Other Books, Other Covers: Grendel / John Gardner (Ballanatine 28865)

Title: Grendel

Author: John Gardner

Cover artist: Michael Leonard

Illustrated by: Emil Antonucci

Estimated value: a few bucks

[Happy belated Halloween!]

[Wraparound! Medieval King Kong's got some flexible toes.]

Page 123~

I snatch up a stone and hurl it. It smashes his mouth, spraying out teeth, and penetrates to the jugular. He drops to his knees, gets up again. The air is sweet with the scent of his blood. Death shakes his body the way high wind shakes trees. He climbs toward me. I snatch up a stone.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 631: The Jerk / adapted by Carl Gottlieb

Paperback 631: Warner Books 92-626 (PBO, 1979)

Title: The Jerk
Author: intro and text adaptation by Carl Gottlieb
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• So I own this for some reason.
• It's not a novelization so much as a movie still picture book. Every page has a shot from the movie and some accompanying text. I know, I'm really selling it.
• I always hated those little paddle ball game thingies.

Best things about this back cover:

• Peter Sellers-esque photo spread.
• I didn't know a book could "star" someone.
• Steve Martin's stand-up was a revelation to me (via my dad) when I was a kid.

Page 123~


Carl Reiner, ladies & gentlemen. Carl Reiner.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 517: The best of ROCKY and the complete ROCKY II / Fotonovel Publications (nn)

Paperback 517: Fotonovel nn (1st ptg, 1979)

Title: The Best of 'Rocky' and the Complete 'Rocky II' 
Author: Uncredited
Cover artist: Movie still

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Here we see Rocky moments before he is eaten alive by a hungry pack of extras from "Free to Be You and Me"
• You can pay in Pounds Sterling or American Dollars. "Special Edition!"
• I like the Rocky figure inside the "Y" of Rocky II, though it looks less like a boxer than a guy wearing oven mitts being held up at gunpoint.

Best things about this back cover:

• "At last!"—something no one ever said about a Fotonovel.
• "ROCKY II picks up where ROCKY leaves us"—what a novel concept in sequelry!
• How does he get his right-bottom lip to do that!? It's freaky. Stroke-ish.

Page 123~ (there are no page #s, so I'm just guessing here)

I don't think Adrian is frightened so much as ashamed. It's one thing to get knocked down, and quite another to cower and present your junk to the camera in such a self-abasing fashion.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Lord, I Have a Question...

Why do my knees smell like ketchup? And how many dirty llama had to die to make these curtains? And why does my mom insist on cutting my hair herself? She's good at making quilts, but I just wanna get my hair done at the mall like the other girls.

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