Paperback 360: The Big Bust / Ed Lacy (Pyramid X-2037)

Paperback 360: Pyramid X-2037 (PBO, 1969)

Title: The Big Bust
Author: Ed Lacy
Cover artist: F. Pfeifer

Yours for: SOLD! (10/8/10)


Best things about this cover:

• [Insert joke about connection between title and woman's rack here]
• For a woman who's tied up, gagged, and carrying a tiny drowning man in her stomach, she's awfully concerned about those guys behind her. Lady, you've got your own problems.
• I have reluctantly tagged this post with "Redhead" label, though honestly I don't know what you call that color.

Best things about this back cover:

• Geek observation #227: "Supercharged" is just "surcharged" with "P.E." inside it. . .
• So the woman is like good pancakes. Well, who wouldn't want to tail that?
• If the boardwalk is "bikini-filled," does that mean the ocean is filled with naked women (who, presumably, all left their bikinis on the boardwalk)? I hope so.
• One of these paragraphs should immediately be countered with "That's what she said!"

Page 123~

Walter awoke me at one-fifteen and watching for snakes, back of a crumpling wall, I changed into the woolen underwear and rubber suit, Rhoda's $60,000 bra doubling as a jock strap.

[Speechless]

~RP

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Paperback 359: The Drowner / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal k1302)

Paperback 359: Gold Medal k1302 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Drowner
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• Lesson: brackish, green water—not for swimming.
• Fantastically creepy cover. That dude pulling her down must have one powerful set of lungs. or SCUBA equipment.
• Love the bubbles—nice touch to make sure they're coming from him (I assume it's a "him") as well as her. Also love the way the words cascade down the side of her struggling body. Accentuates the scary verticality of the whole cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• This I like less.
• Without the struggling lady to complement them, the vertically arranged words here just look stupid and purposeless.

Page 123~

If the fork hesitated on its way to the healthy mouth, it was a faltering so minor he was unable to detect it. But she looked considerably less friendly.

~RP

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Paperback 348: River Queen / Charles N. Heckelmann (Graphic Giant G-221)

Paperback 348: Graphic Giant G-221 (2nd ptg, 1957)

Title: River Queen
Author: Charles N. Heckelmann
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• That's up there with the most maniacal expressions I've ever seen on these covers
• Either his upper body is way out of proportion to his lower body, or that is one blousey top
• Look at his right pinky—it's like he's holding a cup of tea
• Her boobs are going to come out of that dress in 5, 4, 3 ...
• Fear hand!
• "Rawhide II: Rawhider!"
• "War and Love on the Mighty ... Missouri?" Really? I'm sure it's a fine river, but it feels like carob to the Mississippi's chocolate, i.e. a poor substitute
• "Heckelmann?" Really?

Best things about this back cover:

• That boat explosion looks like it was drawn by a child—a child who has no concept of how things explode. I mean, the boat appears to be utterly intact. The explosion lines are comically straight and debris-free. The explosion *does* appear to have catapulted those two fighting guys high into the air—that's *pretty* realistic.
• "Indian-proof," HA ha. Wonder what SPF that is.
• "Hey, baby, mind if I battle my way up your flaming shores...?"

Here's the title page illustration:


Page 123~

The flag whipped jauntily in the stiff, morning breeze.

That comma is super ridiculous.

~RP

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Paperback 345: Devil Ray, Devil Woman / Seymour Shubin (Beacon 167)

Paperback 345: Beacon 167 (PBO, 1960—Australia ed.)

Title: Devil Ray, Devil Woman
Author: Seymour Shubin
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: not for sale (gift of Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• "Do you like my hair up, or ..." "Yeah yeah, sure, now are you gonna get naked or not?"
• OK, which is it? A Flaming Story or a Sophisticated, Dramatic Tale. I got no time for this wishy-washy in-between crap.
• "To Most" is my very favorite part of the cover copy. I mean, "in search of forbidden excitement" makes so much more sense, but any reasonably qualified copy writer could come up with that. It takes a true master of whatthefuckery to rephrase it so that we're left wondering not just what the excitement is, but for whom it is not "forbidden" but entirely licit.
• She has a nice figure. I'm just sayin'...
• I hope she's standing well away from the bed, bec. otherwise she is a giant or that smoking (!) hot guy is criminally diminutive.
• That's one slab of a bed.
• Worst title! "The woman, she is a like a Devil Ray, in that she is devilish, and ... Devil Ray has the word "devil" in it, so ..." Imagination!

