Darkly Delicious

Lawrence Stevens is much appreciated for his pulp illustrations of the '40s, his style a bit more refined than his compatriot Virgil Finlay. At times his rendering and layout style could stray well into the realm of fantasy, as this image gracefully demonstrates. 

The bottom frieze panel is darkly delicious.

Lawrence Sterne Stevens — The Devil's Spoon _ 1948

from Famous Fantastic Mysteries

Seeking Out the Ghost Pictures

Pretty nice for a pulp illustration . . .

Lawrence Stevens — Famous Fantastic Mysteries

December 1947

Fallen Angel

Some of the old pulps could be somewhat lyrical with their illustrations, as here with a 'fallen angel'. It's too bad the printing quality had to suffer from the inferior paper. Still . . .

Lawrence Stevens — She Lay There, As She Had Fallen

Visions and Vagaries

This time of year is haunted with visions and vagaries of unholy life and moldy death, and what better image than this phantasmagoria to portray that.

This pulp illustration by Lawrence Stern Stevens is for the Ray Bradbury story Homecoming, from Famous Fantastic Mysteries, December of 1952, and is one of my favorites. The sky-clad witch is a vision unto herself.

Stevens and Virgil Finlay published side by side in these kinds of pulps. Each was unique in style and yet blended together, issue after issue, for a homogenous portrayal of the incredible. Finlay's visions went out among the stars, but Stevens were usually earth-bound phantasies.

Bonfire Survivors

These are a few more items that survived the bonfire. The Thrilling Wonder cover by Bergey is my favorite pulp cover of all time, so iconic and, well, beautiful. Some pulps were saved intact, others were so mangled I had to salvage only individual pages. McCauley's Moon Slave is one of the very few interiors I've seen of his. His covers are wonderful gems. Finlay's covers were never quite as good as his interiors, but his Weird Tales example here is pretty nice. That one survived intact. This post is being uncooperative, so I'm not able to label that one. But I think you'll recognize it.

Bergey

McCauley

Finlay

Stevens