Modesty Blaise cover gallery

I've been sorting through some duplicates of books with the notion of getting rid of them. One series I'm a bit loath to get rid of is Titan's first set of Modesty Blaise books even though they've been superceded by the latest series. The reason is mostly down to the covers by the wonderful John M. Burns, one of my favourite artists. But needs—mostly the desperate need for some shelf-space—must so I'm reluctantly going to let them go.

But not before I scan the covers and present them here as a cover gallery.

(* Modesty Blaise © Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.)

From Top Secret to Action

Richard Sheaf has sent over another example of Fleetway's recycled covers. The cover for Top Secret Picture Library no.31 (1975) became to cover to Action Annual 1982 six years later.

Top Secret was one of my favourites when I was a kid. It featured the adventures of John Havok, an unwilling agent of a British Secret Service department, blackmailed into risking his life after he was unfairly blamed for the crash of a plane. John Havok of the original illustration becomes Dredger of D.I.6—another of my favourite characters from that era. Guess I just had a thing for reluctant secret agents.

Vargo Statten SF Magazine - part 2

The second batch of covers for the Vargo Statten SF Magazine.

Twenty pictures covering nineteen issues... I've posted two for the final issue as I noticed that the colouring was so different on the two copies I've seen.

The magazine was a spin-off from the hugely successful Vargo Statten novels published by Scion Ltd. from 1950. Written by John Russell Fearn, already well-established in American pulps as a leading sf writer, the Statten novels were colourful, exciting adventure yarns, strong on ideas and action.

By 1950, the original paperback market was looking for ways to expand their output and Scion led the way with Fearn's novels. Publishers began to flood the market with dozens of other titles, often using bizarre pseudonyms (Astron Del Martia, Vektis Brack, Bengo Mistral, etc.) to disguise the names of authors who had no background in sf. With no quality control at work, the good sf that was appearing (usually from Scion and Hamilton & Co.) was swamped by mediocre stories.

The Vargo Statten SF Magazine arrived in January 1954 and styled itself upon the pulp action of the novels. This made the magazine too juvenile for the tastes of many, although at the same time the magazine was very fan-friendly, carrying columns and reviews by some of the leading fans of the day, notably A. Vince Clarke's "Inquisitor" column and a "Who's Who in Fandom". The lead stories were generally written by some of the better authors contributing to Scion, namely Fearn himself and E. C. Tubb. As a market for new writers, the magazine scored only once, publishing the first sf story by Barrington J. Bayley.

The magazine had potential but changes behind the scenes led to numerous problems. Scion needed to be re-financed, owing large debts to their printers and editor Alistair Patterson departed after only three issues. John Russell Fearn took over as editor and struggled to find good material with only a limited budget. A film fan, he introduced adaptations of movies such as It Came From Outer Space and Them!. With issue 6, Vargo Statten was dropped from the title, which became the more sedate British Science Fiction Magazine and Fearn began revising old stories from American pulps to eke out the money. Science articles were a regular feature, as they were in most British sf magazines.

From December 1954, the printers Dragon Press also became the publisher and Fearn's budget was cut again. Unknown bylines such as Maxwell M. Commander and Ralph Gaylen were appearing, some almost certainly pen-names while others were authors whose sales to the British Space Fiction Magazine (as the title became in June 1955) were often their one and only contribution to sf.

Under Dragon Press the magazine settled to a digest format with 128 pages (having initially appeared as a pulp and then in a large digest format). As well as a new title, the magazine also adopted a standard cover design, but even these cost-cutting exercises failed to save the magazine from a national printers' strike and the last issue appeared in February 1956.

Vargo Statten SF Magazine

As promised, here's the first part of the Vargo Statten SF Magazine gallery, a supplement to the recent gallery of John Richards covers. Richards was responsible for the February, April, September, November and December issues for 1954 and the January 1955 issue (issues 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 & 9). The artist for the remaining issues was Ron Turner—which is excuse enough to put these up!

You'll notice that there were some oddities with the magazine, namely that the covers for issues 6 & 9 and 7 & 8 are repeated. Annoyingly, my issue 10 has a damaged cover—so if anyone has a better copy, an improved scan would be very welcome.

Update: 19 July 2008

Thanks to Phil Stephensen-Payne, I've replaced the damaged issue 10 with a far superior (and complete) version.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Bond... James Bond cover gallery

As today is the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth and the official release date for Sebastian Faulks new James Bond novel, Devil May Care, I thought it was a good time to look back at the original novels by Ian Fleming.

Painted Covers

Pan 333, 1955. Cover by Roger Hall.
Pan G198, 1959. Cover by Sam Peffer.
Pan G198, 1961.
Pan G198, 1962; 1963. (same as above)

Pan GP83, 1957. Cover by Rex Archer.
Pan GP83, 1961.
Pan X233, 1963. (same as above)

Pan 392, 1956. Cover by Josh Kirby.
Pan G216, 1959. Cover by Sam Peffer.
Pan G216, 1961.
Pan X234, 1963. (same as above)

Pan G101, 1958. Cover by Rex Archer.
Pan G101, 1961.
Pan G101, 1963. (same as above)

Pan G229, 1959. Cover by Sam Peffer.
Pan G229, 1961.
Pan G229, 1962. (same as above)

Pan G335, 1960. Cover by Sam Peffer.
Pan G335, 1961. Cover by Sam Peffer.
Pan G335, 1962. (same as above)

Pan G455, 1961. Cover by Pat Owen.
Pan X238, 1963. (same as above)

Pan G551, 1962. Cover by J. Oval.
Pan X239, 1963. (same as above)

1st Series livery [ 1963]

Pan X232, 1963.

Pan X233, 1963.

Pan X234, 1963.

Pan X235, 1963.

Pan X236, 1963.

Pan X237, 1963.

Pan X238, 1963.

Pan X239, 1963.

Pan X201, 1963.
Pan X240, 1963.

Pan X653, 1967.

Pan X350, 1965.

Pan X434, 1966.

Pan X527, 1968.

Pan X 02081-1, 1967.

Movie Tie-Ins

Pan G335, 1962.

Pan X236, 1963.

Pan X238, 1964.

Pan X201, 1965.

Pan X434, 1966.

Pan X232, 1967.

Pan 10350-4, 1969.

Pan 10235-4, 1971.

Pan 10233, 1973.

Pan 10573-2, 1974.

As our gallery is intended to cover Ian Fleming novels only, I'm including the following... the new novel is rather oddly credited on the cover as "by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming".

Why on earth they've decided to use this rather bizarre byline I've no idea. Is Ian Fleming now to be considered the pen-name of Sebastian Faulks? Why would Eon want to diminish the Ian Fleming brand in such a way on his centenary? Technically there is a new Ian Fleming book just about to hit the shelves, an omnibus collection of all the James Bond short stories called Quantum of Solace which will reprint the stories from For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy along with '007 in New York' which has been added to editions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights (the original title of the collection) since 2002. It originally appeared in the New York Herald Tribune back in October 1963 and might have been missed by quite a few Bond fans in the UK unless they picked up the 2004 edition of the collection.

(* I ran out of scanning time so I had to grab a few images from the Pan Collector's Website.)