Sunday, September 25, 2011
Moon Crawler
Although I knew that some of Dad’s pictures inspired certain other things, I didn’t realize that one of his early science fiction covers seems to have inspired a toy or two. So I was happy to share some background information and sketches with the blogger who alerted me. Now, prepare for liftoff to Moonbase Central.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Pulp Fiction: Trapped
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDI0-hnrDAFzPcYRfYtodewHT_fOUOAgtVlMFVCb3o0RZeNG2Wnh1CQ5A-8TLVd3wNnCMlkUrKTmsyWbN3a2I9kK09sweM6dikVEhGZs3714mYrPyh9gD-jOIvfYT5SR107zVu1Q5apUI/s400/Trapped595web.jpg)
Feature Publications’ Trapped lasted for all of 34 issues. Its partner in crime was Guilty Detective Story Magazine and, according to Galactic Central, “Both determined to show that the spirit of the 1940s detective pulp magazines was still alive and well in the 1950s, albeit in a digest format.”
Schoenherr’s files for this phase of his career are far from complete, so there must be more illustrations out there, waiting to be identified. His reference photos might provide some clues, however: it’s just a matter of matching poses to magazine pictures. The following set, for example, was taken on March 19, 1959, for the Trapped cover.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKqHwrYcZZ5rgjMdaNvsmAf3KQiqsGfxoPyMHPqsOl1omHN1ZCmk8frn8Ydl7_X5ZmU6v2UFoZQLBaljkxRa-ayzAjAxf0116U97ATDvvzliNctW3e5QItM-GwZRjbZa63DcVEEyfUP8/s400/Trappedman0102web.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgECuiNuz_z9MfW7R8_GRWO7rBn9SredYsI7q4WUVPbW164J6-FAJFufV_RlW8uMvajrE4Nv4Iw976Su1PvElDVgkLXJWgB9yNj3DGIoACAWfqH8MRdxOA1OK3Af6GGkJ8Ux9Y3CN-8hMs/s400/Trappedman0304web.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFwOQyTnv7DwjYvqEz-2ipNBuUgd0fPrBmrzWrti6rRrvzzUFkj5j9JZiyZna8zX2ShCdlj_z-TlOC29wct0eoQXDmKqqIsKNX-JtAK-EawtDXIJRXFcZdGmRoGsYM_ixb2tZvMpPQNk/s400/Trappedman0607.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xpMHTRgQwZTlBkWC0kHAgsS_f2kGvNU0VnCvvsctDy3ETlbTgAZC8Ct2ELGM_HZCRuCCW8MztU2UadKl-HxKZa93GRnAO8-OwRGt4gIqAh0cdPvyND9jhQVETEH4AoDLPUJrSR-fSMU/s400/Trappedwoman0910web.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4Dpd1vKMBOpO7Um9KUxGx6yuPL4C-QPgCcWOAOeHjqyZAWtUaYY05nij42irSwdl_MBRoJ1AaSRBfuf-zkBdDE6qE7wW8sWZAJeWrrmoA-NmBPHTlaQacbmi1O7CD_8wfUi9YwNecIk/s400/Trappedwoman1112web.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUb2jqpCgH3SzLcl0dVVsR9X72f_v75fuEtL-ShboRjg8w-CpVKOJE9U9btI5zuhqP2IfNJqQ3glPCPgoEOie1XT70X1wO5R8teNN5ls5nyvFR0COhWhZuoURhU5ANnUF8tRK-XmI7JQ/s400/Trappedwoman1314web.jpg)
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
One Day on Beetle Rock
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4bnbgmKjmGTTTH1qFHB0XSc-6qd18UXI1x9JYlvj98VfKuoZD4DhNr_zwF3Lo7u3FV4FOgeOsH0gl4lKctHLq9HDoZMXi0NwnUGXIHAbi_WMFMkGSwDL27KkPoxrfTy5NVekdQoxiFs/s400/CarrigharBeetleWEB.jpg)
Friday, April 8, 2011
Rascal Ephemera
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnG-Dx2sPmvwSDnREqj4Jm4RY7CXS8QzZ0pA11p7rj0slNWD5u1ZoOOEjRhSD09s2ROX4ntiL5aiC-vTSfBfUvZD3XDdCnyrtnD_tGWN3yby4E5sKUzjmxgXLqkHiMkwdZKSNWyujkS04/s400/Rascalephemera837.jpg)
The fame of the Raccoon from Wisconsin has spread throughout the world to capture the hearts of young and old. RASCAL has been distributed by the Book-of-the-Month Club and by two other book clubs. It will soon be made into a Walt Disney film. A nationwide bestseller for six months, RASCAL numbers more than 115,000 copies in print.It was also a flat-fee job that netted all of $1000 for Dad. But the “Raccoon from Wisconsin” helped put him on the children’s book map.
