Paperback 157: Both Sides of the Law / Bertrand W. Sinclair (Western Novel Classic 110)

Paperback 157: Western Novel Classic 110 (PBO, 1951)
Title: Both Sides of the Law
Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair
Cover artist: [A. Leslie] Ross

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "Claude Akins and/or Andy Griffith is ... This Guy!"
• That horse has a mangy mohawk and its eyes look Freaked Out
• I am tired of these covers where people hold (and fire) guns at ridiculous angles. What is with the inside-out wrist flip here? That thing should kick out of his hand.
• I'm gonna say gun beats lasso.
• Why is he being lassoed??? Is he a performer in the world's most dangerous rodeo?
• I guess he is a sheriff (the badge) and is also being hunted for some reason (the lasso). He needs to tie his kerchief tighter.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, talk about lo-concept.

Page 123~

"But from my angle when I sat into this game, an' from the way you acted right from the first time you laid eyes on me, appearances were against you. When I expressed my opinion of you last night, it was my honest belief. I was dead certain at that minute that I was right. It seems that I was wrong."

"From one cowpoke to another, I honestly love you."

~RP

Paperback 156: Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, Nov. 1958

Paperback 156: Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, Nov. 1958

• Includes: "Seed of Violence" by Jay Williams and "Operation Cassandra" by Miriam Allen de Ford
• Other authors: Christopher Anvil, Lee Correy, Frank Herbert (!), and Robert F. Young
• Cover artist: Norman Siegel

Yours for: SOLD 1/9/11


Best things about this cover:

• I have this incredible urge to fill this guy up with unleaded.
• His helmet and sleeves ZIP ON - yeah, I'm sure that's up to outer-space code. "Due to budgetary restrictions, we will be using recycled Levi's zippers in all our spacesuits."
• "Novelet" is a very ridiculous word
• Another "seed" story!? Enough is enough.
• One of the pieces in this magazine is written collectively by "Civilian Saucer Intelligence," or (you guessed it) CSI. It's all about why aliens are prone to reveal themselves to animals first, instead of to humans. No, I'm not kidding.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Advertising! Yay!
• I think I saw this in my 1930s "Dick Tracy" collection. Or else ... no, maybe it was in the apartment of Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly." Or the police station in "White Heat." Whatever - if you love dated futuristic gadgetry, you have to love this.
• "Even a child of five can operate it!" - suck it, four-year-olds!
• "Filnor Products" is not a believable name. Clearly a front for an Islamofascist group or some other group that might be less than fully capable of inventing a plausible Anglo-sounding name.

Page 123~

It's at a weird place in the magazine, so I'll just scan it:


Q: What is Mr. Scoliosis Globehead holding? A slightly miniaturized replica of his own head? A Piggy Bank? A bowling ball with a cigarette stuck in one of the finger holes?

~RP

Paperback 155: Naked Fury / Day Keene (Phantom Books 509)

Paperback 155: Phantom Books 509 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Naked Fury
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: sadly, uncredited

Yours for: $70 (not a typo - it's super-rare)



Best things about this cover:

• Angry mob!
  
• "I'm gonna beat him with this coffee table leg!"
  
• "I'm gonna pull my pants up to my rib cage and burn the town down with a troupe of my pasty-faced brethren!"
• The title is pure pulp - fantastic!
• One of the greatest pieces of Girl Art I own - her face looks insane, but that dressing gown is gorgeous and the way she's captured in crazy panicked motion is very believable.
• She is giving us some kind of sign with her right hand: "C" ... Uh, Call the Cops? Crazy people are trying to kill me? C-cup!?
• I thought the big palooka with the awesome left Fist of Fury was wearing some kind of jacket and open-collared shirt ... but then I noticed the length of that jacket, which appears actually to be some kind of robe. At night, it seems, he likes to dress up like Joan Crawford. Is that why the mob is chasing him? Hate crime!
• "Revenge" is one of my very favorite words / topics.

