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GEORGE ZIEL – 2017 UPDATE

By Lynn Munroe

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Each year we continue to discover “new” art by the late great George Ziel. This is RAVENSTOR by Elizabeth Renier, Ace 70809, from 1981.

With each passing year I grow more and more convinced that George Ziel was a true Master. It has been my pleasure to share his cover art with you on this site.

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The always resourceful Art Scott arrived at the Los Angeles Paperback Fair with this Ziel item: a box set of five of the Ngaio Marsh mysteries published by Jove. The front side of the box combines Ziel’s art from two different covers: DEATH AND THE DANCING FOOTMAN and DEATH IN A WHITE TIE.

The spine side of the boxed set features the cover art from DEATH AT THE BAR and lists the five books collected in the set.

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The back of the box combines the cover art from DEATH OF A PEER with the man from DEATH AND THE DANCING FOOTMAN.

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When I wrote the article about Ziel in 2011 I included paperbacks, hardcovers, comic books, magazines and a calendar. But I had no idea George Ziel had ever created any movie posters. This year I was researching some back issues of Boxoffice Magazine when I recognized the cover of the October 7, 1974 issue as a Ziel illustration. It’s for a movie called GIRLS IN TROUBLE.

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The black & white Boxoffice cover was adapted from the original art for the one-sheet poster for GIRLS IN TROUBLE (1974). This means there could be other Ziel movie posters out there. To date this is the only one I’ve seen.

For a tiny independent movie releasing company, Group 1 Films Ltd had great taste in artists. Many of their other posters were painted by Robert McGinnis.

Always on the lookout for Ziel covers, I found THE BAD SISTER this year on the shelf at The Bookman, my local used bookstore here in Orange CA. When I showed this cover to my wife Rachel and my fellow Ziel researcher Ruben, they both had the same response: “That looks like Phoebe Cates.” Knowing that Phoebe Cates was a model before she became a movie star, and realizing she was modeling in New York City when this book was published, I contacted her. Phoebe was cool enough to reply through her assistant Amanda, who told me “Yes, Phoebe remembers posing for George Ziel when she was 16, and that is her on the cover of THE BAD SISTER. She did two other modeling sessions for Ziel covers already on your website: THE KIDNAPPING OF CHRISTINA LATTIMORE and THE SÉANCE.” Thank you Phoebe and Amanda. Those other two covers are reprinted below.

THE BAD SISTER by Emma Tennant, Avon 48280, 1980.  Very scarce, which is why I didn’t have it on our 2011 Ziel Checklist. No image of this edition found on an Internet search.

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Image result for dynamite dames calendar 2016

DYNAMITE DAMES is a series of calendars put out by Catch Publishing. Each calendar collects 12 vintage cover images from paperbacks or digests. For their 2016 calendar they chose George Ziel’s 1957 art for Avon T-194, THE WILD ONE, as one of the 12 images for that year. Best of all, they also chose the art for the front cover of the catalog.

George Ziel lives on! 

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