Frank R. Paul is such a monument in science fiction art that it’s almost a no-brainer to include him in the Great Pulp Art series.
It wasn’t until this past weekend when I picked up a copy of Frank R. Paul: Father of Science Fiction Art that I finally settled on a sample of his work.
It’s not a front cover piece, but rather one of the back covers that he painted for Amazing Stories over the years. The back covers rarely promoted a story inside so Paul wasn’t constrained by an author’s descriptions of what to paint. Instead, they were Paul’s imagination set free to depict life in the future and on other worlds.
This painting appeared on the reverse of the July 1940 number of Amazing Stories.
It’s titled “As Mars Sees Us,” and shows Martians speculating about what the inhabitants of Earth might look like. Here, I’ll let writer Henry Gade, from a brief article inside, explain:
Using his observations with scientific instruments a Martian would reconstruct the Earthman on theory, most likely as artist Frank R. Paul has so cleverly depicted him. Let us “quote” the Martian scientist: The Man From Earth would be a very fortunate man, considering our own standards of existence. He has at his disposal, the richest, most livable world in the solar system. No doubt, he would be a fat, contented creature with a large body, bullet-head, short legs, and webbed hands and feet. Much of his time would be spent in eating, and his civilization would be simple. We of Mars can well be jealous of Earth and its inhabitants. For a future of millions of years of plenty, full of possibility for intellectual and scientific advance as the planet grows older, is in store for her.
I don’t find Paul to be among the pinnacle of talented artists who worked in the pulps. His work is almost primitive in style. He has trouble depicting people, particularly faces, and capturing depth (not perspective), so that often his paintings seem flat.
But as this piece shows, Paul excels in imagination — so much so that it’s easy to overlook the flaws in his work.
His vividly colored, highly imaginative paintings bring a smile to my face. And make this Great Pulp Art.
(By the way, is that the first depiction of an iPad?)
