| Vintage Pulp | Sep 9 2019 |
It looks amazing, baby. Er... aaaand should look even better on my lovely wife. Thanks for letting me test it on your neck.
Sometimes when you're caught you're caught. You can try and brazen the moment out, but it usually does no good, at least in mid-century fiction. From there it's just a short distance to mayhem, murder, trials, prison, and all the other fun stuff that makes genre fiction worth reading. From James M. Cain's iconic The Postman Always Rings Twice to J.X. Williams' ridiculous The Sin Scene, infidelity is one of the most reliable and common plot devices. What isn't common is cover art that depicts the precise moment of being caught. Of all the cover collections we've put together, this was the hardest one for which to find examples, simply because there are no easy search parameters. We managed a grand total of fifteen (yes, there's a third person on the cover of Ed Schiddel's The Break-Up—note the hand pushing open the door). The artists here are L.B. Cole, Harry Schaare, Tom Miller, Bernard Safran, and others. And we have two more excellent examples of this theme we posted a while back. Check here and here.
MidwoodLudwell HughesRobert ColbyPeggy GaddisDon HollidayHarry OliveJohn O'HaraJoan ShermanWright WilliamsArthur WeigalOrrie HittJames Warner BellahEdmund SchiddelHarry ShcaareBernard SafranTom MillerRobert DietrichL.B. Colecover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Apr 8 2019 |
Sleaze imprint offers illuminating cover art.
Several days ago we said we'd revisit whoever painted this cover with an eye toward determining if they were really any good. At a glance these fronts from sleaze imprint Gaslight Books don't compare to the many beautiful efforts from Midwood or Gold Medal, but only at a glance. There's a distinctive style here, a certain beauty of form and color, an ease of execution like sketches brought to life. All are uncredited, but all are by the same artist, who hasn't gotten their due, in our opinion, for taking cover art in this unusual direction. Alternatively, we could simply be high. But give these a close look, revisit last week's cover, check the example we shared several years ago, and see what you think.
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 6 2019 |
A flavorful stew of mid-century paperback covers.
This post was long overdue. Most pulp oriented websites do a collection of covers that have the word wanton in the title, so we're following suit. Basically because we couldn't think of anything else to do today. Numerous examples below. Enjoy.
Lon WilliamsIan GordonKermit WellesR. Wilkes HunterDave KingLester LakeJohn B. ThompsonGeorge CassidyJames ClayfordMichael GillianJudson GreyAl JamesArnold MarmorJ.C. PerlmanLawrence TreatMartin A. LarsonHenry KlingerCarter BrownJames RubelLewis ClayCurt AldrichRichard S. PratherBen SmithDrew PalmerPeter CheyneyBrett HallidayMark Danielscover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 20 2018 |
A free class in Popp art from one of the best vintage paperback illustrators.
Above, a collection of covers from the U.S. artist Walter Popp, who illustrated numerous pulps before moving into paperback art, men's adventure magazines, and commercial package design. We've featured quite a bit of his work, including this cover and this one. You can be sure he'll Popp up again.
M.S. MarbleOrrie HittSteve HarraganStephen MarloweOctavus Roy CohenRobert O. SaberGeoffrey WagnerHenry Lewis NixonJay de BekkerWilliam ArdGail JordanWalter Poppcover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 6 2018 |
Cats always get in the way at the worst moments.
The above cover from the Milan based publishers Longanesi & Co. features U.S. glamour model Virginia Gordon fronting a 1959 translation of Ed McBain's The Pusher. McBain is basically a legend, but is it a stretch to call Gordon legendary too? We don't think so. She was Playboy magazine's January 1959 Playmate of the Month, and because of that her photos are highly collectible and expensive. You'd see two important reasons why if not for a mischievous cat, but you can outmaneuver him by clicking here or here.
Below we have a few more fronts from Longanesi, including Jonathan Craig's Case of the Village Tramp, which also has Gordon on the cover, and John Jakes' detective novel Johnny Havoc, featuring Carol Baker giving a nice over-the-shoulder glance. Like Australia's Horwitz Publications and several other non-U.S. companies, Longanesi used (probably) unlicensed images of Hollywood starlets and glamor models as a matter of habit. We'll show you more examples of those a bit later.
ItalyMilanLonganesi & Co. PlayboyVirginia GordonEd McBainEvan HunterJonathan CraigJohn JakesHenry KaneJohn McPartlandAdam KnightCarol Bakercover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | May 20 2018 |
S'more where this one came from.
Today we have a small collection of covers from Wisconsin born illustrator Owen Kampen, who besides being a prolific paperback cover artist was a bomber pilot during World War II who was escorted by the famed Tuskeegee Airmen, was a teacher of commercial art, and was an ace model airplane hobbyist who was inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame. He was also a less-than-stellar husband, at least according to his wife Irene Kampen, whose book Life without George was based on her divorce and became the source material for The Lucy Show. We have thirteen more Owen Kampen covers below and one more here.
World War IIThe Lucky ShowWisconsinOwen KampenIrene KampenLaura Z. HobsonFlorence StonebrakerFan NicholsThomas GallagherJohn D. MacDonaldSimms AlbertWilliam H. FieldingElio BartoliniEdward D. RadinCharles GorhamDouglas SandersonDavid GoodisSid FederBurton B. TurkusJoe Weisscover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Apr 7 2018 |
Who you gonna call when 007 can't get the job done?
