Paperback 364: Cycle Fury / Reggie Car (Chevron 124)

Paperback 364: Chevron 124 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Cycle Fury
Author: Reggie Car
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• They don't look very "frenzied." They look pretty laid back. I mean, that one dude us calmly enjoying a smoke. Also, it appears he bought his kelly green Nazi t-shirt at Old Navy. Old German Navy.
• Take away the Nazi paraphernalia and the bike and put him next to Annie Lennox and the guy in the foreground really looks like Dave Stewart from Eurythmics.
• That girl's outfit is kind of cute.
• Is that a *black* Nazi biker in the background??? This must be from some future time when the Nazis get big into the idea of diversity.

Best things about this back cover:

• Given the front cover, I would not have expected whatever kind of abstract painting is going on up top there on the back cover. The subtle interplays of blue and gray do not exactly scream "lust-crazed motorcycle gang!"
• There's really no reason for type this tiny.
• "Zipper Hardy" — is there a pun in there that I'm missing? Also, I think his description is missing a dash between "mob" and "and"...
• "Ham!" That's the name of the "giant Negro!?" Oh, that's not racist at all.
• If you merged "Cycle Fury" and the musical "Cats" into yet another musical, "Cycle Cats," I would be first in line to see it.
• This back cover has the word "pedagogical" on it!!!!! I thought only academics who think the word "teaching" is too declassé used variations on the word "pedagogy." Now it appears those academics and trashy novels about Nazi bikers have something in common. Did Not see that coming.

Page 123~

Then she remembered the aphrodisiacally-centered cigarette she had shared with him.

I literally cannot pronounce "aphrodisiacally."

~RP

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Paperback 315: Lust Killer / J.S. McWinter (All-Star 142)

Paperback 315: All Star 142 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Lust Killer
Author: J.S. McWinter
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15



Best things about this cover:

• "Now that you are sufficiently humiliated, I'll just rub my face with my magic gun, like so, and ... presto, I start to turn invisible from the feet up."
• This guy is actually trying to protect the lady from the hailstorm of mini-doors/light switches/'60s decorative effects pounding down upon her naked body.
• Whoa, I just read the cover copy: child molester!?!? Oh, man, I can't do anything with that. NEXT COVER!

Best things about this back cover:

• I have just one thing to say, and that is — how do you conclude "accidental death" when the body is "STUFFED within" an "icebox?" Unless this is an attempt at escape artistry gone horribly awry, even the most bumpkiny of police chiefs couldn't arrive at "accidental death" from that evidence. Not with a straight face.

Page 123~

OK, before I begin, let me say that I flipped the book open to a random page and found out that the book is at least in part about boys in a sado-masochistic relationship who discover that they are "queers" ("You know damn well you almost came every time I beat you. And I always do. What do you mean we aren't queer?"). I'm afraid to look at Page 123 ... Oh. It's not so bad.

"All right, John," she began again. "For years your father and I have known that you're homosexual. All right. That's that. Until now you always kept it quiet. But not anymore. Now the whole town knows about it. But even that isn't so bad. Boston is a great town for burying its head in the sand, you know. In Boston, you can do damned near anything you want, so long as you don't rub our face in it. But if you do that, we have to do something. And you've rubbed our face in it. Do you really think no one is aware of what's been going on? All three of your bosses have been in communication with me about you. So you are now faced with a choice. Either resign and leave Boston, or we will throw you out. I don't mean the Creightons, I mean Boston. We've had it John. In Boston, there are no second chances."

There you go, City of Boston. Your new motto!

~RP

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Paperback 313: Night Walk / Bob Shaw (Banner B60-110)

Paperback 313: Banner B60-110 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Night Walk
Author: Bob Shaw
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Yours for: $15

In honor of Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

• "Pwn3d!"
  
• Toothpicks: Now in "Giant Arachnid" Strength!
• Colors are incredibly striking / horrifying. And the design is simple but gorgeous. Memorable.

• Love that the green on these eyes matches the mystery-green on the front cover.
• "Emm Luther" — subtle!
• This sounds like a combination of "King Lear" and "The Stars My Destination." That is, it sounds good.

Page 123~

"I'm sorry about this bit of nonsense," Tallon said. "I suppose you feel like a kid hiding in a hollow bush?"

