Paperback 1139: Impervious to Pain / David Malcolm (Venus Library V-1070-T)

Paperback 1139: Venus Library V-1070-T (PBO, 1972)

Title: Impervious to Pain

Author: David Malcolm

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10

Value: $25-30

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• What's the opposite of "sans serif"?
• I can feel that bed cover, as well as those curtains, and it's not pleasant. I'm starting to itch.
• I cannot tell a lie, that is fantastic underwear. Not the boring nightgown—the orange paisleyesque panties. This cover is dead without them. Even the cat o' nine tails wouldn't be able to save it from the overwhelming motel beige.
• The subtitle of this book is "Case Studies in Sado-masochism." Improbably, it looks virtually unread.

Best things about this back cover: 

• So much text, much of it deeply troubling. For instance, "slave" and "salve" on the same back cover? My brain hates it. And "moist"!? Worse, "Moist, most," one right after the other. It's like this back cover copy is running its fingernails down the blackboard of my mind.
• This book runs somewhat outside my normal collecting time frame parameters (i.e. it's post-1970), and it is (therefore?) way more explicit, both inside and out, than most of the "sleaze" books I own. 
• "Quiver" twice!? I'm telling you: nails + chalkboard.
• "Her moist, most sensitive parts" and "his naked masculinity" are somehow both much sillier and much dirtier-sounding than their more straightforward, less euphemistic counterparts. 

Page 123~

Then she flipped her long almost air-tight skirt over her head, saying, "And if you have trouble breathing down there, I'll like that, too."

Never mind the seemingly impossible logistics of "flipping" an "air-tight skirt" over your head, this is a great line. A colorful detail. A fantastic bit of dialogue. I legitimately laughed out loud.

~RP

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Paperback 1042: Bartered Mates / Thomas K. Makagon (Unique Books 144)

Paperback 1042: Unique Books 144 (PBO, 1967)

Title: Bartered Mates
Author: Thomas K. Makagon
Cover artist: that guy ... I always forget his name ... one of you will tell me (Bill Alexander)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: a lot

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• I keep reading "Battered Meats"
• Get it on! Bang a gong! Makagon!
• The pointing lady is the best. We don't even get to see her face. Just her amazing get-up and pointing arm. "J'accuse!" "Koochy koochy koo!" "Where Are This Man's Damned Nipples!?"
• I really dig The Couch Of Impossible Boobs
• If you look at his left foot too long you will be cursed. I have warned you.
• This book is bizarrely rare. I searched ["bartered mates" makagon] and got TWO HITS TOTAL

Best things about this back cover:

• I've seen worse cover copy, but not much worse. I do like the manic use of "—" there in the first paragraph. "Is it a happening, a trend, or a switch ... ? ... fuck it, let's just go with all of the above!"
• Why is there a comma after "delectable" in paragraph 2!?! Truly, I am bothered far more by punctuation minutiae than by the preposterous cheesiness of it all.
• OK the first sentence of paragraph 2 is utterly ungrammatical (although LOL at "brain child" quote unquote)
• Shouldn't it be "a between-pictures diversion" OK I'll stop now.
• "... the private threats of enjoyed and accepted female aggression" like, try to wrap your head around that. If it's "accepted" how is it a "threat," and to what? Dudes like being whipped by ladies. That's pretty much the end of the story.
• "MASTERLY POWERS OF FEMALE DOMINATION" was what was written on Jessica Fletcher's business card (or should've been)

Page 123~

Don finished his drink and set it on the dresser, then walked over to the edge of the bed he reached down to the back of her thighs, gently separated them and commenced to kiss the small of her back. His tongue went to her pink lined crease. Slowly he flicked it downward until he had gone as far as he  could go, then pushing her thighs upward, he held her almost on her head. He kept moving downward gradually, pushing her upward. When he found the desired spot, Roxana moaned through her fallen hair. He then shoved her backwards until she was on her back in an opposite direction. Now, he could feel her mouth covering him as they clasped each other's passionate bodies tightly.

Ok so this is terrible in so many ways but I'm stuck back on "pink lined crease" (sic). Is her lined crease pink, or is her crease pink-lined? And which crease are we talking about? Further, where did his tongue go? Where did her thighs go? Downward? Upward? "An opposite direction"? It looks like they end up in 69 at the end, but I feel like maybe that was just a lucky accident?

~RP

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Paperback 685: Swapping Society / Jack Woods (Corsair Books 216)

Paperback 685: Corsair Books 216 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Swapping Society
Author: Jack Woods
Cover artist: Uncredited. Feels like somebody famous, but I can't remember his name... [possibly Bill Ward or Gene Bilbrew or Eric Stanton]

Yours for: Not for Sale [part of the Doug Peterson Collection]


Best things about this cover:

• Glenda will not have her magnificent buttcheeks upstaged by some young hippie's perky rack. Back to the dorms with you and your left boob, Missy.
• How is this vampire different from all other vampires? Well, Missy, she's about to show you.
• Not sure how this cover can be so sexed-up and yet feel so dull. It's like people dressed for an orgy but decided to reenact a routine medical exam instead.
• Behold this imprint! I'd never even heard of Corsair until Doug handed me this book last weekend. Skull & crossbones = righteous.

