(Cover artist unknown)
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Lymington / Faragasso
A double post for two talents I've recently been enjoying. Firstly, author John Lymington (aka John Richard Newton Chance) who, aside from the film "Island of the Burning Damned" based on his book "Night of the Big Heat", I'm completely new to... he writes some really creepy, and totally original horror / sci-fi tales. I just aquired a dozen or so of his books in all, and I'm devouring them at such a rabid pace it's leaving me little time for anything else. Also interesting: five of the paperback editions contain the fantastically colorful, moody cover art of Jack Faragasso, an artist many of you may be familiar with from his excellent "The War of the Worlds" cover (click HERE) ...see the scans below for his work on the Lymington books.
(Cover artist unknown)
(Cover artist unknown)
Incredible. An author who has completely slipped my notice, and I've been reading science fiction and horror since the '50s, and collecting them since the '60s.
ReplyDeleteMacfadden Books had some spotty distribution around these parts, which is probably why I haven't seen these books locally, but I don't understand why I've never seen the name John Lymington or at least seen the covers scanned before now!
Looks like you scored big when you found these books. Congrats.
I'd heard of the Sexton Blake stuff Lymington wrote under his 'Desmond Reid' alias but never read any of those... I'll be checking those out ASAP too. It's all good stuff so far, Night of the Big Heat and Coming of the Stranger kind of go hand in hand with a similar heatwave / alien invasion theme. I highly recommend The Star Witches, it's a great mix of haunted house and sci-fi, reminded me a bit of Nigel Kneale. And his Night Spiders (short story collection, NOT the full length story of the same name) is also highly recommended, it's full of past paced, spooky / funny 5 page M. R. James-esque ghost tales.
ReplyDeleteI"ve got Faragasso's how to paint book using this illustrator Riley's method.. its ok but I would never have the patience for it.
ReplyDeletethe point is tho that its a rare book!:-)
But I think the layout and type really make them except for the Spiders which just looks creepy.
I'd love to see some pages from the book sometime!
ReplyDeleteit will take some digging when I have time but I'll try!
ReplyDeleteThey also did a piece on him in Illustration mag (early maybe second or third?) have to dig for that too, can't remember but I'm pretty sure they used some of these covers,
but I know you'll have to get a copy now if you don't already!:-)