Avon Fantasy Reader No. 2 — Winged Reptile Beast, Fletcher Pratt Cover 1947
Step before this cover of Avon Fantasy Reader No. 2 and you encounter one of the pulp era's most viscerally reptilian confrontations: a sinuous, winged humanoid creature — luminous yellow-green and disturbingly alien — rears triumphantly atop a massive, snarling dragon-like beast. The composition radiates savage energy, with stormy greens and blacks framing the creatures in theatrical conflict. This cover announces Fletcher Pratt's 'The City of the Living Dead,' perfectly embodying pulp fantasy's hunger for the monstrous and otherworldly.
The artist commits fully to a lurid, all-green palette that is either inspired or slightly unhinged — possibly both. The winged reptile figure is anatomically ambiguous in the most gloriously pulp way, straddling the line between terrifying and cartoonishly exuberant.
“AVON Fantasy READER No. 2 35¢ THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD By FLETCHER PRATT”