Best things about this back cover:

• A lesbian dominatrix who's into BDSM? That's what's called hitting the alt.sex jackpot, paperbackwise.
• Ha ha, "You." Gotta love second-person cover copy. It's like a Choose Your Own Adventure (which ... would be ... the greatest thing ever ...).
• "Plunge Into the Aberrant Happenings" should be some state's motto. Nebraska? I'm looking at you...
• And the winner of all typos is .... [drum roll] ... UNCERTAINTLY! Pick up your check at the door, buddy. You earned it!

Page 123~

"They let's go, darling," Linda whispered, smearing her wet lips over his cheek. "I need a real man to take care of me—as hot as I am right now. And I'm sure you can do the job with flying colors."

Sorry, Linda, you lost me at "smearing."

~RP

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Paperback 567: The Whipping Boy / S.E. Pfoutz (Popular Library 821)

Paperback 567: Popular Library 821 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Whipping Boy
Author: S.E. Pfoutz
Cover artist: that guy that did a lot of Popular Library covers in the '50s ... always wore a shirt ...

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• The tragic stair-falling scene from Mickey Spillane's final novel: "Mike Hammer: The Big Knee Replacement"
• Meanwhile, in the background: "I'd like to cross your color line, baby." "I ... don't know what that means. Please leave." "Oh, alright. Hey, do you think I'm OK to drive? Here, smell my breath, haaaaaaaaaaaah..."
• I feel like the author's name is some kind of code I'm supposed to break.
• This is the most unracial racial cover ever. "Did we say 'color line'? We meant big, bold primary colors—the blue THE, the red WHIPPING ... it's about a boy who likes to make whipped cream. Why do you have to make everything about race?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I ... I can't decide. Do I stay with midget Vulcan or run off with black Jerry Seinfeld?"
• "A talented young Negro," HA ha. "Wow, you are really good at being Negro."
• Why would you go with "piercingly honest" when "frank" is so much more concise? "Frank" novels should just call themselves "frank" and quit hiding behind these flowery euphemisms. This message brought to you by Proud Frank Americans for Frankness. Thank you.

Page 123~

"Don't get funny with me, lover boy," said the creature, leering. "I know your kind from way back."

~RP

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Paperback 555: The Saracen Blade / Frank Yerby (Cardinal C-124)

Paperback 555: Cardinal C-124 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Saracen Blade
Author: Frank Yerby
Cover artist: James Meese

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Steve was quick to anger when people insulted his empty-swimming-pool harem. "It's a spatial commentary on the ways the traffic in women occludes ... oh you did *not* just roll your eyes at me! En garde!" 
• Steve erupted in anger when the judge of the No T-shirt Contest gave him only a 5.
• MC Hammer closes in on the man who stole his pants. "Please, Hammer ... don't hurt me."
• There is a paperback cover phenomenon I call "black hand"—it's a subset of "mystery hand." The mysterious / exotic Other reaches in from the margins ... oh you did *not* just roll your eyes at me!
• This cover follows the old paperback cover art maxim: bondage must enhance boobage.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's slightly unusual to have to have the back cover relate the scene depicted on the cover. It's highly unusual to have the back cover *tell* you that's what it's doing (possibly because it seems insultingly redundant)
• "And even when he did think—which, admittedly, wasn't often—..."
• Compound adjectives can be things of beauty. Then there's "adventure-crammed."

Page 123~

"You're not a stranger," Gautiette said mildly, "and I shall need your aid. The truth of the matter, good Pietro, is that Toinette has disappeared..."

"It's a hairspray, it's a perfume, it's a home perm, it's ... Toinette!"

~RP

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Paperback 304: Seven / Carson McCullers (Bantam Giant A1235)

Paperback 304: Bantam Giant A1235 (1st ptg — unusually, labeled "First Edition" — 1954)

Title: Seven
Author: Carson McCullers
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $9

• ... in which an Amazon thrashes a little hunchback with a whip, a young Army private steals a heap of seatbelts from Abe Lincoln and Harry Truman, and Old Joe McGuffin asks Joey if he's ever been in a Turkish prison.
• Never was a big fan of the multi-scene cover — too much going on, all the art gets short shrift.

• "A fourth-dimensional quality" — so ... it's a book about time travel, then? Awesome.
• "... the tempestuous seas of human living" — yeesh, dial it back, Cap'n Foley.
• "Troubling of a Star" is a terrrrrrible title. Why not just call it "The Troubling Star" or "Star Trouble" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or something?
• New York TIMES (!) gives us perhaps the best one-word review of a book so far: "... ABLE"; that's not a review, that's a suffix.

Page 123~

The child repeated the words, and she repeated them with unbelieving terror. "The tooth tree!"

