Paperback 355: Strip-Tease Girl / Cal Anton (Beacon B266)

Paperback 355: Beacon B266 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Strip-Tease Girl
Author: Cal Anton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• I'm pretty sure this is why God invented paperbacks.
• The topic, the painting, and the cover copy are all exquisitely sleazypaperbackesque.
• That is one fantastically ugly table.
• Pardon my ogling, buy her rack is phenomenal. A hair's breadth away from seeming fake.
• Love that "—AND DELIVERED" is in red! Hot. Feverish, even.
• Also love the lack of a possessive pronoun before "JADED SENSES"; are they hers, his, yours? Who can say?

Best things about this back cover:

• She also couldn't center her words or stick to one font, and was overly enamored of tiny type.
• "Goggling!" "Queenly hips!?"
• "Inevitably..." HA ha. "I mean, come on—what else was she gonna do with that body?"
• "... and even a woman or two" HELLO! Way to bury the lead, guys.

Page 123~

"Well, I know the place like a school teacher knows a book. Shoot the questions. Mike," he ordered, "how about a head on this coffee?"

Conversation continues with equally forced-sounding attempts at colloquial patter. "Like a school teacher knows a book" is about the flat-fallingest simile I've ever heard. "Which book?" "Oh, you know, *a* book."

~RP

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Paperback 343: The Mesh / Lucie Marchal (Bantam A1923)

Paperback 323: Bantam A1923 (1st new Bantam ptg, 1959)

Title: The Mesh
Author: Lucie Marchal
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: Not for sale (one of three 'new' books I got from Doug Peterson this past weekend)

Best things about this cover:

• "Strange," "hidden," "forbidden" ... there's a reason it won the "LES Lettres Françaises" prize!
• Love the title font. Ambivalent about the colors. Also, why aren't these telegenic French lesbians wearing mesh? I was promised the mesh, I want to see the mesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Inbred!?"—jeez, nice metaphor.
• There's nothing lesbians like more than a good "psychological probing." Oh, and "Balzac."

Page 123~

As long as I live I shall never forget the sight I beheld when I opened the bathroom door, a sight which even today I do not know whether to call obscene or pathetic, but which I know was the start of the subsequent profound change in my whole outlook and my life.

The "sight" involves a topless woman washing a dog. Dum dum DUM!

~RP

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Paperback 330: The Joy Boys / Walt Grove (Dell First Edition

Paperback 330: Dell First Edition B136 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Joy Boys
Author: Walt Grove
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks!

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "'I Dream of Jeannie?' Fuck that. Jeannie dreams of me!"
• I submit to you that this woman would look much better if that horse's tail were removed from the back of her head.
• That spider has six legs. Is that guy's squadron called "The Mighty Ticks?"
• "The Joy Boys" ... does not evoke aviation. It evokes something slightly more tawdry—like GLORY HOLE meets RENT BOY.

Best things about this back cover:

• Walt Grove, doing his best Mickey Spillane imitation. Tough sell.
• Seriously? "The Joy Boys" is the successor to "DOWN!?" Who knew the world of aviation had such a strong undercurrent of fellatio?

Page 123~

He wished he would stop thinking about that, but he had been around and he knew.

Looks like he's been behind the barn.

~RP

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2 books handed to me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Book 1

Doug Peterson handed me two books during the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last weekend. He's a crossword constructor, and a regular reader of this blog. As you'll see, he has a good eye for quality paperback product. To wit:

Title: The Scrambled Yeggs (GM 770, 2nd ptg, '59)
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Barye Phillips, I think

Yours for: Not For Sale


There are two things and two things only to say about this cover:

1. YEGGS!
2. SPANKING!

Hot on two counts.

• I'm with him 'til "plastic surgery," where the metaphor (simile, I guess) goes south for me. One of the things I like about vintage women (by which I mean the kinds of women that vintage paperbacks tend to showcase) is that they come from a time before plastic surgery started making (some) women look like scary clowns.
• "I'm broad-minded" = gold.
• Always good to close with a Whitesnake lyric

Page 123~

In the car, I put the gun on the seat to my right and pulled away from the curb. And I was hoping that the same guys who got Kelly would come after me. Those boys needed killing bad and right then I felt ready, willing and able — and maybe even a little eager.

Shell Scott, doing his best Mike Hammer impression (Scott is funnier and less frightening)

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 5

Title: The Man in Lower Ten (Dell D276, 1959)
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Muni

Yours for: best offer

• I'm intrigued the modernist book design in the book hammock
• More gruesome lefthanditude
• This cover gets awesomer once you realize that it is a wrap-around...

