Robert E. McGinnis and the art of the sexy Oriental Cover (or Asian stereotypes, if you prefer)

The Art of Robert E. McGinnis is a lovely new coffee table book detailing the prolific outpouring of one of America’s most recogniseable commercial artists. McGinnis began his career in 1947 as a cartoonist, and produced his first cover illustrations for 1956 issues of the magazines True Detective and Master Detective. Then in 1958, he painted his first paperback book cover, and from that day forward his work was in demand including to do several iconic Bond posters. He specialised in pulp and crime fiction covers and I’ve chosen just a few China/Oriental related ones to give a flavour of his work….

This is McGinnis’s cover for Stephen Becker’s 1955 novel Shanghai Incident, which is extremely hard to find a copy of these days. This is the 1960 reprint cover. Incidentally, for the collectors, Shanghai Incident was first published in 1955 by Becker using an alias – Steve Dodge (a bit more pulply I guess). The story is set in 1948 and concerns a ex-OSS now CIA man running round China on the eve of the Communist takeover.

A 1958 novel I don’t much about – oil, Eurasian beauties, SAigon – Lisette, the concubine is half-Tonkinese and half-French. Michael East was a pseudonym for Morris Langlo West (a great name but a little less good for writers of Oriental pulp novels perhaps). Anyway, the McGinnis cover is a fine example of his sexy women….

The Silver Concubine was a 1962 novel by Hal G. Everts and is slightly different in being set in the Wild West in 1883, though not sure how 1883 those shoes are!! McGinnis didn’t really care about such details and tended to just go for the pretty girl and not worry too much about the fine details.

And finally, The Dragon’s Eye by Scott CS Stone actually won the 1969 Edgar Award (your blogger got one in 2013!, so there’s a history of old China scooping Edgars it would seem). It’s about a British journalist in commie China, his beautiful Chinese mistress and it’s all done in a very hard boiled style. Personally I like the guy’s suit and the girl is vintage McGinnis….