Rayguns and Rocketships Vintage Science Fiction Book Cover Art

Rayguns and rockets! Spacesuited dames caught in the tentacles of evil insectoid aliens! Who could resist such wonders? Science fiction paperbacks exploded over the 1940s and ’50s literary landscape with the force of an alien gamma bomb. Titles such as Rodent Mutation!, Beyond the Galaxy, Dawn of the Mutants and Mushroom Men from Mars appeared from fly-by-night publishers making the most of the end of postwar paper rationing. They were brash and seductive – for a shilling the future was yours.

Despite the punishing deadlines and poor pay, the books' cover artists managed to produce artworks of multihued, brain-bending brilliance, and collected here is some of the best of their output during an unparalleled period of brash optimism and opportunism in book publishing. Beware the space fiend!

Rian Hughes is an award-winning graphic designer, illustrator, comic artist, writer, and typographer who has worked extensively for the British and American advertising, music, and comic book industries. His recent books include Custom Lettering of the ‘20s and ’30s, Soho Dives, Soho Divas, and XX: A Novel, Graphic. He has an extensive collection of Thunderbirds memorabilia, a fridge full of vodka, and a stack of easy listening albums which he plays very quietly in his home in London.