Paperback cover illustration by Lou Marchetti for The Joy Wheel, 1954. Oil on board, 27" x 22". Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions, HA.com
your painting. I couldn’t get him to use Payne’s grey instead, which looks black, but is not as intense. I remember once that Lou did one of the first Gothics for Fawcett, and they didn’t even know it was a gothic mystery until after it was selling so much it became a category afterwards. Lou also did Renown Publishing, which was Leo Margulies, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and many other accounts like Ace, Tower, Pyramid, you name it.” Leo Margulies: “I did the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine digest size package, that was done in my house for Leo Margulies, the owner, until he passed away. I put the covers together, specified type, all the graphics and the art. Leo never bought art from anybody else, so anyone that did a cover for him was through me with artists like Daryl Greene, Ron Lesser, Bob Maguire, Rudy Nappi, Lou Marchetti, and others. After Leo died, I tried to get in touch with his wife. I wanted to buy the magazine. She said, ‘I‘m going to continue it and I’m going to California,” then she sold it to somebody who was writing the stories. Bob Schulz: “Bob had an operation, he had a very bad sinus condition when he was young and doctors said he wouldn’t live past his twenties. But he was painting for a long time. He said he outsmarted the doctors when he reached his
64 Illustration
Paperback cover illustration by Tom Ryan, date unknown. Oil on board, 25.5" x 17.5". Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions, HA.com
30s. I remember that. He did a lot of good things for me. He did science fiction covers for Ace Books, and lots of Pocket Books mysteries and Westerns for many years. When he left me he became a teacher at the Art Student‘s League.” Daryl Greene: “Oh, he’s very good, he’s very much in the painterly style of Jim Meese, but did girls like Bob Maguire. Greene was a handsome guy who married a top Ford model, Olga Nicholas. He used her on a lot of covers. She was very sophisticated looking, high cheek bones, Russian decent. He did covers for Pyramid, Signet, you name it. I used him on everything. He did Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine covers too. He also did inside story illustrations for Magazine Management.” Tom Ryan: “He was one of the best Western artists I had at the beginning of my career. He did a lot of covers for Pocket Books when Sol Immerman was there, and he only worked for major book companies. He moved from Long Island to Pennsylvania because one of his children had asthma. One day I got a letter from a gallery out West that was interested in his work, and when I gave it to Tom he eventually moved out West. I think to Texas. He did a load of cattle and other domestic animal paintings for a living and became well known, so you see, people look at paperback art and do consider us Fine Artists.