Cover Art for SCREW #1026, featuring cover artist Robert Schneck

Here's a scan of SCREW #1026, with a cover drawing by frequent contributor Robert Schneck. A talented, versatile illustrator, Schneck drew LOTS of excellent SCREW covers in the late '80's and throughout the '90's, (making him a contemporary of mine). Unfortunately, he blipped off of art director Kevin Hein's radar as we entered the Twenty First Century, and as a result, we are deprived of any Robert Schneck SCREW covers during the paper's Hindenburg-esque death-dive.

I wish I had more information to offer about Robert Schneck the illustrator. A few minutes spent on Google provides me with plenty of info on Robert Schneck the writer on paranormal subjects, and photos of Robert Schneck the writer look like they COULD be the fellow I remember meeting once or twice in SCREW's art department. Then again, they might NOT be the same person, in which case I'd hate to heap slander upon this innocent writer by accusing him of drawing cartoons for a filthy magazine. Perhaps in time, mysterious figures will emerge from the hollow Earth to shed some much-needed ethereal light upon this mystery...?

For the moment, let's just say that Robert Schneck drew some damned fine SCREW covers. I'm not sure how many of them found their way into my archives, but here's a good one. It's SCREW's twentieth anniversary cover, and it features a dead-on likeness of publisher Al Goldstein in the role of a blind newsdealer hawking a braille edition of SCREW, (a porn mag for the blind? That's actually funny!). Schneck, who typically made SCREW's limited color palette sing, gives us a fairly restrained color separation this time around, using pure blue and red nearly everywhere except on Goldstein himself. The issue date is October 31, 1988.