• Free verse. Interesting. I am imagining this being read at a Poetry Slam. Now I'm imagining it being read by Garrison Keillor. Both versions have their charms / horrors.
• "Confirmed bachelor" — awesome! The main character is gay! That must be why there's that dash for shocking emphasis in the phrase "he fell desperately, unequivocally / in love — with a woman!" [gasp!]
• Mmmm, 9. My favorite number. I am the man in lower nine.

Page 123~

Hotchkiss had penetrated the steaming interior of the cave, and now his voice, punctuated by the occasional thud of horses' hoofs, came to me.

What are horses hoofs doing in the middle of an otherwise very hot sex scene?

~RP

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57 books from the University Book Sale: Book 1

Title: The Confession + Sight Unseen
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Victor Kalin

Yours for: best offer

"Mrrowr"
"Hello?"
"Meow?"
"Uh, I'm calling about the antique phone you advertised in the paper?"
"[purrrr]"
"Is this Rinehart?"

[My wife thought this was a book about a cat named "Rinehart," by a woman named Mary Roberts — a reasonable inference, I say]

Page 123~ (from "Sight Unseen")

Of Elinor Wells I have only my wife's verdict, and I have found that, as is the way with many good women, her judgments of her own sex are rather merciless.

~RP

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Paperback 264: The Monster From Earth's End / Murray Leinster (Gold Medal s832)

Paperback 264: Gold Medal s832 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Monster from Earth's End
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: Muni (anyone got a full name? — my kingdom for a paperback cover artist database!)

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• More unusualness. An abstract painting — Pollack meets psychedelic meets third-grader — with naked upside-down girl thrown in for a representational, realistic touch. Did I just call a naked woman with gravity-defying breasts hanging from cartoonish green snot vines "realistic?" Yes. I believe I did.
• More hot font action. 1957-62 was like some kind of paperback cover font Golden Age.
• "There was nothing on the island big enough to kill a man..." Nerd raises hand: "Um, excuse me, am I to believe there is nothing on the island bigger than a small spider, because there are small spiders that can kill a man. To say nothing of microbes. Your assertion is highly dubious. Laughable, even. [Chortle]"

Best things about this back cover:

• "And the plane crashed straight into the world's largest whale (not pictured). The end."
• Love how the cover copy is laid out as free verse. "Formatting's for squares, man. You gotta let the words go where they want."

Page 123~

Four Adelie penguins came ashore and washed solemnly up the beach. They'd been feeding on infinitesimal green things in the current that flowed past the island. They regarded the men with zestful interest, their unhappy experience of capture and imprisonment in cages now forgotten. They crowded about the men, uttering the fluting notes of penguin conversation.

Ray, to Joe: "Please tell me you hear them talking too."

~RP

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Paperback 262: Too Hot to Hold / Day Keene (Gold Medal 931)

Paperback 262: Gold Medal 931 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Too Hot to Hold
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited, tho' there's something very McGinnisesque about that woman

Yours for: SOLD (7/23/09)


Best things about this cover:

• I Love This Cover. It's unusual and enigmatic and just oozes sophistication and coolness and mystery. I *want to know* what she is doing, where she is going, who's in the cab with her, all of it.
• Great Girl Art that isn't hyper-sexed. Great gams, great gloves, and Great Hair.
• "Death" is kind of anticlimactic after "torture." Not really shocking. Kind of the next logical step. Now "... leading men to soup ... and death!" That would be shocking.
• Sadly, this title has put the theme to Ghostbusters II in my head: "Too hot to handle / Too cold to hold / They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control!" — Oh, Bobby Brown, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Best things about this back cover:

• If you like green/brown, or off-center typography, this is the cover for you.

Page 123~

Linda Lou stopped pretending and ran her hands over her flat body. She could be carrying the first of them now. The thought made her blush. After the way she'd acted, if it was possible for a woman to conceive more than once in a night, she probably had a whole family inside her.

You'll be relieved (maybe) to know that this passage is not directly related to the scene of abuse and torture (possible rape?) on the book's back cover. Still, though ... I'm kind of creeped out. "A whole family?" OB/Gyn: "Hey, there's a mom and dad, three kids and a dog in here. How'd that happen?"

~RP

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Paperback 253: Each Won Two / Marsha Bates (Fabian Z-101)

Paperback 253: Fabian Z-101 (PBO? 1959?)

