Paperback 66: Strange Desire / Wayne Wallace (Brandon House 743)

Paperback 66: Brandon House 743 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Strange Desire
Author: Wayne Wallace
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours For: $27 (SOLD - 4/18/08)


Best things about this cover:

• Those panties look like a very late add-on - not part of the original design. Perhaps, amazingly (and ironically), someone at Brandon House had some qualms about the good taste of the cover... and yet the overlaid underwear only makes the picture seem lewder.
• What causes someone to want to lounge around in a state of near-complete undress ... in heels?
  
• The dripping title is So disturbing. Why would a novel about lesbians feature a title that appears to have been written in ... a fluid not normally associated with lesbians?
  
• These are the most bored-looking naked lesbians I've ever seen. Either they are in between takes at a porno film shoot, or they are discussing Sartre's Being and Nothingness. "You know nothing of Jean-Paul's work. I turn my back on you!"
  

Best things about this back cover:

• So sleazy. I hate the photo covers because they just seem so sad and exploitative. This poor woman looks like the photographer found her in some kind of whore house / opium den and told her he'd give her $25 if she pulled her dress down. Kind of reminds me of ... did you ever see "Fame?" If so, then you know the scene I'm talking about. Irene Cara ... weeping ... ugh. I like my exploitation painted (i.e. fictional), thank you very much.
• "Conquest" is the best euphemism ever. It's got all the relevant letters in it, though.

RP

Paperback 63: Sophisticated Sinner / Tony Trelos (Brandon House 918)

Paperback 63: Brandon House 918 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Sophisticated Sinner
Author: Tony Trelos
Cover artist: sadly, uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• Another trashy Tony Trelos masterpiece (click on his name in the "tags" to see the other)
  
• Is it wrong that the things that excite me most about this cover are 1. the lamp shade, and 2. her (discarded) dress?
• Another thing that excites me: Unread / Fine Condition!
  
• "She looked like a lady ... but her lovers knew better!" - was the cover copy writer here aware that the opposite of "lady" is not just "slut" but also "dude?" "Her" torso is rather mannish (boobs aside).

Best things about this back cover:

• Boobs!
• Smoke!
• Those horizontal lines! If you stare at the actual book too long, you get a dizzy headache.
• "Narda," ha ha.

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

Paperback 9 - Brandon House 705

Paperback 9: Brandon House 705 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Lesbian Starlet
Author: Tony Trelos
Cover artist: Unknown (there might be the faintest trace of a signature in the very lower left corner, but I can't make it out)

PRICE: SOLD! (4-12-08)


Best things about this cover:

• The title
• The world's least sexy office
• The mannish, silver-haired executive with the vacant stare who looks like a blow-up sex doll - is she taking her own temperature or pointing to some dental problem she's having, because whatever she's doing, she sure as hell isn't smoking
• "I paid for a lap dance, not a desk dance"
• "And thus concludes part 1 of my bra-removal seminar..."

I like trying to imagine what kind of interaction could possibly have led to the moment depicted on the cover. The back cover is a cheap, two-tone close-up of the front cover, with some choice copy:
Brandon House publishers did a lot of lesbian and other sex-themed paperbacks. The lesbian paperback was a major, popular niche market in early paperback fiction, and lesbian paperbacks are now very, very collectible. This is the most valuable book I've featured so far from my collection. Condition and scarcity and desirability are the three main features that determine resale value. This book is scarce and desirable, but there are a few condition problems. Condition here is a VG (Very Good) - there are some scuffs, and it's a bit dingy, but it's almost perfectly square and appears to be unread (no reading crease on the cover near the spine). It's probably worth around $35-40, and I wouldn't part with it for under $50. I do love the trashy, cheap paperbacks, and there are many, many more to come...

RP