(Today’s post is a click-fest. Click almost all the pictures and you’ll find the paperback cover featuring this artwork. Most links will take you to further pictures as well. Click away! Not only is it interesting to see the artwork on the actual covers, but you will also discover some very melodramatic, entertaining tag lines.)

(Redheads in artistic images are my favorite and McGinnis captures the look so well.)

Today’s Friday Favorite features the incredible paperback cover art of Robert McGinnis. A few years ago while surfing the internet I discovered the work of Robert McGinnis and had an instant deja vu experience. The artwork looked so familiar. Starting with his first cover in 1958, Robert McGinnis has painted almost 1,100 paperback covers. Eleven hundred!!! No wonder his works looked familiar. Gracing the covers of mysteries, detective stories, westerns, romance, gothic tales and adventure stories the work of McGinnis was all over the place when I was growing up.

(I love the creepy hand shadow looming on the wall!)

Good book illustration draws one to the book and it is easy to see that McGinnis’ images are eye-cathcers. Like Frank Frazetta, the prolific nature of Robert McGinnis has made his work recognizable to the point that his female illustration style is referred to as the McGinnis Woman. There is so much detail in his characters, usually juxtaposed against a very sparse background which keeps the emphasis where it should be.

(I love how the yellow and white tones balance out the composition. There is almost a ying and yang thing going on there.)

And his use of lighting is masterful. Many of his illustrations demonstrate just how well he understands light and shadow and he uses it so perfectly to emphasize just the right areas of each painting.

(There’s a sexy Casablanca feel to this one.)

With nearly eleven hundred works to choose from it was difficult to decide on the art for today’s post. To my knowledge all McGinnis’ works are not online but thanks to the dedication of Graeme Flanagan there is a proliferation of images out there from which to choose. Mr. Flanagan was gracious enough to allow me permission to use artwork from his page and every book cover you see when you click on the various pictures is from his site. Graeme’s site is a gold mine of images and information about Robert McGinnis, a site for both the casual and hard core McGinnis fan to enjoy. The main images used on this post are from the Painted Anvil site. Visit both sites for a much greater appreciation of the talent of Robert McGinnis.

(The blue lends such depth and focus to this piece)

The colors used by Robert McGinnis no doubt reflect the era in which he was doing them and they create such a sense of nostalgia for me.

His use of color and light and the positioning of the subjects creates great mood and atmosphere in each piece.

Most of McGinnis’ covers lean more towards stylized but realistic images though some of the less polished works look to me like the kind of art that would have influenced comic creators like Joe Chiodo and J. Scott Campbell.

Whether it is grizzled detectives or sultry seductresses, it is obvious why Robert McGinnis’ art lives on so many paperback covers the world over.

Like many similarly composed novel covers of that era I had always assumed that the interior stories would not hold up to the same quality as the artwork that sold them. Thankfully due to the blog sites of authors like James Reasoner and Bill Crider I have been discovering that there are some really good books out there and I actually own a few of them. I now look forward to giving them a good read.

It is amazing to me that anyone can paint this well. McGinnis’ attention to detail, from individual strands of hair to the light glinting off lip-stick covered lips or the cold steel of a revolver make each piece seem so alive.

Although many of my favorite images come from the detective and mystery novels, Robert McGinnis has done a great deal of other types of cover work. Of the gothic romance novels that feature his art, my favorite is here. Of the more popular books that feature artwork by Robert McGinnis you may recognize that of Where the Red Fern Grows and my second favorite of the Anne of Green Gables series, Rainbow Valley.

In addition to his book cover work Robert McGinnis has done a vast number of movie poster work including How to Steal A Million:

and the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s:

both of which tie in quite well with yesterday’s post! Robert McGinnis can capture such great likenesses as evidenced in this Bond poster featuring Sean Connery.

In wanting to find out more about him I recently purchased the excellent Art Scott/Dr. Wallace Maynard book The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis. In addition to 250 examples of McGinnis’ published works there are rough sketches, model reference shots, and the entire bibliography of the 1,068 books he had done covers for up until the year 2000. Robert McGinnis’ body of work has continued to grow since then and despite being 80 years of age he has recently produced covers for a number of new and reprinted works coming out under the Hard Case Crime label. These latest works can be seen here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

There are also some novels with some hilarious, over-dramatic tag lines that I just had to include (click on titles for the image), my favorites are: Girl on the Prowl, Don’t Speak To Strange Girls, The Homicidal Virgin, and Francesca. Reading the tag lines aloud in the movie-tone voice brings about the desired humorous effect.

There are a few other sites besides the ones linked to above in which to satiate your desire for more McGinnis goodness: Vintage Paperbacks and Leifpeng’s Photo Set.

The art of Robert McGinnis: his sexy women, suave detectives, gothic romantic damsels, western portraits and his other many and varied works won him induction into the Society of Illustrator’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and it is well deserved.

The work of Robert McGinnis is recognizable for his iconic femme-fatales and its retro sexy appeal and I have enjoyed bringing his work to you (twice…explained in the comments section). I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and a fantastic weekend!