Paperback 1139: Impervious to Pain / David Malcolm (Venus Library V-1070-T)

Paperback 1139: Venus Library V-1070-T (PBO, 1972)

Title: Impervious to Pain

Author: David Malcolm

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• What's the opposite of "sans serif"?
• I can feel that bed cover, as well as those curtains, and it's not pleasant. I'm starting to itch.
• I cannot tell a lie, that is fantastic underwear. Not the boring nightgown—the orange paisleyesque panties. This cover is dead without them. Even the cat o' nine tails wouldn't be able to save it from the overwhelming motel beige.
• The subtitle of this book is "Case Studies in Sado-masochism." Improbably, it looks virtually unread.

Best things about this back cover: 

• So much text, much of it deeply troubling. For instance, "slave" and "salve" on the same back cover? My brain hates it. And "moist"!? Worse, "Moist, most," one right after the other. It's like this back cover copy is running its fingernails down the blackboard of my mind.
• This book runs somewhat outside my normal collecting time frame parameters (i.e. it's post-1970), and it is (therefore?) way more explicit, both inside and out, than most of the "sleaze" books I own. 
• "Quiver" twice!? I'm telling you: nails + chalkboard.
• "Her moist, most sensitive parts" and "his naked masculinity" are somehow both much sillier and much dirtier-sounding than their more straightforward, less euphemistic counterparts. 

Page 123~

Then she flipped her long almost air-tight skirt over her head, saying, "And if you have trouble breathing down there, I'll like that, too."

Never mind the seemingly impossible logistics of "flipping" an "air-tight skirt" over your head, this is a great line. A colorful detail. A fantastic bit of dialogue. I legitimately laughed out loud.

~RP

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Paperback 1130: Wild Spree / Jay Davis (Scorpion Books 101)

Paperback 1130: Scorpion Books 101 (PBO, 1964)

Title: Wild Spree

Author: Jay Davis

Cover artist: Gus Albet

Condition: 9/10 (yeah, it's got that sticker (38¢!!) ... sigh ... but otherwise ... mwah)

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• L.A. pilates classes go hard.
• It's been two weeks since my last post! But vacation time is over! Let sleaze time commence!
• Bisexual visibility! You don't see "bisexuality" mentioned explicitly very often, but this one's got it right in the tagline on the teaser page, before the title page: "HER BISEXUAL ROOMMATE SEDUCED HER!" And sure, enough, page 1, they get right to it. "Juanita's lips found Susan's breasts." Not hard to do. Turns out they weren't exactly hiding.

• My friend Doug Peterson frequently brings me smutty paperbacks whenever we happen to see each other, and this time, when we met at the Huntington Museum near Pasadena, he did not disappoint. I've got something like a dozen gems for you in the coming weeks, starting with this top-shelf stuff.
• Scorpion Books ("... the book with a sting!")—this imprint is new to my collection (there appear to have been something like 8 Scorpion Books total (this is 101 and I can find them numbered only as high as 108)).

Best things about this back cover: 

• Look, if you're gonna be lesbian, I think you gotta go "all out." No part-time lesbians, no half-ass lesbians. Just ... all out. Like Maxine. Maxine gets it.
• OK where the fuck are we here? Like, in physical space, where are we? I just realized that this is a wraparound cover. Usually, wraparound covers are kinda ostentatious about the fact that they're wraparounds, so you get this cool continuous-picture effect as you turn the book over. But this ... this is some kind of grimy shack with no electricity. The folks on the front seem very well lit, but over here, in front of this framed picture of, I'm gonna say, garbage, with a shabby day bed that features an old wooden barrel for a pillow, there is no light. Only sadness. 
• One thing I love about this book is the amount of credit the artist is getting. There is a painting within the painting, which the actual artist (of the entire cover) has signed ("ALBET"), and somebody made sure that signature stayed visible and unobscured. Then you open the book up and the artist doesn't just get a credit—he gets a whole damn page! More books should treat their cover artists like this! As a collector, it absolutely sucks how hard-to-impossible it is to track down a simple artist credit when the book doesn't simply provide it. But here: hey, hey, hey, it's Gusssssss Albet!

Page 123~

    Without thinking, without awareness, she walked to the door, opened it, and then gasped in surprise to find Maxine Hensen standing there. 

"Somebody order an all-out lesbian?" Maxine chortled suggestively. Susan gasped, dropped to her knees, and threw her blue blouse over her head as the night exploded in a wild spree of desperate bisexual passions. Amen.

