Paperback 858: Only in L.A. / Murray Sinclair (Black Lizard [unnumbered])

Paperback 858: Black Lizard unnumbered (1st ptg, 1988)

Title: Only in L.A.

Author: Murray Sinclair

Cover artist: Kirwan

Estimated value: $8-12

Best things about this cover:

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the first Pop Sensation book with a "1988" date.
• It's like she's daring the peeping toms. "You want some of this? Well, let's go! … Pussies."
• That is one of the '80s-est ladies ever. She looks like she's getting ready to go out to audition to be the lady on the cover of Duran Duran's "Rio." Or maybe she's headed out to visit her friend, this lady:

[Artist I'm thinking of is Patrick Nagel.]

And the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, so much high-contrast teeny tiny white text. Gah. Horrible.
• Back cover copy makes the story sound routine: "the usual political work"? "You know, blah blah whiskey blah blah corruption blah blah guns gutter dogs sleaze gun butt noir."
• This sounds like a slightly more interesting "Taken."

Page 123~

Aikens had talked turkey. He hadn't made a mistake or bullshitted me. I told my soul brother I wanted to go over there. 

Long story short, totally not-racist white narrator's black friend "Aikens" gets blown apart by gun fire before the page is over.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 591: Cropper's Cabin / Jim Thompson (Black Lizard nn)

Paperback 591: Black Lizard nn (1st ptg, 1987)

Title: Cropper's Cabin
Author: Jim Thompson
Cover artist: Kirwan

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Look ma, Sissy done given birth to a gun!"
• I love these '80s Black Lizards. They have their own unique look, a kind of '80s/'50s hybrid, rather than just looking like imitations / parodies of the vintage style. Lurid, but stylized.
• Wow, someone's been practicing his action-hand drawing.
• That lady's hair and dress are both aptly nightmarish.
• I like when artists signatures are visible, and especially when they are worked into the art itself (Robert Schulz did this quite a bit)

Best things about this back cover:

• Sadism, incest, and castration are (for better or worse) three of the most common themes in Thompson's writing.
• Don't like the design here so much: too texty, and it's all a little too left-justified.
• Black Lizard (post-Vintage buyout) was my entree into the world of hardboiled crime fiction. Someday I'll tell you the story of the bookstore point-of-purchase display that changed my life (or maybe I've already told that story—blog long enough, and you forget what you have and haven't told...)

Page 123~

I stopped and whuffed my nose out good and dug out my eyes, and it helped a lot. And my hands didn't slip any more. Because ...

Now, this is more like it, I thought. Why didn't I think of this ...

Because I wasn't holding on to anything.

Despite what it apparently means, 'whuffed' is my new favorite word.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]