Best things about this back cover:

• Too much Fury, not enough Naked, frankly

Page 123~

Malloy speaking:

"You're not tough. You only think you are. If you guys hadn't been chicken, you'd have let me have it out in Reardon's garage. But killing a two hundred pound man who's willing to fight for his life is a hell of a lot different than shooting a drunken cop from a fire escape or strangling a ten dollar tart."

Mmmm, ten dollar tart ...

~RP

Paperback 154: Over Night / Norman Bligh (Venus Books 106)

Paperback 154: Venus Books 106 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Over Night
Author: Norman Bligh
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $30



Best things about this cover:

• I can't believe they scrapped "HARLOT IN HER HEART" for this crappy title - it doesn't even make sense. If that kid is going to stay "overnight" at this lady's apartment, then "overnight" should be one word. Unless her name is "Night" and he's about to position himself "Over" her, in which case, tell me more ...
• "Gee, Miss McGillicuddy, your hair sure looks ... stable."
• "Uh, Miss McGillicuddy, I think you've lit the divan on fire with your cigarette. Here, I'll just put out the smoldering fabric with my shoe."
• "Miss McGillicuddy, ma'am, I know my gray streaks are odd for a kid my age, but could you not stare at me like that ... it's making me feel all nauseous and sweaty."
• OK, back to the title - it's not a phrase! If you Google "Over Night" you will be asked if you meant "overnight" - "No, I meant the famous novel by the author of SIN CHILD." Stupid Google.

Best things about this back cover:

• Regular Venus, Electric Venus, Regular Venus, Electric Venus...

Page 123~

OK, first, I flipped this book open to page one and this is the first phrase I read: "The raw liquid slid down her throat..." - so we're off to a good start.

Second, this book has PHOTOS!!!! Why have I never bothered to open this book until just this second?? They are all rich, these photos, but this one has to be my favorite:


They let you dress like that in prison? And what is she doing with those bars? Trying to give herself more cleavage?

Now, where was I? Page 123, right. This page begins a bonus, very short story at the end of the book (?) entitled "Kisses of Passion" (!) by Viola Cornett (!?). Here is the opposite-page photo:


And the opening paragraph:

Margie Peterson stared at her best friend in sheer disgust, as Bruce Carter went back into his private office and closed the door behind him. She said, "You're plumb crazy! Working nights for that guy won't get you anything but - work. Oh, I know you're nuts about him. But he's just a walking briefcase with a handsome face. Besides, he's engaged to the boss' daughter, remember?"

Margie was still honing her metaphor skills - she needed practice if she was ever going to head out onto the competitive metaphoring circuit.

~RP

Paperback 153: Seed of Doubt / Day Keene (Dell 7733)

Paperback 153: Dell 7733 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: Seed of Doubt
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: Clark Hulings

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "Explosive," "Seed," and a variation of "semen" all on one cover!? That's ... ballsy. Also makes me a little queasy. Oh god, all this seed-talk is making even "Unexpurgated" look pornographic.
• "You expect that man to take care of that baby!?"
• "You expect us to believe that that man is responsible for that stain!?"
• The judge looks like he wants to say "Excuse me, sir, but the fencing class is down the hall."
• "The pattern of ANATOMY OF A MURDER" - HA ha. High praise. That's like saying "As many pages as THE GREAT GATSBY" or "Set in the same general region as GONE WITH THE WIND"

Best things about this back cover:

• Cast of characters! With quotes!?
• "I'd rather see her dead" - I hope he's not supposed to be sympathetic character. "No wife of mine..." - how many does he have?
• "I loved Eric so much ..." - of course. Women love men who would rather see them dead than see them bear the child of another man.
• "Who is to say that I was wrong ...?" - nice defense, Perry Mason. I believe This Court is to say, you jackass.

Page 123~

Jenny emerged from the restaurant wearing a tight black skirt and a green blouse under a thin white sweater that accentuated her heavy breasts. She pretended to be surprised to see him.

"You still here?"

Eric continued to pick his teeth. "It would seem. You live far?"