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. It's a text bloodbath back here.
• So this is an ordinary soft-core sex novel, with stock footage from a Jacques Cousteau special? I can't wait.

Page 123~

"Sure no one a beer?" and now Tony was in the doorway.

I swear to you that I have typed that exactly as written, character for character.

~RP

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PS I *thought* I'd seen this cover somewhere before. Well, I hadn't, but here's something close: Paperback 63, Variation on a Theme:

Paperback 326: Terror in the Sun / Richard Glendinning (Gold Medal 237)

Paperback 326: Gold Medal 237 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Terror in the Sun
Author: Richard Glendinning
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Sexy swamp ninja.
• It's a weird cover—eerily still. Not tarted up. Not violent. Works by suggesting the threat of approaching menace. I admire her locks and curves, but the focal point of this painting is clearly her eyes. The sideways/backwards glance. Like someone's following her. Cool.
• Realistically, she's about three seconds from being blindsided and devoured by a crocodile.

Best things about this back cover:

• Leaving aside the nonsensical quality of the simile (original sin just *is*—it doesn't "sweep"), I love that first sentence. And the second. And the last.
• Having read this back cover, I know almost nothing about this novel, but this kind of skeletal, sparse, overdramatic cover copy is far more likely to hook me than a clear or thorough description of the plot might. I don't wanna know what happens. I wanna know what it's gonna *feel* like to read this thing.

Page 123~

"Oh, I'm tough enough, Johnny boy. I have to be hard because I want things the soft can't have. I know the way I've got to go to get them, and I won't mind squaring a few accounts along the way."

Wow. That is pure hard-boiled poetry. Quintessential tough dame talk. I think I love you, Swamp Girl.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 26

Title: The Lost God & Other Adventure Stories
Author: John Russell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $5

• A book about black people with bones in their noses worshiping the mysterious aquanautical god of the sea ... this is sure to be inoffensive!
• It took me so long to see what was going on in that lower right corner. I thought there was some weird dude in a white mask and owl poncho following the lead dancer. But the owl poncho is a shield and the white mask is the aquanaut's shin and what I thought was some odd hair/helmet is the head of a man who is looking for the contact lens he just lost.

• "Doubloons!" — this word is inherently amusing.
• "... have been favorably compared to ..." HA ha. Way to skirt the specifics. "These stories are reminiscent of Kipling and O. Henry, in that they are printed on paper and in English."

Page 123~

Ah, they were striking at each other's naked breasts, these two. With naked weapons. And neither of them shirked it. Not the girl, who sent back as good as she got—not Bibi-Ri, who took even that last terrible thrust.

Oh, Henry!

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 24

Title: Down to Eternity (Gold Medal s550, 1956)
Author: Richard O'Connor
Cover artist: I think that's Charles Binger's signature

Yours for: $5

• "Efxcuse me, sfir, you're pholding my head afwittle tight..."
• "Does this life jacket smell clean to you, Mary!? Well does it!? Whoa, is that an iceberg?"
• Next time you really want to annoy a woman, accuse her of riding the "P.M.S. Titanic" (that's what that life jacket says, right?)
• This book was reviewed in the New York Times (found this page trying to hunt down the date of this book, which appears to lack a proper title and publishing info page)

• Easy on the bloated hyperbole, junior.
• Oh, R.M.S. Titanic ... yeah, that makes more sense.

Page 123~

Still clad in his dressing gown, he bustled around the boat deck and undoubtedly made a great nuisance of himself.

