The December, 1952, issue of Astounding Science Fiction bears a cover that’s remarkably simple in composition, yet by virtue of that simplicity conveys a story wordlessly. (Well okay, the title in the lower left corner is a give-away!)
Though most of Gaylord Welker’s painting consists of little more than a deeply blue sky darkly ascending to near-black (the scan you’re viewing has significantly more color latitude than the printed image), the wrecked spacecraft at lower left and forlorn astronaut at lower right – is that an ejection-seat “D-ring” in his left hand? – tell you all you need to know. Ironically, though, like numerous other cover illustrations for 1950s issues of Astounding, Galaxy Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science from the ’50s, there’s no direct tie-in to any story in the actual issue.
Which means, of course, that the image is begging for literary treatment.
Which has been done across the decades, of course, with great variation!
Anyway, the accompanying illustration is Henry Richard Van Dongen’s lovely panoramic cityscape for Asimov’s “The Currents of Space”.
I’ve now (April, 2020) updated the post by making some minor tweaks to the scan of Van Dongen’s art: I’ve situated the two halves of the image closer to one another, and, increased the contrast. However minor in effect, I think this marks at least a degree of improvement over the original scan from 2017.
Which, is shown at bottom.
So, I can’t tell which I like more – the Welker or the Van Dongen…!
Illustration by Henry Richard Van Dongen, for Isaac Asimov’s story “The Currents of Space” (pp. 130-131)
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Image as it originally appeared in this post…
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