@Pat Calhoun, The ISFDB has that cover as 1958, not what I would call "early 50's".  But now that I know about them I would love to get those Galaxy Novels with the Wood covers.

Here's a Wood cover for Galaxy magazine from the same period, I know I've shown it before but no clue what thread I included it in:

[Surfing Alien]

3 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

@Surfing Alien, You have far better arguments than I have; as I said I was wildly speculating... although I think my first couple of steps weren't totally out there.

@Pat Calhoun, The ISFDB has that cover as 1958, not what I would call "early 50's".  But now that I know about them I would love to get those Galaxy Novels with the Wood covers.

Here's a Wood cover for Galaxy magazine from the same period, I know I've shown it before but no clue what thread I included it in:

Yes, that's one of the small format Galaxys from the 58/59. A beaut but not early 50's. I think Wood did do one or 2 rare digests for Gaines/EC that might've been earlier? Now if you could find me some evidence that "R. Crowl" was a pseud for Wood (or Johnson for that matter!) i'd be intrigued! Either one of them was capable of painting those style paintings if the pay was right (another fun thing to remember when you're dealing with guys who were good draftsmen, regardless of the subject 👍)

[Pat Calhoun]

here's 'To Marry Medusa' gussied up into pb

[Randall Dowling]

I am continually impressed with the new things I learn from this thread. 

[Mmehdy]

19 hours ago, Pat Calhoun said:

nice analysis above. here's evidence of a Wally Wood early '50s pb cov...

did you read this one...good story?, great cover

[Pat Calhoun]

haven't read it yet, but as 'They'd Rather be Right' it won the Best Novel Hugo award for 1955...

[frozentundraguy]

Just in today a first edition (Sept. 1945) of The High Window. Due to the similar covers I checked to see if the cover artist for this book was the same one who drew Farewell My Lovely.  Alas it was not so. Farewell has Hoffman as the artist. For Window the artist is E. Mcknight Kauffer, at least according to Jon Warren in his official guide to Paperbacks.  I'm going to see what else this book seller has to offer, as he had this book graded as very good.

 

[Surfing Alien]

6 hours ago, Mmehdy said:

did you read this one...good story?, great cover

As @Pat Calhoun noted, it won the 1955 Hugo Award. I agree with many critics that maybe it wasn't the best story of the year but it was very well written, he was a newcomer and it had an impact in Astounding, which says a lot. I like that cover as well... classic Wood machinery...

[Surfing Alien]

5 minutes ago, frozentundraguy said:

Just in today a first edition (Sept. 1945) of The High Window. Due to the similar covers I checked to see if the cover artist for this book was the same one who drew Farewell My Lovely.  Alas it was not so. Farewell has Hoffman as the artist. For Window the artist is E. Mcknight Kauffer, at least according to Jon Warren in his official guide to Paperbacks.  I'm going to see what else this book seller has to offer, as he had this book graded as very good.

 

Beautiful. It sure looks like Hoffman, but i've learned that no one could possibly paint all of a publishers covers (except, possiby, Robert Bonfils!) so their art directors hired other guys to paint in the style of their best selling book covers 👍

It's easy for us now to think of covers purely artistically but this was mostly piece work designed to sell, sell, sell at the moment of publication. Which is also another reason why so few original artworks have survived. In the 1940's and 50's they were mostly thrown in the trash 😪

[OtherEric]

56 minutes ago, Surfing Alien said:

As @Pat Calhoun noted, it won the 1955 Hugo Award. I agree with many critics that maybe it wasn't the best story of the year but it was very well written, he was a newcomer and it had an impact in Astounding, which says a lot. I like that cover as well... classic Wood machinery...

It's generally regarded as the worst Hugo Award winner for Best Novel ever, in my experience.  I haven't read it, but probably should given its reputation.  I've got at least the first two parts in Astounding for sure.

[OtherEric]

1 hour ago, frozentundraguy said:

Just in today a first edition (Sept. 1945) of The High Window. Due to the similar covers I checked to see if the cover artist for this book was the same one who drew Farewell My Lovely.  Alas it was not so. Farewell has Hoffman as the artist. For Window the artist is E. Mcknight Kauffer, at least according to Jon Warren in his official guide to Paperbacks.  I'm going to see what else this book seller has to offer, as he had this book graded as very good.

 

The signature in the corner looks like it could be E McK K.

Much nicer than my copy!

[Surfing Alien]

45 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

It's generally regarded as the worst Hugo Award winner for Best Novel ever, in my experience.  I haven't read it, but probably should given its reputation.  I've got at least the first two parts in Astounding for sure.

It's so funny... all of the people who panned this book 65 years ago in favor of their fanboy favorites ... and generally considered this so bad, never read it and never will 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I really liked it. YMMV. 

[Surfing Alien]

Here's a cool piece, I just got in -  Handi Books #1 with the electric chair cover. I forget how early these were, 1941, when we talk about the 1st mass market publishers. This book was kind of a big deal in the early days of collecting pbs. The woodcut style chapter colophons are pretty cool too.

[OtherEric]

In today.  In fact, a brand new book released today.  But I figure it’s worth occasionally mentioning I love Hard Case Crime’s retro sensibility, and I think it’s fun that Stephen King also likes it, enough that he’s done three paperback originals with them:

[Surfing Alien]

14 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

In today.  In fact, a brand new book released today.  But I figure it’s worth occasionally mentioning I love Hard Case Crime’s retro sensibility, and I think it’s fun that Stephen King also likes it, enough that he’s done three paperback originals with them:

Love that they're doing this. The look is great vintage. That's 60 years of pbs in 2 posts 🤘

[Surfing Alien]

Happy to finally land a copy of one of Ray Johnson's priciest covers. Oh, the author is Jim Thompson  It's a swell looking cover and a bit frayed on the corners so i'm looking forward to reading it as I never had this one before. Love the extra painting on the back of the Popular Librarys of this period 👍