Reading: The Cats by Nick Sharman
Some years ago I thrifted a load of pulp horror and SF/F paperbacks in Idaho while visiting family. The Cats by Nick Sharman (an alias for Scott Grønmark) is a book I picked up based on the cover alone- the old adage about judging a book by its cover be damned, I love a cool illustration on a book cover. I will always buy editions of books with the best possible cover art. This shit is like catnip to me, pun intended. The book cover for The Cats is by none other than Don Ivan Punchatz, the illustrator perhaps best known for his iconic Doom box art . A fun fact is that his son Gregor Punchatz worked on the monster models for Doom as well. In Don's prolific career he also illustrated for Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, Playboy, Time, as well as cover illustrations for Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison novels. Appropriately enough, here's a photo of Punchatz with a cat. As for the novel itself, I'll start off by saying it's not high art, but it's an enjoyable pu