Bad robot!

This metal-man has a ray gun, shoots lasers out of his eyes, and is strong enough to abduct a scantily-clad human female with only his left arm. Pretty dangerous! He’s the creation of Earle Bergey for the cover of the January 1950 issue of Startling Stories. Meanwhile the interior has an illustration that is uncredited as far as I can tell, and is quite voeyeristic (who’s looking through what?). It’s proportions are such that, properly reduced, it too might make a nifty bookmakr.

This issue of Startling Stories is available to be read and downloaded from the Intenet Archive.

Someone has bungled, cosmically

Just a bit more Harold McCauley pulp illustration. Boy are we going to be sorry when oxygen tanks gain sentience.

A robot blows up a city while enmeshing a dishy blond in its mecho-tentacles.

This painting graced the cover of the January 1956 issue of Imaginative Tales.

We are going to be sorry when oxygen tanks become sentient.

Both versions of the illustration are courtesy of this post at Pulp Covers. The entire issue can be downloaded from or read at the Internet Archive. It’s pretty pulpy: I counted I think four interior illustrations of helpless dames needing rescue from manly sci-fi heroes. But at least one illustration, sadly uncredited, does seem very Erotic Mad Science:

Interior illustration in Imaginative Tales, January 1956

It illustrates a story by Richard O. Lewis, “Practical Joke.” The promo copy:

Hypnotapes were a proven boon to industry, where difficult problems could be experienced and solved vicariously. But to marriage — sheer chaos!

Well all righty then!

The mechanics of tentacles

This image would be pretty obviously the work of Shirow Masamune (b. 1961) by style even if there weren’t attribution within the image itself. It is reblogged from a 16 January 2014 post at Infernal Wonders, and its origins on the Internet appear to go back to the now-defunct tumblr Random Forever Random, some of which is preserved in the Internet Archive.

Masamune has an official website here.