Eerie #60 Cover 1974

Ken Kelly made this cover for Eerie #60 with paint, though the exact date isn’t recorded. The painting shows a woman draped across the tentacle of some beast on an alien planet, spaceships whizzing past. What strikes me is the sheen. It’s pretty glossy, and you can tell Kelly was into the physical properties of paint. Look at the beast's tentacles—they appear almost glazed. It gives the creature a weird, unsettling sensuality. And then there is the woman, all soft light, and that great plume of golden hair. She is so unreal and perfect. Kelly’s brushwork is precise, almost airbrushed, which adds to the otherworldly feel. The colors are intense, with the red of the planet contrasting against the black of space. This reminds me a little of Frank Frazetta’s work, where you get these fantastical figures in dramatic scenarios. And like Frazetta, Kelly embraces ambiguity. It's up to you to figure out what's going on.