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[Art and Inspiration] Johnny Bruck
They say quantity is a quality all on its own, and that certainly fits the artistic output of Johnny Bruck.
Johnny Bruck was a German artist mostly working in pulp magazines, most famously Perry Rhodan, that weekly science fiction pulp novel series that is at novel issue 3306 as I write this.
In fact until his death in 1995 he illustrated most of the 1799 covers of the series up to that point (only two (!) were from other artists, and his wife and daughter finished his last two pictures), as well as most of the Atlan spin off series (also 800 issues or so), most of the 400 books of the paperback series of novels, and a variety of other things for the series.
And he did interior illustrations.
AND he worked for other publishers and series as well.
It seems he was just the guy if you wanted a serviceable original science fiction picture on time, and for a reasonable price. Mind you, what he delivered could be amazing. It also could be a bizarre experiment in styles and techniques that only had the most tenuous connection to the novel it illustrated.
When I was a kid I thought his style was just that, until I realized that many of the more run-of-the-mill covers of the early series which actually showed stuff from the actual novel were also by him.
He was a working artist, and I deeply respect that.
The iconic first cover of Perry Rhodan for issue 1 “Unternehmen Stardust” (Operation Stardust) from 1963, in which a group of astronauts from the American Space Force meet aliens on the moon in 1971.
Bruck also loved his western themes. He also illustrated quite a few pulp western novels (they were a large part of the German pulp market for a long time) and brought in his wild west sensibilities whenever he could get away with even in his science fiction works.
I don’t have a clue what this one is about, this was from the Atlan story “Das Multi-Bewusstsein” (The Multi-Consciousness). But I never actually read the Atlan series. Not the first one at least. Atlan was a spin-off from the main Perry Rhodan series about a sexy immortal alien that constantly talked to himself.
I remember this one from when I bought the issue. As with many of his cover illustrations I don’t have a clue anymore what the novel was about and how it related to the story, but I certainly liked whatever he tried to show here. It just looks kinda cool.
Kartanin were cat persons from another universe. Because of course they were. Perry Rhodan could be weird.
The Planetenromane (Planetary Novels) were a sub-series of Perry Rhodan, mostly standalone novels that sometimes had quite interesting topics. In this case… I don’t have a clue, but considering it’s called The Knight of Arkon I bet it was again about Atlan doing some stuff either in the past of Terra, or using his experience living through the whole of Terran history to play the knight somewhere else.
I don’t know how many ancient spherical ships stranded on a desert world were explored in the series, but I seem to remember at least 4 different ones from the novels I read (and I didn’t read even a large part of them). I guess some themes just resonate with audiences.
That looks like a system monitor with a planetoid hull in the back (in Traveller terms)
I don’t know what this is about, but the whole cover looks so 80s.
Another Atlan cover. Looks very Sword and Sorcery.
This looks so Lovecraftian I wouldn’t be surprised if he was inspired by exactly that.
