Technically, we frown upon the mutilation of books. But Thomas Allen — who turns the covers of classic pulp novels into amazing three-dimensional dioramas — gets our special dispensation.
Allen takes an X-Acto knife to the cowboys, femmes fatales, thugs, and private dicks that appeared on titles like The Nymph and the Lamp and Haunted Lady and arranges them into entirely new narrative scenes. In Thirst, a sultry dame on the cover of one book holds an empty glass out to a man who’s holding a fifth of booze out on the cover of another. Stacked features a smiling, half-naked woman lying atop a pile of books — it’s like a naughty take on “The Princess and the Pea.” And Distraction shifts the men in the frame to create a new, homoerotic story line.
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Thomas Allen’s Book Art Photography
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