~RP

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Paperback 1127: Golden Tramp / Daoma Winston (Beacon B 272)

 Paperback 1127: Beacon B 272 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Golden Tramp

Author: Daoma Winston

Cover artist: Uncredited [Harry Barton]

Condition: 8/10 

Value: $20

Best things about this cover: 

• Her name is Gay? Bit on the nose, don't you think? I mean ... whither subtlety?
• It's like she's eating his face with her neck. Some kind of weird reverse vampire.
• "Your head feels so good, Steve!" "Mmmfrphywtuh"
• There's something oddly, bizarrely, unexpectedly charming about the pink stripes on the pillow.
• I approvingly acknowledge the hint (the barest hint) of garter hook.
• I love the cover copy's anguished "WHY?" "Why oh why won't she give up this endless orgy of the flesh and join the endless orgy of the mind!?"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Ransom note font, wtf?
• OMG there really is a "Steve" in this thing. Nailed it!
• "Maybe it was Tom who turned Gay from men." So ... he turned Gay ... gay? Seriously, the protagonist's name is not helping you, Daoma.
• I'm not sure "tete-a-tetes" means what you think it does, Daoma. Unless ... "tete" ("head") is a euphemism for some other body parts that they're putting ... together ...
• Holy shit, plot twist! Peter covets Jonathan!? Who the fuck is Jonathan? You can't just drop Peter's queerness *and* a new character into the very last sentence. I don't even care about Gay anymore. I need to know about Peter and Jonathan! I hope they're happy (but since they're gay in a 1950s paperback, safe bet is that they are probably not, in fact, happy).

Page 123~

"Well, you know what he did? Went off and married one of those drive-in girls in the shiny shirts, and dimpled knees showing. And the funniest thing happened. It turned out she's some kind of an heiress or something. Couldn't have happened at a better time, or to a nicer guy."

Man, it's like Daoma Winston's got a barreful of premises for novels and she's just gonna dump them all into one book. Now I need to know about the heiress who is also somehow a dimple-kneed shiny-shirted drive-in girl ... which is apparently a type? I want to live inside a late '50s Beacon paperback, if just for a day. It sounds wild.

~RP

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Paperback 1104: The Storm and the Silence / David Walker (Lion Library LL33)

 Paperback 1104: Lion Library LL33 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Storm and the Silence

Author: David Walker

Cover artist: George Erickson

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8

[acquired at a Minneapolis thrift store, Dec. 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• I'm guessing she's the storm and he's the silence. Just a hunch.
• TFW your girlfriend catches you playing with your ...  hey, what the hell is that anyway? A doll? A flash? A candlestick? A cakepop?
• This guy has too much neck. Just ... too much square footage on this cover is given over to his beeftacular neck. Not at all proportional to his torso. Deeply disturbing. But not as disturbing as ...
• Her hand! What horrid accident befell her!? Is she giving him some weird sign with her right hand, or did she lose her index and middle fingers in a cheese slicer accident? The pinky is bent at a preposterous, unnatural angle. The thumb is so thin it barely counts as a digit. Just a complete nightmare, that hand.
• Hey, maybe he's holding (fondling) the case she keeps her fingers in?

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love it when women cackle while two hapless saps beat the shit out of each other. It's weirdly a thing in paperback cover art, women who get turned on by or are otherwise entertained by violence. Actually, she less amused than bored. "Ugh, this again. I'm just gonna sit here with my beaker of whiskey until you boys are through,"
• Captain Beefneck is pursued by zombie sheriff. That's a plot line I could get into.
• If I were Tam Diamond, the only secret I'd want to keep is that my momma named me after a Scottish hat

Page 123~

"Mine's a port," Maggie said at once. She was a hard-necked one. She'd need to be, always being the goose-gog, always being a drag on other folks.

The existence of goose-gog implies the existence of goose-magog. 

