Random French goodness today, a cover for J. Effeme's romance novel Reine de beauté. This was published by Editions de S.T.A.E.L. in 1950 with Louis Carrière on the art duties. What's the S.T.A.E.L. stand for? Some Toulouse Artfucks Editing Lite-Porn. Well, the company was from Toulouse. The rest, don't quote us on it. 

You never forget your first kiss, right? Pulp and sleaze paperback covers have always been a medium for this form of affection, and so today we have for you below some of the most memorable kisses we’ve encountered over the years. Art by Paul Rader, Louis Carrière, Ernest Chiriaka and others. Enjoy.

Above, assorted covers from Collection Amor Amor, which was a series of pulps published in France by Carquois during the early 1950s. All of these have art from Louis Carrière. We hope to find some Carrière when we return to Paris, but we suspect they'll be hella expensive. We'll see. Meanwhile, you can enjoy more from this master here and here.  

We posted five Louis Carrière covers a while back and said we didn’t know very much about him, but we’d keep our eyes open. Since then we’ve found out a few things. He was born in Toulouse, France in 1920, into a family with an art background. He drew as a youngster but it wasn’t until the mid-1940s that he painted professionally. It happened thanks to a Greek professor at a local college who asked Carrière to contribute art to a couple of scholarly books. After that, he was in high demand as an illustrator of pulps and postcards. Apparently, he had settled into a quiet retirement by the 1980s and had no idea people were collecting his work until a chance meeting with a fan. We can certainly understand the interest—everything we’ve seen from Carrière is pure genius, including this cover of L’Inconnue dans la mer, aka Unknown Woman of the Sea, by Jean Jacques. We’ll keep digging for more info and art on Carrière, and share whatever we find.     

Random mix of vintage French paperback fronts, circa 1950s. The art here is by Jean David, Jean Salvetti, aka Salva, Louis Carrière and others.

Selection of Louis Carrière covers, circa late 1940s, early 1950s. We never heard of this guy before yesterday, but we gotta say, his stuff is fantastic. We're told he churned out a tremendous volume of work—at least 3,000 book covers and postcards between 1946 and 1952—but for someone so prolific there are woefully few sources of information about him. Nevertheless, we will be keeping an eye out for more of his art.