Paperback 876: Lie Down, Killer / Richard Prather (Gold Medal s1166)

Paperback 876: Gold Medal s1166 (5th ptg, 1962)

Title: Lie Down, Killer
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Estimated value: $6-10

Best things about this cover:

• Good boy. Stay.
• Dude's "Down Dog" sucks.
• She has awesome Disappointment Face.
• We've seen this book before, under different cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• Aw, man, it's even got the same back cover copy as the last version
• Apparently this is the story of a man who got a police badge tattooed on his penis, which then got infected. Edgy.
• This book should've been called "Ask Margo" or "That Woman Gag."

Page 123~

They both laughed loudly and then Gross said to Steve, "Doesn't that convince you, jerk?"
Steve said nothing.

Then Steve retorted, "Yeah? Well, you're gross! hahahahahaha…" Then they shot Steve in the face The End.

~RP

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Paperback 494: The Meandering Corpse / Richard S. Prather (Pocket Books 50292)

Paperback 494: Pocket Books 50292 (1st ptg, 1966)

Title: The Meandering Corpse
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8

Best things about this cover:

• "I feel like I've got something on my back, but I can't see it, and can't quite reach it. Do you see anything?"
• This is how they mark blondes after a flood so that you know there's no one left living inside.
• I'll buy that she's a corpse, but I see nothing that suggests meandering. Primping topless while seated in a spotlight is not "meandering."
• Shell Scott was so popular he got his own Head icon. He and Mike Shayne are the only dicks I can think of who got this honor, though I'm sure there are more.

Best things about this back cover:

• You had me at "Zazu."
• I did not know that birds climbed ladders.
• I'm unsure of the implications of this conversation. Is he saying she oughta be 18 before skinny-dipping? Are women more inclined to skinny-dip as they get older? Shell seems oddly judgmental. Either that, or he just likes 'em a bit more mature. "Call me when you're 45, toots."

Page 123~

"I squeezed the steering wheel tight in my fists and jammed my foot down on the accelerator, jammed it all the way down and left it there."

"Must get home .... can't ... miss ... 'America's Next Top Model'!"

~RP

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2 books handed to me at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Book 1

Doug Peterson handed me two books during the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament last weekend. He's a crossword constructor, and a regular reader of this blog. As you'll see, he has a good eye for quality paperback product. To wit:

Title: The Scrambled Yeggs (GM 770, 2nd ptg, '59)
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Barye Phillips, I think

Yours for: Not For Sale


There are two things and two things only to say about this cover:

1. YEGGS!
2. SPANKING!

Hot on two counts.

• I'm with him 'til "plastic surgery," where the metaphor (simile, I guess) goes south for me. One of the things I like about vintage women (by which I mean the kinds of women that vintage paperbacks tend to showcase) is that they come from a time before plastic surgery started making (some) women look like scary clowns.
• "I'm broad-minded" = gold.
• Always good to close with a Whitesnake lyric

Page 123~

In the car, I put the gun on the seat to my right and pulled away from the curb. And I was hoping that the same guys who got Kelly would come after me. Those boys needed killing bad and right then I felt ready, willing and able — and maybe even a little eager.

Shell Scott, doing his best Mike Hammer impression (Scott is funnier and less frightening)

~RP

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Paperback 290: Dagger of Flesh / Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal s1157)

Paperback 290: Gold Medal s1157 (4th ptg, 1961)

Title: Dagger of Flesh
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: no idea

Yours for: not for sale (gift of Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• As I told Doug the first time he showed this to me: "Dagger of Flesh ... well, that wouldn't be very effective. It would buckle on you every time you tried to use it."
• At first I thought I was looking at a drug-addled couple sitting/lying on a bed. Then I realized they were sitting/lying on the neck of a donkey.
• Why are the man's hands bound by the wimple of a snow leopard with an Asian lady's face?
• I imagine that these two look as wasted as the artist must have been when conceiving / executing this painting.
• Trite tagline! Come on, copy writers! Shell deserves better.

Best things about this back cover:

• Op Art! I am getting dizzy...
• "Like I had no control over my brain" — been there. Am there, frequently.
• "Maybe I did kill Jay" — now now. No one wants to kill Jay himself. Just his mediocre new show.

Page 123~

This is the day, Logan, I thought. Today you get even, maybe. Today you find out what the hell's been going on and fix some bastard's wagon, if you're lucky.

