The Cloud Forest

John Schoenherr’s one, slim connection to author Peter Matthiessen, who died yesterday, was his cover for the paperback version of The Cloud Forest, published by Pyramid Books in August 1966. The original gouache painting was marred somewhat by the art director, who - with paints of his own - lightened a patch of sky, ostensibly to make the display type “pop” more. Still, it’s a handsome, dramatic piece.

Tales From The Tomb

According to John Schoenherr’s work log, job #226 came along on February 7, 1962: it was from Dell, a cover for “Tales From A Tomb” [sic] and he was paid $200 for it on April 17.

But did this particular project wind up as the cover for “Tales From The Tomb” issued in October 1962 by Dell Comics? I think so.

The painting, however, has been attributed (here and here and here) to the master comic book artist L. B. Cole, who was an editor and art director at Dell at this time. I haven’t yet learned if the various attributors have any hard evidence that Cole actually painted this - and I readily admit that I’m not too familiar with Cole’s work. Even so, this painting is very different from Cole’s wild, bright, and wonderful work that can be seen here and here and here, for example.

The cover does, however, have many similarities with Schoenherr’s illustrations from the early 1960s: particularly in the handling of the sky, trees, branches, grass, and headstones (and it almost looks like the stone on the left is engraved with his initials, J.C.S.). It’s also worth comparing this cover with that for the Dell comic book “Space Man” which I discussed here and which would have been painted at the same time. So unless I find evidence to the contrary - and with all due respect to L. B. Cole and his many fans - I’ll go ahead and claim that this one really is another “long lost” illustration by John Schoenherr.

City Under the Sea

Here's a paperback cover my dad was commissioned to do in December 1964 for Paul W. Fairman's City Under the Sea (Pyramid Publications, Inc., R-1162, April 1965). The novel wasn't connected to the City Under the Sea movie of 1965, but was a TV tie-in to the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series on ABC, which, in turn, was based on the 1961 Irwin Allen movie of the same name. Instead of coming up with his own submarine, Dad had to follow the movie/TV design of the Seaview.

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.

Big Cat, Little Study

Dad isn't very well known for his cat paintings, but he did a lot of them in the 1960s and at one point hoped to collect them in a book or a portfolio of prints. He even wrote a text to accompany the pictures, but the project never materialized.

This study of...a jaguar? (please correct me if I'm wrong)...is the same size, medium, and vintage as "Moonlight at Midday" below (i.e. gouache on illustration board, 4.375 x 7.5"). I don't think a more finished version was ever painted or published, unless it's in a lost issue of Reader's Digest - and since Dad did paint an entirely different jaguar for that magazine in 1969, maybe this was a rejected concept. It's nice, though - and the tree branches are so "him."

Moonlight at Midday

I've always liked this small gouache painting on bristol board, but it only just dawned on me that it could have been a study for one of Dad's many paperback covers. He labeled the back "Moonlight at Midday," so I searched for a book of that title and easily found Moonlight at Midday by Sally Carrighar, published by Pyramid in 1967. Dad didn't have a copy of the book, nor a proof of the cover in his files, so I'm happy to add something new to his bibliography.