James Avati

James Avati, 1912-2005, painted a single Bantam Doc Savage cover, Meteor Menace.

Meteor Menace by
James Avanti

After World War II, Avati obtained a job designing display windows at Fifth Avenue department stores in New York. But he continued to paint on the side and in 1948, impressed Kurt Enoch at New American Library, a new paperback publishing house. He was a hit from the beginning and changed the style of cover painting by the early 1950s.

Avati’s approach—using friends and family as models and focusing on genuine human emotion—set a new standard in the industry, influencing a generation of artists. Today, his original paintings are highly sought after by collectors, and retrospectives of his work continue to draw interest, underscoring his enduring legacy in the world of illustration. — Mystery Tribune