Paperback 431: The Disappearance / Philip Wylie (Cardinal C-40)

Paperback 431: Cardinal Books C-40 (2nd ptg, 1952)

Title: The Disappearance
Author: Philip Wylie
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Quiz: Our hero is

a. trying cast the "Disappearance" spell on her dress
b. ordering five beers from the hologram waitress
c. saying "Up top! Don't leave me hanging, Betty!"

• "Suddenly for men there were no women"—that may explain why he's not interested in the advances of this particular "woman": "Stop right there. Pete, I know that's you."

Best things about this back cover:

• There's lots of interesting stuff here, but it all pales and fades before the claim that Philip Wylie is "famed as the exposer of Moms." How do you get *that* job? (outside of the niche porn industry, that is)

Page 123~

In due course a thunderous water wall had poured back upon the gleaming "dent" where Chicago and its environs had been.

This was during the period when Wylie was experimenting with sexual imagery. His wife would later suggest that perhaps "dent" was not as evocative of female genitalia as he thought it was.

~RP

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Paperback 124: Mark of the Beast / John E. Muller (Badger Books SF 105)

Paperback 124: Badger Books SF 105 (ed. unknown, ca. late 1950s)

Title: Mark of the Beast
Author: John E. Muller
Cover artist: Are you kidding? These damned British imprints give you Zero info - see (missing) publication info, above. You really think they're going to bother telling you the cover artist? Hah. Or maybe the cover artist deliberately had his name withheld so that he could avoid the shame of having to account for such a (literal) monstrosity of a painting.

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Note: if you are going to cave in and give the gorilla chocolate, do not, I repeat, do not give him that cheap Toblerone crap from the Duty-Free shop.
• Oh my God that cackling rhombus-headed simian is going to haunt my dreams for Months!
• This book seems to be some kind of cross between Frankenstein and King Kong - but the monster design seems to have serious Coneheads influence
• Check out the teeny "N.Z." sticker. I normally hate price stickers on my books, but this one is Adorable.
• That's one convincing badger.

Best thing about this back cover:

• The monster returns, and though he appears to be electrified / radioactive, the pink background really softens his overall image: "The Mark of the Beast ... for Ladies"

Page 123:

Sprinting as though he were Britain's last hope in the Olympics, the Security man threw everything he had into reaching a doorway on the far side of the ape.

RP