We said we'd get to Clyde Allison's, aka William Knoles' Agent 0008 and here we are, sooner than you thought. Above and below are covers for all twenty entries in the series. The idea here, of course, is a sleaze riff on James Bond, or possibly even a riff on the many imitators of Bond. The dominant literary motif is satire, but as a wise man once said, just because it's satirical doesn't mean it's smart or good. The cover art on most of these is by Robert Bonfils, doing some of his better work, with Darrel Milsap handling the chores on Platypussy, and an unknown tapped for The Sin Funnel.
So we read a couple of these and they involve the spy agency SADISTO (Security and Administration Division of the Institute for Special Tactical Operations), which is located in a sprawling bunker beneath the Maryland countryside. There the agents, about sixty of them, male and female, attend briefings in a pillow covered den while lounging mostly nude, and take on assignments too difficult for MI5, the FBI, SPECTRE, the CIA, etc. Their main weapon is sex, and their main advantage is that they're utterly ruthless. They even use kidnapped college co-eds for live fire training sessions. Because they're sadistic like that.
In The Desdamona Affair SADISTO's budget has been cut, their fleet of Jaguars exchanged for Volkswagens, and their banks of IBM computers swapped out for calculators and an abacus. 0008 goes after a villainess named Desdamona Eva de Struxion (D. Eva de Struxion) in order to steal a secret formula that could eliminate world hunger. Along the way he fights trained panthers, is captured by Indian maidens, and imprisoned in an oil tanker, but ends up with all the money de Struxion has accumulated selling the formula, which means SADISTO can once again afford fancy cars and big computers. The whole narrative is absurd the same way Sharknado is absurd.
In Gamefinger 0008 is sent by SADISTO to the island of a madman named Cantwell Undershaft, aka Gamefinger, who wants to end war by broadcasting to the world via satellite lethal gladiatorial spectacles. The unwilling deaths of hundreds of kidnapped naked men and women, he reasons, will prevent the deaths of billions in World War III by slaking humanity's bloodlust. This book differs from the previous one due to the extreme violence, but the formula is the same. In a text with so many jokes, a few will hit the target, but the percentage is depressingly low and the glib approach generally wears thin.
At this point you must be wondering how we got through these. All we can say is they're curiostities—stupid, poorly written curiosities. We can't imagine anyone reading more than two—one to get the general dumb idea, and the second to confirm that the idea remains dumb. Most of the content is sex, but written entirely without making a single explicit reference to penises, vaginas, oral sex, or bodily fluids. Doesn't that sound stimulating? If you should happen to want your own copies of these they usually go for around $100, which we consider wishful thinking on the part of the vendors, but with online buying, if you bide your time, someone will always sell at a more reasonable price.
At this point you must be wondering how we got through these. All we can say is they're curiostities—stupid, poorly written curiosities. We can't imagine anyone reading more than two—one to get the general dumb idea, and the second to confirm that the idea remains dumb. Most of the content is sex, but written entirely without making a single explicit reference to penises, vaginas, oral sex, or bodily fluids. Doesn't that sound stimulating? If you should happen to want your own copies of these they usually go for around $100, which we consider wishful thinking on the part of the vendors, but with online buying, if you bide your time, someone will always sell at a more reasonable price.
MarylandGreenleaf ClassicsClyde AllisonWilliam KnolesDarrel Milsapcover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 6 2018 |
French publisher Editions Ferenczi had a Verrou unique way of doing things.
Collection le Verrou (The Lock Collection) consisted of 205 pocket-sized crime novels published in France by Editions Ferenczi from 1950 to 1959. Some were written by French authors using pseudonyms that sounded English or American, while other writers used their real names, such as Alexandra Pecker (yes, that's a real name) and René Poupon (idem). Other books were written by U.S. or British writers and had been previously published. For instance, above you see Le singe de cuivre by Harry Whittington, which you might know as The Brass Monkey, and below you'll find entries from Lawrence Blochman and English scribe Peter Cheney, better known as Peter Cheyney. The art on these books is generally quite colorful. The cover above was painted by Michel Gourdon, and below you'll find another piece from him, many efforts from Georges Sogny, and a couple from as-yet-unknowns. We really like Ferenczi's output, so expect us to share more covers from this publisher later.
FranceEditions FerencziPeter CheyneyLawrence G. BlochmanHarry WhittingtonGeorges SognyMichel GourdonAlexandra PeckerRené PouponVivian MarcyR.&R. Borel-RosnyHermia FraserGeorges S. PerkinsPatrick VanderAlain MartialJ.A. FlanighamMichel SolerAndré Keraudrencover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 10 2017 |
Thirty feet in the air.
Below you see covers featuring characters who came to bad ends—of ropes. Were they suicides? Murder victims? Hint: the books wouldn't be very interesting if they were suicides. There are others we could share, but thirty feet sounded nicer than thirty six or thirty eight. Maybe we'll add more later. For now see two in the same style here and here.
Frances LockridgeRichard LockridgeH.W. RodenF.A. ChittendenHenry KanePeter StormePerry StoweStuart FriedmanEarl NormanMarcel AllainGriffFrances CraneHank SpencerCraig Ricecover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 7 2017 |
Traffic mishaps reach an all-time high.
Below, assorted paperback covers pairing mortal danger and automobiles, including many examples from France, where the theme was particularly popular. Thanks to all the original uploaders on these.