("goosegog" is the acid and prickly fruit of a shrub, fyi)

~RP

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Paperback 1102: Her Cheating Heart / Lloyd Kevin (Monarch Books 286)

Paperback 1102: Monarch 286 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Her Cheating Heart

Author: Lloyd Kevin

Cover artist: Tom Miller

Condition: 7/10

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• "C'mon, Joy, we've been over this—quit flashing the neighbors and make me some eggs or something, jeez..."
• Ah yes, her heart. Her cheating heart. This is an incredible painting of her heart. I could look at her heart all day.
• This is actually a great cover—very hard to draw this specific action (woman pulling nightgown over her head) in a way that looks natural, where everything stays proportionate and relative sexiness is maintained.
• Love the perpendicular contrast here: her action to his inaction, her ardor to his ennui. Sadly, those curtains are really killing the vibe. I can practically feel their rough, thick fabric and smell their cigarette mustiness. Between the curtains, the walls, the bedding, and his trousers/pajamas, I feel like I'm drowning in shades of drab. She looks great, the trailer park looks great, everything else looks like despair.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh cool, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure book!
• Trigg Melnor ... I'm dying. I can't breathe. Trigg... Melnor... Trigg Melnor, ladies and gentlemen. Trigg fucking Melnor. A man's man's man's man's name if there ever was one. What would I do? No, what would Trigg Melnor do? That is the question. That is the only question I will entertain in my life from now on. WWTMD, baby!
• I sorta like this red silhouette, although it takes her from sexy dame to blobby abstraction. Pretty recognizable human silhouette from the waistline down, but above that ... I dunno. Kinda looks like some form of animal life is getting involved. Like there's a koala maybe climbing up the right side, and a small dog (in profile) keeping lookout on the left. 

Page 123~

    Trigg tried a new approach. "Lu's old Chevvy—was it here last night?"

    The woman looked puzzled. "Ol shevi?"

    "Lu's car." He made steering-wheel motions.

Make steering-wheel motions—that's what Trigg Melnor did. And he was darned good at it, too.

~RP

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Paperback 1101: Slipping Beauty / Jerome Weidman (Avon 322)

 Paperback 1101: Avon 322 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Slipping Beauty

Author: Jerome Weidman

Cover artist: [Ray Johnson]

Condition: 8/10 (cover kind of warps away from the pages at the corners a bit, but otherwise square and bright)

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• When you're in the theater with your children and suddenly realize you've misread the marquee... "Mommy, that lady's not sleeping ... mommy ... can I get a cigarette holder?"
• This is really first-rate girl art. I love this dame: sexy, bored, comfortable in her sexy boredness. He does a good job with her body & profile but he does an even better job with her whole Attitude. High-end hardboiled.
• I like the palette on this cover, too. Real cool. The icy blue is unusual, and complements the pinkish lingerie and flesh tones really well.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Loooooove a good author photo, and this one is good. Gotta be smoking, of course, but I love how this is less author photo and more cover adornment. He's *this* close to looking like a logo.
• LOL those *eternal* ellipses in the New York Times quotation. Like the reviewer is thinking of something diplomatic to say and is like "... uh ... meaty? ..."
• "Cataloguer of heels"—if I were Weidman, I'd put that on my business card *immediately*

Page 123~ (from "Everybody Wants to Be a Lady")

Well, my husband Mac, he's the nicest fellah you ever wanna meet and all that, but when it comes to things like this, God bless him, if you don't put the words in his mouth, he don't know what to say.

Ah, to live in a time when people said "fellah" and spelled it with an "h." Glory days. 

~RP

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Paperback 1095: Man-Killer / Talmage Powell // Running Scared / Bob McKnight (Ace D-469)

 Paperback 1095: Ace D-469 (PBO / PBO, 1960)

Title: Man-Killer / Running Scared

Author: Talmage Powell / Bob McKnight

Cover artist: Rudy Nappi / Rudy Nappi (signature visible)

Condition: 8 or 9/10

Value: $30

Best things about this cover: 

• "You've had your breakfast of canned baked beans and coffee, now get out of my yellow house! Don't make me have to hold this gun properly!"
• She and that rifle sure seem, uh, friendly.
• This is one of the greatest fuck-off power poses I've ever seen on a paperback cover. I do believe she would, in fact, kill a man, possibly several.
• "The Lady's For Hanging" yeah good luck with that

Best things about this back cover: 

• Crawling Scared!
• "Murder On My Heels ... hey, where the hell are my heels, anyway? Must've lost 'em when I crawled through the swamp in my underwear oh well"
• The Ghost of Lee Marvin is very disappointed in your push-up technique

Page 123~ (from Man-Killer)

    The man paused at the mouth of the alley, a big, brawny shadow. I saw him stiffen. He was staring at the white blob of my face in the infiltrating light. 

    "Calhoun!"

    It was Giles Hustin.

