Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants - The Art Of The Paperback
(2010 - Universe Publishing/Rizzoli)

(by Steven Brower) Over 300 pages here, with nearly three-fourths of those being full-page reproductions of vintage paperback book covers and almost half of those are superior full-bleeds or interestingly framed in non-whites. After that, there a few pages that have multiple images and a couple turned sideways. There's a couple of instances where double-page spreads were used to show both the front and back of wraparound artwork and since they followed the layout of the originals, the gutter is, for all of them, at just the right place to not completely ruin the total image. Of course, also reproduced on all of them is the typography of these paperbacks, the interesting title designs and lurid come-on blurbs. The writing is context about the paperback market and the genres represented, with chapter titles such as A Novel Approach, Wild And Wicked, Swords, Sea And Sky, A Shot In the Dark, Love And Lust, The Dark Side, Other Worldly, Nothing But The Truth, The Bard And Beyond, Lights-Camera-Tie-In, Funny Bone, Lavender Liaisons and Changing World. All the images are captioned with the publisher, the year it appeared and the artist, "if known". I would comment that there seem to be several goofs in the captions and many more in the book's index of its own information. There are a lot of unidentified artists, but that might be because they weren't actually credited in a pictured book itself, since I easily found some on the internet (accurate information, I hope . . .). Anyway, the well-presented artists are: Robert K. Abbett, Jerry Allison, James Avati (8), Paul Bacon, Rudolph Belarski (2), Geoffrey Biggs, Charles Binger, H. E. Bischoff, Carl Bobertz, Bowers, Brat, Johnny (Herbert) Bruck, Charles (2), Ernest Chiriacka (3), Seymour Chwast, Raphael DeSoto (2)***, Tom Dunn (6), Ed Emshwiller (2)**, Bob Engle, George T. Erikson, John Floherty Jr., George Garland, Jack Gaughan (3), F. Kenwood Giles, Milton Glaser (11), Edward Gorey, Gerald Gregg (5), George Gross (2), John Groth, Robert G. Harris, Mitchell Hooks, Clark Hulings (2), Will James, Ray Johnson, Robert Jonas (7), Victor Kalin (2), Lew Keller, Harvey Kidder, Joel King, Lester Kohs, Lynton Lamb, Roy Lance, Robert Maguire (4)***, Leo Manso, Frank McCarthy (2)**, Davis Meltzer, Harold Milton, Julian Paul, Barye Phillips (6), Richard Powers (3)**, Ralph Ray Jr., Leslie Ross, Rowohlt, Peter Rozycki, Hy Rubin, Tom Ryan (2), Norman Saunders (4), Harry Schaare (3), Robert Schulz (6), Ben Shahn, Arthur Shilstone, Robert Skemp, Robert Stanley (5), Arthur Sussman, Verne Tossey (4), Troop (2), Ed Valigursky, Stanley Zuckerberg (4) and UNKNOWN ARTIST (49)

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces here by Emshwiller, McCarthy, and Powers, cannot additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

*** - Note that in regards to the 'well-presented' pieces here by DeSoto, and Maguire, some, but not all, can additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

other paperback cover art collections

The Art Of Romance - Mills & Boon And Harlequin Cover Designs