Paperback 339: The Case of the Backward Mule / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 6083)

Paperback 339: Pocket Books 6083 (5th ptg, 1961)

Title: The Case of the Backward Mule
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• A conceptual mess. What century is it? Why is the space princess massaging her scalp, and what does it have to do with bizarrely mustachioed Chinese man on the donkey? No wonder I've never heard of "Terry Clane" and "Inspector Malloy"—how do you expect to get an enduring series off the ground with this muddled a marketing campaign?
• "Behold, as Eva Gabor summons miniature Chinese ghosts from the distant past using the power of her Magic Updo!"
• God, the more I look at this cover, the uglier and sillier it gets. Different colors on all the different (stupid) fonts? I'd cut Everything But The Girl and start over.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Don't touch anything! You're leaving blue fingerprints everywhere!"

Page 123~

"In our business, we don't do too much speculative thinking, Mr. Clane. We investigate. And when we investigate we make it a point to cover all of the possibilities."

"I see."

"Even," Malloy went on, "including that poker-faced Chinese servant of yours, Yat T'oy."

"I see."

~RP

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Paperback 290: Dagger of Flesh / Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal s1157)

Paperback 290: Gold Medal s1157 (4th ptg, 1961)

Title: Dagger of Flesh
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: no idea

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


Best things about this cover:

• As I told Doug the first time he showed this to me: "Dagger of Flesh ... well, that wouldn't be very effective. It would buckle on you every time you tried to use it."
• At first I thought I was looking at a drug-addled couple sitting/lying on a bed. Then I realized they were sitting/lying on the neck of a donkey.
• Why are the man's hands bound by the wimple of a snow leopard with an Asian lady's face?
• I imagine that these two look as wasted as the artist must have been when conceiving / executing this painting.
• Trite tagline! Come on, copy writers! Shell deserves better.

Best things about this back cover:

• Op Art! I am getting dizzy...
• "Like I had no control over my brain" — been there. Am there, frequently.
• "Maybe I did kill Jay" — now now. No one wants to kill Jay himself. Just his mediocre new show.

Page 123~

This is the day, Logan, I thought. Today you get even, maybe. Today you find out what the hell's been going on and fix some bastard's wagon, if you're lucky.

"Fix some bastard's wagon" is pure awesome. I have to start using wagon-fixing as a metaphor for revenge. For real.

~RP

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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 95: Come Be My O.R.G.Y. / Ted Mark (Berkley S1564)

Paperback 95: Berkley Medallion S1564 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Come Be My O.R.G.Y.
Author: Ted Mark
Cover artist: Sidney Booblover (I mean, "uncredited")

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• Possibly the silliest title name in my entire collection.
• Q: How can a cover featuring so much breast flesh be so ugly? (A: urine-hued aura)
• I like to imagine that all these people on the cover are actually the same person, and we are seeing all of his/her different incarnations. Together, the four of them could all be each other's O.R.G.Y.
• If you have not heard of "The Man from O.R.G.Y." before, then I defy you to figure out what it stands for. (I'll reveal the answer in the near future) [A: Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth]
  
• Smirky McDickerson there in the front is inspiring me to create a new Post Label: Douchebag Detectives. I know of at least one other candidate ... with thousands of books awaiting write-ups, I am confident there are more.
  
• "Steve Victor! ... anyone? No?"
• I can only hope that he is putting that shirt on.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• "Seriously, come be my O.R.G.Y."
• This guy clearly smells of gin, cigarettes, and self-loathing.
• "That delectable Tibetan" - Is her name really some mock-Asian version of "teeny bopper!?!?" Is it wrong that I hope "Steve" dies at the end (or, even better, the beginning) of this book?

PAGE 123 - is not nearly as good as PAGE 81~

She scrambled over my body until we were juxtaposed and her long blonde hair trailed over my thighs. That old Roman dinner gong had rung [ed.: ...?]. The feast of her nether chamber was spread before me and I raised up to sample its feverish honey. She responded by engulfing my edible root and I became dizzy with the delights provided by her womb at the top.

After reading that, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat a root again. The jury's still out on honey ...

~RP

Paperback 32: Dell 144

Paperback 32: Dell 144 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The White Brigand
Author: Edison Marshall
Cover artist: Uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• From the man who brought you "Great Smith" (seriously - same guy) comes ... "The White Brigand!"
• This book raises the question: What color are brigands normally?
• This novel appears to be set in China somewhere. I wonder how the natives will be depicted by Mr. Marshall. Hmm ... let's see. Just opened this book to a random page and the first word I saw was: "slant-eyed." Nice.
  
• You don't really see the word "Brigand" much these days. I always thought it meant someone who is lawless, violent, at least vaguely piratic - yes, a member of a band of thieves.
• The floating, glowing, jade pseudo-Buddha alien tiki is more than a little disturbing. First, he has jointless, perhaps even boneless limbs. Second, he has the world's shortest pigtails. That, or his head has both a positive and a negative terminal. Third, he appears to be made of plutonium. Fourth, his toothless grin will haunt my dreams tonight and possibly forever. I could go on.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is the first of many Dell "mapbacks" that we will see over the course of my paperback project. All early Dell paperbacks (or nearly all) featured a map on the back cover that depicted some scene in the book. This one is pretty crudely drawn, as mapbacks go, but it's still cool.
• Any book that features both a "reliquary" and a "chasm" can't be all bad, I say.
• Do we really need to be told that that is a "cliff?"

RP

Paperback 26: Avon Books 245

Paperback 26: Avon Books 245 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: The Big Four
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Uncredited


"Steve Manley really, really hated to lose at chess..."

Best things about this cover:

• The Floating Head of Fu Manchu! - and check out the Asian-y lettering on the title. You can almost hear the gong.
  
• Chloroform - you don't see that on paperback covers nearly enough. Usually it's all guns and knives with these guys. Nice to see someone mixing up the violence.
• Again, I have to ask, who dresses these people? She's decked out for some kind of fiesta, while he appears ready for Jeeves to bring him his pipe.
  
• A pinkish robe with quilted cuffs and collar? And a white handkerchief with matching ascot? His far-off gaze suggests he's being controlled by the Floating Head of Fu Manchu. Maybe he's chloroforming the woman because she dared mock the fancy bedtime garb that is sacred to the Head.
  

RP