SPANISH COVER ARTISTS: GUNS, BIKINIS, LARRY KENT AND STEVE McQUEEN

In the late 1960s/early 1970s Spanish syndicated artwork became a common feature of generally lower end book covers across the globe. These syndicated covers, which were presumably cheaper for publishers to use than specially commissioned artwork, tended towards generalised action scenes featuring cowboys, guns, bikinis and stylised violence. They adorned a range of publications from the Kommissar X books in Germany, to Perry Mason books in Spain, to the Fleetway Thriller Library series in Britain, to Avon gothic covers in the US and the Larry Kent digests and Cleveland Westerns in Australia. They also featured on Mills and Boon romances and even the Coxeman adult novels.

The covers had the advantage of being reasonably generic, so often the same cover can be found on a German Kommissar X book or a Spanish crime novel and a Larry Kent digest in Australia: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-spanish-cover-up/.

The various Spanish art syndicates made good use of some of Spain’s best comic artists including Enrich Torres Prat, Jordi Longaron and Fernando Fernandez, to name a few. In Australia, the Nova Bossa agency provided a range of covers by artists such as Fernandez, Rafael Cortiella, Josep Maria Miralles and Albert Pujolar Soler for Cleveland westerns, Larry Kent digests and several other popular publications: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-more-larry-kent-spanish-covers/)

In recent years I have taken to looking out for these covers and have highlighted them on a number of posts: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-larry-kent-the-miralles-covers/

I recently came across some more, as well as some Spanish covers from America and the United Kingdom.

I am unable to identify the artist of the cover Everybody’s Girl, Petroz?, but it is very much in the style of the other Kent books of the time, with a generic bikini clad girl. The only thing missing is the gun.

The cover for The Filthy Ones is by Fernando Fernanez, a well respected Spanish artist who did a wide range of comic strips and covers for various publishers, including British Fleetway Thriller Library, Avon, Beagle and Dell, as well as the Vampirella comic strips.

The typical Fernandez cover usually comprised a man with a gun, an action scene and a young woman in various stages of undress. This is certainly the case with the above cover for The Filthy Ones. Like most of the Spanish artists, Fernandez frequently based his male figures on popular movie stars of the time, including Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford, or replicas of scenes from movies, including The Day Of The Jackal. In The Filthy Ones, it is Steve McQueen’s turn to take the central position. https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-larry-kent-covers-by-fernando-fernandez/

Fernandez also did the above cover for the Coxeman adult novel, A Hard Man Is Good To Find, by Troy Conway.

British Fleetway Thriller Library were big users of Spanish covers. The above one for Three For A Killing is done by Angel Badia Camps who did hundreds of covers for British comic books and novels, as well as for Spanish and German pulps. Camps went on to become a well respected fine artist. This cover is fairly typical of his book covers, which often had a horror element to them, such as the skull above.

The cover for Chain Of Infamy is by the very prolific Spanish artist Josep Maria Miralles. Miralles was a self-taught Spanish artist, who started drawing comics and covers in 1953 and went on to provide illustrations for a range of British and European magazines and book publishers.

The above cover illustration was well syndicated and can also be found on the cover of a German Kommissar X book. Miralles also did many covers for the Larry Kent series, including the two below which feature a drawing of Charlton Heston (A Twist Of Fate) and a scene from the poster for In The Heat Of The Night (The Big Come-On).

Some years ago, I did a review of Chain Of Infamy, which can be found here: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-chain-of-infamy-by-george-beare-fleetway-thriller-library-1977/

I am always on the lookout for Spanish covers, and will feature more in future posts.