Earle K. Bergey

One of the most prolific pulp fiction artists of the 20th century, Bergey is recognized for creating, at the height of his career in 1948, the iconic cover of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) for Popular Library.

Bergey's fine art training and salient gift for depicting anatomy made him a go-to artist across a diversity of genres that required scenes with dramatic movement, from photo-realistic sports portraits of famous athletes including Mickey Cochrane, Lou Gehrig, and Jim Thorpe to his signature Bergey Girls that appeared on risque pulps throughout the Depression and in science fiction scenarios from World War II.

Bergey's science fiction covers, sometimes described as "Bim, BEM, Bum," usually featured a woman being menaced by a Bug-Eyed Monster, alien, or robot, with an heroic male astronaut coming to her assistance.

[2] The artist's illustrations of scantily-clad women surviving in outer space served as an inspiration for Princess Leia's slave-girl outfit in Return of the Jedi,[3] and Madonna's conical brass brassiere.

While continuing to paint pulp covers until his death, Bergey sold illustrations to at least four leading paperback publishing houses, including Popular Library and Pocket Books.