Title: Each Won Two
Author: Marsha Bates
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "Each Lost Dignity"
• That Cathy, always egging on the drinks. "Go drinks! You can do it! Be cold and tasty!"
• I'm pretty sure that "veteran impersonators" do not get drunk, wrap themselves in bed sheets, and do impressions of gay lobsters.
• The dude in the middle with the blush and the ear injury appears to be wearing a burlap sack. He also appears to be floating.
• Florine prepares to do what any sensible person would do in her position: drink herself into a stupor.
• Don't look for that wall paint color at your local hardware store. It's available only in hell.

Best things about this back cover:

• Kandinsky strikes again!
• "Florine, Cathy, and Jim — names?" Uh, yes. "Not when you mix them up." Hmm, let's see ... nope, still names.
• I love how there is no way in hell you could possibly have any idea what this book is about despite the fact that the description is lengthy — 3 paragraphs! And no there there at all. "Things ... it ..." Dear god, just tell me what they're doing!

Page 123~

The minute I'd finished, her eyes told me that she knew I had asked a question for which I already had an answer. But I had to know, hear it from her mouth, hear her admit something I'd for some time suspected.

~RP

Paperback 237: Call for Michael Shayne / Brett Halliday (Dell D269)

Paperback 237: Dell D269 (1st thus, 1959)

Title: Call for Michael Shayne
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm holding for Mike Shayne, so you can just wait your damned turn for the phone. Here, stare at the side of my left boob while you wait."
• One of the oddest cover poses I've seen for a McGinnis girl — casual gun play + casual, inexplicable semi-nudity. Yet the net effect is still smoking hot.
• For my birthday, I would really love it if one of you could PhotoShop this baby and make it say "Call For Michael Sharp" (my "real" name)
• I love the floating head of Mike Shayne. Quintessential tough dick.

Best things about this back cover:

• The fact that I have left the store's ID tag tucked into the back cover all these years. I love when stores are fastidious about labeling their shit.
• "The night of June 8" is tomorrow, fyi.
• We didn't need the first set of parentheses, let alone the second. What, are you whipsering?

Page 123~

Knowing Masters's reputation as a domineering bully, it seemed reasonable to expect his secretary to be a weak-kneed yes-man, a sycophant.

~RP

P.S. just hours after I posted this write-up, reader "Tulse" gave me this:


I should ask for stuff more often. Now I want it on a T-shirt. You're the best, Tulse. I'm truly grateful.

Paperback 222: How Rough Can It Get? / Joe Weiss (Avon T-332)

Paperback 222: Avon T-332 (1st thus, 1959)
Title: How Rough Can It Get?
Author: Joe Weiss
Cover artist: Milo

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• She looks excited about the possibility that it will get very rough, indeed.
  
• Her posture looks demure, but her hands?: holding a sledgehammer.
• That dude's butt and jaw are all kinds of wrong.
• Is there a difference between a trouble and a tribulation?
• That red is horrible. Pus + blood.

Best things about this back cover:

• Where is a picture?
• Oh good. I love a good human frailty war.

Page 123~

Beverly's five minutes were up, and she latched herself onto a new guy. She was showing this guy her arm. She told him that he should know she bruised very easily. So he then made a determined effort to see if he could do a better job with the other arm and maybe break it for her.

Remember when co-ed Fight Clubs were popular? Me either.

~RP

Paperback 216: The April Robin Murders / Craig Rice and Ed McBain (Dell D306)

Paperback 216: Dell D306 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The April Robin Murders
Author: Craig Rice and Ed McBain
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Signature super-hot McGinnis woman ... until you get up to the head. Then it's The Joker's mom. Holy moly.
• I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that McGinnis draws the best asses, anywhere, ever. His women tend to be a little gaunt and a little dead-eyed for me, in general, but from waist to knees I have zero complaints.
• Oddly comical cover for McGinnis, perhaps because the book is a kind of dark comedy. Love the Spy vs. Spy wavy dagger in the dead guy's hand. Also, love his hand. Awesome agony hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think you mean "A Front," but OK.
• I want you to write a story for me that begins "So Bingo and Handsome..." I would read that story.
• Why are those phrases hyphenated in the second paragraph. So Wrong. So Wrong. Trying to see humor ... failing ...
• I would wear a t-shirt that read simply "What You Need In Hollywood Is "Front"" - enigmatic!
• Um, I just noticed that she has pompons on her ankles for some reason. What the hell is that all about? Or is she being attacked by Evil Tribbles?

Page 123~

There were a great many things to say, Bingo reflected, and none of them really seemed to fit the occasion. He stood by the doorway, deciding between "How did you get in?" "What are you doing here?" and "Who are you?"