~RP

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Paperback 312: Conan / Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter (Lancer 73-685)

Paperback 312: Lancer 73-685 (PBO collection, 1967)

Title: Conan
Authors: Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Offered without comment, in honor of Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

• OK, one comment — that is some serious MMA shit going on between Conan and the Phantom of the Apera

Two more Frazetta covers in coming days.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 47

Title: Reno Rendezvous (Popular 60-2119, 1st ptg, 1967)
Author: Leslie Ford (last one, I swear)
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7

• Kinky.
• I like how the accidental abrasions on her mouth make her look like a vampire.
• "Thinking about divorce? ... Think Again!" — that should have been the tagline.
• From the neck (*just* below the rope) down, this woman is hot.
• I wish this artist got credit. I'd like to know the name behind this painter with a predilection for neck-snapping. I'll just call him "Snappy." See also...

And the back of "Reno Rendezvous" ...

• "A flying visit to Reno.." — why does that phrasing sound off?
• I wouldn't worry about the "shadow of a noose." I'd worry about the actual noose. That one. There. Around your neck.

Page 123~

She raised her eyes to his, round and blue as delft saucers.

Not so much sexy as comically cartoonish. "You remind me of this anime I saw once..."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 43

Sorry for the lag between new books ... stupid job with its stupid starting up again ...

Title: Ill Met By Moonlight
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $6

• Ill Met by Moths!
• Love *everything* about this picture, from the sickly green tint, to the lady's expression (looking at me for help! Sorry lady, you're on your own!), to that hand — remarkably still, creepily calm for being attached to someone who just unleashed serious moth fury.
• Is this how our "lovely vixen" (uh, a stretch) toys with (one too many) men? "Here, this way, just come into my boudoir ... I know it's dark, just wait, let me get the light and BOOM! Moths moths moths! Ha ha ha, you should see the look on your face... you still wanna do it?"

• Wait, is this the same "she?" Because it's going to be hard for her to be "found dead" *and* to be toying with men. Unless ... she comes back from the dead as a specter doomed to haunt her former lovers with an unshakable retinue of moths ... yes, that sounds good.

Page 123~

"However, we may be a bit forrarder."

forrarder, adv. chiefly British : further ahead

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 244: Split-Level Love / Carlton Gibbs (Softcover Library B1057S)

Paperback 244: Softcover Library B1057S (2nd, 1967)

Title: Split-Level Love
Author: Carlton Gibbs
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "This is a rather odd lap dance ma'am ... ma'am ... why are you looking in my ear, ma'am?"
• I wonder what the pink "V" stands for?
• Her lower leg is scary thin.
• Adoption and abortion ... how topical!?
• Carlton Gibbs ... was that the doorman on "Rhoda" or the cousin of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

Best things about this back cover:

• Brig Doncaster? Seriously, my paperback collection is killing me with these names! Tell me "Doncaster" doesn't sound like "Dong-caster."
• There's a whole subset of 60s sex paperbacks about "Suburbia" and the goings-on there. Suburbia is to 60s paperbacks what Juvenile Delinquency is to late-50s paperbacks.

Page 123~

She let him divest her, just the same, of the flimsy fluffs he had given her. She trembled at his touch. His was the kind of diabolical male charm a woman could hate and yet become heedlessly intoxicated with. She could stand there loathing the fact that he had taken hundreds of bras off scores of women [pausing ... doing math ...] and yet thrill to his removing hers. She could grow faint when he touched his lips to her taut breast regardless of how many others he had kissed. She could shiver visibly when his hands slid away her final garment although they were far too practiced.

Brig Doncaster, divester of flimsy fluffs and irresistible asshole extraordinaire.

~RP

Paperback 241: Mother, Daughter and Lover / G.G. Fickling (Softcover Library B1069S)

Paperback 241: Softcover Library B1069S (2nd ptg?, 1967ish)

Title: Mother, Daughter and Lover
Author: G. G. Fickling
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Does my bra strap smell weird to you?"
• "The Intimate Confessions of a Beach Boy" — Brian Wilson at his nadir ... or apex, I guess, depending on how you look at it.
• We've seen Fickling's work before — they (yes, they) wrote the Honey West novels. I like that their name is a mash-up of "fickle" and "fucking" ... and "finger-licking," sort of.
• I like the idea that there is a ranking system for the relative explosiveness of Sex Triangles.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Well preserved?!?!" HA ha. Like a mummy.
• "Her eyes ... stopped at my wet trunks and narrowed." That's pretty good, as sex fiction cover copy goes. "Youthful, upthrust flesh," less so.

