The First Detective of the Space Age, and more Pulp Science Fiction Art

April 19, 2010 5:12 PM

Ron Turner (1922 to December 1998) was an artist and author from the UK, with a extensive list of credits. He script, letter and created the artwork for a number of series, though that proved to be too much for the quick turn-around time required for publishing. He excelled when he could focus on the artwork, as seen with Rick Random, who first appeared as part of Super Detective Library in the 1950s. "The first detective of the space age" returned in the late 70s with 2000 AD. Ten story arcs from the 1950s and 60s were collected in quite a tome, featuring new cover art. Though Turner was well known for his pulp Sci-Fi artwork that graced comic and book covers, he only produced two covers for Super Detective Library, and neither were suitable for a Rick Random compendium.
posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

Oh HELL yeah, this is the good stuff!
posted by Scoo at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2010

This link from above is the "highlight" of the post, but somehow...unsettling.

That Avenging Martian cover actually made me physically ill.

Amazing style, indeed, but many of the covers seem to depict a number of quasi-disturbing [tactless?] sub-texts.
posted by humannaire at 8:28 PM on April 19, 2010

Beautiful work. I doubt the covers are any more xenophobic/racist/sexist than the usual pulp sci fi covers of the era.
posted by benzenedream at 9:49 PM on April 19, 2010

Erm, yes, it seems I buried the highlight again (the pulp Sci-Fi artwork cover collection on Flickr). The Avenging Martian cover art is dramatic, but I'd imagine that such artwork was pushed to dramatic levels, to win over readers from competing publishers.

Also, a point of clarification: the "new" Rick Random cover was actually a recent colorization by John Ridgway of an original page of Ron Turner art from one of the included comics. If you fancy a try at coloring the sheet yourself, Bear Alley has the three possible candidates scanned at a decent resolution for a base image.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:22 AM on April 20, 2010