 It's a marvelous time for a loon dance.  
This audacious wraparound cover is from Greenleaf Classics for Ricardo Armory's, aka George Davies' 1968 gay sleaze novel Fruit of the Loon. It's a satire of Richard Amory's hit trilogy Song of the Loon, featuring cowboys at the Circle 69 Ranch, a medicine man named Squirming Ass, and more. What makes the parody all the more interesting is that Song was gay fiction also published by Greenleaf, so they're roasting their own author here, as well as his novel that sold hundreds of thousands of copies, making it by far the biggest hit in gay literature in the 1970s. According to Drewey Wayne Gunn's book Gay American Novels, 1870-1970: A Reader's Guide, “[Fruit of the Loon] is not only hilarious but better written than the original.” The cover is better than the original too. It's doubtless Robert Bonfils or Darrel Millsap—probably Bonfils because thickly black-rimmed eyes appeared often in his Greenleaf work—but absent confirmation we'll go with unknown.
 And when ze leetle libidometer say zat your libido is at just ze right level all of us vill haf you sexually.  
Above you see ze cover of... COUGH COUGH! Had something in the throat there. Above you see the cover of Dean Hudson's, aka Evan Hunter's, Twisted Tulips, yet another winner from Greenleaf Classics, this time for its Leisure imprint. 1966 copyright with uncredited art.
 It floats? How weird. I would have thought something that size drags you down like an anchor. 
Swap Circuit was written by Thomas P. Ramirez in the guise of Tony Calvano, with cover work by Darrel Millsap, and published in 1968. A couple set up swapping sessions for profit only to see their scheme go awry when they attend an orgy that’s out of their league. This piece of art caught our eye because it fits perfectly into our large collection of swapping covers, which you can see here. Don’t trade it for anything.
 Calm down. Saying I could really nibble on a bush right now is just my way of saying I'm hungry. I swear. 
Above, another highly amusing cover from Greenleaf Classics, Devil's Degradation, 1966, by pseudonymous author J.X. Williams. Satanism and sex combine as people have a Devil of a time in this one. Once you go goat you never go back. Art is by Tomas Cannizarro.
 Okay! You win! I'll find a jacket and boots ensemble of my own! 
Some people are just bad at sharing, a fact amply illustrated by the cover of Marcus Miller's Boy Meets Boy, written for Greenleaf Classics' subsidiary Nightstand Books, 1968. Miller, who was really Samuel Dodson, wrote more than a dozen gay-themed sleaze novels in a four year span between 1966 and 1970. Some of the juicier entries include The Mother Truckers and Copsucker, the latter of which is an especially noteworthy title even in the fertile genre of sleaze. The Miller pseudonym was used for hetero sleaze too, all of which was written by Milo Perichitch. The art for Boy Meets Boy is by the always amusing Darrel Millsap, whose best work you can find here and here.
 Yup. Done gave myself more’n a few painful burns over the years with this trick but I got it down pretty good now. 
The cover art by Robert Bonfils makes The Passion Cache look like a western but it’s actually set in the present day, or at least 1968, which is when Don Bellmore, aka George H. White, wrote the book. It deals with two fraternity buddies who go looking for twenty-thousand dollars worth of Spanish gold in the mountains above El Paso, Texas. But this is sleaze fiction, not adventure fiction, so the quest for gold is really secondary to the main character Jud’s quest to do some prospecting between the thighs of his friend’s wife Viola, an Indian girl named Desert Rose, and an eager virgin/tomboy named Sally. He’s successful on all counts, multiple times. Does he eventually end up with the gold? No, but he ends up with Desert Rose, and that’s pretty much what these books are all about.
 This? This isn’t big. My first one said, “Property of Madame X’s Torture Dungeon—all rights reserved.” That was big. 
Above, a cover for Everyone’s Virgin by John Dexter, for Greenleaf Classics, 1967. We’ve talked about the non-existent Dexter several times. This effort is about two young women who pretend to be innocent in order to lure older men into sex, whereupon they blackmail the silly horndogs. We aren’t sure where the branding fits in, but it makes for a fun cover. Thank artist Ed Smith.
