Say it! Say it louder, you swine! With onion soup you should drink only a basic vin blanc or possibly an aligoté!
It's a cliché, but one we've noticed to be true, that the French tend to be polemical in their opinions about artistic matters. Movies, literature, painting, architecture, all of these things are either magnificent or total shit. Which leads to some interesting discussions. The big chasm between us and one of our French friends happens to do with food and drink—typically Champagne versus cava, or rillettes versus paté. So for us, this cover for Coup de main reminded us of those discussions. Just for the record, E.E., here on our website where you can't argue—we think cava and paté are just dandy no matter what you say.
Coup de main is number fifty-five in Éditions du Grand Damier's Espionnage series, published in 1958, and written by Jacques Dubessy under the pseudonym Slim Harrisson. That's a name you see a lot in vintage French fiction because it was credited with nearly one hundred novels, and we assume few if any of them are total shit. In this particular book Harrisson's franchise hero Sam Morgan's adventures carry him from FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to Tangier, Lisbon, and beyond. The cover art here is by Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, the towering figure of French paperback and pin-up illustration.
Look out! The phallic symbol is about to blow! Slim Harrisson, whose Chute Libre was published in 1963 by Éditions Atlantic for their Top Secret series, was in reality a French writer named Jacques Dubessy. He had many other pseudonyms as well, and under those and his own name he wrote an absolute pile of books, but today we’re not going down the rabbit hole of pen names and publication dates. Mainly we wanted to show you the cool cover from Jef de Wulf, one of the more interesting French illustrators from the period, who we imagine must have smirked all the way through painting this one. Of course, the French do, after all, have the world’s most famous phallic symbol overlooking their capitol. That has to affect the thoughts. It affected ours last time we were there. You can see more Jef de Wulf here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.
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