~RP

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Paperback 272: Home Is The Sailor / Day Keene (Gold Medal 225)

Paperback 272: Gold Medal 225 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Home is the Sailor
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best thing about this cover:

• Someone needs to tell him that a captain's hat really does not go with pajama bottoms.
• She is hot in a tawdry bar slut kind of way. The upthrust boobs and hand-on-ass are particularly nice touches.
• I worry that his aggressive and thorny-looking patch of chest hair is going to chafe her delicate boob skin (I am now giggling aloud at the phrase "boob skin")
• She looks lusty, while he looks like he's going to vomit his last daiquiri right in her face.

Best things about this back cover:

• Why aren't guys named "Swede" anymore? Maybe because being named Swede has been shown to cause a remarkable increase in the likelihood that you will die in some miserable, noirish fashion (see Hemingway's "The Killers," for instance).
• Copy writer here is clearly a graduate of the Crappy Metaphor Institute. He seems to have minored in Redundancy (when you've already called her a "tempest," "hurricane" should not be your next go-to image).

Page 123~

That had been in the bar, in a booth, with Corliss sitting opposite me, looking cool and fresh and virginal in white, eating prime ribs au jus, urging me to eat; me unable to eat, nursing a fresh bottle of Bacardi.

Nothing more virginal than a white-clad lady daintily slurping her blood-red meat.

~RP

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Paperback 259: Lincoln's Commando / Ralph J Roske and Charles van Doren (Pyramid G356)

Paperback 259: Pyramid G356 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Lincoln's Commando
Author: Ralph J. Roske and Charles Van Doren
Cover artist: Herb Mott

Yours for: SOLD (7/19/09)


Best things about this cover:

• The title and picture made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it. That is the only reason I own this book. "Arnold Schwarzenegger is ... Lt. William Cushing in ... Lincoln's Commando!"
• Actually, this guy looks more like ... who's that guy from "Ned and Stacey" and "Sideways?" Thomas Hayden Church?
• The rebels on the Albemarle appear to be shooting in random directions and possibly at each other.
• The water under Cushing's boat appears to be breaking on ... more, differently colored water. Weird.
• Here we see Cushing continuing the time-honored tradition of deck-edge weapon-dancing begun years earlier by the infamous Pirate Wench.

Best things about this back cover:

• Not much. We do get to see the NYT succumbing to a bout of sensational alliteration. That's slightly interesting.
• Apparently Cushing was a daring daredevil with a daredevil career of daredeviltry. He was also fearless. And daring.

Page 123~

He was pleased to discover that his adventures were well known in the town, that the paper reported his arrival on its front page, and that all the little boys hung on his every word when they could get him to describe his exploits — and not only the little boys; everyone seemed appreciative.

"[...] and not only the little boys ... I mean, not that he's particularly into little boys or anything. Really, he was popular with everyone. I swear. Forget what I said about the boys."

~RP

P.S. Thanks for keeping up with my stepped-up summer publication pace. I'm loving the volume and quality of comments. Happy that the blog has a modest but loyal and reliably smart/funny following. Keep it up.

P.P.S. Thanks for the links, the tweets, and any other form of promotion you've provided for this site. Truly, deeply appreciated.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 257: Pirate Wench / Frank Shay (Pyramid Giant G75)

Paperback 257: Pyramid Giant G75 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Pirate Wench
Author: Frank Shay
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (July '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Catherine Zeta-Jones stars in ... "Braless Zombie II: Zombie's Revenge"
• As I scanned this image, the Violent Femmes "Prove My Love" was playing on iTunes. It contains the lyric, "... we've all been through some shit." In the case of Pirate Wench, this appears to be literally true. Who draws their braless heroine with brown stink lines emanating from her body?
• "Outlove?!" "Outfuck" really works better here. It's more alliterative. And, I'm guessing, more accurate.
  
