A while back I mentioned I have a couple of hundred French S/F titles in the ‘Anticipation’ series by the Paris based publisher Fleuve Noir (Black River). The first ones were because they used the same artwork as PAN titles of which, up to now, I have found eight and which I’ve called Recycled Artwork. I’m sure there must be more as there were 2,001 titles in the series and apparently, unlike PAN, there were no omissions or duplications of numbers but there were a couple with the same title but with different numbers published between 1951 and 1969. Authors went into the publishers Paris offices where a lot of the artwork was kept and just chose what they though would sell their book regardless of what it actually showed. Fleuve Noir acquired at lot of artwork from two agencies, namely ‘Young Artist’ and ‘Sarah Brown’

YOUNG ARTISTS AGENCY
The “Young Artists Agency” (founded in London in 1968 and now known as Arena Artists Management) supplied science fiction artwork to the French publisher Fleuve Noir during the 1970s and 1980s. Founded by John Spencer, the agency flourished under Alison Eldred and launched the careers of many legendary artists of sci-fi art, including Jim Burns, Peter Elson, Angus McKie, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes, Ian Miller and Colin Hay. The artwork provided by the agency was visually groundbreaking.

SARAH BROWN AGENCY
Carol Butfoy founded and ran the “Sarah Brown Agency” along with artist Peter Elson and specialised in representing iconic science fiction and fantasy artists whose work defined the book covers of the 1970s and 1980s. The name “Sarah Brown Agency” was entirely fictional, “Sarah” because it was a name Elson liked, and paired it with “Brown” because they felt it sounded highly professional and reliable. They focused heavily on airbrush art, spaceship designs, and high-concept fantasy imagery used primarily for paperbacks and novels.

FLEUVE NOIR PUBLISHERS
Founded in 1949 by Armand de Caro, Fleuve Noir is a major French publishing house that revolutionised the European popular literature market. It encouraged reading in post-war France by producing affordable, pocket-sized genre fiction, specifically targeting crime, spy thrillers, horror and science fiction. It later became part of Editis, a French group of publishing companies, a subsidiary of Czech Media Invest. It is the second-largest French publishing group, after Hachette Livre. Well known publications from them include L’OSS 117 by Jean Bruce, a French James Bond and the German space series of Perry Rhodan.

Regarding the PAN covers that were reused for the French titles I have spoken to Ian Miller, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes and Peter Gudynas about their experience and they all said they were happy as they did get paid. Still waiting to hear back from Angus McKie and Nancy Petley-Jones but I’m told Angus doesn’t talk about his work these days.

I have about 140 on the web page with probably the same again to add to it and a few get done every now and again so keep checking in.