Peter Driben illustrated relatively few book covers compared to his magazine output. We showed you a rare paperback from him a few years ago, and above you see another—his work on W. T. Ballard's 1943 thriller Say Yes to Murder, for publisher Martin Goodman. The book is part of a series starring Ballard's character William Lennox, who was a detective-like troubleshooter for fictitious General Consolidated Studios.

In this one he investigates the murder of an actor found stabbed and lying under the bed of actress Jean Jeffries, who is the granddaughter of one of Lennox’s close friends. As a troubleshooter, Lennox's first duty is to move the body to avoid scandal for the studio (that's the difference between a detective and a troubleshooter) and only then does he try to unravel the mystery.

Lennox appeared in three other Ballard novels—1946's Murder Can’t Stop, 1948's Dealing Out Death, and 1960's Lights, Camera, Murder, which he wrote as John Shepherd. Martin Goodman, you probably know already, later went on to create Marvel Comics. You can see that other nice Driben cover we mentioned here, and three brilliant Dutch covers here. We'll keep an eye out for more. 

Here’s an event you don’t want to miss—the sure-to-be entertaining grudge match between wrestlers Petit Prince Batman and Le Colosse Siki at the Parc de Sports in Paris. The bout was sponsored by Duval Anisette Liqueur sometime during the 1930s, according to the poster's vendor. The years during that decade where Thursday fell on March 30 were 1933 and 1939. The DC Comics character Batman premiered in 1939. But that wasn’t until May, so if this wrestling poster is indeed from the 1930s then Petit Prince Batman beat Batman by a few months, if not a few years. To us it seems unlikely, but must be true. Anyone have better info? E-mail us. 

Originally published in hardback in 1942, with this Red Circle paperback appearing in 1949, Leg Artist is the story of a model named Lee Martin who rises to the top of her profession only to be targeted by a con man and felled by the tabloid press. The title refers to the photographic arts but is also a double entendre, as a “leg artist” is mid-century slang for a man adept at picking up women. Harvey revisited this theme later with 1950's Leg-Art Virgin. Red Circle was part of a publishing group put together by U.S. publisher Martin Goodman, and some of these companies evolved into Timely Comics, which in turn morphed into Marvel Comics. The art for this cover is by unknown.

The seventies were an incredibly creative time for popular arts. Comics and graphic novels of the period have a certain caution-to-the-wind quality. Mercocomic's six part series Hitler is a prime example. It's an amazing tale in which Adolf Hitler successfully escapes Berlin at the end of World War II but is wounded by a bomb blast that induces amnesia. With his face drastically altered and his memory totally obliterated, he becomes a Nazi hunter in the service of the KGB. Of course all this digging around is bound to jog the memory of even an amnesiac, and then there will be hell to pay. Yeah. It's crazy—even crazier than Mercocomic's other offerings starring Che Guevara and John F. Kennedy. You can just hear the discussion going back and forth: “We can't do this.” “Of course we can.” “No we can't.” “I tell you we can.” In the end they did do it, because that was then and popular art consumers would give anything a chance. 1977 copyright on these, with covers by Prieto Muriana.

So, we watched the entirety of the new Netflix series Luke Cage. Our love of blaxploitation films made it mandatory. Of course, Luke Cage isn't blaxploitation—it's serious black-oriented drama. But anyway we queued it up. For those who don't know, the series is based on a Marvel Comics character who was a bulletproof, super strong black man who lived in Harlem. The show does away with the comic book Cage's bright yellow costume, but leaves the Harlem setting, political machinations, and dealings of crime kingpins that intertwine as normal people try to get on with their lives.

But let's put all that aside for the moment. Is the show any good? There are some of the same failings as other action-oriented series, but on the whole it's entertaining. Just be forewarned—it's akin to The Wire more than any superhero extravaganza. The characters are deeply explored. Serious comic book action fans will be disappointed. And second, the complete immersion into an African American culture will be unfamiliarto many viewers. In the end, you simply have to have an interest in the premise and the characters to enjoy the show. For us, the immersion into a nearly 100% black Harlem is one of the show's strengths. For others, not seeing characters that remind them of themselves will be alienating. While not an ideal reaction, in our view it's acceptable in terms of deciding how to spend one's hard earned free time selecting television shows. But such people should say they aren't interested in the premise. They shouldn't make phony claims that the show is racist.

Mexican pulp art has grown in popularity in recent years, thanks to the efforts of vendors and collectors. It differs from U.S. pulp in that it was produced decades later—during the 1970s and forward. The covers you see here today are prime examples of what is generally classified as Mexican pulp, made for the comic book series El libro policiaco, or "The Police Book," and published by Novedades Editores during the early 2000s. The series was so popular that, like the U.S. television show C.S.I., the books diversified into multiple cities—New Orleans, New York City, Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco. Each city's stories centered around a local police department staffed by a multi-ethnic array of cops and support personnel. And as the banner text proclaims, the interior art was indeed in color, ninety-two pages of it per issue. All the covers here were created by Jorge Aviña, an artist who began his career during the 1970s, and has had his work exhibited in London, Switzerland, Barcelona, and Paris. We'll have more from El libro policiaco a bit later.

This piece of Mexican pulp-style art depicting a woman being evicted by an evil landlord was made during the early 1980s, but it’s appropriate for today’s era of millions of evictions a year, which goes to show that the more shit changes the more it stays the same. The piece is entitled El pez grande... roba al chico, or “the big fish robs the small one,” a phrase that pretty much sums up the last few decades. The painting was made for a Mexican graphic novel series entitled Jungla de asfalto, or Asphalt Jungle, and it’s probably the most technically accomplished piece of Mexican cover art we’ve come across. It’s initialed, but, as you can see, in such baroque style that it’s impossible to discern the letters. What do you think? Is that “FE”? “TE”? We have no idea. Thus the piece is unidentified, at least for now. See more Mexican pulp-style art beginning here.