Paperback 613: Deadly Desire / Edward Booth (Newsstand Library U146)

Paperback 613: Newsstand Library U146 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Deadly Desire
Author: Edward Booth
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "Deadly Desire" was a last-minute substitution for the original title, "Boobs Bus."
• His eyes are the Best! He has this fantastic, dubious expression, like "Really? You're telling me those are real? ... OK ..."
• I love this cover. It's sexy while being ordinary. I'm as intrigued by her boobs as I am by his eyes and the design on that bus window. Vivid and eye-catching.

Best things about this back cover:

• The present tense in that first part is weird for paperback covers, right? Feels weird.
• Ah, the sexiest words a woman can say to a man: Oklahoma City.

Page 123~

"And so ends our little affair," she said. "But what are you going to do."

"I don't know yet," he answered, "but I'll find someone sooner or later. It's never too late, you know."

Get it? "Sooner or later" ... and they're in Oklahoma ... That's killer material.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 149: Man on the Move / Cliff Merritt (Popular Library 445-08224-075)

Paperback 149: Popular Library 445-08224-075 (PBO, 1973)

Title: Cliff Merritt's Man on the Move!
Author: Cliff Merritt, I presume
Cover artist: Let me guess - Cliff Merritt?

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Cliff Merritt is ... Cliff Merritt, in ... Cliff Merritt's ... Man on the Move!"
• I remember looking at this book for So Long wondering ".... ?"
• "The different modes of transportation are not enough - we need an inset ... maybe a railroad conductor, or ... I know! An old dude doing the white man's overbite while rocking out to Huey Lewis on his weekly trip to the cardigan sweater store in Utica! That's it!"
• Cliff Merritt is Chris Ware's great-grandfather, I'm convinced.
• This book has "looming gas crisis" written All over it.
• Least appealing color palette ever.

Best things about this back cover:

• "It's hip to be square!"
• "Between book covers," HA ha. Now if we're talking "between stone tablets," "between blades of grass," or "between your buttcheeks," well, mister, that's a whole 'nother story.
• "It gets more interesting with every page you turn" - "Damn it, how do you work these book thingies again, Mildred? Oh, right, you turn the pages. Stupid modern technology."

And it does get "more interesting" (Chinese folks might want to look away now):


Cliff Merritt is basically that random older guy everyone knows who likes to show you all the trivia he knows because he imagines it makes him seem wise. That little symbol, like a "T" having its way with a "W" ... it's on Every Single Drawing. So it's a ... signature? The opening blurb in the book says that Cliff Merritt cartoons are "well-loved." I would say "well tolerated," at best. Like the drugs you see ads for on TV.

Page 123~


~RP