Paperback 784: Mac Bird! / Barbara Garson (Evergreen Black Cat BC-132)

Paperback 784: Evergreen Black Cat BC-132 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: Mac Bird!
Author: Barbara Garson
Cover artist: [Lisa Lyons]

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• I … don't know what this is. Hang on. OK, here we go—from wikipedia:

MacBird! is a 1967 satire by Barbara Garson that superimposed the transferral of power following the Kennedy assassination onto the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Thus John F. Kennedy becomes "Ken O'Dunc", Lyndon Johnson becomes "MacBird", Lady Bird Johnson becomes "Lady MacBird", and so forth. As Macbeth assassinates Duncan, so MacBird is responsible for the assassination of Ken O'Dunc; and as Macbeth is defeated by Macduff, so MacBird is defeated by Robert O'Dunc (i.e. Robert Kennedy). This action is significantly influenced by the Three Witches, representing Students, Blacks, and Leftists.

• Is he green because … Scottish people … are green?
• Love the cowboy boot / kilt combo.
• I don't remember foot-jousting in Macbeth.

Best things about this back cover:

• I like how they made it seem as if LBJ were blurbing this thing. But otherwise, just a bunch of quotes. Moving on.

Page 123~

The EARL OF WARREN, carrying the crown, stand next to KEN O'DUNC. The "Hallelujah Chorus" plays in the back ground as he speaks.

~RP

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Paperback 726: New Orleans Lady / Viña Delmar (Avon 209)

Paperback 726: Avon 209 (PBO, 1949)

Title: New Orleans Lady
Author: Viña Delmar
Cover artist: [Bernie] Barton

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The cover of Latex Fetish Monthly, June 1949
• I love a title written in Whorehouse font.
• Her breasts are like some kind of fancy little cupcake.
• Cover's pretty boring, but if you stare at it long enough, it gets a little creepy. Dude looks like something Charles Burns would draw.

And now the back cover…

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare's like "Hey … 'sup?"
• If you sing "Eulalie" to the tune of "Layla," it kind of works.

Page 123~

She passed her hand tiredly over her forehead. "Please, Lorenz, go away. I must rest. One of my headaches—"

"Go away indeed! I'll cure your headache." He threw a glance toward Septembre. "I have news."

"I'll cure your headache." HA ha. Oh, Lorenz, you're the date-rapiest!

P.S. Septembre

~RP

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Paperback 500: Gladiator / Philip Wylie (Avon 216)

Paperback 500 (!): Avon 216 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Gladiator
Author: Philip Wylie
Cover artist: uncredited student of the male physique

Yours for: $11

Best things about this cover:

• Hugo was very self-conscious about his gigantic red nipples.
• Mr Clean: The Innocent Years
• Sorry, ladies—this genie is happy to grant wishes. Just not yours.
• This cover is one of Avon's experimental "cut-out dolls" series—putting ladies' heads on Steve's well-oiled, musclebound torso provides hours (or at least minutes) of family fun.

Best things about this back cover:

• Lusty and Vigorous! Shakespeare approves. "Quite!"
• "Huh, I can sleep with any woman I want, but somehow it's not satisfying. I wonder what the problem is ... I'm going down to muscle beach to see what the other shirtless guys think."
• "Complete love for Hugo however was hidden behind a closed door"—It Sure Was

Page 123~

Mr. Shayne chuckled. "Some of my spears were already made into plows, and it was a great season for the harvest, young man—a great season."

"We aren't talking about farming anymore, are we Mr. Shayne?" squeaked Hugo.

~RP

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Paperback 485: Rage in Heaven / James Hilton (Avon [39])

Paperback 485: Avon [39] (unnumbered) (1st ptg, 1943)

Title: Rage in Heaven
Author: James Hilton
Cover artist: Uncredited (I have "Gonzales" written on the tag ... don't know why)

Yours for: $14

Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, nice uraeus" (try saying that to the next pretty lady you see — see where it gets you)
• For a very early paperback, this one is unusually realistic (and sexy) in its depiction of the female form. You don't start seeing real GGA (Good/Great Girl Art) until the late '40s. In the early years of mass market paperbacks, the cover art tends to be more abstract, or more in the vein of magazine illustration. Paperbacks were still concerned with aligning themselves with good (i.e. edifying, or at least inoffensive) books. The selling power of the Lurid had not yet impressed itself on the paperback sellers of America. It didn't take long.
• Looks like that soft shoe guy is getting zapped by the laser goggles of some space monster.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare Head Say: Reading is GOOD for you.
• Wartime book. Wartime message. 

Page 123~

She felt then that he, Ward, was her husband, and that Philip, weak and puny on the bed in the next room, was their child, whom they had watched over and tended together. 

That's some awkward role-playing game they've got going there.

~RP

57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 17

Title: Stratford-Upon-Avon — Illustrated Guide Book (1933)
Author: n/a
Cover artist: no

Yours for: SOLD (11/21/09)

• I bought this exclusively for the maps, both the cover map an the (sizable) fold-out area map inside (immaculate).
• Lots of photos / maps inside, and huge chunks of advertising in front and back, including one for "Dr. J. Collis Browne's Chlorodyne — safe and reliable family remedy for INFLUENZA, coughs, colds, catarrh, asthma, bronchitis." Also something called "diarrhœa"!

• "Foreign Orders Receive Prompt Attention" — that's code! It's a papist plot! Man your punts!

Page 123~

GLOUCESTER is a busy city with none of the placid charm of Tewkesbury, but it has many features of interest.

~RP

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