Thursday, July 14, 2016

Paperback 962: The Case of the Smoking Chimney / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 6014)

Paperback 962: Pocket Books 6014 (3rd ptg, 1960)

Title: The Case of the Smoking Chimney
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: [Charles Binger]

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 9/10

PB6014
Best things about this cover:
  • She's got something of the saloon about her.
  • Those gloves are off-the-chart hot.
  • So weird how they've given the curtains that hourglass shape. Actually, the longer I stare at the whole curtain scenario, the more it starts looking like ... something else entirely.
  • Text is as if written on surface of invisible floating sphere. Strange.
  • Most gigantic artist signature in cover art history and Of Course it gets cut off.

PB6014bc
Best things about this back cover:
  • Ooh, I like this. It's a great, simple, quick way of visually representing the Big Red Text.
  • Sideeye!
  • "The story they told was clear and obvious." No need to give you details. Your brain is doing fine providing those on its own.

Page 123~

"Well, you see it's this way," Gramps explained. "I've always been interested in crime stuff."

I feel you, Gramps.

~RP

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2 comments:

Jean said...

An infrared flash bulb??

Anonymous said...

The "Charles" sig stands for Charles Binger (at least I'm pretty sure it does). Googling his name pulls up a ton of his covers, all done in a similar gouache style, somewhat in the same vein as Ernest "Darcy" Chiriaka and Barye Phillips.