Startling Stories – May, 1952 (Featuring “The Hellfower”, by George O. Smith) [Alex Schomburg]

Typical of Startling Stories from the early 1950s, the magazine’s content is comprised of a complete novel, a novelet, short stories, and features, with the first two items- by George O. Smith and Kendell Foster Crossen, respectively – being featured as cover titles.

As the magazine’s main and lead item, “The Hellflower“, which starts on page 12, features one of Virgil Finlay’s well-known, intricate, dual panel art treatments (with a lightly erotic overtone) followed by two other illustrations later on. The great illustration of the battling astronauts on page 23 shows Finlay’s emphasis on visual style over technology, unlike Edmund Emshwiller (“Emsh”). But, the technology present in the illustration, is still fitting.

The cover illustration – done in airbrush? – by Alex (Alejandro) Schomburg makes a clever twist upon 1950s pop culture: Flying saucers hover over an alien landscape, but the beings floating to descend on the planet’s surface are not aliens, but men. Of course, to anybody or anything native to this cratered moon of a brown-hued gas-giant, these very beings would be aliens, and not men.

Well, aliens or men, you get the idea: It’s all in the perspective.

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