Paperback 799: Zingers from the Hollywood Squares / ed. Gail Sicilia (Popular Library 00221)

Paperback 799: Popular Library 00221 (PBO, 1974)

Title: Zingers from The Hollywood Squares
Editor: Gail Sicilia
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• The pink.
• Blue orange pink yellow. You could do whatever the fuck you wanted with color in the mid-70s as long as it was bright. Or earth toned. Or avocado.
• Lamont!
• I know who all these people are (ugh, old). Except the dude in the upper left, and possibly the 'fro'd guy underneath him, who looks like Jackie Mason, but can't really be Jackie Mason. Nope, it's Marty Allen. I have no idea who he is. His hair is righteous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Paul Lynde with the gay joke FTW!!!!
• Rosemarie looks like Amy Sedaris in "Strangers with Candy."
• What the hell kind of hat is that, Charley?

Page 123~

19. You have just scolded your gorilla for being a bad boy. Might he stick out his tongue at you to show his anger?

Paul Lynde: Was that his tongue?

Paul Lynde with the gorilla dong joke FTW!!

~RP

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Paperback 798: Circle of Fear / Alice Brennan (Monarch Books 476)

Paperback 798: Monarch Books 476 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Circle of Fear ("A Monarch Juvenile Novel")
Author: Alice Brennan
Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Inside the Sordid World of Valet Parking!"
• Chivalry's hard. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to defend a girl and ended up shoving her into the path of an oncoming car.
• "They learned that asking questions is always a terrible idea so just shut up, listen to your parents, and accept the world as it is, kids."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Step aside, Susan. I got this." [screeeeeeeeech]
• Wow. This is less "exposition" and more "randomized list of ingredients."
• Wow, that last line really … tells you the dictionary definition of fear. Yes it does. Informative stuff.

Page 123~

She gave him a misty smile. "You could've been killed," she told him. "Stan, I want you to promise me you'll never get involved in something like that again!"

"Oh, Mom," he said impatiently, "who's going to miss a little chunk of ear?"

~RP

PS sorry for the long hiatus. I'll try to cram a lot of Sensation in your face this week, before heading out again next weekend (though just for a week this time).

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Paperback 797: Anatomy of Seduction / Jud Blaine (Softcover Library B856X)

Paperback 797: Softcover Library B856X (PBO, 1965)

Title: Anatomy of Seduction
Author: Jud Blaine
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The angle of his head … is the best thing about this cover. "Uh … hi, Mrs. Boobs, can, uh, boobs come out and, uh ... boobs?"
• THAT. Not THE woman. THAT woman. Oh, suburban scandal, I love you so much.
• "Uh, I like your hair … it's like the cotton candy they got at the midway."
• "Uh … thanks … I think it's called 'Members Only' …"
• This should be called "Anatomy of a doorknob" 'cause that is some nice detail there.
• The phrase "teen-age innocence" is hilarious.
• You can choose any pseudonym and you go with "Jud"? I really hope that's short for "Judy." 

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a lot of weight to put on a word normally reserved nowadays for a leg syndrome.
• The whole "filthy suburbanite" genre amuses me no end. "Behind the veneer of middle-class respectability: orgies."
• "Sudden froth of lust"! That's the textual equivalent of the money shot right there.
• If the book scorches my memory … then … fuck, I forgot what I was going to say.

Page 123~

"You want a drink, baby?"
"No, thank you. Nor do you."
He grinned at her. "You'd make a nice, nagging wife."
"I've been a wife to too many men ever to be foolish enough to tie up with one."

Well if she doesn't want that drink, I'll take it.

~RP

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Paperback 796: Stacked Deck / Frank Kane (Dell First Edition B197)

Paperback 796: Dell First Edition B197 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Stacked Deck
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Bob McGinnis

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• I see why she is drawn as a reflection of herself—the whole playing card angle—but dear god this cover would be 10x better if the top half of the painting just Continued. Down. I feel slightly ripped off. Let's just say that McGinnis had a knack for the lower half.
• The upper half is, however, is exquisite.
• Black hearts = nice touch.
• Ooh, short stories. That's cool. You don't see that very often in single-author paperbacks.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the description of the Hollywood swimming pool as "well-stocked." 
• "Debonair" is one of those words that can cut both ways—teeters on the wall between "cool" and "repulsively slick."
• Last line there is a super-weak attempt to drum up some Marlovian mystique. Face it: you're never going to get more succinct and bad ass than "Trouble Is My Business," so don't even try.

