Since 2002, Flesk Publishing has been producing great collections of eclectic and obscure artists of the past and present. For horror fans, two names may be of interest. One is a certified legend of cover art, and the other a rising star in the world of comics. Over the next two columns, I'll profile each, starting with long time illustrator and master of the evocative paperback cover James Bama.

While best known in genre circles for his awesome covers for the resurgent Doc Savage titles put out by Bantam, most baby boomers and Gen X nostalgia freaks will know James Bama from two legendary genre affairs: the covers of the Aurora Horror Monster Kits and the first illustration of Star Trek.

In James Bama: American Realist , author Brian M. Kane chronicles how Bama got the job painting the classic universal monsters on the model kit boxes. Using movie stills from the films, Bama crafted lush, realistic, and evocative renderings of each famous creature, the most standout being Frankenstein. But his quality craftsmanship created controversy. "Bama's use of movie stills to paint the box images drew criticism from parents who felt the actual model kits were crude by comparison." So, he dialed it down and started modeling them on the models. He loved turning the monsters of his own youth into models, and his enthusiasm only failed when Universal ran out of original creatures to satisfy the bottomless demand for the kits, and created humorous spoofs that sucked the energy out of the assignments for Bama.

Bama also painted the original picture of STAR TREK to appear in TV Guide, and the same painting became the cover of the novelization of the early Trek stories by James Blish. It was a strange set of circumstances, as Bama recounted.

"I painted STAR TREK of NBC to promote the show along with BONANZA and some others they were airing that year. Afterwards when Bantam purchased the rights for the paperback cover, Oscar Dystel, the president of Bantam saw it and said, 'Why can't we get artists to do covers like this?' At that point I'd been painting covers for Bantam for years but Dystel didn't know the art was mine."

Don't be a Dystel! Bama's work ranged all genres, creating wild covers for groovy sixties paperbacks about love, sex and rebellion, to surreal covers for Thomas Pynchon, as well as gritty westerns and iconic adventures for Doc Savage. The book lovingly explores Bama's growth as an artist within commercial illustration, and is filled with history and anecdotes on how Bama turned costumed models into the powerful covers so many of us remember with affection.

If you have a hankering for gritty, rich visions of the fantastic and the quotidian, snag a copy of James Bama: American Realist and enjoy a timetravelers guide to fantastic illustrations. You'll be engrossed with this multitalented artists on an average of once per picture.

NEXT: The madcap comic stylings of Mark Schultz

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