Page 123~

Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pane of glass.

It's bad enough that you have to use the painful adverb "shatteringly" — do we really need the simile? Glass is the First thing evoked by "shattering." I mean, what else is the shattering supposed to signal? "Her voice cracked shatteringly, like a pot pie."

~RP

P.S. I was thrilled recently to hear that my blog had inspired one of my readers to start her own vintage pb collection. Check out one of her initial purchases here. It's ... jaw-dropping.

Paperback 210: Search for a Dead Nympho / Paul W. Fairman (Lancer 73-587)

Paperback 210: Lancer 73-587 (PBO, 1967)
Title: Search for a Dead Nympho
Author: Paul W. Fairman
Cover artist: Photographer with a snazzy pink filter

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Because live nymphos are too much trouble.
• Is he protecting her or holding her hostage? In my admittedly limited experience, women don't like to have guns held so close to their faces.
• It's like he's trying to get a little mustard off her face with his gun, but refuses to do it the "easy" way by looking right at her and instead chooses to use a mirror to guide his hand. At least, that is how I imagine a guy named "Vince Garth" would roll.
• Vince Garth! Who names these guys? You know what Vince Garth needs? A last name.

Best things about this back cover:

• Teardrop! HA ha.
• "Lorry!?" "We named her after the place she was conceived. Pardon me while I take the lift to my flat. Cheerio!"
• You'll be very sorry you ever met Lorry.
• "Cover posed by professional models" - photo covers that aren't stills from movies or TV shows make me sad.

Page 123~

"But why not the red-headed beatnik? He took Lorry to that call house. Stass may be a lot of things, but he's not a pimp."

You know, he's right. Why NOT the red-headed beatnik?

~RP

Paperback 170: A Korean Tiger / Nick Carter (Award Books A248X)

Paperback 170: Award Books A248X (PBO, 1967)

• Title: A Korean Tiger
• Author: Nick Carter (who is also the main character...? and who is also, btw, a Backstreet Boy)
• Cover artist: Some McGinnis imitator

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Bring me the floating head of Nick Carter! Oh, nevermind. It's right there.
• The disembodied head of Nick Carter thinks you're a swell-looking doll. {wink!}
• If the book is trying to suggest to me that that lady is "Korean," I challenge. She looks like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, only with somewhat smaller boobs and no shirt.
• I like how she is taking a sidelong glance at the title, as if thinking "WTF?"
• How is it possible that no rapper has picked up the name "Killmaster?" That would be my handle for sure. That, or "Optimum Slim" (a name I derived from the cereal I eat every morning)
• Fake Korean Post-op Elvira Impersonator needs a refill, dammit!

Best things about this back cover.

• Text! Who doesn't like ... that?
• Oh my god, I am in love with this book - any book that features the word "slatternly" is hottt with three t's.
• I hope the "dark underbelly of Asia" is just some really hairy Laotian guy.
• Paragraph indentations are for suckas!

Page 123~

The wide green stare did not waver. Behind those basilisk eyes he thought he could detect a hint of something warmer. Desire? Plain old-fashioned lust? Was this creature really so human?

Oh please dear god don't let him be talking about the "Korean" woman. "Though she was Korean, she seemed oddly human."

~RP

P.S. this book is immaculate. As crisp and new and bright as the day it first hit the shelves. Maybe there's a tiny amount of scuffing, but it's quite negligible. Paperbacks rarely hold up this well.

Paperback 145: The By-Pass Control / Mickey Spillane (Signet P3077)

Paperback 145: Signet P3077 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The By-Pass Control
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Ugh. Ugly multi-colored text crowds this poorly designed cover. And what is that photo? A leftover still from a Prell ad shoot?
• What is it with Spillane covers and naked blondes with hair that looks starchy and untouchable?
• Apparently the "By-Pass Control" is located at the base of her skull. Stop her, Tiger!
• "Multi-murder" is a ... noun?
• "They called him 'Tiger' because ... well, he snarled during sex, frankly."

