Vintage Pulp | Jun 11 2022 |
The Case of Spiv's Secret by Anthony Parsons was an entry in the Sexton Blake Library series, and came in 1950 from British publishing company Amalgamated Press. The Sexton Blake Library is what was known as a story paper, basically a magazine with illustrations, and this one appeared two to four times a month, starting all the way back in 1915 and continuing until 1968, which is an amazing run. We had to look up the word “spiv”—with serious trepidation. But it turned out to be relatively innocuous. A spiv can be a flashy dresser, but its other definition—which we suspect is Parsons' usage here—is a sort of petty or low-class criminal. The artist on this is Eric Parker. You can see a few more Sexton Blake titles here, here, and here.
Vintage Pulp | Feb 5 2018 |
Above, an entry in the long running set of thrillers and mysteries published by Amalgamated Press, Ltd. under the umbrella of The Sexton Blake Library between 1930 and 1960. This one by John Drummond is number 240, appeared in bookstores in 1950, and illustrates (to us at least) the danger involved when a politician has the momentary delusion he is anything more than the sock puppet of billionaires and corporations. One way or another this will be the last time he doesn't take his armored limousine.
Vintage Pulp | Aug 21 2017 |
This weird cover caught our eye for obvious reasons. And as guys who have to help our girlfriends get their necklaces on nearly every day, we sometimes wonder if they'd trade their normal arms for a pair of backwards ones. With backwards arms the girls could also give themselves back rubs, which seems to be one of our primary functions. Seriously. One of our girlfriends literally walks in the room pointing at her own lats, which is semaphore for “back rub time.” Anyway, British author Hugh Clevely, who also wrote as Tod Claymore, produced this entry in the Sexton Blake Library, and the eponymous Blake—in case you aren't familiar with him—is basically an ingenious sleuth patterned after Sherlock Holmes, but with a tendency toward duelling to deal with his enemies. The character was immensely popular and eventually appeared on stage, radio, on television, and in movies. The Strange Affair of the Widow's Diamond's was published in 1955.
Vintage Pulp | Feb 9 2016 |
The Blonde and the Boodle, from Sexton Blake Library, entry number 394, is a labyrinthine tale by British author Jack Trevor Story of thwarted love and a thwarted bank heist. Basically, girl marries a crook, girl is influenced to rob bank, girl loses loot, girl decides husband is louse, girl looks for replacement, girl selects someone even worse than her first choice.
All very interesting, but what we really wanted to do was share the amazing art, which is by Fernando Carcupino, a man so respected as an artist he was knighted. Really—in 1983 he was made a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. That takes talent. Sexton Blake books have a vertical cover banner, but we’ve cropped that so you can see Carcupino’s work a bit more closely. For the purists among you we've uploaded the full cover as well. We’ll try to dig up more examples of this genius’s output later.