Eric is suave - he knows what all real men know: that there is no surer way to seduce a heavy-breasted lady than to pick your teeth.

~RP

Paperback 152: Too Many Girls / Don Tracy (Berkley Books G-182)

Paperback 152: Berkley Books G-182 (1st ptg, 1958)
Title: Too Many Girls
Author: Don Tracy
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Her expression! Everything about her face and body language says "I Hate You."
• I believe an oncoming train is about to drive right into this studio
• "OK, you can take five, Ms. Marshall. I'll just lean against the wall here and stare at you creepily while holding my whiskey bottle at a suggestive angle, OK? OK."
• Wait, if he's a newspaper photographer, shouldn't he care "what kind of pictures he took?"

"Steve, can you come in here for a sec."
"Sure boss, what's up?"
"Well, we wanted some shots for the story on the economic crisis..."
"Yeah?"
"Well, this is a photo of two squirrels kissing. And this appears to be a half-eaten sandwich."
"It is ... what's your point?"

Best things about this back cover:

• So he was the guy responsible for the MAGRUDER film ... fascinating.
• This guy is every "hard-boiled" cliché rolled into one, then boiled down to some kind of paste, and then smeared all over the soul of any decent person who comes into contact with him.
• Apparently, you cannot be a "top-notch reporter" and "all woman" simultaneously. You have to do some kind of Clark Kent / Superman switch.
• I like how we're supposed to believe that Elaine turned Ed out instead of vice versa. "You'll be a pimp and like it! [smack!] Take your money, you little bitch! [kick! smack!]"

Page 123~

The girl he'd been with was a tall, dark-haired girl, with a million-dollar build. She was canned-up proper and her eyes were kind of glassy.

She had undoubtedly been reading "The Day the Machines Stopped"

"Canned-up proper" is my new favorite expression

~RP

Paperback 151: The Day the Machines Stopped / Christopher Anvil (Monarch Books 478)

Paperback 151: Monarch Books 478 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Day the Machines Stopped
Author: Christopher Anvil
Cover artist: Ralph Brillhart

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Rockets explode! Planes disintegrate into patterns roughly resembling autumn leaves! And ... Wes and Earl have engine trouble.

Wes: "Gee, Earl, I'm stumped."
Earl, wagging finger at car: "Bad car! Bad, naughty car! Oh, why did I buy a used taxi!?"

• If "Nature Reversed Its Laws," shouldn't Wes and Earl and everything else be flying up into space? Either that, or Wes and Earl should be making out.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's all very amusing, but that third paragraph ... it's a little too close-to-home, frankly. All sounds eerily relevant / plausible.
• I hate it when people malign the Dark Ages - they were perfectly serviceable Ages.

Page 123~

"Excuse me a minute." Brian's fists tingled. He was thinking of the last crack on the head, of all the insults and underhanded blows he'd experienced from Carl.

~RP

Paperback 150: The Dead Beat / Robert Bloch (Popular Library 60-2299)

Paperback 150: Popular Library 60-2299 (1st, 1961)

Title: The Dead Beat
Author: Robert Bloch
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Her face - everything about it screams horror hilarity
• She looks like she's about to snap her own neck
• That mouth is So Red that I can only imagine / hope / surmise that this novel involves her drinking blood
• "My hair! O, why did I ever swim in that stupid, over-chlorinated community pool!"
• "My robe! It appears to have fallen open to reveal my impossibly spherical boobs!"
• "My jaw! I can't shut it! How am I even forming this sentence!?"
• Honestly, I love the design on this cover. The jagged backgrounds, the sickly colors. All gold. I believe the word "shocker" is even being struck by something resembling lightning. Fabulous.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Did we mention that Robert Bloch wrote 'Psycho'? 'Cause he did. Write 'Psycho.' It's true. 'Psycho!'"
• "(Remember the author's Psycho)" - um, hey, reviewer from EQMM: the movie adaptation was an international sensation and made a generation of people think twice about getting in the shower. I'm pretty sure folks "remember."
• "Psycho!"

