I received word from my friend Tony Tollin Sunday night that the artist James Bama passed away in his sleep. I never got a chance to meet him, although when I was going to be up in Wyoming in 2018, Tony offered to put me in contact with him to see if I could meet him in person, but I felt I would be too busy with other things, and mainly, I felt that I would be imposing on him, so I declined.

James Bama was a highly successful commercial artist, painting covers for magazines and paperback books from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. When he decided to retire, he moved to Wyoming and began painting incredible portraits of American West subjects. His style is of the school of photo realism.

I first became aware of him when I started paying attention to paperback books in the late ‘60’s as a young kid, and in the book racks at supermarkets, drug stores, books stores, Five and Dime stores, and other places. My eyes were always drawn to his incredible covers for the Bantam paperback reprints of the Doc Savage pulps that helped make those books some of the bestselling books of the ‘60’s and 70’s. Because of their commercial success, many of the paperback publishers started looking around at what other pulp characters they could republish to make money on, and that help to start the reprint boom of the pulp heroes, the Shadow, the Avenger, the Spider, and other pulp creations. I was always drawn by the monochromatic covers to look at the books and wonder if they could be as incredible to read as the covers. When I finally took a chance and bought one to read in the early ‘70’s, I found out that yes, the stories were indeed as exciting as the covers.

Also, as a young kid during the 60’s and early 70’s, I happily joined in the Monster-Craze started by the appearance and success of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and the Shock Theater Television packages from Universal and AIP selling many of their monster movies for syndication. Model-maker Aurora got in on the craze and produced kits of the monsters. Mr. Bama was the artist given the commission to paint most of the box covers for the kits. I didn’t know that at the time I was happily buying them and putting them together. I just loved the covers.

In 2016, at the annual Doc Savage Convention in Glendale, Arizona, the organizers were able to set up a video link with Mr. Bama at his home in Cody, Wyoming. Tony, having established a relationship with Mr. Bama through Tony’s reprinting of the Doc Savage pulps and contracting with Mr. Bama to use his covers wherever possible, interviewed him about his life and work. It was absolutely riveting and hilarious listening to Mr. Bama’s stories for nearly an hour. Here’s the link to the video if you’re interested: (3) Facebook

Mr. Bama led an amazing life. He was a firm believer in hard exercising to stay healthy, and every morning would do several hundred sit-ups, pushups, working the heavy bag, and then briskly walking the long distance from his house to his mailbox every day, even into his 90’s.

Here’s to a great artist and man who gave me many hours of enjoyment! I hope you enjoy some of his fantastic work below (click image to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, some of his acclaimed Western art: