Thursday, October 9, 2014

Paperback 824: Bullet Proof / Amber Dean (Popular Library SP294)

Paperback 824: Popular Library SP294 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: Bullet Proof
Author: Amber Dean
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $15

PopSP294

Best things about this cover:

  • Wow, turns out you can do A Lot with a fairly monochromatic palette. This is fantastic.
  • For a simple cover, it's amazingly suspenseful. Great use of light, especially on her face. Her face is the key—the craning around and the look of wide-eyed horror really sell the idea that something terrible is just on its way, just out of view.
  • The creepiness of the bondage is amplified ten-fold by the simple, naked mattress. How can a cover be so elegant and so sleazy at the same time?


PopSP294bc

Best things about this back cover:

  • I still hate this logo. It does not look like "CRIME." It looks a poorly executed fertility statue.
  • "Virginia Kirkus calls it 'non-stop'"—that made me LOL: "Seriously, it wouldn't stop. I as like 'Stop! Why won't this story stop!?' But it just kept going!"
  • "Readable!"—these just get better and better. "… in that it was made out of recognizable words, which were arranged in vaguely grammatical patterns…"

Page 123~

"It was their job, Hallie. Police have to learn how to destroy human dignity, or they'd never break through the really calloused, the hardened."

I'm just gonna leave that there.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

2 comments:

DemetriosX said...

The front cover is basically the forerunner of today's digitally lit movies where everything is orange or teal.

Rex Parker said...

Testing.