| 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, plus a couple of examples of clean art without text, from Wisconsin born illustrator Owen Kampen. Besides being a prolific paperback cover artist he 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. Well, nobody's perfect. We have some very interesting pieces 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 Millsap 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 Millsapcover 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 died suspended by their necks. 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.
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 23 2017 |
They're entertaining to read but let's hope none of the stories come true.
Below are fifteen mid-century book covers featuring nuclear explosions, which are a major part of the photo history we document here at Pulp Intl. You'll notice three of the authors wrote six of the books. That's because once you write nukes, you never go back. And actually, a couple of these are non-fiction, so our wish for them not to come true is too late.
R. Chetwynd-HayesE.C. TubbTakashi NagaiJohn E. MullerRobert Moore Williams. John HerseyNevil ShuteColin RobertsGeorge C. FosterPhilip WylieEgon LarsenA.E. Van Vogtcover artcover collectionliteraturenukes
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 9 2017 |
Your future is uncertain, however I do see lots of guns.
Above, ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque, published by Éditions de Neuilly throughout the 1950s, with cover art from Aldé, aka Gaston Martineau, aka Gaston Martin.
FranceÉditions de NeuillyAldéLes aventures de ZodiaqueGaston MartineauGaston Martincover collectioncover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | May 18 2017 |
A nuzzle a day keeps the blues away.
A couple of days ago we shared a cover painted by Harry Barton, and today we're back with assorted examples in the same vein, once again showing instances of neck kissing, or variations very close to that. All of these were also painted by Barton, who clearly had a fine appreciation for female necks. Or male mouths. Whichever.
Barton was a prolific artist who through the ’50s and ’60s produced covers for Avon, Bantam, Dell, Monarch, and Pocket Books. He painted even more fronts with poses close to those seen here, for example men and women kissing normally, but today we decided to stick only to neck kissing. Which by the way is a nice way to spend a few minutes if you have a willing partner.
Orrie HittA L. RogetDaoma WinstonCurt DonovanJason MorganJon BalmerJim LayneKim SavageKarl KramerRon SaxonHarry BartonCarol CaineStephanie ChrismanDean McCoyJohn B. Thompsoncover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 27 2017 |
Femmes fatales are tough but are they bulletproof?
We've run across some low characters in paperback art, but these guys are the lowest. Faced with danger they've grabbed the nearest woman to use as a shield. Women in mid-century fiction have it rough—they're interrupted while skinny-dipping, carried off against their will, manhandled, spied on, tied up, and more. They have their victories too, thankfully—put a gun in their hands and they start dropping men like two-foot putts. Well, good thing femmes fatales are so tough, because they'll need to be hard enough to stop bullets to get out of these jams. We shared another cover in the same style back in 2009 and you can see that nice effort here.
John SpainWallace ReyburnR.T.M.ScottEdgar WallaceVernon WarrenMax CarterRichard SaleErnest DudleyFrancis CarcoBen BensonRaymond ChandlerJacques Agop-AbriWilliam ArdF. Van Wyck MasonSax RohmnerKarl KramerDan GregoryLionel WhiteFerguson Findleycover artliteraturecover collection
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