This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Publication starts Tuesday…
Tag Archives: tube girls
Startling Stories’s tube girl
How sharp my regret I don’t have a higher-quality version of this cover, given how it exhibits one of my favorite visual tropes. It was painted by Walter Popp for the August 1953 issue of Startling Stories. Interior art in the issue includes this piece by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Wages of Synergy,” which is about as symbolically representative of Erotic Mad Science as any piece of pulp art I have yet found.
This issue of Startling Stories is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
Imaginative Tales achieves tube girls
Of course you can’t be a really first rate sci-fi pulp unless you have tube girls. I’m pleased to note that while the interior art got thinner over time, Imaginative Tales did go there on two of its covers. Here’s May 1957, done by Lloyd Rognan (1923-2005).
And exactly one year later, D. Bruce Berry (1924-1996).
Both the 1957 and the 1958 issues are available to read or download from the Internet Archive.
With some tentacles at her disposal
Comet was another short-lived magazine (five issues in 1940 and 1941) that, unlike A. Merritt’s did not tend to attract top-of-the-line talent. Nonetheless this March 1941 cover by Leo Morey hints at the tube girl meme, and interior art by the very obscure Michael Mirando hints at…tentacles?
This issue is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.
Early tube girl in an unusual source
A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine was a very short-lived venture in speculative fiction publishing — the ISFDB discloses only five issues published in 1949 and 1950, but it sure managed to publish some splendid art. This tube-girl cover painting on the October 1950 cover was done by the great Norman Saunders, and an interior illustration to Elinor Cowan Stone’s story “The Devil-Fish” has an illustration by Virgil Finlay.
This issue is available for reading and download at the Internet Archive.
Early comics tube-girl appearance
Otherwise little-known superhero “the Purple Mask” is apparently about to save our heroine from being fired as an artillery shell by a bunch of Nazis. Why are they doing this? Perhaps firing women as artillery shells is just how comic-book Nazis relax after a hard day’s oppressing the subject peoples of Europe, although personally I think it would be a more interesting story if they had a mad scientist on their side who had figured out some way of using pretty women as effective munitions. In any event, this is a cover done by Alex Schomburg (1905-1998). Daring Mystery Comics was a short-lived (8 issues) series put out by Timely Comics between 1940-1942. Hat-tip to the podcast Comics in the Golden Age, whose twitter feed @ComicsintheGA brought my attention to this cover.
A pot of mermaids makes for a hell of a party
From Planet Stories, Winter 1946, illustrating a story by Larry Sternig, “Breath of Beelzebub.” Art is uncredited. The issue cover brings the sexy:
The cover is believed to be the work of artist Chester Martin (1924-2013), and I have taken this version of it from his entry page at pulpartists.com.
This issue of Planet Stories can be read at and downloaded from the Internet Archive.
Two more examples of Redpulp as master of tube girls
Redpulp has been at this for a long time. From 2012:
This illustration is the work of Redpulp (a DeviantArt user ID). Please do not copy, reproduce, or alter it without its creator’s permission.
The illustration’s presentation page contain’s Redpulp’s narrative explanation:
The Aliens found a particularly fertile encampment of humans in what was called a “Uni-versity” before the bombardment. After subduing any resistance, the females are placed into sterile canisters for transport to the alien breeding centers…
And just recently, a return to theme:
This illustration is the work of Redpulp (a DeviantArt user ID). Please do not copy, reproduce, or alter it without its creator’s permission.
And the narrative:
Monique had only volunteered to be his Lab Assistant to bring up her abysmal grade. As it turns out – skipping 3 lectures and blowing the final WASN’T the way to pass an advanced science class, who knew?
Now she was paying the price, Summer had just started! Her friends were all partying on a beach in Miami while she was stuck here listening to her Professor drone on about whatever boring-ass science crap he was excited about. She took another sip of the bizarre Tea concoction he had given her, maybe the caffeine would keep her awake as he chattered on. Strangely though – it seemed to be having the opposite effect…
When she woke next, Monique found her circumstances much more INTERESTING…
Word to the wise: if a mad scientist offers you tea and you’re the sort who can ignore whether your space-costume makes sense or not, don’t accept it,, unless you really up for something, uh, “interesting.” Like intimate involvement the production of Monique-flavored seltzer, or whatever else is going on here.
You can and should visit Redpulp’s DeviantArt site. Long may he illustrate!
“Beware the Asylum” Fan Art — Karen in the tube
This illustration is the work of Redpulp (a DeviantArt user ID). Please do not copy, reproduce, or alter it without its creator’s permission.
Back in 2014 prolific CG artist Redpulp* generously contributed two fine pieces of fan art based on the then-current Gnosis College story: “Scientific Progress goes *SCHLORP* and “Tubing Marie”. It is with great pleasure that today I can present a similar piece of fan art from “Beware the Asylum.” It’s Karen (I’m aware it’s a “silent” comic so you might not know that, but she’s given that name in the script) protecting what she can of her modesty while awaiting whatever fate mad science has for her. I have to say, Redpulp sure has a deft hand with tube girls!
I’ve made the image above available in full resolution for those who want it. Left-click to view, right-click to download.
You can see a lot more of Redpulp’s art at his DeviantArt site. Visit! Leave appreciative comments!
—*At the time he did these pieces, Redpulp was working under a slightly different DeviantArt handle, and my 2014 presentation posts reflect that. The unpredictable Internet-driven drift of colloquial English subsequently conveyed on that handle some unfortunate implications which he understandably wanted to avoid. Could happen to any of us! So he updated his handle to its present form of “Redpulp,” which is entirely appropriate, given that he also takes a lot of inspiration from the great artistic tradition of pulp magazine covers.
Sybian Olympics 2044
2044 Sybian Olympics, commissioned by Dr. Faustus of EroticMadScience.com and illustrated by Alexis Pirrate. Please do not copy, alter, or reproduce this image without consent of the creators.
It is 2044, the planet is warmer, the world is crueler, global political geography has been scrambled by secessions and conquests, and a number of interesting new events have been added to the Olympic Games, including this contest of erotic endurance involving an apparatus consisting of a Sybian, a Reichian orgone concentrator, and of course, a tube. Glory to the winner, and vae victis!
This illustration was done for me by Alexis Pirrate. He maintains a professional website, Studio Pirrate, and you can also support him on Patreon, as I do.
The illustration is available in full size (huge, about 14MB) which you can access with a left-click-and-view or a right-click-and-download.
As for the full story behind this strange event? Well, I guess I’ll get around to writing it someday…