King Abdullah, Adventure Magazine cover 1956

Mort Künstler painted this cover for Adventure Magazine, and it's like a scene ripped from the most pulp-tastic jungle adventure you could imagine. The way he builds up those layers of greens and browns in the jungle, it’s all about creating a mood, a sense of being overwhelmed by nature, or maybe by your own testosterone fueled hubris! Look at how the leopard's spots are dabbed on, almost like he’s using pure color to build form. And the way the water is rendered! It’s not just blue, it’s got this frothy, agitated surface, like the whole scene is vibrating with danger. Then you have the highlights of those crocodile teeth. It makes me think of someone like Basquiat, but from a completely different angle, or maybe someone like Guston, embracing the cartoonish, but with killer instinct. It's that tension between the skill and the slightly unhinged energy that gets me. It's a reminder that art doesn't always have to be serious to be seriously engaging.