Above you see a cool little treat—a colorful cover for Zonde op wielen from Amsterdam based publisher Uitgeverij Orion. It’s a Dutch translation of the 1962 Midwood Books sleaze novel Sin on Wheels (larger image for laptop and desktop users here), written by Loren Beauchamp, who was in reality sci-fi legend Robert Silverberg.
The art is a translation too, sort of. It’s a new angle on Paul Rader’s painting for the Midwood original—and as you can see, it features the same character in the same groovy outfit standing in front of the same trailer, but painted from a different angle. It’s the first time we’ve seen this—an artist painting what another artist painted, but changing the viewpoint. We think the Uitgeverij cover is even better than Rader’s. We know—sacrilege, but we really like it. Or maybe we’re responding to the impact of its novelty. Let’s just say they’re both excellent efforts.
The brush responsible for the Uitgeverij art belonged to Dutch illustrator J.H. Moriën, whose distinctive signature you see at the righthand edge. He was born in 1897 and was active during the 1920s and ’30s, then after a mid-life hiatus began producing a lot of art again during the ’50s and ’60s. Maybe he wanted an RV of his own in retirement, but realized he didn’t have enough cash. We found other pieces by him, so maybe we’ll get back to him later. Though this one will be very hard to top.
