Don Punchatz; drew science-fiction classics
NEW YORK - Don Ivan Punchatz - whose surreal art was splashed on popular horror and science-fiction paperbacks, magazines, and the first “Star Wars’’ film poster, influencing a generation of illustrators - died Oct. 22 near his home in Arlington, Texas. He was 73.
The cause was cardiac arrest, said his son, Gregor.
Mr. Punchatz was a skilled hyperrealist with a penchant for the fantastic and absurd. His cover art for works like Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation’’ trilogy and Harlan Ellison’s “Dangerous Visions’’ anthology was a striking blend of romantic metaphor and supernatural fantasy, what one colleague called “elegantly weird.’’ He worked for the paperback publishers Ace, Dell, Avon, Warner, and New American Library.
He was associated with the illustrative genre of fantasy known as magic realism, but he could also be a playful satirist for magazines like Playboy, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. One of his more comic political commentaries, a cover for the 1974 “Civics’’ issue of National Lampoon, showed President Ford, who had a reputation for clumsiness, nonchalantly smashing a chocolate ice cream cone into his forehead.
Mr. Punchatz’s “ability to touch men with acrylic and melt them into beasts, or touch beasts with oil and ink - and, voila, they are senators or brokers - is endlessly stunning,’’ Ray Bradbury, one of the authors Mr. Punchatz illustrated, said on spectrumfantasticart.com.
Mr. Punchatz also made accurate animal illustrations for National Geographic magazine.
His keen ability to render detail was often impractical for editorial illustration on tight deadlines, so to ease his workload he hired multiple assistants. In 1970 he opened SketchPad Studio in a small room behind a strip mall in Arlington; it became the training ground for dozens of apprentices known as “the elves.’’
From the 1970s until he retired in the 1990s, his studio worked on accounts for Exxon, Anheuser-Busch, and Pepsi, as well as magazine illustrations. He also produced illustrations for the Wishbone series of children’s books.
His fantasy work appeared in many gallery exhibitions, and one painting, of B.F. Skinner, is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery. For 35 years he taught illustration at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
In addition to his son, who lives in Dallas, Mr. Punchatz leaves his wife, Sandra, and a daughter, Triska Tipton of Weatherford, Texas.
Mr. Punchatz was never an expert at the business side of illustration. In the early days of video games, he was hired to create the packaging for a new game, and when offered a flat fee or a percentage of the game’s profits, he opted for the fee. The game, “Doom,’’ became a runaway best-seller.
“So how was I to know,’’ he said, “this thing called ‘Doom’ would make a jillion smackers?’’