Gas Masks
Gas masks are pretty universally accepted as creepy. More importantly, they have a unique appearance, which is all a cover artist really needs to turn them into a visual trope. For science fiction in particular, gas masks tend to crop up in two main contexts: Protection in a post-apocalypse setting, or as a form of spacesuit equipment.
The cover art for the 1973 edition of Philip Wylie’s The End of the Dream is credited to "Podium II" on its copyright page – I'm not sure if that name refers to an artist or a marketing company. Either way, it features a gas mask in the typical setting you'd expect to find one: A post-apocalypse.
One of my favorite Moebius illustrations – and there are many to choose from – has another apocalyptic gas mask.
Fun behind-the-scenes fact: This is actually the one illustration by Moebius that I tried to get permission to use in my 2023 art collection Worlds Beyond Time. The folks who own the Moebius rights never got back to me, and the language barrier probably didn't help.
Ultimately, my art book was focused more on US/UK book cover art than it was on French comic book artists, so I was okay skipping Moebius despite his work remaining some of the most popular 70s science fiction artwork ever.
I was able to include another big French comics artist, Philippe Caza, who was very kind in our email exchange and refused any payment. Coincidentally, gas masks featured in the two Caza artworks in my book, so this is the perfect opportunity to feature them again. Here are Caza's illustrations for volumes one and two of the 1981 French translation of John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up.
The 1985 cover art by John Alfred Dorn, III, for The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem includes a gas mask in reference to the bombing attacks that are part of the plot.
Paul Lehr has a gas-mask-inspired cover to a 1970 edition of Damnation Alley, a Roger Zelazny novel set in a post-WWIII nuclear wasteland.
The apocalyptic implications of a gas mask come through in surrealist images, too, like this somewhat haunting late 70s illustration by Sadao Naito:
Jeffrey Catherine Jones' 1971 cover art to Sargasso of Space, by Andre Norton, features a couple astronauts leaving a spaceshipwreck to explore a planet while wearing helmets clearly modeled after gas masks or high altitude masks. The "SQ" on their helmets is a reference to their ship, the Solar Queen.
Jones has a knack for grounded, natural sci-fi, so it's no wonder a pre-existing technology like these masks would be recontextualized like this. Plenty of other artists leaned into this style of space helmet, though, like Tom Barber’s cover art for Galileo's April 1977 issue:
Born Under Mars, by John Brunner, includes masks as a part of Martian life: The main character mentions burping into "the exhalation tube" of his mask on page 26, presumably so he can retain and recycle the precious moisture.
Michael Herring's 1977 cover features one interpretation of these masks.
I love John Schoenherr's interpretation, done for a 1967 edition of Born Under Mars. The mask tube is just barely visible, since the unique composition of the scene instead draws one's attention to the vast, lifeless sand of Mars. Schoenherr is so good.
Finally, it's worth noting that gas masks were one of a hodgepodge of inspirations behind probably the most iconic figure in 70s science fiction: Darth Vader.
Here's how Oscar-winning Star Wars costume designer John Mollo explains it:
"The first Darth Vader was wearing a motorcycle suit, and a sort of opera cloak, and a Nazi steel helmet, and a gas mask, and a medieval breast plate, all from different departments, all brought in together and put on, and it seemed to work."
Next Time: Blue Skies