From Murder to Mars

This last December turned out to be considerably busier than I’d expected. It required me to limit my blogging to just The Rap Sheet. Which meant that my other blog, Killer Covers, was left unattended for a few weeks. But this morning I posted a rather in-depth piece there about the eye-catching 1951 paperback edition of Saul Levinson’s Murder Is Dangerous, with a jacket illustrated by the prolific Norman Saunders (right).

If you’re not familiar with Saunders, here’s a succinct report on his career, written by his youngest child, David:

He was renowned for his luscious palette and exciting action scenes, his sexy women and his ability to shoot from the hip when facing a deadline! Norman Blaine Saunders' illustration career was as big and successful as any artist could hope for, and no single genre could contain his remarkable talent. He painted them all--aliens and aviators, heroes and hunters, detectives and demons, quarterbacks and comic books, sex kittens and serial killers, westerns and wacky packs!

I really had no idea what riches I would find when I decided to research Saunders. In the course of my efforts, I discovered that I’d known his work through my boyhood fascination with the character Batman, but hadn’t then known his name.

You’ll find my full story here.