James McMullan Collection: Box 5 Folder 4. Charles Manson portrait for Rolling Stone.

In addition to our posts to the new Container List outpost at Dan Nadel’s PictureBox, Dan himself (whom you probably know as the publisher, art director, editor, curator, and writer extraordinaire, and we know as our No. 1 fan) will be be blogging about his favorite items from our collections. Today at PictureBox, James McMullan’s angelically menacing portrait of Charles Manson gets some love from Dan.

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James McMullan Collection: Box 5 Folder 4. Detail from original art for Stone Cold Steve Austin portrait, Rolling Stone, 1998.

We recently finished organizing and describing the James McMullan Collection, which was donated by the acclaimed illustrator and designer last year.

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James McMullan Collection, Box 1 Folder 7: Caprolan Nylon advertisement, 1966.

James McMullan designed and illustrated this piece for Caprolan nylon during his first year at Push Pin; it appeared in the September 7, 1966 issue of Women’s Wear Daily.

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James McMullan Collection: Original art for Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi.

James McMullan’s watercolor book jackets capture the spirit of Borges.

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James McMullan Collection: Big Tree Records, Run Joey Run, 1975.

Though I suspect the overlap between readers of this blog and viewers of the tv show Glee amounts to one person (me), I feel compelled to post the album cover for David Geddes’ Run Joey Run. The cheeseball classic title track was featured in a recent episode of Glee devoted to “rehabilitating” bad songs.

Daddy please don’t, it wasn’t his fault, he means so much to me.
Daddy please don’t, we’re gonna get married, just you wait and see.

Needless to say, that wedding never took place, not after Julie accidentally took a bullet intended for Joey from Daddy’s gun. Classing up the joint considerably are James McMullan’s expressive illustrations for the album’s cover, which covey a sense of desperation and actual emotional stakes.

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