• Shirtless man: "I have a gun ... and yet I am powerless to resist her magical pirate dance."
• Shirtless man: "I wonder where I can get a shirt like that ... I'm tired of the crew teasing me about how manly and ungay I look"

Best things about this back cover:

• If you like your sex "raw" and "blood-stained," you'll love "Pirate Wench!"
• " ... a night below deck": That is one, tough, tiring way to "win men's allegiance." How is one woman supposed to put a whole crew together. No wonder this book is "raw" and "blood-stained."
• She's pro-vocative. Screw you, ablative!

Page 123~

There were nine pirates captured and there were nine gibbets; no one about to go on trial would be found not guilty.

"No one ... would be found not guilty." Is that litotes? (Def: A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as in This is no small problem.) Pretty fucking uppity for pirate smut.

~RP

P.S. A Portuguese reader (yes, I have one) sent me a link to the following book cover: a Portuguese version of Gil Brewer's "Wild to Possess" (you can see part of the American cover in my header, between "Pop" and "Sensation" ... the redhead w/ the gun). Very cool to see pulpy covers redone for foreign markets.

Paperback 219: Combat Nurse / Frieda K. Franklin (Pocket Books 1147)

The Make-Your-Own-Commentary Experiment, Part the Third (sound off in "Comments" section)
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Paperback 219: Pocket Books 1147 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: Combat Nurse
Author: Frieda K. Franklin
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: $10



Page 123~

In the subdued light their faces were hard voluptuous masks of powder and rouge and thick gleaming lipstick smeared like coating of fat over their pouting mouths.

~RP

Paperback 204: The Girl Who Had to Die + The Blank Wall / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Ace G-512)

Paperback 204: Ace G-512 (1st ptg / 1st ptg)

Title: The Girl Who Had to Die / The Blank Wall
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• There was this floating head that liked to eat sailboats, which made the tall, dark, mysterious man on the beach very sad. The end.
• What is it with the rainy day covers on all these Holding novels? Dreary and decidedly unhot. More skin, please.
• Actually, on third or fourth look, the streaks look less like rain than like the trim on some elaborate fur hat. Or a really, really bad haircut.

Best things about this other cover:

• This is one of my favorite pieces of crime fiction ever written. Ever. Seriously, it's that good. And unusual. Super suspenseful, with really complex and interesting characters. Women that aren't just femmes fatales. Just great. Provides a fascinating glimpse into domestic life during WWII (i.e. while the husband is away at war). Wish it would stay in @#$@ing print!
• More lazy art. Etch-a-sketch posing as op-art. And I think the guy from the other cover just walked through the book and ended up here. That lady is not a very good hider.

Page 123~ (from The Blank Wall)

"Here's something you might be glad of," he said, and held out three little capsules, bright yellow.

~RP

Paperback 167: The Private Life of Julius Caesar / William Marston (Universal Giant no. 6)

Paperback 167: Universal Giant no. 6 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Private Life of Julius Caesar
Author: William Marston
Cover artist: George Geygan

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

OK, stop. Hammer time. This book was written by the creator of "Wonder Woman." I Am Not Kidding. And yet none of the booksellers at abebooks mention the connection between this book and "Wonder Woman." You'd think that fact would be one of the main selling points. As I looked at the book, I thought "William Marston" sounded familiar, and then I looked inside and saw the author's middle name (Moulton), which rang even more bells. Then I googled. Holy Krap. From Wikipedia:

Dr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947) was an American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor, and comic book author who created the character Wonder Woman. Two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne, (who lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship), served as exemplars for the character and greatly influenced her creation.^[1][2]

He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.

• "Polyamorous" pretty much describes this cover - I count five different sexual permutations on the front cover alone - and wait til you see the back cover (and the spine!)
• I love that a "feminist theorist" inspired this (awesome) cover. I guess she who reclines on the bed with the chalice of viscous mauve goo makes the rules. "OK, you kneel! Now you, you kneel more! Kneel wheel!"
• I love how the whipping scene is strategically placed for her (our) viewing pleasure.

