Title: The Baby Doll Murders
Author: James O. Causey
Cover painting: Barye Phillips
Yours for: $12
Best things about this cover:
- Alliteration!
- Mere mention of "marijuana" drives the resale value of this book Way Up
- She is in color, while teenage lothario with the bourbon is not - clearly he is one of her "games"
- Smoking in bed - if you're going to feature hot women on your covers, they should be one or more of the following things: a. in their underwear, b. drinking, c. smoking, d. armed, preferably with a gun (I have a whole "Girls With Guns" subsection in my collection). We get 2 out of 4 here, which is pretty good
Barye Phillips was a fine and incredibly prolific paperback cover artist. You can tell this is a late 50's cover (the beginning of the end of the paperback's Golden Age) because Gold Medal (GM) is trying to pass off an incomplete painting as artsy. A lame B&W repro of her graces the back cover. Part of posting and commenting on my collection on-line will be trying to pinpoint what defines the style of different artists and eras. Phillips (who always signs his stuff "Barye") did amazing, full-cover art (much of it GGA, or Great Girl Art) for GM throughout the early/mid-50s. He was probably their most active artist. We'll see much more of his works in the coming weeks / years.
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