Paperback 559: The Promoter / Orrie Hitt (Beacon Books 142)

Paperback 559: Beacon Books BB142 (PBO, 1957)

Title: The Promoter
Author: Orrie Hitt
Cover artist: Walter Popp

Yours for: $20
Best things about this cover:

• "So ... you're here for the free Tai Chi lesson?"
• I love his smugfuck face: "What can I say? It's like the tagline says, I love my work."
• I like her. I really hope she takes all his money and leaves him tied up and half-naked in that room.
• Love the trash can peeking out from around the corner. Just in case you thought this story was classy.
• "On the surface she was all smooth legs and orange sweaters, but deep down inside, she was ... the Teen Temptress of Trash Town."

Best things about this back cover:

• ZZZZZZZddZZZzzzzZZZZZZZap!
• Oh, you crazy kids and your cellar clubs (!?!).
• "Cellar club" sounds like a serial killer's euphemism for "place where I keep the bones of my victims."
• "His best weapons were women ... sure, they're a little cumbersome, but once you learn to swing one you can do some Serious damage."

Page 123~

Nothing further was known about her until she had appeared in the city, five years previously, and had set herself up in the model agency business. Her credit rating vouched for the fact that she had been successful—No one had any outstanding bills against her. Her association with Andy Willis who, by the way, was from Billings, Montana, had been a routine thing.

People forget there was a time in American history when being from Billings, Montana was considered fascinating and exciting, possibly because that time never actually existed.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 471: Model for Murder / Stephen Marlowe (Graphic 94)

Paperback 471: Graphic 94 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Model for Murder
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Cover artist: Walter Popp

Yours for: $16

Best things about this cover:

• I have no idea what these people are up to, but that cigarette and that cigar are getting it on.
• Finally, a taut thriller about the exciting, dangerous world of copyediting.
• Steve is puzzled to find that his meticulously researched paper, "Broads: Stacked vs. Unstacked," merits only a B-. "I don't think I understand this whole 'Women's Studies' thing, Bernie."

Best things about this back cover:

• Kinsey!
• Out-Kinseyed Kinsey! "Screw this survey stuff, let's just install hidden cameras."
• Lady wrestlers! Be still my heart.
• Talk about ... Pop Grujdzak. Talk about ... Pop Grujdzak.
• If I had to invent a stupid-sounding last name, and had several days to do it, I still couldn't beat Wompler.

Page 123~

The clothing was Ken's naturally, and as I dressed and tested the stiffness in my left arm, I began to wonder. The arm couldn't have punched its way through a wet Kleenex tissue.

So ... he dresses up like Barbie's boyfriend and he has a lot of experience testing the tensile strength of wet Kleenex. He sounds dreamy.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 445: The Dispossessed / Geoffrey Wagner (Beacon B210)

Paperback 445: Beacon B 210 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Dispossessed
Author: Geoffrey Wagner
Cover artist: Uncredited [Walter Popp]

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Nice variation on the tormented gay man pose. Love his expression: "Uh ... Christ, what am I supposed to do with this?"
• Actually, I think he's just applying product to his hair, using a mirror we can't see, just off-screen.
• She's in one of those impossible poses where she appears to be looking at something/someone (namely, Confused Neanderthal there) she could not possibly see, given his position / the laws of physics. Maybe the dude is a ghost and she's really eying some hunky guy who just walked into her hotel room.
• Two continents!? TWO!? No way ...

Best things about this back cover:

• I see that it's unblushingly told, but is it frank? That's really all I want to know.
• Love how the blurbs are a. miniscule, b. in not-terribly-contrastive font color, and c. insanely brief—I imagine they were culled from terrible reviews, i.e. "This novel gave me a POWERFUL headache" or "the author shows a REMARKABLE TALENT for shallow characterization and hackneyed turns of phrase."

Page 123~

"How was Klee?" she asked.

"Okay. The opposing bloke turned out to be my old school fag."

Wow, your school gave you your very own fag? Lucky...

Seriously, does "fag" mean "chum?" I've never seen that usage before ... well, what d'ya know? There's my answer:

1. A student at a British public school who is required to perform menial tasks for a student in a higher class.
2. A drudge.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 298: Call Me Deadly / Hal Braham (Graphic 152)

Paperback 298: Graphic 152 (PBO, 1957)
Title: Call Me Deadly
Author: Hal Braham
Cover artist: Walter Popp

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Nearly everything — this is late 50s paperback gold. Love the weird cropping provided by the ornate frame, and then again by the beaded curtain! Then there's Fabulous Girl Art (killer dress), jazz guitar, mystery hand w/ gun, Broderick Crawford lookalike with fat cigar ... all in a tight, barely read paperback.
• The title is awesome in inverse proportion to the cover painting's awesomeness, i.e. the title is a sad, unimaginative rip-off of a Mickey Spillane title (movie version of which came out just a couple years before this novel). Paint brush font on "Deadly" is kind of cool, though.
• Love Graphic Novels for their (frequent) crediting of the cover artist on the publishing info page, though here you can actually see the artist's signature (right under "25c").
• Gun/vagina proximity here is oddly common. Here's a variation. There will be more. Maybe I should make "guncrotch" a label... oh, wait, it already is.

Best things about this back cover:

• See that red dot separating the paragraphs? It's like it was drilled into the cover with a bore. Deeply embossed. Weird as it sounds, it's the first thing about this cover that caught my eye.
• Love their dockside dancing! Put any energetic music on your iTunes and then look at this painting. They are totally dancing. Nothing else can explain what she's doing with her left hand (mysterious hand gestures ... seems like a recurrent theme).
• I love how the cover copy starts out campy and ends up in nearly incoherent lunacy.
• "... between them, an unholy shadow murmured: 'There's no way you can tightrope walk in that dress, Gini ... Go on, I dare you ...'"

Page 123~

She said finally, "So this is the lion's den. What do you do with your spare time, Dillon?"

I shrugged. "I have the television for sport, there are books and records. It depends."

"Gets a bit monotonous, doesn't it?"

"It does," I admitted.

This is like the "Don't" column from a 1950's "How To Pick Up Hot Chicks" manual.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]