Best things about this back cover:

• And you thought that little red dot was just some kind of sale sticker. In actuality, it is one of the least explicable book design concepts in paperback history. Maybe it represents the Communist menace. Or Tiger Mann's passion for gumballs. He's irrepressible!
• I'm not sure that Denver Post blurb is as positive as the publishers seem to think it is.
• How many different ways can a book convey to you that it contains rough sex? "Snarling sex," "deadly sex," "rough-tough touch," etc. Maybe the red dot symbolizes the marks Tiger leaves on his many sex partners / victims.
• If you wanna read the awesomest, most over-the-top, ridiculous conflation of rough sex and politics, please read One Lonely Night, where Hammer hammers a commie girl, and when he's done with her, she is red ... white and blue. USA! USA! Rough sex cures women of their political delusions. Who knew? Thanks, Mickey!

Page 123~

"Don't bother packing ... just get on the first one out [...]." I laughed and added, "Besides, you can use a vacation."

"Sure, without clothes?"

"What better kind?" I said.

"I didn't mean it like that," she told me, a lilt in her voice, "but you're making it sound awfully interesting. I'll see you shortly, mud dauber."

He's not just a Tiger. He's also, it seems, a wasp.

[Organ-pipe mud dauber - Trypoxylon politum]

~RP

PS Here are some Hillbilly Hussy covers ... if you're into that sort of thing (and I am - here's one of my own)

Paperback 99: The Einstein Intersection / Samuel R. Delany (Ace F-427)

Paperback 99: Ace F-427 (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Einstein Intersection
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Cover artist: Jack Gaughan

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "Red Bull - gives you gorings and talonous scrapings wings!"
• "Sorry, sir, Hideously Mutated Bovine Night is Thursday. Tonight is Ladies' Night."
• "I have seen the future ... and it has fancy vending machines."
• Sadly, that pasty discothèque bouncer / ATM guard looks a lot like me.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Cordwainer" is possibly the best first name in human history.
• I can only hope that "Lobey" has Gigantic ears.
• "They call me 'Kid Death' ... on account 'a I kill people."
• Editor me says: "'Millennia' has two 'n's"

Page 123!~

Suddenly he tossed the skull gently. It passed me, hovered a moment, then smashed on the stones and Spider laughed. It was a friendly laugh, without the malicious flickering of fish scales and flies' wings that dazzled the laughter of the Kid. But it nearly scared me to death. I ran out the door. For one step bone fragments chewed at my instep. The door slammed behing me. The sun slapped my face.

I must give a ton of credit to the very accomplished Mr. Delany, who made sure that the cover artist got credit on this book by including him in the Dedication! Awesome:

"for Don Wollheim
a responsible man
in all meanings
to and for what is
within and
Jack Gaughan
for what is
without"

~RP

Paperback 88: Suburbia Confidential / Emil Moreau (alias of Ed Wood, Jr) (Triumph - TNC 305)

Paperback 88: Triumph - TNC 305 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Suburbia Confidential
Author: Emil Moreau (alias of Ed Wood, Jr.)
Cover artist: that is not art

Yours for: $55


OMG, OMG, OMG - this book is not even in my official collection. Until a few hours ago, it was in a heap of books I got at the University book sale last fall, where something like $5 bought you an entire grocery bag full of books. I have blogged about the books I bought there before - books that slayed me for one reason or another, phenomenally ugly books, books with hilarious covers, etc. I never got around to blogging the last batch of books from that sale - I was saving this particular book for last for ... well, for many reasons. It is Great in many, many ways, but I had no, no, no idea, until an inexplicable whim led me to look it up online just today, that it was written by Ed Wood, Jr. Ed @#$#$#ing Wood. I do not own an Ed Wood book - or, I guess I should say, I didn't, or didn't know I did, until just now.

