| Vintage Pulp | Sep 19 2021 |
Into battle, me mateys! And tonight for those who survive—extra portions of organic Chai tea!
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, not an official holiday, sadly. We asked the Pulp Intl. girlfriends what they'd do if they were pirates and the answers weren't pretty. Making all the men walk the plank was the most charitable of their thoughts, with swords and whips coming into play pretty quickly after that. Good thing we're only supposed to talk like pirates. Arrr... let's tone down the homicidal thoughts, girls.
Above and below is a collection of vintage paperbacks with women pirates. Well, maybe the woman on the cover of Rafael Sabatini's The Fortunes of Captain Blood isn't a pirate so much as someone defending herself. But anyone who can handle two pistols at once is an honorary pirate, at the least. We found eleven examples, and the cover art on display is by Harry Schaare, Rudolph Belarski, Barye Phillips, Paul Anna Soik, and others.
Frank ShayGardner F. FoxPhilip RushRobert E. HowardJeramie PriceDouglas BrownRaafael SabatiniInglis FletcherFrank G. SlaughterC.V. TerryAdam ShawHarry SchaareRudolph BelarskiBarye PhillipsPaul Anna Soikcover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 10 2021 |
Filled with great flavor and extra pulp.
Above: a small collection of Benedetto Caroselli covers on which he utilized orange. We put this group together because last week's poster for Le trottoir made us realize we rarely see predominantly orange book covers, then it occurred to us that Caroselli was one illustrator who used the color often. He painted ten of these for Edizioni Periodici Italiani's collection I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore, and two for EPI's Agente Segreto series. You can see Caroselli squeeze another cover out of orange here.
Note: We put this collection together yesterday. Today a new monitor we ordered arrived and some of the colors that were solidly orange now look, well, red-orange. But you know what? Fuck it.
ItalyEdizioni Periodici ItalianiI Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’OrroreBenedetto CaroselliDouglas FergussonAbel RamkSilveralesFrank ScottJohn D. LaneFrancis AubernayChristian BuschMarion WallesFrank BoghartYuri BorinJoan Threecover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 11 2021 |
A dozen reasons to love French cover art.
We've done plenty on illustrator Jef de Wulf. Today we have a diverse collection of more of his work. As always, we'll circle back to him later. In the meantime, we recommend looking here, here, here, here, and here.
FranceJef de WulfAndré MartelKarl Von EckeJuan ManceroYvan Noé. Gore VidalNadine B.Terry CraneAlain MontbloyAllan BlythRice Lansencover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 23 2021 |
Paperback publishers get it up in Paris.
Below, seven more examples of vintage paperbacks using the Eiffel Tower on their covers. You can add these to the collection of twenty-two we put together a few years back.
FranceParisDigit BooksBernard NewmanMichel AtkinsonJulian PaulBarrowLouis-Charles RoyerJoseph HeronFrancoise DorysGeorge GoodmanRichard SpongPeter Cheyneycover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 1 2021 |
John Creasey's franchise sleuth gets all the best lines.
Above, mid-century design in the form of Panther Books' Toff series by British author John Creasey. These covers from 1964 and 1965 combine photo-illustrations with beautiful line-based graphic design to excellent effect. The Toff is the nickname of a character named Richard Rollinson, the classic gentleman sleuth. Creasey published more than fifty Toff novels between 1938 and 1977, and more than six hundred books total under his name and twenty eight pseudonyms. We haven't read any, and the volume of output makes us question whether his books can be of high quality, but we may try the Toff anyway. Those upper class English gents are so hard to resist.
| Vintage Pulp | May 20 2021 |
A shot in the arm may finally set us free.
We got our vaccinations today, and in commemoration we have a collection of paperback covers featuring syringes. These should be considered a supplement to the larger collection of needles we put together in 2013. The process of vaccination was surprisingly efficient. The health pros were going thorough people at a rate of about one per minute. There's been no controversy here. No talk about refusing. Vaccinations are considered the right and sensible thing to do. We've had some shots before in our lives and mostly didn't feel them. This one felt exactly someone stabbing you in the arm with a long, sharp object.
