A selection of differing illustration styles all linked from my Flickr Favourites – I figured that rather than post these one at time It’d be better to pack them into groups as a kinda round up. So here’s the notes on the images:

Top: Ejection “Captain Lockhead and The Starfighters” – A 7″ single sleeve, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Barney Bubbles though it is in fact the work of Rodney Matthews. Love the plum and salmon pink colouring here… Image via Flickr User Daevideo

2nd Top: This is one I spotted a while back via Will Schofield’s amazing A Journey Round my Skull. This cover is from a 1975 Estonian Childrens book “Panga-Rehe Jutud” by Jüri Arrak – a typical of the rare, outlandish source material Will so often posts…

3rd Top: Another lift from “A Journey Round My Skull” this image comes via a special feature “Women Snakes and Stalkers – South Asian Book Covers”. Well worth checking out to see a really diverse range of Illustrative work – also check the source: http://www.womensnakesandstalkers.com/ superb stuff…

4th Top: So back to more SF orientated material, and here’s a cover for the 1975 Robert Silverberg Short story collection “Sunrise on Mercury” art by Peter Goodfellow. What actually caught me eye here was that this wild sunscape actually reminded me very much of the 1988 Sega arcade game “Galaxy Force 2″. Not sure if any of you remember that, it was kinda an evolution of sprite scaling tech used in Sega’s Outrun or Afterburner. Anyway the Coin-Op was pretty rare in the UK, expensive to play and not particularly entertaining. On the plus side the level graphics were pretty imaginative and considering this is a 22 year old game the pseudo 3d effect looks very advanced for it’s age! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLRLo2yB04. Image via Filckr user: Martin Isaac

5th Top: A 1963 cover for the John Wyndham apocalyptic classic “The Kraken Wakes” art by Denis Piper. Even though it’s over fifty years old (first published 1953) this is still definitely one SF novel I’d class as essential reading – a plot thats mirrors the plight face with potential global warming and rising sea levels – highly recommended! Image via Flickr user: metoikosdraig

Bottom: The final image is another classic penguin David Pelham SF cover. Here’s a link again to the Penguin SF Book covers gallery: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/ – this image is via Flickr user levar

Another Classic David Pelham Penguin Cover, for the Pohl / Kornbluth collaborative novel “The Space Merchants” this dates from 1974. If your unfamiliar with Penguin SF Book cover art and want to see more, the best place to start is here: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/

Scan via Flickr User metoikosdraig who has assembled this great selection of Classic SF Book Covers

A David Pelham Penguin cover for a 1976 edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s Novel “Cat’s Cradle”

Scan via Flickr User: Michael Bojkowski he’s also got a little selection of Illustrated Paperback cover’s here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mooski/sets/72157594314437849/

Also of note: check this excellent compendium of Penguin SF Book covers: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/ Many thanks to Thistle for that link!

Cat’s Cradle by the way is that game you play with string wrapped round your fingers… I couldn’t remember it either!

Two David Pelham Book Covers from the 1970′s, for Penguin Books…

There’s an excellent in depth Interview with David Pelham over at Creative Review: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/penguin-by-designers-david-pelham/

Art via Jeff’s excellent Ski-ffy blog – if your looking for more Sci-Fi inspiration do check  it out! an extremely large selection of goodies.