Best things about this spine!!!!:

• I love how the kinkiest (albeit minutest) scene in the whole tableau is on the spine - no matter how it's shelved, You Will See Flesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• I know this is an odd thing to say, given the rampant nudity, but those are some well-drawn horses.
• "Your calves are so smooth..." "Oh, that's just the satyr urine. It works wonders. Here, let us pour some on your back..."
• Jeez, a crucifixion, too? It's like the painting's running out of ways to exploit the female form.

Page 123~

from a chapter titled, I swear to god, "Ladies' Night"

The pretty young neophyte walked straight to the golden gate, as she had been told to do, and gave her name and that of her sponsor to the door-slave who stood behind the golden bars.

And thus began the first recorded A.A. meeting.

P.S. "door-slave"?

~RP

Paperback 134: Letter of Marque / Andrew Hepburn (Ace D-440)

Paperback 134: Ace D-440 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: Letter of Marque
Author: Andrew Hepburn
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "My these seas are certainly heaving ..."
• Jebus, look how nicely she has gift-wrapped those things for us. They're Tremendous!
• OMG is she dead? Her neck! Between the garrote and the cover crease, terrible things appear to be happening to her head. Look at her glassy eyes. Is she tied to the mast of the world's gayest ship? Is she an ethereal sea goddess emanating from the ships below? I think I'll just stare at her breasts some more and try not to think about it too much.
• "Replete with action ..." - well, at least we know the guy at the Herald-Tribune did well on his SATs.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Action and more action is Author Hepburn's motto ..." - o man that's sad. I don't know what's sadder - that he has a motto at all, or that it's so lame.
• Is it wrong that I think his girlfriend's name looks vaguely like "Madeleine de Vagina?"
• "Stockton is a swashbuckling hero who's not afraid to ... cut through red tape!?" OK, that was totally *not* in your motto, dude. Boooring. Hepburn needs to get some lessons from Rafael Sabatini, and "Capt. Stockton," if that is his real name, needs to call Errol Flynn for some pointers.

Page 123~

She was stiff and weatherly, and the broad track of her wake gave evidence of her effortless pace, as she rose over the small seas with no check to her speed.

I ... think that was the sex scene.

RP~

Paperback 87: The Last Voyage of the Lusitania / A.A. and Mary Hoehling (Popular Library G184X)

Paperback 87: Popular Library G184X (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Last Voyage of the Lusitania
Author: A.A. Hoehling and Mary Hoehling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best thing about this cover:

• As with "I Am Fifteen and I Don't Want to Die," I am having trouble mocking tragedy here.
• Titanic was basically a rip-off of this paperback cover.
• I know everyone's screaming and flailing and drowning, but ... at least the lady in red looks like she's having a good time.
• There's one guy in this picture I just don't get: the blue-suited sailor on the far left. First, his look is one of casual derision, like he finds the whole scene corny. Second, he appears to be working on a world record for longest fingernails - that, or he is idly scratching his face with breadsticks. Lastly, gravity says that he could not maintain the position he is in. And yet there he is. It's like he refuses to obey the new gravitational pull brought on by the ship's tilting, and is showing off by clutching the wrong side of the pillar for support.

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh boy, an orgy ... of frailty? What would that even look like? Who's writing these reviews? Isn't the SF Examiner supposed to be a real paper?
• In case you were wondering what happened to that ship on the front cover ... yeah, it sank. But it's OK, because Lois and Frank survived to repopulate the earth.
• This book is unread, and except for the slightest browning near the spine and faint scuffing on the back cover, it's in perfect condition.

And ... your PAGE 123:

On the other side of the bridge, which was almost completely awash, Turner glanced at his watch. It was 2:28 P.M, exactly eighteen minutes after the Lusitania had been hit. He thought himself to be the last man on the ship - though he was not - and realized that in a few more seconds he would no longer have a command.

-RP

Paperback 73: H.M.S. Ulysses / Alistair MacLean (Perma Books M-4067)

Paperback 73: Perma Books M-4067 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: H.M.S. Ulysses
Author: Alistair MacLean
Cover artist: Robert Schulz


Best things about this cover:

• Ulysses decides he is tired of taking shit from the Harpies
• Awesomely unattributed blurb! - "Certainly the best novel of World War II at sea ... said this guy I heard mumbling to himself in the bookstore once."
• Robert Schulz is a great, great cover artist - one of the five best that ever lived, IMOO. His stuff is always very dramatic and naturalistic. We'll see a lot more from him.

