Pulp fiction cover art is sexy. The whole point of it is to entice you to pick up a random novel called Tall, Blonde and Evil that you probably would ignore unless there was a tall evil-looking blonde staring back at you suggestively. But where does this cover art come from? The man who nailed the look of desire is Paul Rader.

Ironically enough, there is another Paul Rader that was an early 20th century evangelist. But the Paul Rader I’m talking about was a Brooklyn-born artist who ended up in Detroit as a portrait painter. When he moved back to New York in the 1940s his art started to change. In 1957 he signed with Balcourt Art Service and began illustrating for men’s magazines and paperback book covers.
 

 
One of the paperback companies he worked for was Midwood and his cover images made their books sexy volumes to have. Midwood Books was a publishing house only active from 1957 to 1962 and while their target audience was (obviously) men, the often pretty steamy drama of these books meant that they were also popular with women. Rader was able to capture the classic American pin-up dream girls (gone bad) for their covers.

Some of his art was more on the innocent side…..
 

 
And some was more suggestive…
 

 
But all of the women he captured were stunning. And thank god for his art since the titles of these books were usually less than creative.
 

 

 
More after the jump…