Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John is not a sex romp, but a serious piece of utopian science fiction that was highly regarded in its day. Below you see the original art, on which the title character seems to be gazing into inner space, as opposed to the pulp art above, in which a shocked nudist has just caught him gazing into her inner space. The sexual tone here is reinforced by the girl’s caress of one phallic symbol, and by the genital placement of another. Or are we looking too hard at this? Anyway, Odd John is just another fun example of serious fiction being pulped for the sake of easy sales. Often, the lurid new art—in this case by Robert Stanley—is an improvement on the old. This time, hmm… maybe not. But that’s the wonderful thing about vintage paperback art—even at its worst, it’s the best.
