Harlequin Artists Part XLIV Sid Dyke (4)

 The last post on the Harlequin covers by Sid Dyke, all unsigned.

Harlequin 233 June 1953

Harlequin 256 December 1953

Harlequin 309 October 1954

Harlequin 325 March 1955

Harlequin Artists Part XLIII Sid Dyke (3)

The third installment in artist Sid Dyke's covers for Harlequin. The first three are signed.

Harlequin 278 March 1954

Harlequin 337 May 1955

Harlequin 366 August 1956

Harlequin 232 June 1953

Harlequin Artists Part XLII Sid Dyke (2)

Time to continue with my artists series. Sid Dyke did 15 (10 signed, 5 unsigned) covers for Toronto paperback publisher Harlequin. Here are four more signed covers.

Harlequin 242 - August 1953

Harlequin 266 - January 1954

Harlequin 273 - February 1954

Harlequin 313 - August 1954

Export Publishing Enterprises Artists Part V - Sid Dyke (4)

Here are the last four (of 17) covers for Export Publishing Enterprises that Sid Dyke signed.

News Stand Library 117

News Stand Library 19A - February 1950

News Stand Library 20A - February 1950

News Stand Library 116 & 27A - July 1950

News Stand Library 117 & 28A - July 1950

Export Publishing Enterprises artists Part IV - Sid Dyke (4)

Here are Sid Dyke's covers eight through eleven for Export Publishing Enterprises.

News Stand Library 115

News Stand Library 110 - April 1950

News Stand Library 111 - June 1950

News Stand Library 114 - June 1950

News Stand Library 115 - June 1950

Export Publishing Enterprises Artists Part III - Sid Dyke (3)

The fourth Sid Dyke cover for New Toronto paperback publisher Export Publishing Enterprises was nearly 1 1/2 years after the third. It was followed immediately by the fifth through seventh.

One more piece of information on Dyke - the Canadian Heritage Information Network's Artists in Canada has a brief listing which says that he was in Vancouver in 1985.

News Stand Library 104

News Stand Library 104 - April 1950

News Stand Library 105 - April 1950

News Stand Library 106 - May 1950

News Stand Library 107 - May 1950

Harlequin Artists Part XXV - Sid Dyke (1)

I've already done three posts on the work of early Canadian paperback cover artist Sid Dyke. Two were about his work for Export Publishing Enterprises where he signed 17 covers. He also signed 10 covers for Harlequin Books, three of which were westerns.

Harlequin 350

Harlequin 246 - September 1953



Harlequin 281 - March 1954

Harlequin 350 - January 1956

Export Publishing Enterprises Artists Part II - Sid Dyke (2)

In the first post I introduced early Canadian paperback artist Sid Dyke and his two Export Publishing Enterprise's western covers. He is also listed as Sydney Dyke in Export's December 1950 three issue Junior Weekly series as art director.

Here are his first three covers for Export. They are the only covers he signed "Sid Dyke".

News Stand Library R15

News Stand Library R15 - November 1948

News Stand Library 16 - December 1948

News Stand Library 17 - December 1948

Export Publishing Enterprises Artists Part I - Sid Dyke (1)

Sid Dyke signed more covers for the early Canadian paperback publisher Export Publishing Enterprises than any other artist, 17. There is very little that I have found about Dyke. He is not listed in the Index of Canadian Illustrators but is in the Toronto City Directory for two years - 1948 and 1949. The listing reads "Sydney L. Dyke, commercial artist Bomac Engravers, residence Port Credit." A listing for a work of art (1967) says he was born in Calgary in 1916.

Here are the two westerns he did for Export.

News Stand Library 121



News Stand Library 120 - July 1950

News Stand Library 121 - July 1950

Sid Dyke

One of my favourite artists on early Canadian paperbacks is Sid Dyke. He did covers for Harlequin Books and Export Publishing Enterprises and I'll showcase his work in two series of posts. Here is a couple of my favourite Dyke covers as a teaser.

News Stand Library 20A - February 1950

Harlequin 232 - June 1953

Export and Peggy Gaddis Part I

Export published the work of 114 authors of full length books. This has to be qualified by noting that only known pseudonyms are accounted for. There were also three collections.

Export's most published author was Peggy Gaddis. Gaddis produced an amazing number of books under her name and pseudonyms over a thirty year career. Many were republished with up to three different titles. The link above is to an excellent site where most of this bibliographic nightmare is sorted out.

Export published thirteen of her books under her name and four pseudonyms. I'll present the first six here. NSL 17 was published in 1948, the rest in 1949. The only signed art is 17 - Sid Dyke. D. Rickard is the artist on 35.

NSL 17

NSL 22

NSL 24 ("Terry" s/b "Perry")

NSL 28

NSL 35

NSL 48

Al Palmer - the Dr. Timothy Leary of Margarine

"Al Palmer, with the now-defunct Herald, campaigned intrepidly for our right to buy margarine over the counter [italics in original] - margarine once as illicit in Quebec province as marijuana is today. Al Palmer, who was, in his time, the Dr. Tim Leary of artificial foods."

Mordecai Richler, The Street (Toronto, Montreal: McClelland & Stewart, 1969), p. 13.

Al Palmer was a well known police reporter and commentator for Montreal newspapers who was 36 when the first of his two books for Export Publishing Enterprises Inc. was published in 1949. This was the novel Sugar-puss on Dorchester Street. In 1950 Export published his non-fiction work Montreal Confidential as News Stand Library (NSL) 134.

Sugar-puss is a thinly veiled autobiography where Palmer is Jimmy Holden "a reporter [for The Chronicle] who would rather buy clothes than eat - and frequently did". Sugar-puss is "Gisele Lepine - fresh as the cool clean air of her Laurentian village and eager with the realization of a five-year dream - Montreal."

Sugar-puss was published in two editions - as NSL 84 in November 1949 and NSL 20A in February 1950. The first edition was for sale in Canada, the second in the US. There were two different covers, the first by D. Rickard, the second by Sid Dyke. In addition the US edition was published with a dust-jacket by an unknown artist.

NSL 84

NSL 20A

NSL 20A with dust jacket

NSL 134