Super Science Stories – January, 1950 (Featuring “Beyond All Weapons”, by L. Ron Hubbard) [Lawrence Sterne Stevens] [Updated Post]

(Originally created in June of 2021, I’ve lightly updated – edited, really – this post.)

Paul Callé (March 3, 1928 – December 30, 2010) had a long and distinguished career in the world of illustration, his extraordinarily varied and productive oeuvre encompassing the design of postal stamps, “Western” art, and magazine covers, the latter particularly for Galaxy Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and Super Science Fiction.

Perhaps most notably in terms of popular culture, he designed postal stamps commemorating pivotal events in the United States’ space program: America’s first Extra-Vehicular Activity (“EVA”) – astronaut Edward H. White, Jr.’s, “space-walk” of June 3, 1965, during Gemini 4 (issued on September 29, 1967)…

…and the first manned lunar landing and EVA, during Apollo 11 on July 16 and 20, respectively (issued on September 9, 1969).

Stylistically representative of his illustrations for that magazine, Calle’s cover, rather then portraying a visually literal representation of (imagined!) space-suits, space vehicles, technology, and a planetary landscape, instead works on a much more direct, almost “mythical” level, making use of bold contrasts between light and dark, with conveying the essence of the story on a symbolic level. Calle’s other illustrations for Super Science Stories were (are!) equally striking. To me, his work has a very strong resonance with the black and white illustrations of Rockwell Kent.

The illustration below accompanies L. Ron Hubbard’s tale “Beyond All Weapons” in the January, 1950 issue of Super Science Stories (on page 71) which was downloaded from the illuminating Luminist Archive.