Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Paperback 261: The Couch / Robert Bloch (Gold Medal s1192)

Paperback 261: Gold Medal s1192 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Couch
Author: Robert Bloch
Cover artist: movie still

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

  • He wanted to confess, but she wouldn't shut up about the mole between his eyebrows, so he opted to kill instead.
  • Agent: "Well, kid, the good news is, you're on the cover of the paperback tie-in. The bad news is, there's a lady's hand where your face should be. But hey, your hair looks terrific."
  • Robert Bloch wrote "Psycho," but by now you know that.

Best things about this back cover:

  • Mmm, more stiff lying. What's the opposite of "chemistry?"
  • This is the story of a copywriter who hated paragraphs longer than once sentence.
  • Seriously, he hated them.
  • The only name I recognize here (besides Bloch's) is Blake Edwards. He directed the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies. He is married to Julie Andrews. Also, he was born William Blake Crump! That makes Owen Crump here his ... I'm gonna guess brother ... nope. He's way older than Edwards. Why won't any site tell me how they're related. Not even imdb. Am I really supposed to believe they're not related, with a name like "Crump?" Come on.

Page 123~

"And that's the real reason you wanted to kill me. Because in your mind, I took the place of your father."

Bloch was sure into this "kill your parents" stuff.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

13 comments:

Nicole "Gidget" Kalstein said...

The back cover looks to me like he fell on top of her, and is looking down at her awkwardly, while she struggles to push him off. Sex-ay.

_________________________________________
http://coverjunkie.blogspot.com/

JamiSings said...

Well, I guess William's still alive so you could write him and ask.

Ms Avery said...

Opposite of chemistry = physics?

Alix said...

Looking forward to the equally exciting sequel, "The Ottoman."

Levi Stahl said...

I think the opposite of chemistry is surely alchemy, right?

Veronika said...

On the back cover, it looks like she is lying on one of those ambulance beds with wheels, it's moving and he is trying to hold on to her to keep from falling off the damned thing.

Opposite of chemistry...two green tinted cadavers dressed in clothes and arranged in a compromising manner by some drunk med students?

Veronika said...

On an unrelated note, I am ashamed to admit that I forgot the word "gurney" or "Stretcher" for a while.

Maybe Rex can feature a cover with one of those, so that I can practice my vocabulary?

Dirt Diggler said...

One doesn't see the word "novelization" often enough ... it would be cooler if it were an action verb. The meaning of which would be to make something unique or original. As in, "I would like your idea if you novelized it." Or, "Yo!--- Novelize dis! Homey!"

Tulse said...

Ironically, Dirt, the verb would have the odd quality of meaning precisely the opposite of the noun, since a "novelization" is by definition not unique or original. (I wonder if there are any other noun-verb pairs that share this feature.)

Dirt Diggler said...

Well said Tulse! Since I'm in the business of creating new words for this post,look at the front cover. At first glance I thought it said, "the (Ouch" with that woman poking a very tender zit on that guy's forehead!

Veronika said...

@Dirt Digger -
If we are inventing new words, may I suggest CoverHog?

Cover-Hog
[-Verb]
CoverHog-ger ; CoverHog-ett
1. A main character on a book cover which hogs the spotlight by concealing the face of another character with an artfully placed appendage or bust.

2. An inanimate object on a book cover which conceals the face or any other part of a main character, there by rendering the main character looking deformed.

[–adjective]

1. A particularly nasty color dreamed up in a special circle of Hell and used by the cover artist for background. This color may subject all other characters and objects on cover, as well as its' viewers to unspeakable agony.

*Honorary title of DarkLordOfEVIL may be awarded to an Artist that used a CoverHog color if said color manages to make his characters appeart to be floating in a vortex of some sort of bodily fluids.

Patrick Murtha said...

Here's a post I wrote on Owen Crump at my own blog:

http://patrickmurthasdiary.blogspot.com/2009/05/truly-obscure-owen-crump.html

Rex Parker said...

Small world. I read that post while searching for Crump info.

rp