Jacket for The Golden Eagle
From Incident at Hawk’s Hill
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ8KPPqJsAqumpqhxanV0bdTFG8dHkjD2f35sq-jSp76aLOJfoVCLaiJVZLwcRj4KugiU643K6N9lyzncF6_JqEWth0w9TUkpk_j3589vP9tqfISdWIZN4KK-va6o7tnkBLul7QqAAVYg/s400/HawksHillhugWEB.jpg)
UPDATE of April 12, 2011!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGDLoV4apes2_7zQKsrkfv2P5nEB1EaUAHv80KRfeowjqKHtA7BLbsyFIsfTELytrHtNr77uqdg5AjXeg7BTBVOPnFMKXENMuw1vLfBXVWUoxEvQ6x5GYsgB-XRxDpWHchcUNk-w20PA/s400/IncidentphotoWEB.jpg)
On the left in the background is Dad’s jacket illustration for “The Jezebel Wolf” by F. N. Monjo.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Sherlock Holmes and John Schoenherr
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJvpOc8C5SpEcoVNvvL0vqmfI_WX_A-0J3kmImBOp929mvpkL7Qqo4-dDsfCSPENqJFr2bZxPxbXuIz4lsw5PBVCBMe7WhgbJcl76r0CoCG5tqhzg0LXV04w7tk8yh8Xe4MPuNsM8vLM/s400/ExtraterrestrialWEB.jpg)
My father introduced me to Sherlock Holmes when I was 11. I’d already been watching the Basil Rathbone movies and drawing pictures of the character, so, technically, the introduction had been made years before, but it was then that ever-logical Dad suggested that I read the original stories so I'd know who Holmes and Watson really were.
Before long, I’d become an absolute fanatic and, besides collecting everything Sherlock Holmes-related I could get my hands on, I appropriated the original art for Dad’s sole Sherlockian illustration. He made it for Mack Reynolds’s science fiction story, “The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial,” which appeared in Analog magazine for July 1965. It was job #303 in his work-log, commissioned on March 29, 1964, and it was either one of the last jobs he did in his Long Island City studio, or one of the first ones his did in the small bedroom workspace in his new, old house in rural New Jersey. The ink-on-scratchboard drawing netted him $150.00. By the way, for copyright reasons, the aged Holmes seen in the picture was only referred to as “The Great Detective” in the text.
I always thought Dad’s Watson resembled his own father, though my Grandpa Schoenherr never had a walrus mustache like that (he did have his own copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, however). I remember, too, Dad pointing out that he’d deliberately updated Holmes’s unanswered-correspondence-tranfixing-jack-knife with a more modern switch-blade.
My father was definitely a Sherlock Holmes fan (though never a crazed one) and he attended scion society meetings with me before I could drive. He also enjoyed Arthur Conan Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard tales and it was a long-time wish of his to illustrate The Lost World - featuring Professor Challenger, who my father resembled somewhat. (Dad never got the chance - though this painting hints at what could have been - but, evidently, his one-time brother-in-law, Ray Sternbergh, painted the cover for the Pyramid Books edition of the novel.)
I should note that a few months before making this illustration, my father received the following letter from the Little Green Man Science Fiction Awards Society of Kansas City, Missouri.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLwngXzRr1X4Cyw-GdJltAyM2joSW269yMLLjtyY0zk8UauBNNzTowG1y418BYFos6_VnUCO9yQxRHGqeyq3UUTd_6H8WRN1-mD3dQHm4giWzeov4DKvmsvZcj3nDlDJ37V08cJE1vHLU/s400/LittleGreenMan.web.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjpgZF-e6eepbQdvVVfs-dYtL84IUuNz7I2jR9sk040ZtqDGQZ95h3E-tL-zjadMLHd2iAOWHAC5oyzbaJRDojgqXso2Fo46s6n8ZcKCcQoLriZstapr1nw9nf6q9_0xMzlUu3EHxgKc/s400/Analog.1963.04.jpg)
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