OK, whatever suspense, whatever sense of impending terror you were trying to work up there was immediately and entirely dissipated by "It was Giles Hustin." Giles Hustin is not the name of a man who makes other men quake in fear. Giles Hustin is the name of a man who plays folk music every Thursday from 9 to 10 at The Rusty Skillet. 

Also, I'm worried about Calhoun's face.

~RP

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Paperback 1094: Mardios Beach / Oakley Hall (Perma Books M-4042)

 Paperback 1094: Perma Books M-4042 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Mardios Beach

Author: Oakley Hall

Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Condition: 8-9/10 (mild dings to the corners, else perfect)

Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover: 

• "Wilma!"
• "Stella!"
• He was a heel and worshiped only one god—SUSPENDERS!
• William Holden just woke up and wants to know where his goddamn shirt is!
• The lady looks sad and frightened, but actually she's just petting and gently whispering to a small mouse on her arm named Marvin. "I don't know why the mean man is yelling, Marvin. Maybe he's rehearsing a play. You want some cheese?"
• His left hand is so dramatic, perhaps because his right fingers are caught in the hinges of the door?

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Frank" alert! "Frank" alert. We have "Frank," I repeat, we have "Frank"! (And "Brutally frank" at that—that's the best kind of frank!)
• Now I'm wondering how louses (lice?) are typically made.
• From what I gather from this back-cover description, this is a novel about a guy who just punches people in the groin over and over. It's a hard life, but if you wanna be a louse, you gotta put in the work.

Page 123~

"All right. Quick! What's a woman's function?"

"Give up? The answer is: to Find My Damn Shirt! These suspenders are startin' to itch! Now open this door right now. Hey, is Marvin in there? You and Marvin better not be talkin' about me again ..."

~RP

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Paperback 1081: The Case of the Fenced-In Woman / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 77884)

Paperback 1081: Pocket Books 77884 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: TCOT Fenced-In Woman

Author: Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10 (slight spine lean, some dings and dirtiness, kinda what you expect a book like this to look like)

Value: $6-8

[Binghamton Public Library Book Sale, May 2024]

Best things about this cover: 

• My wife got me this as a present from the local library book sale. Did not expect to reboot this blog with Ancient Chest-Shaving Rituals but you get what you get.
• "Now sweetheart, you know that's not a safe way to eat frosting, we've talked about this..." "DON'T FENCE ME IN, HAL!"
• Perry Mason Solves ... The Case of the Shirtless Dermatologist! "I don't like the look of this mole on your cheek, Sally. And your upper thigh feels suspicious, too. I'm gonna have to operate. Be a good girl and give me back my scalpel."
• Perry Mason Solves ... The Case of the Man with the Blurry Feet! (spoiler alert: his feet were hideous so the publishers blurred them)

Best things about this back cover: 

• My brain reading this back cover: "blah blah blah SUBURBAN SPANKING!? Awesome!"
• "Morley Eden said," is literature. It is art. It is a poem, the damnedest poem you ever heard.
• "Snaky gowns that cling like the skin on a sausage" is the kind of thing they send you back to Simile School for. "You're trying to convey 'sexy,' right? "Sexy, yeah, sexy." "And 'snaky,' that's OK, that kinda gets you there." "Yeah, gets me there, gets me there..." "But 'skin on a sausage'..." "Yeah?" "Well it's..." "Hot!?" "No, I don't think—" "Wait, wait. Let me explain. See, the chicks are the sausage, which is delicious, right, and..."

Page 123~

"You came over here in a hurry, didn't you, Mason?" Tragg asked.

"I do many things in a hurry."

"Did you just wink at me, Mason?" Tragg asked, his uniform clinging like the skin on a sausage...

~RP

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Paperback 1075: By Blood Alone / Frank Corey (Berkley Medallion G494)

Paperback 1075: Berkley Medallion G494 (PBO, 1961)

Title: By Blood Alone

Author: Frank Corey (pseud. of George Fox)

Cover artist: [illegible signature, no artist credit, infuriating]

Condition: 8/10

Value: $10-$12

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Watch out boy, she'll chew you up.
• She appears to be sitting in the blood of her (their?) prey. I assume she is the one who lives ... by blood alone. I love how she's looking at you (yes you, the reader) like "Hello, you're next. Oh, don't mind Larry. [turns to Larry in disgust] He was just leaving." [Larry, shouting like Sterling Hayden in The Long Goodbye] "Yeah, well, I need more than just blood, baby! Whiskey! Asparagus! Tic Tacs! The blood's great and all, but a man's gotta live! Nah, you have fun with your little friend here. I'll see you when I see you."
• Larry appears to have some kind of medallion nestled in his chest hair. Swingin'! He looks like he's getting ready to hit the disco, or maybe just do some light swashbuckling.
• Wrought-iron bed frames make a nice ornamental touch. Some great covers have been built around bed frames. Like this one (in fact ... is that Larry again? He gets around):

