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Rayguns and Rocketships: Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art
Rayguns and rockets! Spacesuited heroes caught in the tentacles of evil insectoid aliens! Who could resist such wonders?
Science-fiction paperbacks exploded over the 1940s and ’50s literary landscape with the force of an alien gamma bomb. Titles such as Rodent Mutation, The Human Bat vs The Robot Gangster, Dawn of the Mutants and Mushroom Men from Mars appeared from fly-by-night publishers making the most of the end of post-war paper rationing.
They were brash and seductive – for around a shilling the future was yours. The stories were often conceived around a pre-commissioned cover and a title suggested by the publisher, and the writers were paid by the word, and sometimes not paid at all. Titles were knocked out at a key-pounding pace, sometimes over a weekend, by authors now lost to literary history (plus a few professionals who could spot an opportunity) who were forced to write under pseudonyms like Ray Cosmic, Steve Future, Vector Magroon or Vargo Statten.
Despite the tight deadlines and poor pay, the books’ cover artists still managed to produce works of multi-hued, brain-bending brilliance, and collected here is an overview of their output during an unparalleled period of brash optimism and experimentation in publishing.
Science-fiction paperbacks exploded over the 1940s and ’50s literary landscape with the force of an alien gamma bomb. Titles such as Rodent Mutation, The Human Bat vs The Robot Gangster, Dawn of the Mutants and Mushroom Men from Mars appeared from fly-by-night publishers making the most of the end of post-war paper rationing.
They were brash and seductive – for around a shilling the future was yours. The stories were often conceived around a pre-commissioned cover and a title suggested by the publisher, and the writers were paid by the word, and sometimes not paid at all. Titles were knocked out at a key-pounding pace, sometimes over a weekend, by authors now lost to literary history (plus a few professionals who could spot an opportunity) who were forced to write under pseudonyms like Ray Cosmic, Steve Future, Vector Magroon or Vargo Statten.
Despite the tight deadlines and poor pay, the books’ cover artists still managed to produce works of multi-hued, brain-bending brilliance, and collected here is an overview of their output during an unparalleled period of brash optimism and experimentation in publishing.
456 pages, Hardcover
Published December 1, 2022
About the author
Rian Hughes
91 books130 followersRian Hughes is a designer, illustrator, comic book artist, type designer and writer. From his studio, Device, he has produced watches for Swatch, Hawaiian shirts, logo designs for Batman and Spiderman and an iconoclastic revamp of British comic hero Dan Dare. His first novel is 'XX'. He has an extensive collection of Thunderbirds memorabilia, a fridge full of vodka, and a stack of easy listening albums which he plays very quietly.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 4, 2023
A few years back I bought, sold, and collected vintage American paperbacks and got to know a lot about them. In the thousands of books I handled, I only ever saw a few that had been published in the UK. If I'd had a copy of this book, I might have gone insane trying to find more of them because the British SF books have some of the most colorful, crazed covers of any paperbacks anywhere.
And they're all here . . . RODENT MUTATION and THE RED INSECTS . . . the numbingly numerous works of Vargo Statten and Bron Fane decorated with covers from an abstract art exhibition. Aliens much weirder than their American cousins, spaceships with bodies like Buicks, pastel explosions, and technicolor spacemen. Essential pop art, way too little known on this side of the Atlantic. Short essays set the stage nicely and provide a Yank-friendly introduction to another world.
Recommended.
And they're all here . . . RODENT MUTATION and THE RED INSECTS . . . the numbingly numerous works of Vargo Statten and Bron Fane decorated with covers from an abstract art exhibition. Aliens much weirder than their American cousins, spaceships with bodies like Buicks, pastel explosions, and technicolor spacemen. Essential pop art, way too little known on this side of the Atlantic. Short essays set the stage nicely and provide a Yank-friendly introduction to another world.
Recommended.
