Paperback 1130: Wild Spree / Jay Davis (Scorpion Books 101)

Paperback 1130: Scorpion Books 101 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Wild Spree

Author: Jay Davis

Cover artist: Gus Albet

Condition: 9/10 (yeah, it's got that sticker (38¢!!) ... sigh ... but otherwise ... mwah)

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• L.A. pilates classes go hard.
• It's been two weeks since my last post! But vacation time is over! Let sleaze time commence!
• Bisexual visibility! You don't see "bisexuality" mentioned explicitly very often, but this one's got it right in the tagline on the teaser page, before the title page: "HER BISEXUAL ROOMMATE SEDUCED HER!" And sure, enough, page 1, they get right to it. "Juanita's lips found Susan's breasts." Not hard to do. Turns out they weren't exactly hiding.

• My friend Doug Peterson frequently brings me smutty paperbacks whenever we happen to see each other, and this time, when we met at the Huntington Museum near Pasadena, he did not disappoint. I've got something like a dozen gems for you in the coming weeks, starting with this top-shelf stuff.
• Scorpion Books ("... the book with a sting!")—this imprint is new to my collection (there appear to have been something like 8 Scorpion Books total (this is 101 and I can find them numbered only as high as 108) 

Best things about this back cover: 

• Look, if you're gonna be lesbian, I think you gotta go "all out." No part-time lesbians, no half-ass lesbians. Just ... all out. Like Maxine. Maxine gets it.
• OK where the fuck are we here? Like, in physical space, where are we? I just realized that this is a wraparound cover. Usually, wraparound covers are kinda ostentatious about the fact that they're wraparounds, so you get this cool continuous-picture effect as you turn the book over. But this ... this is some kind of grimy shack with no electricity. The folks on the front seem very well lit, but over here, in front of this framed picture of, I'm gonna say, garbage, with a shabby day bed that features an old wooden barrel for a pillow, there is no light. Only sadness. 
• One thing I love about this book is the amount of credit the artist is getting. There is a painting within the painting, which the actual artist (of the entire cover) has signed ("ALBET"), and somebody made sure that signature stayed visible and unobscured. Then you open the book up and the artist doesn't just get a credit—he gets a whole damn page! More books should treat their cover artists like this! As a collector, it absolutely sucks how hard-to-impossible it is to track down a simple artist credit when the book doesn't simply provide it. But here: hey, hey, hey, it's Gusssssss Albet!

Page 123~

    Without thinking, without awareness, she walked to the door, opened it, and then gasped in surprise to find Maxine Hensen standing there. 

"Somebody order an all-out lesbian?" Maxine chortled suggestively. Susan gasped, dropped to her knees, and threw her blue blouse over her head as the night exploded in a wild spree of desperate bisexual passions. Amen.

~RP

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