During the last year-plus about ten friends got sick and recovered, and a couple of friends died, one in Guatemala and one in the U.S. But we can't complain about how the period has gone for us. We have plenty of space, an ocean view, mellow girlfriends, and we work online. Having all of that makes us reflect upon how difficult it's been for so many others. Early last year we threw a birthday party for PSGP. That party turned out to be the last get together between our social group, the last hurrah. Well, when it seems safe we're having a first hurrah. And we'll toast to our lost friends. Let's hope all these vaccinations work. More needles below.
R.L. GoldmanNelson AlgrenRoland VaneAndrew ShawGil LawrenceAlbert L. QuandtLeonard GribbleSloane BritainSloane BrittonGérard MoreauReginald HeadeLeslie Huxoncover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Apr 12 2021 |
Better late than never is our motto around here.
We're finally getting back to paperback artist Gene Bilbrew, whose odd style, with its scantily clad women and their muscular butts has become collectible in recent years. We didn't get it at first, but like a lot of art, once you're exposed to it regularly you begin to appreciate its unique qualities. There's clear intent in Bilbrew's work, a deliberate attempt to approach illustration from a different angle, and we've grown to understand that his cartoonish, chaotic, often humorous, and often bondage themed aesthetic is purposeful. In fact, his imagery has become so intertwined with the bdsm scene that in 2019 the National Leather Association International established an award named after Bilbrew for creators of animated erotic art. While it's not exactly a Pulitzer Prize, the point is that Bilbrew's bizarre visions keep gaining wider acceptance. So for that reason we've put together another group of his paperback fronts. You can see more of them here, here, and here, and you can see a few rare oddities here, here, and here.
After Hours BooksWizard BooksUnique BooksChevron BooksCorsair BooksFirst Niter BooksCrescent BooksSatan PressWee Hours BooksGene BilbrewHolly AdamsRussell TrainerReggie CarrArnold DixonMyron KosloffJane GreerLydia HansonDarrin WinslowJames MichaelsLana PrestonJoel FabianJohn Parkercover artliteraturecover collectionbdsm
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 5 2021 |
He may be gone but his good works live on.
Above, five more paperback covers painted by Jean Salvetti—aka Salva—who we've featured several times before. French paperback illustrators, except for Aslan, Michel Gourdon, and a few others, tended toward more freeform styles, but their command of color was excellent and we've always liked their approach. Click Salvetti's keywords below to see more.
FranceÉditions le TrotteurYves RollatRoddy GerfeeldJack NortonRudy BombergJack AuburtinJean SalvettiSalvacover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 31 2020 |
Some people need a mental health day every day.
We were going to post an assortment of covers we thought were scary, but when we came across these Psycho fronts we realized they were all we needed. The creation of veteran horror author Robert Bloch and originally published in 1959, one of literature's early homicidal psychopaths remains frightening even today. When Bloch wrote Psycho the concept of psychopathy was little known in American culture, but after Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 movie adaptation, as well as the real-world Dahmers and Specks and Bundys, that naïveté evaporated. Now everyone knows psychopaths are real and live among us.
Bloch's man-child Norman Bates, a sadist and misanthrope with lust/hate feelings toward women, was able despite his dysfunctions to operate in society with a veneer of civility, and was capable of love, but only a stunted and twisted variety instilled by an emotionally violent forebear from whose shadow he could never fully escape. Sound like anybody you know? We have mostly front covers below, along with a rear cover and a nice piece of foldout art we found on the blog toomuchhorrorfiction. These are all English editions. We'll show you one or two interesting non-English covers later.
Crest BooksWarner BooksCorgi BooksTOR BooksPsychoRobert BlochAlfred HitchcockJanet Leighcover artcover collectionliteraturehorror
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 10 2020 |
All these books are on our bucket list.
When you look at paperback covers every day it's interesting the common elements you notice. Of late, we've noticed buckets. They pop up on backwoods and rural sleaze novels, usually in amusing fashion, often in the possession of hardworking women going about difficult chores while nearby men don't do dick. We'll just tell you—that's not the way it works around our place.
Venus BooksCameo BooksCarnival BooksSignet BooksGold Medal BooksPyramid BooksPeggy GaddisHarry WhittingtonAmos HatterSilvia ErskineStuart EngstrandWilliam Brown MeloneyJacques du Boutcover artcover collectionliterature