And now the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• "SCARRED" is a singularly un-grabby tagline, but it does rhyme with "marred" in the first sentence there, so I guess that's ... something. 
• Is there such thing as a *gentle* attack with a hammer?
• Please, hammer, don't scar 'em
• "Make the paragraphs red then black ... then black then red" "Okey dokey, any reason in part-" "I have no good ideas, OK, are you happy, just do it!"
• "Second generation" should be hyphenated. And speaking of hyphens, the "rack- / eteer" line break is killing me.
• There should be a comma after "head," why am I doing all the copyediting work here, come on!

Page 123~

"What is he?" Rebellion and disillusionment rang in the simple question.

"A renegade without money or ties, virtually cut off from human society."

That last bit would look cool on a business card.

~RP

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Paperback 1072: The Sex Cheat / Roger James (Bee-Line 284S)

Paperback 1072: Bee-Line 284S (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Sex Cheat

Author: Roger James

Cover artist: photo!

Condition: oof

Value: sentimental?

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Somebody read the hell out of this book. Or at least handled it ... frequently. I love a beater copy—no worries about condition, just an open invitation to "Read Me!"
• Oh, the wig. Oh. Ow. By the time it leaves her heck and heads toward her torso, it appears to turn semi-sentient, evolving claws, contemplating hellish doings...
• Legit LOL'ing at the how the cover text has to kind of scooch over and make room for her considerable chest. Her boobs just shove those words right out of the way. That's power.
• It's an oddly cheery, wholesome-looking photo for a smut paperback. Fright Wig notwithstanding.
• Ah, the original "... in bed" joke!

Best things about this back cover:

• Sex Game! All caps! You've heard of the TV show "Squid Game"? Well ... this isn't that!
• Cover photo seems so much darker with the poor girls' eyes ripped off
• "Wanton"—there's a word that peaked on paperback covers circa 1967 for sure. Definitely a cover copy writer's second-best friend (after "Sin," of course)

Page 123~ (bracing myself for something awful/wonderful)

Bruce turned completely away from the uncovered, brandishing breast and walked dismally towards his wife.

Yeah, I know, you're thinking "Does this writer even know what 'brandishing' means?" and given what I've read, just on Page 123 ... probably not. Consider: "Her own breasts rose and fell in great, trembling lifts" or "Eva Simmonds quickly recouped the dislodged bra cup over her naked contour and hastily came around from behind the sofa." I mean, that's "brandishing" "lifts" "recouped" and "contour" that he's bungled, all in just one page. Imagine Reading This Whole Book. You guys, there is so much lurid, ornate, comically baroque, borderline monstrous breast writing here. "She pushed the shuddering, irregularly bobbing area of luridly exposed flesh back out of sight and held the sagging cup of the damaged pink bra while she glared at Bruce Grant" yes "shuddering" and "irregularly bobbing" is what my soul is experiencing right now for sure. 

~RP

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Paperback 1060: The Troubled Midnight / Rodney Garland (Lion Library LL 128)

Paperback 1060: Lion Library LL 128 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: The Troubled Midnight

Author: Rodney Garland

Cover artist: Charles Copeland

Condition: 7/10

Value: ~$15

Best things about this cover:

• Satan Had Yellow Eyebrows!
• Love this dude's "sneering supercilious billionaire face." Too bad half of it got blown off somehow.
• "Look at the little worms, fighting over nothing, doomed to fail ... pathetic. I regret that I have but one eye to glower at them with."
• If there aren't airplanes involved, you cannot call it a "novel of flight." That's the rule.
• For a grade A thriller, make sure you steep your novel in reality for at least three but no more than five minutes. Any longer and it loses that delicious cheesy taste.

Best things about this back cover:

• The searing tale of a woman's forbidden love for her bedpost! "When her midnight became troubled, she turned to the one solid, upright thing in her life ..."
• Wow, they really don't want you to know anything about the plot, do they?
• Marseilles? Huh. Did not see that coming. With that build-up, I was thinking maybe "Rome" or "Moscow" or something, but no, Marseilles, sure, let's go with that.