~RP

Paperback 183: Death is the Last Lover / Henry Kane (Avon T-291)

Paperback 183: Avon T-291 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Death is the Last Lover
Author: Henry Kane
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• The color scheme. It's gutsy - pink, baby blue, and then ... some kind of maroon
• The title - sensationalist writing at its best / worst. Does she literally sleep with Death, or does her John kill her, or what?
• Thank god Death was her last lover - that makes a much better title than "Herb the Copier Salesman from Wichita is the Last Lover"
• Her face is unfortunate. The painting makes her look vapid, which is inherently unsexy. I do dig that oversized hat box she's sitting on, though. Her legs and cleavage aren't awful either.

Best things about this back cover:

• Personally, I like "bosoms and brandies" with pretty much anything.
• That negligee has too many adjectives. It stopped being sexy right around adjective #3
• Oh look, it's that insipid face again. Nope, it's no sexier in blue tone.

Page 123~

I sat near her, enjoying the warmth of her thigh. "Honey," I said, "you're a nice, sweet, attractive gal, and I'm crazy about you."

"Yeah, I remember," she said.

Wow, she talks a lot cooler than she looks.

Paperback 160: Galaxy Science Fiction (December 1959)

Paperback 160: Galaxy Science Fiction (December 1959)

• Includes work by: Robert Bloch ("Sabbatical"), Philip K. Dick ("War Game"), Frederick Pohl ("The Snowmen"), Robert Sheckley, Willy Ley, George O. Smith, A.J. Offutt, and others
• Cover artist: EMSH (best cover artist name ever) - real name = Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• It is aDORable. I want to make Christmas cards out of this cover.
• Martian pyjamas
• Santa has four arms
• I want that rocket that Santa is holding
• Really, the design on this cover is astonishingly beautiful. It's like Norman Rockwell meets mid-century modern meets The Future. The little silver snowflake-stars around the date / price just seal the deal
• How did Robert Bloch and Philip K. Dick get driven off the front cover by ... these guys. A.J. Offutt? He should be banished for name ugliness alone.
  

Best things about this back cover

• Seriously, one of the Worst ads I've ever seen. Shouldn't the NAME OF YOUR PRODUCT be featured ... somewhere? Prominently? I mean, if the title had been "What's In IF For You?" I might have been impressed. Maybe that was the idea and the typesetter just effed up.
• "We often wonder why all our readers aren't subscribers" = "We often wonder why we can't pay our bills each month"
• I imagine the most boring, droning, Hugh Beaumont-esque guy making this would-be sales pitch. "When you subscribe to our magazine, it comes straight to your house via a little bit of magic we like to call: The Mail"
• Who designed this, Luddites!? It's like the anti-ad!

Page 123~

"People are always watching me, Brother," I said. "So now they do it even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to that."

-from "Charity Case" by Jim Harmon

This is far too prescient for me to snark on.

~RP

Paperback 139: Bodies Are Where You Find Them / Brett Halliday (Dell D327)

Paperback 139: Dell D327 (1st New Dell ptg, 1959)

Title: Bodies Are Where You Find Them
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Bob, Bob, Bob - why are you hiding her!!?
• The title of this book is so true
• If you Google ["is where you find it"], you'll be shocked at how many different things apply. Short list: Love, Home, Gold, Faith, Fun, Jazz, Art, etc.
  
• It's actually a very smoky cover, for being awfully short on lady flesh. Dishevelment + those eyes = hot.
• Love the double entendre on "bodies" here
• That Mike Shayne mug is a kind of trademark that appears on nearly all the Dell pbs of Mike Shayne novels. It's a Bob Stanley design, I think

Best things about this back cover:

• Honestly, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Is that the corner of a bedsheet?
• "... lots of money, from way back." Like ... antebellum? Is his wealth all in ducats? Doubloons?
• The only think I like more than an heiress is a "madcap heiress."
• Whoa whoa whoa - that chick on the front cover is dead? If so, that's a cruel, cruel joke.

Page 123~

"Let's just pretend we're invisible," Shayne suggested.

~RP

Paperback 114: The Case of the Cautious Coquette / Erle Stanley Gardner (Cardinal C-332)

Paperback 114: Cardinal C-332 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Case of the Cautious Coquette
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: John Fernie

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Georgia's audition for the "New Avengers" ended very, very badly.
• I'm no fashion expert, but I'm pretty sure a pink cape does not go with a strapless orange jumpsuit. Not that I don't admire her courage.

Q: What is she doing with her left arm?