Page 123~

He stared glumly at the coffee, pulled himself out of the chair and spilled the coffee into the sink. He lifted the Scotch bottle from the closet, spilled three fingers into a glass.
"What a waste of good material," he groaned.
He lifted the glass to his lips, drained it, shook his head sadly. "What a waste!" [end of story]

This after a woman left his apartment, telling him that she was going to turn herself in to the police. I can only assume that that last line is an aural pun that is utterly lost in print.

~RP

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Paperback 795: Blood-and-Guts Patton / Jack Pearl (Monarch MA305)

Paperback 795: Monarch Books MA305 (Monarch Americana Series) (PBO, 1961)

Title: Blood-and-Guts Patton
Author: Jack Pearl
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Font makes blood-and-guts seem like kooky fun!
• Love this photo cover for how anti-celebrity it is. You can't even see his face. "Take your fucking picture. I got Nazis to kill and a cigarette to finish."
• "Swashbuckling"?! Unless he puts on an eyepatch, pulls out a cutlass, and boards a clipper, no.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Eat their entrails, you pussies! Aarrrrrrrgh!"
• I like that Monarch apparently had a "Hell on Wheels" series with a little weather-danger symbol.
• Kicking!? While the rest of the world was merely punching and flogging. Genius.

Page 123~

"Hell, I'd feel as uncomfortable without this pistol as I would without pants."

Patton then pulled a knife and smiled. "Suckers … I hate pants. Now I eat your entrails!"

~RP

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Paperback 794: Buffalo Bill / Shannon Garst (Pocket Book Jr. J-48)

Paperback 794: Pocket Books Jr. J-48 (2nd ptg, 1955)

Title: Buffalo Bill
Author: Shannon Garst
Cover artist (and illus.): Louis Glanzman

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Bed hat.
• Three keys to killing Indians: big-ass hands, mustache wax, and fringe for miles.
• This is a pretty bad cover—a portrait-studio picture mapped onto a generic, over-bright backdrop filled with a montage of tiny, generic "action" scenes.

Best things about this back cover:

• Thanks for the buffalo-killing, dick weed.
• William F. Cody met danger early. Then he had lunch, took a nap, and went to Pilates.
• I like Yellow Hand because it sounds like a 19c. name for a nefarious Chinese criminal organization, rather than what it is—a mistranslation of Yellow Hair, a Cheyenne warrior Cody shot and scalped. "Ever the showman, Buffalo Bill returned to the stage […] his show highlighted by a melodramatic reenactment of his duel with Yellow Hair. He displayed the fallen warrior's scalp, feather war bonnet, knife, saddle and other personal effects" (wikipedia). Again, I say, dick-weed.

Page 123~

The redskins knew the country and were as hard to hunt down as the wild animals of the forest.

Everything you need to know about American attitudes toward Native Americans in one short sentence. (cc Dan Snyder)

~RP

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Paperback 793: The Roman Way / Edith Hamilton (Mentor Books MD213)

Paperback 793: Mentor Books MD213 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Roman Way
Author: Edith Hamilton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Not sure why I own this. I mean, it has none of the sexual promise of "The Greek Way."
• Apparently ancient Rome was populated predominantly by very boring zombies who loved statuary.
• Seriously, this looks like a very badly programmed MMOG.

Best things about this back cover:

• The thing I admire most about the ancient world is all their stars were so big they only needed one name, like Cher or Beyoncé.
• What a bewitching, haunting, slightly frightening author photo.
• "… who on her ninetieth birthday was made an honorary citizen of Athens." Sadly, she did not survive the notoriously brutal "jump in" ritual.

Page 123~

Virgil sees no reason why cattle disease is not a subject for a poet.

~RP

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