Paperback 800 (!!): Monica / George Simon (Chariot Books CB176)

Paperback 800: Chariot Books CB176 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Monica
Author: George Simon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $21


Best things about this cover:

• "Joe Came to Sell Storm Windows…" Erotic!
• The editor in me wants to remove the absurdly redundant "Blasting" and then put scare quotes around "Love."
• I assume this is a portrait of Monica as viewed through one of Joe's grimy storm windows. Erotic!
• Seriously, it's like the artist did a rather nice painting and then got drunk and angry and depressed and just wrecked the thing with a really shitty eraser.
• The em dashes are slaying me. It's like a bunch of false starts instead of a list of Exciting! Adjectives!
• What did he "give" them? Backrubs? Advice? Chickenpox? … oh … OH! … I think it's sex.

Best things about this back cover:

• SALESMEN BEWARE … sexy ladies might offer themselves to you and then writhe in pleasure … it's horrible.
• SALESMEN BEWARE … some ladies can remove their heads and then underneath they are lizard creatures who won't buy any of your storm windows … it's horrible.
• That "bikini" is, without a doubt, drawn on. Scribbled, more like. And not by a reader. Like … it came that way. That is some pretty low-rent design right there.
• Uh … fear hand? Sure, fear hand. Close enough.

Page 123~

When her purse fell off the night table its contents scattered on the floor. In addition to the usual feminine gear, there was a roll of bills as big as a pound of butter, half a dozen snaps of nude ladies, and [a] .32 snub-nosed automatic. Dear little Monica …

First, I am enjoying imagining "the usual feminine gear," which in my mind includes brass knuckles and a vibrator. And second, I can't wait to use the "pound of butter" analogy in conversation and have people stare at me blankly. Me, after a pause: "FOUR STICKS!" Them: "Ah … yes ... OK. Got it. My, that *is* a large vibrator."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 722: Strange Longing / Orrie Hitt (Chariot Books CB-1626)

Paperback 722: Chariot Books CB-1626 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Strange Longing
Author: Orrie Hitt
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• This was also the cover for Axilla Fetishist Monthly (April 1963)
• One thing about saran wrap lingerie is: the itch.
• Man I wish the girl in the dark in the back ground were more in the light in the foreground.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Oh, don't mind me, I just wandered over to this side of the room and got tangled in the drapery somehow."
• Seriously, what is happening there?
• "Bunny soft"— I'm laughing quite hard right now.
• Ladies, if you really wanna sex up your bedroom patter, call it "the portals of the 'forbidden world'!"

Page 123~

"I don't do the kind of dances they'd want."
"Who cares about dancing? The men don't come inside the tent for that."
They got into another bottle of rye and Emily paraded around the room.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 511: Sinful Wife / Ray Damon (Chariot Books 172)

Paperback 510: Chariot Books 172 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Sinful Wife
Author: Ray Damon
Cover artist: Uncredited (back cover = photo cover)

Yours for: Not For Sale (donation from Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• "Look, Steve, I like you, but briskly rubbing my nipple with the butt of your gun is just not doing it for me."
• I wish she were standing up so I could see her underwear better (without all the messed up perspective). It's kind of cute.
• Is she a doctor? It looks like she just flopped back on the bed and threw open her lab coat in a fit of passion. Or dyspepsia. Her facial expression is kind of enigmatic.

Best things about this back cover:

• Here's Stella showing off the lamp that earned her a 2nd place ribbon in the "Most Ridiculous Novelty Lamp" competition at the county fair. She also received an Honorable Mention for "Biggest Damn Lampshade Anyone's Ever Seen."
• I'm sure she's very sexy under that Grandma's-MuuMuu of a nightgown.
• Is there anything that lamp can't do. I'm pretty sure it tells time, and possibly provides shelter for a small family. 
• And the award for "Most Uses of the Verb 'Come' on the Back Cover of a Paperback" goes to ...

Page 123~

The gear shift was a big lever jutting up beside me with a button on top.

"I'll thank you not to talk about my penis that way," exclaimed Steve.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 193: Naked Nurse / Ben Anderton (Chariot Books CB-216)

Paperback 193: Chariot Books CB-216 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Naked Nurse
Author: Ben Anderton
Cover artist: [Robert Maguire]

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover:

• Semicolon? Really? Did you think that would look fancier than your run-of-the-mill comma? And what is up with that first dash, after "Raw"? What did the comma ever do to you, copywriter guy?
• That's right, my first comment about the cover of a book called "Naked Nurse," which depicts an honest-to-god naked nurse, was about punctuation. That is how I roll.
• "She admired his skill in surgery" - Really? She does not look like she is "admiring" anything. She looks like she is cowering in fear. Naked fear.
• The art is actually first-rate and looks suspiciously like the work of the legendary Bob Maguire (his female faces and hair are very distinctive)
• Ben Anderson's chosen pseudonym was woefully inadequate
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh god. And I thought the front cover had punctuation issues. It's a bloodbath back here. "White capped" needs a hyphen, the dash after "nurse" is ridiculous and superfluous, there should be a comma after "Young" ... jeez louise, there's subject / verb disagreement in the description of "Lynn!" I can't go on. You can see the carnage for yourself. I wonder if Chariot Books outsourced their cover copy-writing to, let's say, the Ukraine, and then had the Ukrainians forward their work to Laos for proofing...
• "Penetrating" - tee hee
• "For Men" - you don't say ...

Page 123~

The local minister who performed the ceremony, so far from the strident complexities of the city, had expressed his pleasure in learning that the community was to have a new expert surgeon to help care for their ills.

Oh boy, an expert surgeon! No more getting appendectomies from Floyd the Barber! Hurrah!

~RP