Bob Larkin's Mudd and more

[mmtz]

I stumbled across an interesting blog featuring Bob Larkin's art, including some of his TrekLit work:

Preliminary artwork for Mudd's Angels
http://boblarkin.blogspot.com/2012/05/bob-larkin-mudd-prelim-work.html

Mudd's Angels, by J.A. Lawrence, Bantam, 1978
http://boblarkin.blogspot.com/2012/01/bob-larkin-star-trek-mudds-angels.html

Star Trek II: TWOK illustration for TV Guide
http://boblarkin.blogspot.com/2012/01/bob-larkin-star-trek-ii-wrath-of-khan.html

Larkin also painted covers for Star Trek comics, but these haven't been featured in the blog yet.
http://www.startrekcomics.info/marvel1tosmti.html
http://www.startrekcomics.info/marvel1pb.html

and more of his Bantam Star Trek novel covers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldedo/3929568489/
http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=824&lotNo=44262
http://8of5archive.blogspot.com/2011/08/covers-spock-must-die.html

He's done some nice work.

 

[Christopher]

Ahh, yes, that Mudd's Angels cover was by far the best thing about the book. Those costume designs made quite an impression on me in my teens. (Except it always seemed to me that the Enterprise was about to crash into those mountains back there.)

I like how Larkin's TMP cover for Marvel mimics the famous promo image used as the cover of Blish's Star Trek 1.

 

[Sho]

(Except it always seemed to me that the Enterprise was about to crash into those mountains back there.)

Maybe the helmsman got distracted ...

 

[JD]

That's some great stuff.

 

[Cuhl]

They chickened out on the girls' outfits at some point. They were more revealing in the preliminaries.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

Nice cover art. Ties in with my Blish thread

 

[Christopher]

They chickened out on the girls' outfits at some point. They were more revealing in the preliminaries.

I dunno, sometimes more revealing isn't more interesting. I find the plunging neckline of the redhead's green jacket sexier and more aesthetically interesting than the fairly conventional bikini of the preliminary art, because its choice of exactly what to reveal is more daring. (And it conforms to the "Theiss Titillation Theory": the sexier outfit is the one that looks more likely to fall off or open at a moment's notice. That jacket looks like it could fall open more easily than a bikini top, and implies she's naked underneath.) And the final art does put the woman with the skimpiest outfit in front.

But they definitely dialed back the suggestive, submissive pose of the redhead in the preliminary art, and I think that was a wise choice. This is Harry Mudd, not Conan the Barbarian.