Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog

Largely uncelebrated, the late Paul Orban’s highly crosshatched and contrasted science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrations are impossible to take your eyes off of in person. The attention to detail and design is incredibly absorbing- and what’s more is that the pieces themselves are actually quite small, and appear to be drawn nearly to-size.

Paul Orban original art for "Ullr Uprising". From the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

The pieces above and below were both interior illustrations for H. Beam Piper’s 1952 science fiction pulp Ullr Uprising.

Paul Orban original illustration for "Ullr Uprising". From the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

Born the son of a blacksmith in Budapest on June 23rd, 1886 Paul Orban emigrated to the United States at age 6 with his father and sister to escape poverty in Hungary. They lived in Chicago, Illinois where Orban grew up and worked until moving to New York after his second marriage in 1929. While in Chicago, he studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1917. His illustration career began during his studies, working as a staff artist for The Chicago Sunday Tribune as early as 1915. During the 1920s, he became the art director of a Chicago advertising company.

Paul Orban original illustration for "The Black Stranger" story in Fantasy Magazine. From San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (click to enlarge)

After moving to New York, Orban’s focus moved to freelance art- and he began selling his illustrations to pulp magazines, illustrating novels, and more. His work could be seen in Science Fiction Digest Magazine, Astounding Stories, Doc Savage, The Avenger, Detective Novels, Horror Stories, Popular Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Rodeo Romances, Popular Western, Thrilling Adventures, among countless others.

Paul Orban original scratch-board illustration. From San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, The Ohio State University Cartoon Library and Museum (click to enlarge)

Orban also created a large body of Masonic paintings for the Masonic Outlook magazine between 1929-1932, many of which can be seen in the Masonic Digital Archives.

All of the original works shown in this post come from our San Francisco Academy of Comic Art collection. Although Bill Blackbeard was known mostly for collecting newsprint comic strips, he also accumulated thousands of pulp novels containing work from artists like Orban, and some original art to boot. These books were donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library  & Museum as part of the larger San Francisco Academy of Comic Art collection, and have been transferred to the Rare Books & Manuscripts special collections library at The Ohio State University.