Sam Peffer

His best known work was for the covers of the paperback James Bond novels published by Pan Books in the 1950s and 1960s, for which he created a consistent and distinctive style.

[1] On leaving the Navy in January 1946, Peffer considered becoming a professional boxer, a sport in which he had ability, but instead decided to become a commercial artist.

He attended a few evening classes at Hornsey School of Art in 1946 immediately after demob but otherwise learned his craft on the job.

[2][3] He worked for various firms in the film publicity business until eventually joining Pearl and Dean where he was in charge of the art department and knew John Vernon.

[5] This was part of a growing trend by British paperback publishers in the 1960s to use more photographic covers or to buy in "second rights" painted images from abroad.

[7] He often worked for Stanley Long, known for his cheap 1970s British sex comedies, and Peffer described himself as the painter for "the raincoat brigade".

[6] Other commissions were for Flesh Gordon (1974), SS Experiment Camp (1976) and Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions (1980).

By the mid-1980s, film distributors and exhibitors were facing a crisis as audiences in the United Kingdom fell to the lowest level since the Second World War.

Demand for traditional painted posters was declining as cinemas used different forms of promotion, printers were closing down and UK based executives of the old school were retiring.

[6] Peffer wrote his biography under the title "Peff" a life story, including details of his war service, but it remains unpublished.