

Large and stark, this gouache on board artwork by an obscure pulp & science fiction illustrator using the name Ross appeared as the cover the the May 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction illustrating a story titled “The Man Who Could Not Stop.” The story tells the tale of a criminal named Clavering who finds himself caught in the machinations of the government of a planet on the outmost edge of the galaxy.
On this world, with Kafka-esque rules and Soviet style deprivations, Clavering finds there is no place for dissent or individuality, only submission to life in a prison colony. The illustration plays up comparisons between the world of the story and Cold War era Russia, with the Vladimir Lenin inspired figure in the foreground and the unrelenting bleakness of the background.