"Fix some bastard's wagon" is pure awesome. I have to start using wagon-fixing as a metaphor for revenge. For real.

~RP

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Paperback 289: Kill Him Twice / Richard S. Prather (Pocket Books 55025)

Paperback 289: Pocket Books 55025 (6th ptg, 1968)

Title: Kill Him Twice
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: Schlocky Crapperson

Yours for: Not For Sale (gift of Doug Peterson)


Best things about this cover:

• Well, it's yellow. With orange font. That's pretty original.
• Her hair ... her hair ... it's OK, until it gets over her elbow, and then it becomes something unrecognizable, bordering on unholy. Are those dead stoats hanging off her head? A dirty bathmat? A skein of brownish yarn.
• It appears that Pocket couldn't afford to pay cover artists any more, and so had to resort to picking old sketches and doodles out of the waste baskets and passing them off as art. Here, we see the partial remains of "Artist practicing drawing a dead guy."
• "I said 'Kill him twice,' not "Kill him and a guy who looks just like him!'"

Best things about this back cover:

• Nice big gun hand. Can't ask for much else.

Page 123~

They were lips that said hello and were warm friends two seconds later, carrying on a conversation Cassanova would have censored, carrying on a dialogue to bring dead libidoes back from limbo, carrying on a bedroomy hoo-hah in hot, hushed whispers—man, how they carried on.

I think "hoo-hah" means something different from what I thought it meant.

~RP

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Paperback 195: Slab Happy / Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal s817)

Paperback 195: Gold Medal s817 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Slab Happy
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Wow, this is a mess. The floating / severed head seems astonished to see the Men in Black Coroners at the heart of that blue nebula. Meanwhile, Shell Scott just looks ... is that a sneer? A grimace? A leer?
• Seriously, it's like a kindergartener designed this cover. A morbid kindergartener.
• I'm not sure the middle of an autopsy is a good time to go on about your sex/death fantasies, Shell.

Best things about this back cover:

• I admire Shell Scott's writing, but this cover copy is a can of corn.
• Again with the sex/death nexus. You're creepin' me out, Shell.
• My great uncle died in the great Shell Scott fever epidemic of 1957
• "Newest" and "Latest" being the newest and latest in "words"

Page 123~

"The character you call Mr. Worthington is known to crookdom as Viper. He is a hood, a punk, a parasite on the anatomy of society, biting deeply."

~RP

PS just found this Fantastic cartoon folded up and shoved inside this novel:

Paperback 192: Strip for Murder / Richard S. Prather (Gold Medal 508)

Paperback 192: Gold Medal 508 (PBO, 1955)
Title: Strip for Murder
Author: Richard S. Prather
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The picture does Not deliver on the promise of the tagline. No invasion. No nudity. Come on!
• What are these people doing? He looks dead, or asleep. He's under a blanket but he's still got his stupid trench coat on, and she appears to be wearing a tablecloth. Is she trying to get him to shut up? Is he licking ... something ... off her fingers? Would reading the book help me understand?
• Seriously, they couldn't be more unnude if they tried. Rip-off.
• Love the semi-arbitrary sales figure: 3, 937, 652. Pocket Books went through a phase where it printed the alleged sales figures on every book.
• I had no idea Prather sold that well. He's not well known anymore except among die-hard fans of vintage crime fiction, to whom he is a minor legend. His stories are known for wackiness and comedy, and I have to say, the parts I've read are pretty damned funny, though much of the humor seems to derive from the apparently inherently funny premise of group nudity. I went looking to see what other Prather I had, and the first one I picked up was "Gat Heat," which opens with Shell Scott "invading" a pool party ... where everyone is naked. At least the lady on the cover of that one is wearing a bikini - that's at least close to naked. I can't forgive our cover's lack of skin. It's shameful, really.

Best things about this back cover:

• Why is she holding the door handle as if it were a writing implement?
• "Migawd!"
• "... an eye as private as a telescope ..." - is that very private or not-at-all private?
• "Tomato" is one of my favorite bits of bygone slang. Up there with "gams."

Page 123~

Man, these characters had a lot of energy - swimming, croquet, tag - but at least it all looked normal

Yeah, you hate to see abnormal croquet. That'll turn your hair white.

~RP