This fabulous other-wordly cover painting by the important American genre artist Paul Lehr was created for the July,1972 issue of Occult Magazine.
Artist: Paul Lehr
Paperback & Pulp Art
Publishers of depression-era pulp magazines, post war men’s adventure and girlie magazines, and lurid paperback titles all used risqué, action-packed illustrations to make their offerings jump off the newsstands in the highly competitive market for readers attention. Cover art pushed the boundaries of what was allowable in a heavily-censored era, coming up with increasingly deviant and outlandish portrayals of sex, violence, and perilous escapes from danger. Today, these works—which provide an intriguing peek into the shadow side of 20th century American culture—are studied by historians and coveted by collectors.
In this gouache-on-board cover illustration for 1952’s The Scarlet Slipper, James Meese captures the unique mixture of the American homestead with a tough-talking private eye in the mix.
Artist: James Alfred Meese
This was the original camera ready artwork used in the production of the 1970 Avon paperback edition of the novel The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen.
Artist: Milton Charles
This gouache illustration painting appeared on the cover of Naked Sinner, the 1959 “savage novel of a wild call girl and her shocking immoral affairs”.
Artist: American Artist
A captivating, lustful, original cover painting by Victor Kalin created for use as cover art for the 1959 Dell paperback edition of the Scott Jordan mystery Murder on Broadway by Hal Masur. The work was titled The Last Gamble in its hardback incarnation, but the paperback title captures the lurid allure of the mystery of […]
Artist: Victor Kalin
Bold, large and provocative, a sensational scandalous paperback cover painting by Rudy Nappi which was created for use as the cover of French Alley by Matthew Clay. Part of the Star Novels series of digest sized paperbacks released by Publication House, NYC, this steamy novel follows the proclivities of three young attractive women who endure heartbreak and discover rapture […]
Artist: Rudy Nappi
This dramatic, futuristic sci-fi interior pulp illustration was created by Harold McCauley for an as-of-yet unidentified Ziff-Davis title.
Artist: Harold McCauley
Death Makes a Mistake is an eerie, dark, and foreboding interior pulp illustration by Harold McCauley which appeared in the January 1943 issue of the sci-fi/fantasy pulp magazine Amazing Stories accompanying the P.F. Costello story of the same title. The caption beneath reads “Reggie looked at the second rose, and then he knew…!” Nicely matted and framed under glass, this […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
Harold McCauley created this tense, action-packed, gritty, and dramatic illustration for an-as-of-yet unidentified pulp title, circa 1940s.
Artist: Harold McCauley
The aptly titled Teen-Age Terror shows a lurid, youth gone wild, over the top image of a highly sensationalized girl gang initiation. In this oil-on-masonite cover painting, American illustrator James Alfred Meese captured the moral panic over juvenile delinquency that was a focal point of American culture in the 1950s, most notably explored in films like Rebel Without a […]
Artist: James Alfred Meese