Wood's writing career is nearly as legendary as his film career, and his books are Incredibly hard to come by (check out his bibliography). You may know (of) Ed Wood from his legendarily bad movie Plan 9 from Outer Space, or from the Tim Burton movie Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood, and featuring Martin Landau, who won a Best Supporting Actor Award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. Great film. But back to my book. Woo hoo! This, this is why I collect this crap. For these spectacular "I got a what?!" moments. It's like striking oil or winning the lottery, only way less lucrative, but still immensely satisfying. I have a few more books (forthcoming in the blog, for sure) that I stumbled into for cheap, without knowing what I had on my hands. Dumb, great luck.

OK, now the book itself.

Best things about this cover:

• Oh it's ugly. That color scheme. That chicken-scratched, mirthless sex scene, the inexplicable "U" ... All wonderfully nauseating.
• You should know that this book is not what it appears to be. It's ... well, you have to read the back cover to even begin to get an inkling of how #@$@ing weird it is.

(sorry, the scan shaved the tops and bottoms off some letters - the words are perfectly legible on the book itself)

Best things about this back cover:

• I challenge you, right now, to find any book in the history of publishing that has ever promised you that it would make you "VOMIT." I believe this book to be unique in publishing history, in that respect if not others. Who ... what ... in what universe is inducing vomiting a selling point!? The vomit part made me and the friend I was with laugh so hard we cried. Literally, cried.
• I love how the most boring phrase on the back is in huge purple letters, while the truly choice cover copy is buried in a nondescript font at the bottom.
• There is a purple line across this back cover. Nobody knows why.

But just when you thought the book couldn't get better ... guess again. What really, truly puts this book over the top, even more than the unbelievable promise of vomit, is the fact that its cover has faint but unmistakable ... teeth marks. Front and back. I swear to god. Can you see them? Click on the image. On the front cover, right at the top, just right of the ascending "U" ... I am telling you, I'm not sure a paperback could get more tawdry than this one. It's quintessential paperback smut in every way. So amazing. I feel honored to be in this book's presence.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for, the cherry on top. Oh man, I'm not sure how I'll ever top this. Just remember that both the people in the following dialogue are male:

~PAGE 123!~

... Tim stretched his arm up and when the thing came down, it landed in my lap. I had felt that same sensation before in the shower. Tim felt it with his big fist and grinned.
"Looks like you've been behind the barn." [ed.: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?]
"A few times. Is that bad?"
"All of us do it sometimes! That's life. Nothing wrong in it; but there are better ways."
"I know about girls."
"Do you know about boys?"

If Samuel Beckett, Erskine Caldwell, and a crack pipe had a baby, it would write like this. And it goes on like this. On and on. And On. And it's shocking, not so much in sexuality, but in plain, sheer, unmitigated, unfathomable goofiness. If the book weren't in such great condition (VG - some creasing to covers and spine, mild scuffing - otherwise very square and tight), I would read it. I think. I'm not sure how much surreal pseudo-smut my brain can take. I've never pushed it that way.

If I ever do merchandising for this site, the first item will be a t-shirt that says simply: "Looks like you've been behind the barn"

-RP

Paperback 10: Brandon House 1090

Paperback 10: Brandon House 1090 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Wayward Nude
Author: Jamison Bruce
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $15

Best things about this cover:

• There aren't many - the title promises so much, but the cover ... meh.
• The title is delightfully absurd - not sexy as much as comical; if you came across an actual "Wayward Nude," you would not be excited. You would be scared for her (if not yourself), and you would call the authorities.
• The "art" world is a frequent setting of paperback sex fantasies. Those bohemian artist-types will do Anything...
• OK, I haven't read this book, but I'm willing to bet that the "Nude" in question eventually gets involved sexually with other women - at least one. The phrase "half-world" is very suggestive of a homosexual underworld, although the more telling phrase would be "twilight world."
• Worst "Nude" cover ever - we get, what, like a millimeter of naked right hip? Pathetic. This cover would have been way hotter, needless to say, if that embrace had been "shot" from the other side. Instead, we get to thrill to the scintillating visual of ... a brown nightstand! Complete with pull-out drawer! And who could forget the white coffee cup!? Ugh.

This book is from late in my collection - 1967 - so the era of great cover painting and design is certainly behind us, but still, most sex paperbacks from this era are way, way more interesting than this neutered, puke-red disaster.

RP