Paperback 1174: Superdoll / Leo August (Award Books A427X)

Paperback 1174: Award Books A427X (PBO, 1969)

Title: Superdoll

Author: Leo August

Cover artist: Uncredited [Ron Lesser]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $18

[Encinitas, August 2026]

Best things about this cover: 

• The first thing you gotta consider with a spy jumpsuit is practicality. You gotta be able to pull it right over your high-heeled boots, the belly must be cut out, and under absolutely no circumstances is there to be any significant breast support
• Superdoll liked to wear the hair of her victims on top of her own hair, like a trophy. 
• That scientist banter leaves something to be desired. It's not sexy or funny or clever. It doesn't even have any bad puns. It may as well read: 1st scientist: "Does she have a vagina?" 2nd scientist: "If not, that makes me sad."
• "A hilarious plunge," on the other hand, isi funny, in that it seems to describe the neckline on her jumpsuit, which somehow "plunges" below her bellybutton. 

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love a skimpy dagger. A must-have for summer espionaging.
• OK, "I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S." is genius. The perfect skewering of the '60s spy trend toward clever organizational acronyms, following (among others) The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (see, for instance, Ted Mark's The Man from O.R.G.Y. series). Since I know you want to know, I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S stands for "International Neutral Intelligence Team Insuring Against Lawless Sectors."
• "Sheila was invincible, until she clashed with Number One"—well now they're just stealing from better material (namely, the landmark television program The Prisoner).

Page 123~

Inside Number One's hidden hangar, the grim convoy of culprits boarded their luxuriously-appointed craft. Each of the unsmiling men settled into a wide, comfortable, velvet-covered seat. A white-jacketed houseboy appeared with a tray of tall drinks.

Pure midcentury bad-guy luxury. I assume all these guys die. 

~RP

P.S. Ron Lesser is not credited as the artist of this cover painting, but I stumbled on a credit in, of all places, the comments section of a cover art blog. The comment ... was by Lesser himself:

[Superdoll is also credited to him now on Lesser's own wikipedia page]

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Paperbacks 1172 and 1173: The Big Broad Jump and The Cockeyed Cuties / Troy Conway (Paperback Library 63-240 & 64-834)

Paperback 1172 & 1173: Paperback Library 63-240 / 64-834 (PBO/PBO, 1969/1972)

Title: The Big Broad Jump (Coxeman #17) / The Cockeyed Cuties (Coxeman #31)

Author: Troy Conway (alias of Don Segall, writer for many TV shows, including The Love Boat (!), and father of actress Pamela Adlon (!!))

Cover artist: photos 

Condition: 7/8

Value: $15 / $20

[dug out of the back of a little bookshop in Encinitas, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• Coxeman. It's a pun. You'll be saying "it's a pun" a lot if you read these books, trust me.
• The Big Broad Jump. It's a pun. Although I don't know if it's a big deal that he jumps on broads or if he just jumps on big broads. Maybe I'll read and find out. Maybe not.
• Here we see the Coxeman demonstrating the one skill at which he is unrivaled: removing earwax from a lady's ear with his tongue. Sadly, he is somewhat less skilled at Couples Hammocking.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Is the Coxeman Hung?" I mean, probably. That is, definitely (I have read a little—he "suffers" from "priapism," a "fact" he tells you right away, and often)
• "A mob of sex-crazed foreign beauties"—it's never the sex-crazed foreign uglies, is it?
• "Rod penetrates deep." It's a pun. (I told you)

Best things about this cover: 

• I read only prime-numbered Coxemen. Everyone has their eccentricities and this is mine.
• Here we see the Coxeman practicing "hugging." Someday he hopes to be able to hug in a very humanlike way. Keep at it, Rod! I believe in you!
• "OK, Mr. Damon, so, the first thing you're gonna want to do when hugging a woman is put down the gun." "I don't understand"
• I love how he's looking right at us, like "... pretty French, right? I mean, you'd buy that I'm a frog, right? What? Oh her? [shrugs] I have no idea, women just do this."
• "Rod Damon ... takes a leaf from the Kamasutra—and finds it won't cover his problem." It's a p- ... well, you get the idea.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Rod Damon—captain of the Cornell marksmanship team!
• "Big Rod" IT'S A PUN
• "Kamasutra Country"—how is this not already the title of a horrible reality show?
• "Or he'll never be able to straighten up again"—weirdly, this is not a pun; he has chronic back pain (one of the hazards of being ... The Coxeman!)

Page 123~

Through the years, these novels appear to get more, uh ... well, here, you be the judge. This is 1969 (The Big Broad Jump): 

The sun warmed our bodies and we began our love games. Slowly, gently and with great tenderness, untile the savage beast claimed us both and we became a whirlwind of rotating rumps and churning thighs. I laid her good.

And this is 1972 (The Cockeyed Cuties):

I inserted my finger into her vagina, exploringly at first and then pistoning it. She moaned softly and began squeezing with her sphincter muscles.

The anatomical specificity of 1972 kinda makes you miss the clumsy vagueness of 1969. Although "I laid her good" and "pistoning it" ... that's kind of an "ew!" toss-up.

