Vintage Sci Fi Cover Art

[Rena]

I have a serious love for vintage sci fi cover art.

The worse the better!

Anyone else have this obsession?

[Leonie]

I wouldn't call it an obsession, but I do appreciate some of the vintage cover art. I'm always slightly startled at what publishers thought should be on the front of the book - even if it bore absolutely no relationship to the story inside the cover.

[Rena]

Right?! There's some amazing covers out there but some are just amazingly bad.

[mark, personal space invader]

http://70sscifiart.tumblr.com/

http://retrosci-fi.tumblr.com/

http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.com/...

[Richard]

Rena wrote: "I have a serious love for vintage sci fi cover art.

The worse the better!

Anyone else have this obsession?"

You don't get much worse than these:

GoodShowSir

The occasional comments are always good for a giggle.

[Rena]

Richard, I love that site. Thanks for sharing! Lol.

[Micah]

I've had this fantasy that one day my books would sell enough that I could afford to have alternative editions done with vintage-style SF covers.

Love them! I like the old hand-tinted postcards from the 30s and 40s as well, along with the amazing magazine covers to Popular Science and the like from the same time periods.

[Scott]

I've been buying a lot of vintage paperbacks recently based solely on the fact that they have cover art by Frank Frazetta or Jeff Jones.

But yeah, the bad ones have a weird kind of charm.

[Rena]

I have a few that have beautiful covers, but something about those bad ones get me =)

I'm the same way with horror movies.

[Lee]

Definitely agree! Vintage sci-fi cover art, and also vintage fantasy cover art... it's hard for me to see them these days without breaking out into a big cheesy smile.

I think the bad ones definitely outnumbered the gems.

[Rena]

Lee, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. Some are pretty damn amazing. I love my God Hates Kansas book 90% because of the cover.

[Laz]

Mark - what's the story behind the John Carter movie poster with Heston, Brynner, and Loren?

Michael Whelan does the best covers ever! I have met him and am proud to own a couple of cover originals.

Frazetta and Royo and Boris do their genre oh so well.

[mark, personal space invader]

Laz wrote: "Mark - what's the story behind the John Carter movie poster with Heston, Brynner, and Loren?..."

not sure what you are referring to - is it on one of the sites that I linked to?

[Laz]

mark wrote: "not sure what you are referring to - is it on one of the sites that I linked to?"

This one, http://retrosci-fi.tumblr.com/

[mark, personal space invader]

oh my God. that's a movie?? it must be a fake. if not, I need to find that movie right now.

[Mickey]

John Carter is a movie and a strange on at that.
As for art, I do not own any, however I do like Paul Lehr.

[Laz]

(Charlton Heston) unable to use his real name, John (Charles) Carter as an actor because it bore too close a resemblance to the name of the hero in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel "Princess of Mars." (IMDB)

[Mickey]

Oh, I am thinking of the 2012 version of John Carter.
Did not know there was an older version of the movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_...

[Laz]

Mickey wrote: "Oh, I am thinking of the 2012 version of John Carter.
Did not know there was an older version of the movie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_..."

I don't think the earlier one is/was real...

[Mickey]

Then I was confused by the art work poster with Charlston Heston and Sofia Loren then.
Cool then I did not miss anything.

[Phil]

I bought this one because the cover was just so rad:

I couldn't walk away.

[[deleted user]]

HELL YEAH! Sometimes I browse websites with vintage sci-fi cover the whole night through.

[Rena]

I totally understand that lol. I have a good mix if the bad and the beautiful cover art. My vintage collection is over 100 strong.

[LindaJ^]

Phil wrote: "I bought this one because the cover was just so rad:

I couldn't walk away."

That's a great cover!

[Stuart]

I have some great reference books on scifi art. Will dig a few samples out. I like finding covers that have been reused for different stories/authors. I'll stick an example I have up when I'm back on my desktop.

[Rena]

Can't wait to see them.

[Micah]

Just wish I could find someone who does convincing old school vintage SF style art for book covers. So far I've found nothing but poor imitations. :(

[[deleted user]]

@Stuart: Sounds great!!! Thank you!

[[deleted user]]

@Mica: yeah. But I also think it is a mix of different things. Especially the typography.
And also a specific blurryness on it. Because back then it was not added digitally.