The little-known George Ziel is quickly becoming one of my very favorite paperback cover artists. Here you see the wonderfully macabre illustrations he did for the 1970s Pyramid Books editions of R. Chetwynd-Hayes's short story collections (which I haven't read). Zeil paints sultry, sexy, deadly, slightly maddened women, malevolently blank-eyed skulls, drifting tendrils of mist and clouds of living darkness, and mysterious men who blur the line between saviors and psychos like someone with a direct line to their roiling subconscious (of course he was a Holocaust survivor). That gangrenous gray-green hue should be de rigueur for all horror fiction paperbacks!
See more of Ziel's amazing, alluring work for horror, crime, mystery, Gothic and other vintage genre paperbacks here. And yes, you're welcome.
6 comments:
Wow, that is great stuff. The one at the top of the post's my favorite among them. Contemplating throwing it on the wish list, now...
Absolutely fantastic covers! Many thanks for the link to the Zeil gallery. Right now I'm reading Stephen King's "Full Dark, No Stars", though it's an excellent read, the paperback version sports a generic-as-hell Photoshoped cover which makes me say : "They don't make 'em like they used to". I can only dream of what a great creepy cover George Zeil would have painted.
Oh, cool -- I remember not only these covers but the stories inside, which were pretty darned decent.
Dan
Nice stuff! I remember seeing these on the shelves back in the day.
Stunning covers, Will.
Why oh why haven't you yet read the stories inside? R. Cheywynd-Hayes may be the most underrated horror author of all time, for those of us who see the genre reaching the top of its form when dark comedy and a witty, cynical eye are married to an atmosphere of the weird and horrific. The three paperback collections you've posted are all wonderful, as are The Elemental and The Monster Club, even if taken only as a guilty pleasure. Please do yourself a favor and give these a shot (Cold Terror would be my recommended place to start), and then help spread the word on your fantastic site.
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