Page 123~

Then he walked in. Opportunity knocks, but Larry walked in. He knew where he was going.

Did I mention that Bloch is a pretty good writer?

~RP

Paperback 149: Man on the Move / Cliff Merritt (Popular Library 445-08224-075)

Paperback 149: Popular Library 445-08224-075 (PBO, 1973)

Title: Cliff Merritt's Man on the Move!
Author: Cliff Merritt, I presume
Cover artist: Let me guess - Cliff Merritt?

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Cliff Merritt is ... Cliff Merritt, in ... Cliff Merritt's ... Man on the Move!"
• I remember looking at this book for So Long wondering ".... ?"
• "The different modes of transportation are not enough - we need an inset ... maybe a railroad conductor, or ... I know! An old dude doing the white man's overbite while rocking out to Huey Lewis on his weekly trip to the cardigan sweater store in Utica! That's it!"
• Cliff Merritt is Chris Ware's great-grandfather, I'm convinced.
• This book has "looming gas crisis" written All over it.
• Least appealing color palette ever.

Best things about this back cover:

• "It's hip to be square!"
• "Between book covers," HA ha. Now if we're talking "between stone tablets," "between blades of grass," or "between your buttcheeks," well, mister, that's a whole 'nother story.
• "It gets more interesting with every page you turn" - "Damn it, how do you work these book thingies again, Mildred? Oh, right, you turn the pages. Stupid modern technology."

And it does get "more interesting" (Chinese folks might want to look away now):


Cliff Merritt is basically that random older guy everyone knows who likes to show you all the trivia he knows because he imagines it makes him seem wise. That little symbol, like a "T" having its way with a "W" ... it's on Every Single Drawing. So it's a ... signature? The opening blurb in the book says that Cliff Merritt cartoons are "well-loved." I would say "well tolerated," at best. Like the drugs you see ads for on TV.

Page 123~


~RP

Paperback 148: The Cosmic Rape / Theodore Sturgeon (Dell 1512)

Paperback 148: Dell 1512 (1st ptg, 1968)

Title: The Cosmic Rape
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Cover artist : Lehr (Just Lehr, like Cher, only less famous) [damn, he has a first name after all - it's Paul]

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• It's like a horrid disease, all red and inflamed, with pustules and what not. Yuck.
• I'm guessing (i.e. hoping) that the "rape" is metaphorical.
• I should read this. Sturgeon is a fantastic, inventive author whose work I keep meaning to read more of.
• This appears to be a picture of some kind of Mad Max-ish tractor pull. Only the tractors have tails and are being orbited by small aircraft.
• I just put actress IONE Skye in a crossword puzzle that I co-wrote, so I keep reading "lone" as "IONE." Not sure what an "IONE man" would be.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow. That's a lot of ... text.
• Apparently I paid $3.50 for this (?!)

Page 123~

Screw that. I just read the opening paragraph and that's what I'm going with...

Page 5~

"I'll bus' your face, Al," said Gurlick. [memo to self - steal that name] "I gon' break your back. I gon' blow up your place, an' you with it, an' all your rotgut licker, who wants it? You hear me, Al?"

If I were Al, I would run. Far.

~RP

Paperback 147: Shock Treatment / Wright Williams (Beacon Books 143)

Paperback 147: Beacon Books 143 (PBO, 1957)
Title: Shock Treatment
Author: Wright Williams
Cover artist: Peeping Tom

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• I love how she looks - not terrified, but exasperated: "You again!?"
• Wait - I thought she was in her bathroom and the peeping tom was opening the window shade, but it seems just as likely she's in a hospital with mobile curtain dividers, in which case a. whose arm is that?, b. what's it yanking on?, and c. what is that red cloth? What am I looking at!?
• "AT LAST..." - HA ha. I was just asking myself, "Why is there no book that explores the borderland between love and perversity?" Now, at last, that void is filled.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Sure, big Eric was crazy. Crazy about women! And who can blame him? Am I right, guys!? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about ... [amused chuckles from drunk comedy club crowd] ... ah, chicks."
  