• a. trying to clear the frog from her throat
• b. doing the first part of a Sammy Sosa-style salute to her fans (peace sign to follow)
• c. wiping blood from her chin
• d. preparing to throw an elbow at the small man standing behind her whom we cannot see
• e. doing her post-murder celebration dance

Best things about this back cover:

• First paragraph = How to cop a feel, Perry Mason-style! "I'm looking for a gun!" Man, I gotta use that one.
• After so much exposure to it, I now feel that Erle Stanley Gardner's signature is trying to send me some kind of secret message...
• Check out the ad for another book - exploitation of the advertising potential of the back cover is a late development, and would be unwelcome if it didn't give me a great window on the literary context of the time. Plus ... miniature cheese/beefcake!

Page 123~

"But all this isn't going to do you any good," Drake said irritably. "You're simply crucifying yourself. Figure what the papers will do when they - why, hang it, Perry, it will put your neck right in a noose. Evidence of flight is evidence of guilt."

~RP

Paperback 106: A Dangerous Woman / James T. Farrell (Panther 954)

Paperback 106: Panther 954 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: A Dangerous Woman
Author: James T. Farrell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (6/2/08)


Best things about this cover:

• This is more like a woman auditioning for a paperback cover than an actual cover painting. "You want me to [not] wear what?"
• "... her obsession for men became a desire to repel them" - Mission Accomplished.
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five bangles on her right wrist. Yes, that's a record for a paperback cover. Congratulations, boring, overly-clothed lady. You can collect your $10 Target gift certificate on your way out the door. Buh-bye.
• "Dangerous" extends directly out from her crotch. Nice.

Best things about this back cover:

• This blurb writer is from the "Adverb adjective, adverb adjective, adverb adjective, and adverb adverb adjective..." school of blurb writing.
• Why don't writers cover "the human scene" any more?
• That Panther is far too sedate to be a good logo. It should really be killing something, or at least roaring.

Page 123~

I never knew what anarchism was except that I'm against it and it's radical, but I never knew what an anarchist was. Now I know. An anarchist is a Frenchman driving an automobile in gay Paree.

~RP

Paperback 92: The Bowstring Murders / Carter Dickson (Berkley G-214)

Paperback 92: Berkley G-214 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Bowstring Murders
Author: Carter Dickson
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $7

"Oh, crossbow, I'm sorry. I love you but ... it can never work out between us..."

Best things about this cover:

• Man is it red.
• Her hair is the color of pink lemonade.
• "Do you like my outfit? I call it 'The Reverse Bumblebee!'" (My other bumblebee joke involved her being a referee at a bumblebee football game)
• Her left ankle is absurdly, grotesquely thick.
• Are those ... pants? Tights? Jodhpurs?
• As with all Robert Maguire women, this one has exquisite, detailed, realistic, emotionally evocative facial features. Why she's writhing around in Mao's basement dressed like a bee, I'll never know.
• Carter Dickson is a terrible name, in that Dickson Carter really makes far more sense. Much more believable as a name, I think.

Best things about this back cover:

• Gauntlets cannot be efficient handwear for strangling.
• "... the great criminologist John Gaunt" - laziest naming ever. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was a prominent nobleman in 14th-century England - the uncle of Richard II.
• This book description reeks of Englishness. It's clear that the Maguire cover is a total fake-out; I'm quite sure this book contains no mod, crossbow-loving bumble-ladies. Quite sure.

PAGE 123~

"Lady Rayle has been murdered," said John Gaunt, rising from the breakfast table.

~RP

Paperback 78: Slaughter Street / Louis Falstein (Pyramid G437)

Paperback 78: Pyramid G437 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: Slaughter Street
Author: Louis Falstein
Cover artist: Victor Kalin

YOURS FOR: $12 (SOLD - 4/18/08)


Best things about this cover:

• "... and even her fierce, shameless love would be no shield" - lying in bed naked gets my vote for Least Effective Shield of All Time
• This cover is So good - so many of my favorite cover elements: naked redhead, smoking guy with gun, motel (I imagine), etc.

Best things about this back cover:

Sorry, I stopped reading at "bowels"

RP

Paperback 70: Our Flesh Was Cheap / Eve Linkletter (Fabian Z-128)

Paperback 70: Fabian Z-128 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Our Flesh Was Cheap
Author: Eve Linkletter
Cover artist: Uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• "Are you depressed? Is your apartment a dank, run-down hovel? Is your flesh, well, cheap? Then why not join the movement that's sweeping the nation - Knit Your Way to Happiness!"
• This cover is decidedly unsexy. Coverless bed, cracked walls, naked lightbulb, portrait of Dear Old Grandma (or Man With Enormous Beard). And yet some kind of Cézanne-esque still life appears to have broken out on the book's western border...
• "Our Flesh was Cheap" - starring Illeana Douglas!

Best things about this back cover:

It's the same as the last back cover - clearly the country was in the grip of Eve-mania.

RP