We're sure everyone remembers the folk wisdom that women needed to brush their hair one hundred times each night to make it shine, right? Well, once the prone woman on the punishment themed cover of 1957's Burlesque Jungle gets one hundred brush strokes of a different kind her butt will be shining too, bright red presumably. This is a republication of 1956's hardback Blonde Flames, about a Miami Beach burlesque queen known as Silver Venus and her rivalry with an upstart dancer. Considering Boyer got both a hardback and a republication out of this, we're surprised it's her only output. A sequel where Silver Venus bobby pins her rival's nipples seems like a no-brainer. 

Above, Man for Hire, 1961, from Kozy Books with uncredited cover art.

Above, the cover of Shelly Lowenkopf’s The Love of the Lion from Kozy Books. No artist info on this, which is typical for Kozy. Lowenkopf, who is male, went on to teach at the University of Southern California, win a Lifetime Achievement Award, become an agent, editorial director, book reviewer, critic, and essayist. He’s still active and maintains a blog that’s worth visiting. Of his Kozy days he says merely that, “under a variety of pseudonyms, I paid many a rent tab.” No pseudonym for this one though. The Love of the Lion was published in 1962. 

In honor of the World Series and all the unintentionally sexual terminology you hear on sports broadcasts—and he manages to squirt that one up the middle!—we thought we’d share this cover for Kozy Books’ sleaze novel Squeeze Play. It was written by Walter Feldspar, whose name is a pseudonym of course, but we don’t know who occupied it. Orrie Hitt is a prime suspect though. Whoever it was, we have to give credit for cleverness—feldspar is a mineral that has no value but makes up the majority of earthly rock. He’s doubtless saying the same about his fiction—no value, but can be found everywhere.

Given enough time anything can accumulate value, though, and such is the case with ’60s sleaze fiction. Kozy output seems more popular all the time, so in acknowledgment of that fact we have a selection of their covers below. You would not necessarily call these pieces completely successful, with their often unreadable yellow-on-white or orange-on-orange text, but in terms of promoting the product the covers told you exactly what you were going to get. The company had a habit of not crediting art, so we’ve nothing for you there. But enjoy the selection anyway, and if you want to see a real Kozy winner, check here.

Sleaze covers have a way of making light of what would be horrifying in real life and this piece by an uncredited artist is no exception. It depicts the moment the main character has her clothes torn off while working as a drive-in waitress. It’s certainly a jailable offense, but in sleaze it just leads to more of the same. Based on that description, it should be no surprise the book was written by pervert extraordinaire Orrie Hitt. Writing as Roger Normandie he originally published it as Run for Cover in 1956, then Kozy Books picked it up and re-released it as Race with Lust in 1957. You can get a sense of what the plot is from the rear cover, or peruse a longer summary here.