Page 123~

The shop was full of people, some trying out fountain pens or buying postcards, others, like a girl I noticed with hairy legs like a deer, and obviously from the Midi, browsing.

Dude needs to go back to Comma School. Also, "like a deer?" Like a deer's legs ... are hairy? Like a deer browses? Like a browsing hairy deer from the Midi browses? I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to be picturing here. Some kind of sexy bibliophilic satyress?  Maybe just buy your mystery novel and go back to your garret, Pierre.

~RP

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Paperback 1050: Bogus Lover / Hy Silver (Newsstand Library U136)

Paperback 1050: Newsstand Library U136 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Bogus Lover
Author: Hy (ho?) Silver
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• I love her girl-about-town, devil-may care look. I'm not sure who's throwing bras and mannequin heads at her, but she doesn't seem fazed.
• That blue is exquisite.
• They've certainly, uh, made sure to emphasize her torso profile. The extensive boob shadow is kinda overkill. It's like, yeah, we see. They're lovely.
• The valentine on the mannequin's face is so freaky. What is even happening here!?

Best things about this back cover:

• Argh, too much text!
• I'm pretty sure that "crunched" is the wrong word for what casting couches do when you put your lustful weight on them, but admittedly this isn't really my bailiwick. Maybe someone got sloppy with corn chips?
• "Hey boss, how many 'm's in Peggy's "'Mmmmmmmm?'" "That depends. Is she lustful?" "Oh, yes, sir. Very." "Then ... Eight!" "But, sir, that's ... that's two more than we've ever done. Are you su—" "I'M TRYIN' TO SELL BOOKS HERE, MAN, JUST DO IT!" (/scene)
• Wait. Peggy? Then who's Wanda? We lost gentle Wanda somewhere between paragraphs two and three. Oh, the boss is not gonna be happy about this...

Page 123~

"I guess we're both stupid," he said as he started the engine.

Real talk.

~RP

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Paperback 1044: Natures Gifts / Norma Hughes (After Hours 160)

Paperback 1044: After Hours AH160 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Natures Gifts
Author: Norma Hughes
Cover artist: [Bill Alexander again?]

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $25

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]
Best things about this cover:

• When yoga class gets a little too "authentic"...
• Sally and Jenny hovered uncomfortably between ab-hunger and diaper-revulsion
• Wait, those aren't abs. They aren't in the right place ... what are those??!?!
• "And that, ladies, is how you throw a slider"
• OK, I'll just say what we're all thinking: where's the fucking apostrophe?

Best things about this back cover:

Back page designer: "I have this idea for a kind of harem motif, where a seraglio doorway provides..."

Publisher: "Sorry, Bill, we're going with a bathroom tile. Thanks for these storyboards, tho."

Page 123~

That evennig he mailed them out to Paris to his contact.

Needless to say, [sic]

~RP

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Paperback 1042: Bartered Mates / Thomas K. Makagon (Unique Books 144)

Paperback 1042: Unique Books 144 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Bartered Mates
Author: Thomas K. Makagon
Cover artist: that guy ... I always forget his name ... one of you will tell me (Bill Alexander)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: a lot

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I keep reading "Battered Meats"
• Get it on! Bang a gong! Makagon!
• The pointing lady is the best. We don't even get to see her face. Just her amazing get-up and pointing arm. "J'accuse!" "Koochy koochy koo!" "Where Are This Man's Damned Nipples!?"
• I really dig The Couch Of Impossible Boobs
• If you look at his left foot too long you will be cursed. I have warned you.
• This book is bizarrely rare. I searched ["bartered mates" makagon] and got TWO HITS TOTAL

Best things about this back cover:

• I've seen worse cover copy, but not much worse. I do like the manic use of "—" there in the first paragraph. "Is it a happening, a trend, or a switch ... ? ... fuck it, let's just go with all of the above!"
• Why is there a comma after "delectable" in paragraph 2!?! Truly, I am bothered far more by punctuation minutiae than by the preposterous cheesiness of it all.
• OK the first sentence of paragraph 2 is utterly ungrammatical (although LOL at "brain child" quote unquote)
• Shouldn't it be "a between-pictures diversion" OK I'll stop now.
• "... the private threats of enjoyed and accepted female aggression" like, try to wrap your head around that. If it's "accepted" how is it a "threat," and to what? Dudes like being whipped by ladies. That's pretty much the end of the story.
• "MASTERLY POWERS OF FEMALE DOMINATION" was what was written on Jessica Fletcher's business card (or should've been)

Page 123~

Don finished his drink and set it on the dresser, then walked over to the edge of the bed he reached down to the back of her thighs, gently separated them and commenced to kiss the small of her back. His tongue went to her pink lined crease. Slowly he flicked it downward until he had gone as far as he  could go, then pushing her thighs upward, he held her almost on her head. He kept moving downward gradually, pushing her upward. When he found the desired spot, Roxana moaned through her fallen hair. He then shoved her backwards until she was on her back in an opposite direction. Now, he could feel her mouth covering him as they clasped each other's passionate bodies tightly.

