Portraits of
She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed
part III

King Video created quite a striking package to distribute the 1935 film version of She for VCR. This is by far the best of the filmed versions of the novel, having been produced by Merian C. Cooper who also brought us King Kong & having in the titular role the great stage actress Helen Gahagan.

This was Gahagan's only film, but from it we can see that her famous stage presence was certainly more than publicity hype. No other personation of She has come close to this actress's power & authority, bringing also a level of the mystic to her performance essential to the actual character of Ayesha, though such depth of mysteriousness has proven impossible for any other actress to capture.

When King Video included DVD format in their catalog, they didn't just copy the striking VCR packaging, but came up with a whole new design showing Helen Gahagan in one of her striking poses as Ayesha.

Brooklyner Gahagan, born in 1900, seemed not that interested in a film career because she loved the stage & was devoted to her three children, for which reason She was her only film performance, alas for us. Then in 1944 her parallel interest in politics induced her to run for senate on the liberal ticket. She served two terms before Richard Nixon defeated her third time around.

Pulp Fictions' 1999 edition of She & Allan made available in trade paperback one of the harder books to find about Ayesha. Unfortunately, the same cartoony sword & sorcery amazon that'd already spoilt the cover of their edition of Ayesha appears yet again, as though the artist had never been aprised of what the book was actually about or who Ayesha was.

The mystic fire seems to have been modeled by a small wooden match & one expects a minor deity to lower his face in order to light his cigar. Something about the whole presentation insinuates the story is one of those cross-genre fantasy & love-romance novels. There's a market for those so perhaps the design didn't hurt sales; it might even work in the sub-genre. Still, if you think this is a lousy portrait of Ayesha, look at the next one also from Pulp Fictions.

A girl & her pony; there's excitement for you. At least there's no unicorn horn. But is that really Ayesha or is it a portrait of "My First Hair Salon Dolly" from the pre-teen isle at Toys R Us? If Pulp Fictions' line sold poorly -- & I don't know one way or another but I would think they'd do badly with covers like these -- it could well be the lack of a qualified book designer or quality artist that made the books just feel not worth ten dollars.

Old fantasy novels might sell pretty well in new trade paperback editions if not packaged like adolescent love story fantasies for ages 8 to 12. This cover art wins hands-down as the worst portrait of Ayesha on any edition, & that's quite an achievement since several have been terrible.