Tag Archives: J. Allen St. John

The Art of J. Allen St. John

J. Allen St. John

Artist J. Allen St. John was born on this date, October 1, in 1872.  He is best remembered for illustrating the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the covers he did for various pulp magazines, especially Weird Tales.  Burroughs (Edgar Rice, not William S.) is reputed to have said St. John was his favorite artist.  It’s easy to see why.  In honor of his birthday, I want to highlight some of his art work. Continue reading

A Look at Jack Williamson’s Golden Blood

Before he became a master of science fiction, Jack Williamson was a master of pulp adventure. He’s becoming forgotten these days, especially much of his early work.  It doesn’t help that most of his books are not available in electronic format. Haffner Press collected all of his short fiction in a ten volume set. They’re pretty much out of print except for a couple of limited editions of the later volumes.

Williamson started writing for the pulps in 1928. His last novel was published in 2005. He passed away in 2006.  I’ve always wanted to attend the Williamson Lectureship in Portales. It’s within driving distance, but the day job has always interfered.

But I digress. There’s a clear difference in Williamson’s early work compared to his later novels. As he said in the Tamerlane Press edition of Golden Blood (still available for a reasonable price online) as well as the introduction to the Phantasia Press edition of The Reign of Wizardry (also still available), these were works he probably wouldn’t be able to write as an older writer. (I’m paraphrasing here, of course.)

Golden Blood was first serialized in Weird Tales after being rejected by Argosy. If there is an electronic version, I’m not aware of it. It got the cover twice, with both covers painted by J. Allen St. John.St. John also did the interior illustrations shown below.

The first cover, from the April 1933 issue, is a near classic image in the field of fantasy art.  Williamson had an opportunity to buy the painting at the time the story was published but had to decline due to lack of funds.

There have been two paperback reprints, one with a cover by Ed Emshwiller at the bottom of the post. The other was a large print edition from Lancer. My favorite cover is the one with the giant tiger on it. Continue reading

RIP, Jon Arfstrom 1928-2015

Weird-Tales-52-01-204x300Jon Afrstrom passed away December 2.  He was believed to be the last surviving artist to work on the original Weird Tales.  While he wasn’t as well known as Margaret Brundage or J. Allen St. John, Jon Arfstrom created several striking covers in the final years of the magazine, such as the one shown on the right, which from January 1952.  This was his first cover.

In recent years he’d returned to fantasy art and provided cover art for publishers such as Haffner Press and Fedogan & Bremer among others.  He was the artist on the Stoker Award winning collection The Early Fears by Robert Bloch.

Fortunately, Arfstrom was a guest at PulpFest 2015.  You can see an interview with him here.