Astounding Stories of Super Science

October 1930

Hal Salive Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection, University of Otago Library Special Collections. Every effort has been made to trace copyright ownership and to obtain permission for reproduction. If you believe you are the copyright owner of an item on this site, and we have not requested your permission, please contact us at special.collections@otago.ac.nz

New York: Clayton Publications

This image is painted from a scene in UK-born SF writer Victor Rousseau’s novella, The Invisible Death, which expounds the story of America defending itself against a ‘terrific and destructive Invisible Empire’. Wesso painted in oils and provided artwork not only to Astounding Stories but to other pulp and SF magazines such as Amazing Stories, Strange Tales and Clues. Considered to be one of the ‘most influential artists during the 1930s’, Wesso’s figures can sometimes be described as ‘stiff’. The character on the front of this October 1930 Astounding is a case in point – it looks as though both of this man’s eyes are in the same socket. Despite this, Wesso’s style is also described by the online Science Fiction Encyclopaedia as being ‘open’ and having an ‘abstract beauty’.