Paperback 934: My Gun Is Quick / Mickey Spillane (Signet 791)

Paperback 934: Signet 791 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: My Gun Is Quick
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Lou Kimmel

Estimated value: $4-7

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is what all vintage paperbacks should look like—authentically beat to fuck.
• People really read Spillane. To pieces.
• I love the male fear hand! Gender equity!

Best things about this back cover:

• The *Hammer* mystery will *hit* me? Stellar wordplay, copy guy.
• I feel like they should be "seductively-lit" apartments. Not "-lighted." Hey, copy guy...
• Damn, that Spillane portrait is olden. I'm used to the buzz-cut, t-shirted, gun-wielding dude. This dude:

Page 123~

Finally she said, "The baby clothes, Mike . . . it fits!"

Mike, now wearing a onesie, wondered how he would ever regain his dignity.

~RP

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Paperback 811: Vengeance Is Mine / Mickey Spillane (Signet D2116)

Paperback 811: Signet D2116 (44th ptg, undated [1962])

Title: Vengeance Is Mine
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Uh … I doubt it.

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• It's pretty icky all around. Not sure why this hasn't been relegated to some dank cardboard box of "extras" in my basement. That said, I'm kind of fascinated by how ugly it is.
• It's like someone was noodling with a prehistoric version of Photoshop, and then realized "no one's going to care anyway," and then just sent this weird silhouette thing into the editor. Neither the silhouette nor the naked lady is large enough to be compelling. Maybe if she were doing something more than blandly standing there as if waiting for a director to shout "Action!" 
• Purple font for some reason!

Best things about this back cover:

• Without the lady inside him, he looks like he *just* got bit on his left hip by some kind of flying insect. Insect-swatting hand!
• "How many different font sizes can we squeeze in here?" "Shouldn't there be some rationale to the varied font sizes?" "[Blank stare]" …
• Copywriter is perversely fond of compound adjectives. "Action-tough" and "bullet-sparked" are meaningless. I'll give him "lead-riddled" as slightly apt, but "forty-million-copy bestselling" is an ungainly beast. 

Page 123~

My fingers were hurting her and I couldn't help it. "I want you to say it, Mike. You've played games with so many women I won't be sure until I hear you say it yourself. Tell me."

That first sentence is very telling. Mike's love and Mike's violence have a disconcerting resemblance.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 567: The Whipping Boy / S.E. Pfoutz (Popular Library 821)

Paperback 567: Popular Library 821 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Whipping Boy
Author: S.E. Pfoutz
Cover artist: that guy that did a lot of Popular Library covers in the '50s ... always wore a shirt ...

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• The tragic stair-falling scene from Mickey Spillane's final novel: "Mike Hammer: The Big Knee Replacement"
• Meanwhile, in the background: "I'd like to cross your color line, baby." "I ... don't know what that means. Please leave." "Oh, alright. Hey, do you think I'm OK to drive? Here, smell my breath, haaaaaaaaaaaah..."
• I feel like the author's name is some kind of code I'm supposed to break.
• This is the most unracial racial cover ever. "Did we say 'color line'? We meant big, bold primary colors—the blue THE, the red WHIPPING ... it's about a boy who likes to make whipped cream. Why do you have to make everything about race?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I ... I can't decide. Do I stay with midget Vulcan or run off with black Jerry Seinfeld?"
• "A talented young Negro," HA ha. "Wow, you are really good at being Negro."
• Why would you go with "piercingly honest" when "frank" is so much more concise? "Frank" novels should just call themselves "frank" and quit hiding behind these flowery euphemisms. This message brought to you by Proud Frank Americans for Frankness. Thank you.

Page 123~

"Don't get funny with me, lover boy," said the creature, leering. "I know your kind from way back."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]