December 28, 2022
Recent Reads: Rayguns And Rocketships. Rian Hughes tour of British SF cover art from the 40s to the 70s is a visual delight, a history of SF publishing from a design perspective, evolving from pulp art to abstract photography and beyond. A superb collection.
January 8, 2023
As a document of sf covers, it is an embarrassment of riches.
The editing and layout detracted for me. The text is too small to read comfortably in this hardback edition. It contains personal reminiscences and historical background mixed together. I did not retain any info about magazines or artists, editors or writers, but I did enjoy a nice name-salad.
The editing and layout detracted for me. The text is too small to read comfortably in this hardback edition. It contains personal reminiscences and historical background mixed together. I did not retain any info about magazines or artists, editors or writers, but I did enjoy a nice name-salad.
October 25, 2023
A neat gallery of covers published from 1920s-’70s (plus some great original art, and later recreations) that exhibit the fabulous illustrations used to sell imaginative fiction to an eager audience. Along with all of the funky rayguns and sleek rocketships, you’ll also find plenty of terrible monsters, weird aliens, scantily clad women, vistas from other worlds, gadgets, space tech, and other cool stuff.
I enjoyed the handmade layouts and the many ‘so bad it’s good’ design and typography choices, and liked the informative written contributions from Steve Holland, Rian Hughes and Philip Harbottle, but otherwise there’s little text here, which could’ve been expanded to include a few detailed features about selected artists. The presentation and print quality is very high, so overall this book’s a winner in my opinion.
I enjoyed the handmade layouts and the many ‘so bad it’s good’ design and typography choices, and liked the informative written contributions from Steve Holland, Rian Hughes and Philip Harbottle, but otherwise there’s little text here, which could’ve been expanded to include a few detailed features about selected artists. The presentation and print quality is very high, so overall this book’s a winner in my opinion.
March 21, 2023
The book is great. The author is terrific.
The art it reproduces? Not so much.
I hadn't seen much of the British SF book and magazine covers, and I have now discovered I didn't miss much. Much of it is vastly inferior to similar titles published in the US.
For British SF collectors, I'm certain it's a wonderful trip down memory lane. For me, NY flea market pack rat of 50s and 60s SF paperbacks, it would have been a pass if I had seen it first, prior to ordering on-line. (Also --- Trim size is smaller than a comic book, which seems pretty ludicrous for such a treasure trove of material. In many places, there are 9(!) images on a page.)
The art it reproduces? Not so much.
I hadn't seen much of the British SF book and magazine covers, and I have now discovered I didn't miss much. Much of it is vastly inferior to similar titles published in the US.
For British SF collectors, I'm certain it's a wonderful trip down memory lane. For me, NY flea market pack rat of 50s and 60s SF paperbacks, it would have been a pass if I had seen it first, prior to ordering on-line. (Also --- Trim size is smaller than a comic book, which seems pretty ludicrous for such a treasure trove of material. In many places, there are 9(!) images on a page.)
March 11, 2024
A fantastic book with over 400 pages of credited pulp sci fi cover art from the middle of the 20th Century. Open the book any page and you can bask in colourful gems of obscure titles alongside some more well known authors and pseudonyms.
At the front is a 20 page potted history of various publications, publishers and artists alongside some fascinating anecdotes from the author on their collection years.
A highly recommended reference book that will either mesmerize you with colour and imagination or send you down into endless rabbit holes to discover even more (which it did for me!)
At the front is a 20 page potted history of various publications, publishers and artists alongside some fascinating anecdotes from the author on their collection years.
A highly recommended reference book that will either mesmerize you with colour and imagination or send you down into endless rabbit holes to discover even more (which it did for me!)
August 27, 2023
This book would have deserved five stars, except for its size. It deserved to be a bigger, coffee-table sized book, instead of a regular hardcover. The arte inside needed larger pages. Also, most pages cram in stamp-sized thumbnails of the magazine covers, making details hard to see.
March 21, 2023
Excellent! We need a book like this for American Science Fiction!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews