Paperback 1132: Mercedes / Carl Demarco (Midwood 33-714)

 Paperback 1132: Midwood 33-714 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Mercedes

Author: Carl Demarco

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 6/10

Value: $11

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• The long-awaited sequel to Hyundai.
• So ... she discovered that there was a staircase as well as an elevator? Exciting.
• I wish she filled more of the frame—so much more of the frame that the dope who's looking at her got pushed right out. There is a long tradition of "cardboard-cutout dude who is there only to ogle the hot woman" in paperback art, but this guy may be the cardboard-cutoutiest. She's so bored by him that she's turned to us for help.
• Her hair is perfect. The rest of her is pretty good too. I know I'm meant to look at her ass, but I kinda wish I could see the whole dress.
• I would lose my fucking mind if I spent more than three minutes in a room this color. So relentlessly This Color.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Just a B&W version of the cover?? The look and tone of both the art and the cover copy are so weary and half-hearted that I feel like that final line should read "[Sigh] Yet Another Midwood Original (We're Out Of Ideas)"
• I keep looking at her right hand to see if it has the correct number of fingers. There's something slightly ... mangled about it.
• "Penetrating"? OK, easy there, copy guy.
• "With whom"? Well, la-di-dah, copy guy.

Page 123~

    With a strange urgency, she passed her hands over her body—nude beneath the sheets—as if to reassure herself that she was all there, intact [!], that she hadn't left a part of herself with the sensuous Suzanne!

"My left kneecap ... Where's My Left Kneecap!? Curse your lesbian witchery, Suzanne!"

~RP

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Paperback 509: So Wicked My Love / Bruno Fischer (Gold Medal s1110)

Paperback 509: Gold Medal s1110 (3rd ptg, 1961)

Title: So Wicked My Love
Author: Bruno Fischer
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I know there's a naked lady on the cover, and I do love naked ladies, but oh my god all I can think about is that awesome chair and how I want to have it right now.
• I don't normally like photo covers all that much—I started collecting these things for the *art*, after all—but I do like the design on this one. It's like an updated "keyhole" cover—so I can feel like a modern peeping tom, with my telescope / binoculars / James Bond spying device.
• She has double coy-hand. It's very weird. I hope those are throw pillows she's holding against her, because it kinda looks like she's clutching a dirty, gaudy bathmat.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, nothing. Come on, Gold Medal!
• Ah ... Cherry. Now I get the red background thingie on the cover.
• She's pert, like a deadly cobra. You know, the rare Pert Cobra of Pensacola.
• This isn't even good bad prose. It's just bad. Bruno Fischer deserves better!

Page 123~

She turned her head to her husband, who was pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pants. "Frankie, honey, would you mind leaving us alone?"  

He looked at her in that blue cotton robe clinging to her flesh. "Yeah," he said, "I mind."

~RP

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