Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Paperback 1132: Mercedes / Carl Demarco (Midwood 33-714)

 Paperback 1132: Midwood 33-714 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Mercedes
Author: Carl Demarco
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10
Value: $11

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]


Best things about this cover: 
  • The long-awaited sequel to Hyundai.
  • So ... she discovered that there was a staircase as well as an elevator? Exciting.
  • I wish she filled more of the frame—so much more of the frame that the dope who's looking at her got pushed right out. There is a long tradition of "cardboard-cutout dude who is there only to ogle the hot woman" in paperback art, but this guy may be the cardboard-cutoutiest. She's so bored by him that she's turned to us for help.
  • Her hair is perfect. The rest of her is pretty good too. I know I'm meant to look at her ass, but I kinda wish I could see the whole dress.
  • I would lose my fucking mind if I spent more than three minutes in a room this color. So relentlessly This Color.

Best things about this back cover: 
  • Just a B&W version of the cover?? The look and tone of both the art and the cover copy are so weary and half-hearted that I feel like that final line should read "[Sigh] Yet Another Midwood Original (We're Out Of Ideas)"
  • I keep looking at her right hand to see if it has the correct number of fingers. There's something slightly ... mangled about it.
  • "Penetrating"? OK, easy there, copy guy.
  • "With whom"? Well, la-di-dah, copy guy.
Page 123~
    With a strange urgency, she passed her hands over her body—nude beneath the sheets—as if to reassure herself that she was all there, intact [!], that she hadn't left a part of herself with the sensuous Suzanne!
"My left kneecap ... Where's My Left Kneecap!? Curse your lesbian witchery, Suzanne!"

~RP

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