Showing posts with label Earle Bergey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earle Bergey. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2018

Paperback 1031: The Great Mail Robbery / Clarence Budington Kelland (Popular Library 432)

Paperback 1031: Popular Library 432 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Great Mail Robbery
Author: Clarence Budington Kelland
Cover artist: [Earle Bergey]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15-20

Pop432
Best things about this cover:
  • "Cheese it, fellas! It's Miss Smokestack 1952!"
  • Mr. Freaked Out Impossible-Over-the-Shoulder-Glance in the extreme foreground there is pretty special.
  • There is a lot happening in this manframe (n: a framelike structure composed primarily of man parts). There's shocked bighead, Li'l Cap'n Fearhand, and then Gunhand (he handles the guns). The lady does have a manic look—and she's radiating some kind of toxic emissions—but her body language says Bored Tween. Weird.
  • They Made A Living Out Of Death = C-minus pun irony

Pop432bc
Best things about this back cover:
  • HIS!
  • Inca! 
  • "This side of Hell," LOL. What's on the other side of Hell? A Wendy's?
  • "Suddenly there wasn't any robe." So she's some kind of ecdysiast-magician? Must be confusing for poor Will Scarlet.
  • This book should be called "Will Scarlet and the Starlet." Or "The Great Female Disrobery."
Page 123~
He had been immersed but a few minutes when his telephone rang irritatingly. He forced himself to get up and, dripping and shivering, walked to the table beside his bed where the telephone stood.
"Hello," he said impatiently.
"This," said a voice, "is Jahala Vidmar."
"... said a voice" is about as pure an example of needless wordery as you're ever gonna see. Made me laugh out loud and completely forget the horrific adverb abuse that preceded it.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Paperback 729: Something's Got to Give / Marion Hargrove (Popular Library 222)

Paperback 729: Popular Library 222 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: Something's Got To Give
Author: Marion Hargrove
Cover artist: familiar but Uncredited [Earle Bergey]

Yours for: $9

Pop222

Best things about this cover:

  • Boobs. FUN. Boobs are FUN. I get it now.
  • Damn, that's pretty sexy for radio.
  • A Lady Lay Abed Too Long … and so she conceived twins? With captain Pipey McChinless there?
  • Those Children-of-the-Corn twins will haunt your dreams.
  • Question smoke! Nice.
  • She is flipping you off.


Pop222bc

Best things about this back cover:

  • OK, that opening line is Great: "It happened in bed…"
  • More Popular Library Nothingness. Ugh.
  • Audiences *love* "babies screaming in neglect." Don't you miss the days when paternal incompetence was charming?


Page 123~

"He couldn't have been too hungry," I pointed out, "if he left one of the peas on his plate."

Enjoy your future eating disorder, kid.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]