Recycling Visual Motifs
So, I was poking through my archive of paperback book cover scans and I selected 'Serpent's Reach,' a 1980 DAW Book by C. J. Cherryh, for my sidebar Image Gadget. After posting it, something about the cover art, by David Mattingly, tugged at the back of my brain. Where had I previously seen that visual motif of the background image of the big, bug eyes ?
The answer ? On the cover of 'Mad Eyes,' Doc Savage novel No. 34, from 1969. The cover art is of course by the incomparable James Bama. Looks like Mattingly consciously evoked it for his DAW cover, 11 years later. I guess if you're going to recycle a visual motif, one from Bama is as good as anything you'll find.........
