Paperback 782: Hearse Class Male / Frank Kane (Dell 3528)

Paperback 782: Dell 3528 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Hearse Class Male
Author: Frank Kane
Cover artist: Ron Lesser

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "No 'intimate touch' til you take those drapes off, kid. You look nuts."
• "Johnny, I'll do anything—" "Don't bother me, kid. Can't you see I'm smoking? Why don't you go dress up like Mrs. Claus and wait for me, alright?"
• I believe this to be the only paperback I own with a mystery torero on the cover.
• I am very pro- the little "Johnny Liddell" man icon. I strike that pose as often as possible.

Best things about this back cover:

• "An expert in his field—modernist poetry, surprisingly."
• Whole lotta nothing here.
• Lopez looks really weird in the possessive.

Page 123~

The fat man nodded complacently. "Agreed, sir."

~RP

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Paperback 708: Nightmare in Pink / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal d1682)

Paperback 708: Gold Medal d1682 (3rd ptg, 1966)

Title: Nightmare in Pink
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: [Ron Lesser]

Yours for: $7 (yeah, I paid only $3, but ... inflation/postage — his books are being rereleased in $14 trade paperbacks ... why, WHY would you buy those when you can get beat-up '60s-era stuff, which is much cooler *and* much cheaper?)


Best things about this cover:

• Really hate the turn cover art took in the '60s—toward text/branding, away from full-page cover art—and I associate MacDonald's books most closely with that trend, to the extent that I almost blame MacDonald personally. Over the years, the girls get smaller, while the whole MacDonald/McGee Brand swells up and dominates. Probably smart marketing. But sucky from a purely aesthetic perspective. 
• I do like the way Pink suffuses every corner of this thing.
• Her hair is, frankly, terrible. 

Best things about this back cover:

• It's bad enough you've shrunk her and made her all modest on the front—this bland-and-white corner punishment is just degrading. Even John D's like "C'mon guys. Too far."
• OK, I haven't read a sexier phrase than "sweetly wanton career girl, living alone in a Manhattan walk-up" in a Long time.
• Not sure what is meant in this context by "Cafe Society," but I would like to join.
• "And introducing ... LSD!"

Page 123~

Terry Drummond rapped at my door and I let her in. She wore fifteen thousand dollars worth of glossy fur coat. Her brown simian face wrinkled with distaste as she looked around. "God, what a scrimey hole!" The coat swung open.

This is the kind of passage that makes me wonder why I have not read more MacDonald than I have. Love it.

~RP

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Paperback 647: Bats Fly at Dusk / A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner) (Dell 0476)

Paperback 647: Dell 0476 (1st New Dell ed., 1963)

Title: Bats Fly at Dusk
Author: A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Ron Lesser

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Just woke up, or the latest style? Who can say?
• Bats Fly at Dusk ... Ladies Strip at Dawn.
• This cover has neither enough skin nor enough context to be interesting. 
• I know this will sound heretical, but I think the dress would be sexier *on* her.
• This book is close to immaculate. I just found a box full of (primarily) Gardner/Fair stuff. A reader graciously shipped it to me a while back, and I looked at its treasure, then set it aside, and forgot about it. So it's vintage paperback Christmas all over again.

Best things about this back cover:

• Is she standing in front of the silhouette of  ... a badge? A vase? A strawberry?
• I like how he's not sure about the age, but he's got the pounds down to a very precise number.
• Every time I pick up a Cool/Lam book, I say to myself, "Man, I really gotta read some of these again." And then other books intervene.

Page 123~

"I told Miss Jackson that if she wanted to stay on in the place alone the raise in rent wouldn't be effective. Miss Jackson really seems like a nice sort, exactly the type I like for tenants."

I'm a little worried for Miss Jackson.

~RP

Paperback 93: Darker Than Amber / John D. MacDonald (Gold Medal R1957)

Paperback 93: Gold Medal R1957 ([3rd ptg], [1968])
Title: Darker Than Amber
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Ron Lesser

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• "He'd seen a lot of girls, but nobody ... DARKER THAN AMBER"
• Not surprisingly, this book has some racial issues (see back cover)
• OK, is her name Amber, or is she just "amber-eyed?" And I thought you said "Darker than Amber." What gives?
• I'm pretty sure it's an impossibility, or at least a paradox, if your "lily-white maiden" has "round heels."
• This girl is deep in the middle of a boob-pointing contest - the object: stand on your tiptoes, and then point your boobs toward the sky without falling over. Closest to straight heavenward wins. She's working on a 45 degree angle here (not bad).

Best things about this back cover:

• His pictures says: "What do you goons want?" or "Yes, I'm Professor McGrady. Can I help you?" Or "That damned roof is leaking again" or "How about now? Do I look like Popeye now?"
• A "Wounded Spook" is not (thank god) what it sounds like.
• "She chunked into the water..." That's more detail than I need.
• Technically, at the end of that second paragraph, "cop" should have quotation marks around it. I'm just sayin'.
• "Eurasian beauty" - awesome. We just don't have this rich, insane racial vocabulary anymore. Now ... we have three possibilities for the meaning of "Amber" - her eyes, her name, and her skin.
• "... a heart like an ancient gutter"??! Full of ... relics? Vomit from the many vomitoria? Maybe if she gave up chunking into the water ...

~PAGE 123

"She was about twenty-five?"
"Twenty-six."
"What did she do?"
"She'd been a prostitute for twelve years."
Merrimay's brown eyes widened. "My word, that's quite an early start, isn't it?"

~RP

The Great Paperback Project - Paperback 4: Gold Medal k1405

Paperback 4: Gold Medal k1405 (unknown, but not a true PBO, 1964)

Title: The Deep Blue Good-By
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: Ron Lesser (unconfirmed)

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

This seems as good a place as any to talk about the demise of the mass market paperback as a species of popular art. Compare this cover to the last two paperbacks I have featured - the late 50's Gold Medals - and you can see instantly some major differences, none of them good from an artistic standpoint (but very good - crucial - from a marketing standpoint). We see the cover art, formerly the showpiece of the paperback cover, now relegated to a mere artistic gesture, an afterthought, as the author's name and Travis McGee's mug get special highlighting. Note how the girl, and even the title, sort of blend into the purplish background, while the author's name and the McGee portrait pop out because of the use of white. Gold Medal is discovering the secret to book merchandising. Art is nice and all, but we are gonna sell books by name recognition and branding - put the author's name front and center and then create a re-usable icon, rather than an original work of art, to represent the work visually. The girl is nice eye candy, but drawn to a scale too small to be truly hot. Next time you see best-sellers out at Barnes & Noble or wherever, note how many (Danielle Steele, Stephen King, etc.) have the author's name superbig, and maybe even a full-page photograph of the author on the back. Authors' names sell books - hot cover art does not (or not as much - it sells books to dorks like me, but there aren't enough me's in the world to keep a publisher solvent).

So advances in marketing mean disasters in artistry. Brand and replicate. Brand and replicate. It's the fast food model of marketing. Consistency. Familiarity. From a book lover's / collector's standpoint, it's all a bit sad.

John D. MacDonald is one of the first real stars - big sellers - of the P.I. genre, and he has his many, many fans, though I'm not exactly one of them. His plotting is good, but he overwrites, and doesn't have an authorial voice I find appealing. This book is the first in the very popular Travis McGee series. Here's a link to a gallery of covers of John MacDonald's other paperback books.

RP