 That’s just my name for them. Everyone else still calls them men. 
Above, another winner from Greenleaf Classics, Don Holliday’s The Lust Pigs, 1962, for the Midnight Reader line. The real author behind this one was David Case, who wrote ten books total for Greenleaf, including Lust Circuit and Luster’s Lane. Clearly he had a thing about lust. As do we all. The art is unattributed.
 Well, okay—since you say it worked for Tom Brady, I guess I can take some of the pressure out of your balls.
 
The original painting at top, which we ran across on an auction site, was made for the cover of John Dexter’s (Harvey Hornwood’s) 1969 sleaze novel Passion’s Pupil, just above. Like most covers from the genre, it has several raunchy elements. Not only is the femme fatale threatening to go down on her knees, and not only has the football star found the world’s smallest towel (which we guess will make her next manuver even easier), but the jersey peeking out of his locker seems to bear the number 69. Standard stuff. But what isn’t standard is there may be some question about who painted this. According to the vendor selling it—for $800.00, in case you’re looking for something to go above your mantel—the piece is by Robert Bonfils, however, the quite authoritative Greenleaf Classics Books website has this attributed to Darrel Millsap. The two had nearly identical styles during the time they worked for Greenleaf, so there’s no way to look at the painting and discern whose it is, and there’s no signature on the front or rear. We’re sure the mystery will be solved at some point, though, probably by whoever eventually shells out eight bills for the art. We like the painting not only on its own sleazy merits, but because it reminds us of another original painting we posted way back that was used for the front of Amy Harris’s schoolhouse sleaze novel Prize Pupil. In fact, if you click back there you’ll see that the male figures in both scenes are weirdly similar. And of course so are the titles of the books. Did Bonfils/Millsap use that earlier cover as inspiration? It sure looks like it.
 Um, you and your wife should talk, so I'll just slip out. Wait—let me rephrase that. 
“They found gutter love with gutter tramps!” We’re guessing you get two gutterballs, then it’s someone else’s turn. Greenleaf Classics provides more fun coverness, this time from its Midnight Reader imprint, Slum Sinners, by Andrew Shaw, who was really Lawrence Block, at least in this case. Some sites say Donald E. Westlake wrote this, but authoritative sources (Block) say Westlake wasn’t Shaw until after 1963. This one is from ’62, so it’s Block. Wanna know what it's about? Check the rear cover, below. No artist info, but it’s probably Tony Calvano.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
2003—Suzy Parker Dies
American model and actress Suzy Parker, who appeared the films Funny Face and Kiss Them for Me, was the first model to earn more than $100,000 a year, and who was a favorite target of the mid-century tabloids, dies at home in Montecito, California, surrounded by family friends, after electing to discontinue dialysis treatments. 1920—Negro National Baseball League Debuts
The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. The league, one of several that would be formed, was composed of The Chicago American Giants, The Detroit Stars, The Kansas City Monarchs, The Indianapolis ABCs, The St. Louis Giants, The Cuban Stars, The Dayton Marcos, and The Chicago Giants. 1955—Williams Wins Pulitzer
American playwright Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his controversial play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which tells the story of a southern family in crisis, explicitly deals with alcoholism, and contains a veiled subtext concerning homosexuality in southern society. In 1958 the play becomes a motion picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. 1945—Germany Announces Hitler's Death
German radio in Hamburg announces that Adolf Hitler was killed in Berlin, stating specifically that he had fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany. But in truth Hitler had committed suicide along with his mistress Eva Braun, and both bodies were immediately thereafter burned. 1960—Powers Is Shot Down over U.S.S.R.
Francis Gary Powers, flying in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane, is shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denies the plane's purpose and mission, but is later forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produces its remains and reveals Powers, who had survived the shoot down. The incident triggers a major diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
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