‘Lone Wolf’ books were, at least principally, played by adolescent males. Books for teens - published by ‘children’s publishers.’
This image, of scantily clad female flesh, crossed the line into ‘books for grown-ups’. It was a risk, and Peter took so many risks in his cover art - ‘legendary’ as much as anything for breaking rules, testing cliches, challenging assumptions, habits, and generally ‘pushing daring to the max’.
Tame in retrospect compared with his later ‘Kult’ works.
But at the time he broke so many rules I never could understand how he got away with it so often.
Of course, he was the darling of the industry, through his unbroken deadline reputation, willingness to help his clients succeed with their projects, and general ‘can do’ attitude; not often the ethos of at least some artists, about whom many Art Directors talked frequently of their “rampant late-with-the-job-itus”.
Not built that way, Peter got away with as much as he did because of his 100% professionalism, described by a senior BBC designer as “the exception to the rule”, and by another as “overkill with quality”.
On that sort of basis clients were more than prepared to back his commercial judgement and, unquestionably, history shows it was a very good bet!
Enjoy!