Earle Bergey's Dinosaur Attack, Startling Stories Sept 1949 Kuttner
More brazenly pulp than even Bergey's own covers for Thrilling Wonder Stories, this September 1949 Startling Stories image exemplifies his signature formula: a voluptuous blonde in minimal safari attire wielding a ray-gun against a snarling reptilian monster. The creature's red heat-beam arcs toward a helmeted male figure in the background, while the foreground heroine kneels in peril, wide-eyed yet defiant. Bergey's slick gouache technique gives flesh tones an almost pin-up luminosity against the murky alien jungle backdrop.
A barely-dressed blonde, a slavering dinosaur firing a red death-beam, and a cowering hero in the background — this is Bergey operating at maximum newsstand aggression. Any teenage boy walking past a 1949 drugstore rack would have had no choice but to reach for this.
“ANC STARTLING STORIES SEPT. 25¢ A THRILLING PUBLICATION EARLE BERGEY FEATURING The Portal In The Picture A Complete Novel By Henry Kuttner THE HOTHOUSE PLANET A Hall of Fame Classic by Arthur K. Barnes”
