For those of us who discovered Doc Savage during the Bantam reprint years, the covers captured our imaginations much like the pulps’ covers did for their readers during the 1930s and ’40s.
Of those Bantam paperback covers, 47 were painted by Bob Larkin. In recent days, there has been bad news from Bob Larkin.
Terry Allen of Fantom Press explained in an email earlier today:
First I wanted to offer up a quick update on the situation of Bob Larkin and his family. As most of you know, Bob’s wife is suffering from brain cancer and a myriad of other problems that stem from her ongoing need for chemotherapy.
Two months ago, Fran Larkin fell at home and when he picked up Fran from the floor, Bob herniated a disc in his back, has been in constant pain and needs a cane to get around. Since her fall, Fran has been in the hospital and finally in a rehab facility to regain enough strength to be able to walk again. Insurance covers very little and subsequently the family has been financially drain to the point that they must now put their home for the past 30 years up for sale.
Currently, most of Bob artwork, computer and reference materials have been boxed for storage in order to get the house ready to put up on the market. As I hope you can appreciate, this has been overwhelming not only for Bob, but his grown kids as well.
The good news in all this is that Bob has several hundred pieces of artwork that spans his 40 year career that could potentially be sold. The bad news is that Bob, like many artists, is a pack rat and that even he doesn’t know what all he had before it went into storage. I’ve been working with Bob’s agent to line up buyers for specific pieces that I know Bob has, but that’s going to take some time.
With circumstances as they are, it’s unlikely that Bob will be doing any new commissions or have the time or energy to sign new items, so at his request, I’m lowering the price of the last of his signed prints as well as bookplate-signed copies of The Savage Art of Bob Larkin down to only $10 each in hopes that we can raise some funds to tide the family over the next few weeks of this difficult transition.
Since the number of posters are small, Terry asks that you email him first to confirm that the posters you would like to purchase are still available.
As Terry mentioned, a large portion of these sales go directly to the Larkins.