• Whimsical drawings of cruel medical experimentation. "It'll cure your pervertedness, but ... you're gonna experience some rubber-arm, I'm not gonna lie."
• Maybe those arms are supposed to represent the gyrations of patients at the "hospital dance" (!?)
• "Not since Snake Pit ..." - I can't stop laughing long enough to comment on that line
• "Frankly!"
• "Passion-wracked!"

Page 123~

Instead of thinking of Katrine as a lovely, attractive girl who had bravely come out of a harrowing experience, I was drawing mental pictures of her in bed with a man married to someone else. It was rotten of me, and I almost welcomed the self-loathing that I began to feel.

Well, we've all been there, right?

~RP

Paperback 146: The Gods of Mars / Edgar Rice Burroughs (Del Rey 27835)

Paperback 146: Del Rey 27835 (13th ptg, 1979)

Title: The Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Vol. 2: The Gods of Mars
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Cover artist: Michael Whelan

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, wardrobe, can we get some more groin coverage on set, please? STAT!"
• That hunk of "rock" behind them looks disgusting - like rock candy mixed with snot
• I like the part where the naked ballet dancer disembowels the Cyclopadusasaurus.
• Second sets of arms just look silly. That bottom set looks like the hands of someone who can't see and is flailing wildly because his head is shoved up into the torso of the sabermantis.
• Scifi artists, for whatever reason, seem to get credited a lot more than paperback cover artists working in other genres. It takes real talent to do good scifi covers. Even if the artist is super-talented, there's always the danger (manifested here) that the resulting imaginative landscape will look campy and ridiculous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, more side-arms.
• Cyclopadusasaurus is open downfield ... looks like she'll catch the moonsphere, but man is she going to take a hit from the safety.
• "Return to Peril" - do I have to?
• Dejah Thoris drops mad beats.
• I don't think you're supposed to want to "escape" from an "Eden" (which is, by definition, perfect)

Page 123~

"The great Thark, I fear, is dead," she replied, sadly.

~RP

Paperback 145: The By-Pass Control / Mickey Spillane (Signet P3077)

Paperback 145: Signet P3077 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The By-Pass Control
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Ugh. Ugly multi-colored text crowds this poorly designed cover. And what is that photo? A leftover still from a Prell ad shoot?
• What is it with Spillane covers and naked blondes with hair that looks starchy and untouchable?
• Apparently the "By-Pass Control" is located at the base of her skull. Stop her, Tiger!
• "Multi-murder" is a ... noun?
• "They called him 'Tiger' because ... well, he snarled during sex, frankly."

Best things about this back cover:

• And you thought that little red dot was just some kind of sale sticker. In actuality, it is one of the least explicable book design concepts in paperback history. Maybe it represents the Communist menace. Or Tiger Mann's passion for gumballs. He's irrepressible!
• I'm not sure that Denver Post blurb is as positive as the publishers seem to think it is.
• How many different ways can a book convey to you that it contains rough sex? "Snarling sex," "deadly sex," "rough-tough touch," etc. Maybe the red dot symbolizes the marks Tiger leaves on his many sex partners / victims.
• If you wanna read the awesomest, most over-the-top, ridiculous conflation of rough sex and politics, please read One Lonely Night, where Hammer hammers a commie girl, and when he's done with her, she is red ... white and blue. USA! USA! Rough sex cures women of their political delusions. Who knew? Thanks, Mickey!

Page 123~

"Don't bother packing ... just get on the first one out [...]." I laughed and added, "Besides, you can use a vacation."

"Sure, without clothes?"

"What better kind?" I said.

"I didn't mean it like that," she told me, a lilt in her voice, "but you're making it sound awfully interesting. I'll see you shortly, mud dauber."

He's not just a Tiger. He's also, it seems, a wasp.

[Organ-pipe mud dauber - Trypoxylon politum]

~RP

PS Here are some Hillbilly Hussy covers ... if you're into that sort of thing (and I am - here's one of my own)