A significant trend during the early 1970s in the cover design for reissued 1950s recordings was to wrap them in a vibrant cartoon sleeve featuring teenage girls slurping on overflowing sodas or sticking their butt in the air. 50s teen iconography – saddle back shoes, rolled cuffed Levis, over-rouged lips and pony tails are all there with jukebox and soda fountain used as backdrops. It’s a cute sell but one that is unequivacably sexualised. Teen innocence is but a masquerade for more prurient adult action.
Tipped off by Paul Gorman’s blog [here], I’ve been browsing through early editions of Paul Raymond’s Club International skin mag, circa 1972-75. Among the attractions on offer are some of the era’s best illustrators, many of whom worked on album designs, including Bowie and Bolan’s chum George Underwood. NTA Studio is prominently featured, as is photography from Hipgnosis who frequently collaborated with the Studio’s illustrators, eg. Be Bop Deluxe’s Futurama. NTA’s Bob Lawrie, George Hardie and Bush Hollyhead were used regularly by Club International, including this illustration that accompanied an article on cinema going
Hollyhead and Club International were clearly uninterested in any ambiguity in the cartoon’s depiction of 50s teen activities. When NTA dropped out, Mike Farrell’s illustrations were regularly featured in their stead. He’s the artist responsible for the Bo Diddley and Billy Stewart albums shown above. Farrell did some arresting photo montages for the magazine but here’s a fairly typical illustration. The girl might come straight from the pages of Eerie or Creepy horror comics.
