Robert Gibson Jones(1889-1969) Working name of American illustrator Robert Gibson Jones. After some art training in Chicago, he worked mostly in advertising for two decades before becoming, in 1942, a regular cover artist for Ziff-Davis publications. In addition to covers for their non-genre titles like Mammoth Adventure, Mammoth Detective, and Mammoth Western, Jones painted 90 covers for Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures; later in the 1950s, he painted covers for Universe Science Fiction, Other Worlds, and Mystic Magazine. He also did some interior art.
Jones’s vivid, stimulating cover illustrations, reminiscent of Earle K Bergey’s in some respects, often had an Arabian Nights feel about them, displaying exotically costumed characters and a fondness for beautiful, dark-haired women; one celebrated cover, for the August 1950 issue of Amazing, featured the face of a woman wearing a bejewelled headband materializing above a mountain range to a group of grounded space travellers. Placing a positive spin on his proclivities, Brian W Aldiss in Science Fiction Art (1975) quotably said that Jones “made champagne of the myth of technological progress: the wish that frontiers beyond the Moon will yield adventure, power and romance.” But one could say with equal justice that his distinctly old-fashioned visions of the future, recalling the imagery of historical romances, lacked any genuine resonance with the futuristic spirit of sf.
Robert Gibson Jones, Amazing Stories 50-04, illustrating When Two Worlds Meet by Robert Moore Williams.Robert Gibson Jones, Alien jungle rescue, Universe SF 54-05.Robert Gibson Jones, Amazing Stories 50-07, Illustrating Victims of the Vortex by Clinton Ames (Rog Phillips).Robert Gibson Jones, Fantastic Adventures 48-01, illustrating Secret of the Serpent by Don Wilcox.Robert Gibson Jones, Amazing Stories 51-01 detail, Empire of Evil.Robert Gibson Jones, Amazing Stories 48-05, illustrating Armageddon by Craig Browning.Robert Gibson Jones, Exiles of the Elfmounds by Richard S. Shaver, Amazing Stories 49-07.Robert Gibson Jones, Fantastic Adventures 43-12, Witch of Blackfen Moor by Leroy Yerxa.Robert Gibson Jones, Other Worlds April 1953 pretty trippy out here.Robert Gibson Jones, Earth Slaves to Space by Richard S. Shaver, Amazing Stories 46-09. The same cover and title were used for The Shaver Mysteries, Volume 4.Robert Gibson Jones, Power Metal, Other Worlds 1953, back cover.Robert Gibson Jones, Cave City of Hel by Richard S. Shaver, Amazing Stories 45-09.Robert Gibson Jones, The Monster from Mars by Alexander Blade (Richard S. Shaver), Amazing Stories 48-04. Alexander Blade was a “house name” used by S.J. Byrne as well as Shaver.Robert Gibson Jones, The Monster from Mars by Alexander Blade (Richard S. Shaver), Amazing Stories 48-04. Alexander Blade was a “house name” used by S.J. Byrne as well as Shaver.Robert Gibson Jones, Other Worlds 53-04, back cover.This contains an image of:Robert Gibson Jones, Jongor Fights Back by Robert Moore Williams, Fantastic Adventures 51-12.Robert Gibson Jones, Forgotten Worlds by Lawrence Chandler, Fantastic Adventures 43-05.Robert Gibson Jones, The Court of Kublai Khan,Fantastic Adventures 48-03.Robert Gibson Jones, Fantastic Adventures 51-05, Invasion from the Sea by Don Wilcox.Robert Gibson Jones, The Ultimate Peril by Robert Abernathy (“Earth lay helpless before this cosmic killer”), Amazing Stories 50-03.