Ok so this is terrible in so many ways but I'm stuck back on "pink lined crease" (sic). Is her lined crease pink, or is her crease pink-lined? And which crease are we talking about? Further, where did his tongue go? Where did her thighs go? Downward? Upward? "An opposite direction"? It looks like they end up in 69 at the end, but I feel like maybe that was just a lucky accident?

~RP

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Paperback 1027: The Needs We Share / Rea Michaels (Domino 72-793)

Paperback 1027: Domino Books 72-793 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Needs We Share
Author: Rea Michaels
Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 5/10 (terrible stain on back, else 7/10)
Estimated value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is like a half-step away from the cover of, like, a knitting magazine from the same time period. That font! That font color! Those houseplants! Put her in a cardigan and bam—feel the craft work!
• The divorcee on the couch is giving me life! She's like, "Yep, life without Harry is O, K!"
• Miss Bouffant is also amazing. So fierce. "You wanna watch! I don't care, ya ****ing pervs!" The cheapness of that slip, though, is making me very sad. I can almost hear the crappy thick nylon rubbing against, well, everything.
• I love love LOVE the Kinsey-inspired books (they are a significant subgenre of 50s/60s sleaze). Kinsey's peering behind facade of American sex lives (semi-) legitimized readers' natural voyeurism. "I'm reading this ... for science!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Yep, she's great even in isolation like that.
• Oh man, that stain. I think Dolores the divorcee got her cigarette a little too close to her nighttime reading material...
• FIND THE SINNER is soooo tacked-on. It makes no sense, especially after the dramatic final ellipse on the cover copy. Also, was the sinner hiding? Psst ... she's right there.

Page 123~

As far as the eye could see there was whiteness.

Yep, that *does* sound like suburbia.

~RP

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Paperback 1026: Purless Sex Cat / Jon Basell (Compass Line CL 130)

Paperback 1026: Compass Line CL 130 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Purless Sex Cat
Author: Jon Basell
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $40-50

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I forced a bot to look at 1000 vintage sleaze paperback covers and then asked it to design a cover of its own. This is the result.
• What even is this? Any of this? It's like something from the Island of Dr. Moreau, but in book form. The colors? Terrible. The weird geometric shapes? Ridiculous. His torso looks like the face of drunk Homer Simpson. And then there's "Purless." Purless. Look, I don't know what happened here, but if this is Purless, then I say someone needs to Pur more. A lot more.
• The phrase is "sex kitten," you language-maiming Turing Test failure.
• Her ass is for "Adults Only," which seems totally reasonable, although I can't imagine why any non-deranged "minor" would want to buy this confusing trash heap.
• "From sex to limitless sex" is easily the greatest play on "from sea to shining sea" that ever was or will be.
• Dear lord, his cyan briefs will haunt my dreams for months.

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, they forgot to print the lead-in all-caps tagline, so there's that?
• This sentence has no beginning, no end, no purpose, no dignity, its erotic body never sated, demanding and loving rambling with commas and they too know from others that physical satisfaction is flitting from sex to sex in their ... RUTTING REVERIES
• Pink. I like the pink. Yes. It's pleasant. Like a nicely iced cupcake. 

Page 123~

     So I acted real helpless and weak while the skindiver helped me out of the water and on up the shore of the island. It was real comical the way his face got all red when he got a good look at how naked I was. Or maybe it was because he was naked, too.
     "Th-thank you," I gasped, while he got even redder and said that his camp was a few feet away and maybe some whiskey would make us both feel better."

