Vintage Pulp | Oct 21 2023 |
Forget that loser. I'm a man with prospects. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you all about them.
Above: an uncredited cover for Judgment Day by James T. Farrell, which neatly encapsulates the classic woman's dilemma—most guys who come up to you in bars are at least a little drunk. This book is another case of serious literature getting a pulp style cover as a retrofit. As the text notes, it was the third book in the Depression-era Studs Lonigan series, which is one of the more important literary products of the 1930s, and, like many pieces of politically shaded literature from then, was very critical of American capitalism. This Panther edition came in 1959.
Vintage Pulp | Sep 11 2016 |
These are people who definitely pay attention to the poles.
When you look at lots of paperbacks sometimes a common thread suddenly jumps out at you that went unnoticed before. Such was the case a few weeks ago when we noticed the large number of characters on mid-century covers leaning against poles—light poles, telephone poles, sign poles, etc. We suggested someone should put together a collection, but of course we really meant us, so today you see above and below various characters deftly using these features of the urban streetscape as accessories. Art is from Benedetto Caroselli, Harry Schaare, George Gross, Rudolph Belarski, James Avati, et al. You can see a couple more examples here and here.
Robert O. SaberMichael CroftSloan BrittonEdward AndersonWilliam ArdFranz SilbermanLynton Wright BrentBart MichaelsLeslie CharterisOrrie HittMark ReedArthur MillerRobert BlochJay de BekkerJoan EllisJames T. FarrellJohn D. MacDonaldHarmon BellamyGeoffrey PardoeJohn LodwickFrancis CarcoBenedetto CaroselliHarry SchaareGeorge GrossRudolph BelarskiTom HoweStella WyngardeBernard MalamudHerbert SimmomsRoy Hugginscover collectioncover artliterature