RP

Paperback 53: Croydon 57

Paperback 53: Croydon 57 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Love-Crazy Millionaire
Author: Gordon Semple
Cover artist: Bernard Safran


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, this guy really loves boats.
• Are they on a boat? Because they are both oddly listing toward my left.
• She appears to be very drunk - I cannot imagine her speaking in anything but very slurred speech. Also, her hands are quite mannish. And no one that blond should have eyebrows that black.
• That man is one of the grosser-looking men in paperback cover history. He has a weirdly soft baby face with greasy, patchy old-man hair and an oddly hairy and wrinkly neck.
• "Office wife" is a great 1950's concept. Many paperbacks "worry" aloud about this phenomenon.
• Artist's signature right across the back of the chair - Bernard Safran was a very accomplished illustrator and artist. For more on his career, go here.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, the writing is really, truly horrible.
• I'm going to start saying "Wanna bet, Sue!?" any time I want to sound menacing.
• "Queerly, it intrigued her" - hmmm, now I'm interested.

RP

Paperback 21: Graphic Giant G-216

Paperback 21: Graphic Giant G-216 (1st Graphic ptg, 1956)

Title: The Private Life of Helen of Troy
Author: John Erskine
Cover artist: Unknown :(

Yours for: $8

Best things about this cover:

• This is one of the worst cover paintings - in terms of pure artistic quality - that I've ever seen. Mucky, awkward, poor in detail. Just a mess. And yet...
• Nice rack. Seriously. Her bangs are terrible, but her boobs ... are not. There is another, earlier version of this same book (which I own) that is famous for its "nipple cover" - but you'll have to wait for that one.
• If the background is to be believed, Troy was destroyed by a nuclear holocaust of some kind
• This is a wraparound cover, where the painting continues onto the spine and then the back of the book...

Best thing about this back cover:

• First word: GAY!
• Boats make every cover better
• If I'm counting correctly, there are a total of 4 Helens on this book's front and back covers. That is almost certainly a record for appearances of one character on a single cover

RP

Paperback 20: Graphic 55

Paperback 20: Graphic 55 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: A Shot in the Dark
Author: Richard Powell
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm dancing as fast as I can!"
• "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a grotto like this?"
• Artist has no sense of perspective - assailant appears to be pointing gun at some object well off-screen to the left
• That's some intense light in her ... crotch region
• You know what this cover needs? A boat. Hey, look! I found one - just under her left elbow (honestly, before uploading this picture, I had never noticed the boat, even though the first line of copy on the back cover mentions "salmon fishing in Canada"...)

RP

Paperback 14: Popular Libary-Eagle Books EB96

Paperback 14: Popular Library-Eagle Books EB96 (PBO, 1957)

Title: Just So Far
Author: Floyd Miller
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• It's not Myra's fault - few people can resist Rex
• "I said listen to my heart, you shirtless bastard!"
• I am as much a fan of big breasts as the next guy, but that right breast is disturbingly large, aggressive, and ominous - it's hard to imagine it has a twin nearby
• I wonder what she has in her supremely tiny pocket - the pocket, like her right breast, appears strangely ... centered. What kind of dress has pockets over the crotch?
• That boat is either menacingly phallic or hilariously random; I can't decide.

Best things about this back cover:

• In the upper left, that's about as close to someone's copping a feel as you are likely to see on a pre-1960 paperback
• It's Big Shirtless Ron again! You'll remember him from the front cover.
• He's shirtless, but she's got on spiked heels - doesn't anyone know how to dress for a picnic anymore?
• Bottom right: Is he preparing to kiss her or adjusting her cervical spine?
• "Myra became a complete wanton" - slightly better than becoming a complete won-ton.

RP