Rudy Nappi Died In March 2015

I’ve just gotten the news that the pulp fiction cover artist Rudolph (Rudy) Nappi died last month (March 13) at the ripe age of 92. He passed away just 3 days after his wife also died.

For marketing folks, Nappi was well known for his commercial illustrations in the advertising business.

For us, mystery book readers, Rudy Nappi was the artist behind the covers of some of the most popular 20th Century books, including The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, among others. He did most of his work between 1953 and 1979.

Rudolph Nappi was born in New York City in 1923, served with the U.S. Air Force during World War II and married Margarete “Peggy” Schubert, a nurse, in 1951.

He became a well known pulp artist who, along with the Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys covers also created fronts for books like Queer Patterns (1952), Reefer Girl (1953), French Alley (1954), and last but not least The Bedroom Bolero (1960).

Here are just some of the covers Rudy Nappi created over the years. You can see many more at The Redd Pill blog, which has a whole page dedicated to his work.

RIP Rudy Nappi!