Well I know some whiskey would make me feel better after that linguistic atrocity so byeeee

~RP

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Paperback 1025: Hot Harem / Jill Carr (Saber Books SA-107)

Paperback 1025: Saber Books SA-107 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Hot Harem
Author: Jill Carr
Cover artist: [Bill Edwards?] [uncredited]

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The coffee lady's mockumentary fourth-wall break is amazing
• "... whether tis nobler to make a choice for the bedroom or to eat ... something something outrageous fortune..."
• It's like the top half of blondie's body doesn't know what the bottom half's doing or vice versa
• You can almost hear cereal dude going "uhhhhhhhh...."
• Even the bacon is like "this is ridiculous, we're outta here!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Girl [space] friend. Interesting.
• LOL they can't even keep the spelling of Ann(e)'s name straight for one paragraph
• Wait, if Ann(e) is "somewhere between first and second choice" (?) ... well a. How many choices are involved? And b. Where does the horse fit into all of this?

Page 123~

I'm a Lesbian, she thought, amazed, but not horrified, yet not quite believing what she had to believe. Then she modified her own ... would you call it an accusation? And the brand burned more lightly; it didn't have to burn as deep. I'm heterosexual, Anne decided, and so is Jeanne.

Well, there's a lot to unpack here, but kudos to the writer for breaking out All The Punctuation Marks to heighten the tension. Ellipsis! Question mark! When I hit that semicolon, I was like "damn ... this is art."

~RP

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Paperback 1004: The Dark Chase / David Goodis (Lion 133)

Paperback 1004: Lion 133 (PBO, 1953)

Title: The Dark Chase (Nightfall)
Author: David Goodis
Cover artist: [Julian Paul]

Condition: 4/10
Estimated value: let's say $50

Best things about this cover:

• My god her radiant disappointment is glorious! He was supposed to take her someplace swell tonight, I bet.
• Fantastic contrast between the tagline and the picture: "100 Savage Hours ... of Johnny Cleancut Polishing His Gun"
• "Ed Harris and Audrey Totter are ... Bored in Peoria!"
• She has what Christa Faust calls "Bitch Eyebrows"—great ones—and I don't know what you call that 1/2 akimbo hipcock of exasperation, but it's working. Truly GGA (Great Girl Art)
• This is the third cover in my collection (so far) with the "Paul" signature. The first one was ... the very first paperback I ever wrote about.

Best things about this back cover:

• Yeah. *That's* the part of the front cover we all want to look at again.
• My name is Jim Vanning / I'm way into canning / You all won't believe / The great ketchup I'm planning.
• I have a gun ... I will use it on them, on the whole gang of them ... and I will use it in a box ... and I will use it on a fox ...
• Real talk: David Goodis is one of the titans of paperback noir and this book is a treasure. It's beat to fuck, but in the most aesthetically perfect and readable way. Quintessential, this one.

Page 123~

He splurged on a brocaded robe.

Ew.

~RP

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Paperback 997: The Mask on a Wanton's Torso / John Reade (Venus VV104)

Paperback 997: Venus Books VV104 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Mask on a Wanton's Torso*
Author: John Reade
Cover artist: a photographer in the anteroom of hell

Condition: 9/10
Estimated value: $20-ish

[newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Looking at this cover is about as close to watching a snuff film as I'll ever come. It's horrifying. I feel like the cameraman murdered her like five seconds after this shot was taken. Or else she was paid in heroin and sent back out into the snow dressed just like that. Most of my sleaze paperbacks are campy fun to look at. This one, no, not.
• If you burn that couch, hundreds of damned souls are unleashed into the world, to torture and haunt the living.
• "Here, put this on"—the world's most negligent art director
• Ah, the world of erotic nonsense phrases—so delicious. Lust game! Sin secret! Wanton's torso!?!?
• *You see how I put an asterisk by the title (up top)? That's because ... well, how to describe it? This book is unique, in my experience, in having a title on the cover that Does Not Match The Title On The Spine (which reads "The Mask *OF* the Wanton's Torso"(!?)). But it's uniqueness doesn't stop there. Forget two titles—this book .... Has Two Authors: WHO IS PHIL BOTNER?!

And the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• Stud Hunter! I think I own one of those.
• Shame event! Passion fling!  FLESH GAIETY!!! Beat that ... every other back cover sleaze copywriter.
• That's not how en dashes work.
• Yikes, even the line spacing on this is disgusting.

Page 123~ (brace yourself)

There was a door there. She could not remember how she had come upstairs. Frantically she opened it. There was only a tiny passageway, leading to another door. Frantically she thought it might be a back way down, down and out of this house.

Torn between laughing at Double Frantically and crying at the attempted poetry of that second "down,."

~RP

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