~RP

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Paperback 1171: The Case of the Backward Mule / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 855)

Paperback 1171: Pocket Books 855 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Case of the Backward Mule

Author: Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover artist: Frank McCarthy

Condition: 6/10    

Value: $8

Best things about this cover: 

• It's too bad this is such a vile representation of violence against women ("she had it coming!"?), because it's a great action painting. Her posture, her face, her hands ... her hair! The hair is like its own entity, a force of nature separate from whatever human drama surrounds it. The hair is eternal. The hair will be here after the Backward Mule is dead and buried (I'm assuming the dude is the Backward Mule). 
• Real talk: I kinda like my man's accent color.
• Weirdly, despite having a Perry Mason-like "The Case of the ___" title, this book is not a Perry Mason book! Instead, it features someone named Terry Clane, "Student and friend of the Orient (!) who does some amateur sleuthing in San Francisco." The whole book is set firmly in the world of SF's Chinatown, which you could never, ever tell by the cover (or the back cover, for that matter)

Best things about this back cover: 

• "A cigarette dangled from her lower lip"—classic image. They could've put that on the cover.
• "She spat out" lol I like this dame. She should hit him. That would be more believable. And enjoyable. 
• The writing here is florid. Sub-pulp. Borderline corny. I don't hate it. "She was as touchy as a trainload of nitroglycerine." LOL. Someone's been watching Wages of Fear (which hadn't come out yet, though the novel on which it's based came out just one year before this paperback was published)
• "Pure, overdeveloped viciousness" is my favorite kind of viciousness. None of these cheap knock-offs. I need it unadulterated and swollen!

Page 123~

    "In our business, we don't do too much speculative thinking, Mr. Clane. We investigate. And when we investigate we make it a point to cover all of the possibilities."
    "I see," Clane said.

    "Even," Malloy went on, "including that poker-faced Chinese servant of yours, Yat T'oy."

    "I see," Clane said.

He can't really do anything, but man can he see!

~RP

P.S. Frank McCarthy seems to have specialized in punch-in-the-face covers. Here's another one from my collection (Paperback 397)

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Paperback 1170: Lady Chatterley's Lover / D.H. Lawrence (Signet Classic CW1077)

Paperback 1170: Signet Classic CW1077 (36th (?), n.d. (~late-'60s))

Title: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Author: D.H. Lawrence

Cover artist: Thomas Upshur

Condition: 8/10

Value: $8-10

Best things about this cover: 

• Something about this book (a new acquisition—$1 at a bookstore in New Haven) has brought me back to this blog after a month-long hiatus. I'll let you guess what that something is.
• Sincerely, though, this cover is utterly arresting. Kind of breathtaking. I showed my wife and her only response was a stunned "oh my god." That is a breast that demands to be looked at. I guess you might say that about any naked breast, if you're into breasts, but I'm fascinated by how much mileage this picture gets out of that small, uniform, soft pink disk inside a black semicircle. Total simplicity and economy of design, resulting in something way more evocative and erotic than many, many covers I've seen that are straining much harder after sexual effect. 
• This painting is verging on the abstract. It hints at a kind of yin/yang symbol. There are no distinguishing facial features on the woman besides the smile (which, by suggesting pleasure, adds to the eroticism). The pitch black hair has an enigmatic flow that makes it look like someone in profile (a man?) but it's just an illusion. The design is simple, yet complex and even weird enough to be riveting.
• Somehow one breast is far, far more naked than two. I cannot explain the math. This artist knows that the book he's designing for is a frequently banned book, notorious for its sexual content, but rather than playing it up, he plays it down. Or, rather, he plays it way up precisely by playing it down, eliminating . I'm normally drawn to much more realistic, frequently lurid, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious cover art, but this one really impressed me, from a design perspective.

Best things about this back cover: 

• This is the part where they reassure you that you are holding a serious book of great literary merit and cultural importance. It's also where they let you know that it's got the hot parts put back in (not one but two "unexpurgated"s!). 
• I always say: nothing hotter than legalese. Everyone knows that a blurb from [squints] literary executor Laurence Pollinger is a guarantee of real high-class filth.
• Frieda Lawrence was D.H. Lawrence's widow. She outlived him by a good quarter century (d. 1956)

Page 123~

"How did you come?" she panted.

Wow this book just gets right to it.

~RP

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Paperback 1169: Wild Is the Fawn / Roberta Everhart (Paragon P156)

Paperback 1169: Paragon P156 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Wild Is the Fawn

Author: Roberta Everhart

Cover artist: Uncredited (familiar, but ... ?)