~RP

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Paperback 258: Perverted Love Slave / Adam Calin (Royal Line 127)

Paperback 258: Royal Line RL 127 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Perverted Love Slave
Author: Adam Calin
Cover artist: in witness protection

Yours for: Unavailable


Best things about this cover:

• Worst. Alarm Clock. Ever. "Alright, alright, I'm up ... dang!"
• "In this house we wear bras and *only* bras! No [crack!] bracelets! [crack!]"
• The lady in the bed is, uh, hot. The lady with the whip is, uh, not. She's pasty and misshapen and has one of the Fry Guys on her head.
• Debbie was distracted from her dominatrix duties when she suddenly noticed a mysterious, massive dollop of lemon frosting at the foot of the bed.
• "She was a lust slave to his every depraved desire" — "his?" Wow, "he" managed to get himself a superior boob job.

Best things about this back cover:

• This feels like it was translated from the Bulgarian in some horrible translating forced labor camp.
• I mean, how am I supposed to do my job? This thing is self-parodic.
• I like how that first paragraph appears to be someone writing out loud, in real time. Stop transcribing every thought you have!
• Misspelling "Jekyll" helps them avoid messy fictional defamation lawsuits.
• "Shame Whims" made me literally LOL.
• My god, the font size, the spacing ... it's all so off, so wrong, so tawdry — the cover copy equivalent of a snuff film.

Page 123~

"I mentioned you to Mrs. Tomane. She's interested in writing. She would like to meet you, since you're writing a novel that has a chance to be published."

"Who told you that?"

~RP

Paperback 239: The Lady Kills / Bruno Fischer (Gold Medal 148)

Paperback 239: Gold Medal 148 (PBO, 1951)
Title: The Lady Kills
Author: Bruno Fischer
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• Sometimes, you just have to stop and recognize awesomeness when you see it. This cover is everything I love about vintage paperbacks in one beautiful package: a paperback original from a very good author, in beautiful condition ... a girl with a gun and a guy with a whip ... a dynamic composition with cool depth of field perspective ... shredded clothing ... a title that is also a complete sentence. My only response when I pulled this off my shelf was "Damn, that's good."
• That's some serious violence; he seems to have @#$ed her up good with that whip, despite the fact that he's holding it in a way that would not be conducive to hurting someone. He's gotta let go of the tip. It's like threatening someone with a gun that has the safety on. Looks cool, though.
• She looks a little like that actress ... what's her name ... star of "Medium" ... like a young version of her ... Patricia Arquette? Is that right?

Best things about this back cover:

• "Old Cleave" = great name for an axe murderer
• This copy is nuts. Makes almost no sense. Is Old Cleave her father? Her husband? What is the "it" in the penultimate sentence? Did our narrator literally see Beth's husband "learn the truth." How exciting, watching someone learn something.
• "Understood least of all" — yes, that's clear

Page 123~

My laughter had broken through the crust of her where words couldn't.

I love a girl with a good graham cracker crust.

Now I'm hungry.

~RP

Paperback 167: The Private Life of Julius Caesar / William Marston (Universal Giant no. 6)

Paperback 167: Universal Giant no. 6 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: The Private Life of Julius Caesar
Author: William Marston
Cover artist: George Geygan

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

OK, stop. Hammer time. This book was written by the creator of "Wonder Woman." I Am Not Kidding. And yet none of the booksellers at abebooks mention the connection between this book and "Wonder Woman." You'd think that fact would be one of the main selling points. As I looked at the book, I thought "William Marston" sounded familiar, and then I looked inside and saw the author's middle name (Moulton), which rang even more bells. Then I googled. Holy Krap. From Wikipedia:

Dr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947) was an American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor, and comic book author who created the character Wonder Woman. Two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne, (who lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship), served as exemplars for the character and greatly influenced her creation.^[1][2]

He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.

• "Polyamorous" pretty much describes this cover - I count five different sexual permutations on the front cover alone - and wait til you see the back cover (and the spine!)
• I love that a "feminist theorist" inspired this (awesome) cover. I guess she who reclines on the bed with the chalice of viscous mauve goo makes the rules. "OK, you kneel! Now you, you kneel more! Kneel wheel!"
• I love how the whipping scene is strategically placed for her (our) viewing pleasure.

Best things about this spine!!!!:

• I love how the kinkiest (albeit minutest) scene in the whole tableau is on the spine - no matter how it's shelved, You Will See Flesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• I know this is an odd thing to say, given the rampant nudity, but those are some well-drawn horses.
• "Your calves are so smooth..." "Oh, that's just the satyr urine. It works wonders. Here, let us pour some on your back..."
• Jeez, a crucifixion, too? It's like the painting's running out of ways to exploit the female form.

Page 123~

from a chapter titled, I swear to god, "Ladies' Night"

The pretty young neophyte walked straight to the golden gate, as she had been told to do, and gave her name and that of her sponsor to the door-slave who stood behind the golden bars.

And thus began the first recorded A.A. meeting.

P.S. "door-slave"?

~RP