Condition: 7/10

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Oh, yeah, that's the stuff—the fully-clothed aftermath of illicit sex! That's why I'm a collector!
• Milly is so worked up she's breaking branches.
• Despite being very ... verdant, this cover seems pretty innocuous, except for the dark-haired lady's right hand. I'm not even sure that is her right hand. It's monstrously out of proportion to her body. Looks like a prop hand that dropped from the sky and landed on his shoulder. .
• "Uh ... Shawn?" "Uh, yeah?" "Have I told you about ... my hand?" "Uh ..."
• This is the only Paragon Book that I own. It's shockingly similar to all the Sanford Aday-published sleaze imprints (Saber / Vega / Fabian) coming out of Fresno, CA in the late '50s/early '60s. Same cheap, flimsy, almost magazine-stock cover, same frequently-used cover artist, same extremely and hilariously dumb sex scenario. I barely believe this is a real imprint, but there are five other Paragon Books listed at the back of this book (including Male for Sale and Her Third Man), and I can find some of them on the internet, so ... guess it's real. But as imprints go, I have to believe this is one of the more obscure ones.

Best things about this back cover: 

• OK, first question: why did Milly go to the swamp that day? Just an avid swamp-goer? Hiding a body? Milly is instantly fascinating. 
• "I mean, what was Milly gonna do, not spy on them? Come on."
• "I'll have what she's having" Milly muttered into the leaves of the bush that was the only thing separating her from the freaky swamp sex she'd stumbled upon during one of her frequent and totally normal swamp escapades...

Page 123~

Merely reflecting on the heights of delight I had reached with George made my thighs quiver and jerk, and I felt pains of passion arise in the pit of my stomach. My mind became a turmoil. Damn it! Damn it! I want to be a wife and a mother, but the woman has gotten out of hand. I must be a woman, too. And if not with my husband, then with someone else. I didn't make this body like it is with its insatiable desires. I only live in it, and it seems I have no control over what it does. Please, God, you must forgive me.

God: "Wait, go back to your thighs. Jerk? Really? They're not designed for that, you know."

~RP

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Paperback 1168: The Red Right Hand / Joel Townsley Rogers (Pocket Books 385)

Paperback 1168: Pocket Books 385 (2nd ptg, 1946)

Title: The Red Right Hand

Author: Joel Townsley

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $4-5

Best things about this cover: 

• The "thumb" ... it ... it just ... look, that's not a thumb, is what I'm saying. Look at it in total isolation. It is astonishingly, in every way, not a thumb. The more you look, the more obscene it gets.
• That hand does not look particularly red. Perhaps it is Communist.
• This looks like someone got buried alive in a granary, like in Frank Norris's The Octopus. How did he get buried? Like the cover says, it's "A Mystery."

Best things about this back cover: 

• "There was a little man—who got away"—well that's the worst nursery rhyme of all time. Did the little man go to market at least? Come on, give me something.
• St. Erme!? Really? St. [hesitation noise]!? Do you pronounce it "ERMIE?" Forget what the little man did with St. Erme's right hand, what did he do with the rest of the letters in Erme's name?!
• The writing here is terrible. Choppy, awkward. Who are these people? Why do I care? Why is the book talking to me!!? "You'll keep going on excitedly..." Well now I definitely won't. Just to show you that you're not the boss of me.

Page 123~

"You live around here, Dr. Ridder?" he asked me, making coffee.

"Riddle," I said. "No, I live in New York. I'm on my way down from Vermont. I wonder when that car passed me." 

"You saw it passing you?"

"No," I said. "I didn't see it."

"And you say you're the Riddler, is that right?" "Just Riddle." "Justin Griddle?" It goes on like this.

~RP

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Paperback 1167: The Devil Threw Dice / Amber Dean (Pocket Books 1090)

Paperback 1167: Pocket Books 1090 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Devil Threw Dice

Author: Amber Dean

Cover artist: Lou Marchetti

Condition: 6/10

Value: $5-7

Best things about this cover: 

• Norman Bates lookin' like "aw, geez, not again." 
• "She was the kind of gal that many men might kill." Oh, one of those.
• "OK, sure, I threw dice at her, but since when has that ever killed anyone? I've thrown dice at lots of girls and none of them ever died!"
• I assume that's the girl's ghost looming over him. "Thought you'd be rid of me, did you? Ha. I'm gonna haunt this stairwell til doomsday, brother!"
• Even in death, the woman must be portrayed in a way that emphasizes her shapeliness, even if that means that her left breast levitates comically skyward.
• Amber Dean ... is a woman. Not a lot of women writing this kind of hardboiled fare midcentury. She published over a dozen crime novels with Doubleday between the mid-'40s and mid-'60s. I just discovered that a. I own other books by her, and b. she was from western NY (specifically Rochester, only a few hours drive from me). The University of Rochester has her papers. The academic / detective in me wants to Start A New Project...

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Someone had killed her. And it had to be a guy!" I mean, statistically, yeah, pretty much.
• I'm calling it right now. It was Putt Perry. That guy is two little arcs away from Butt Berry. Who knows what depravities someone with that name could get up to!?
• "She had an excitingly evil face" ... not one of them depressingly evil faces you see sometimes. No siree, this was an evil that could really rev a guy's engine, if you know what I mean [yeah, we get it, Putt, we get it]
• Artist credit! Lou Marchetti! A titan. Can't say that this is my favorite cover of his, but the man generally does great work.

Page 123~

Somewhere a bird twittered sleepily, and an answering twitter said "Darling, I'm here. I'll be here when you wake."

What the hell kind of twisted avian fantasy is this?! 

~RP

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