| 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 17 2018 |
Hey, hurry up, we're needed at the— Oh. I'm guessing you totally missed the bat signal.
Above, the cover of Allyn Davis's 1967 sleaze caper Backstage Trio, published by reliable smut purveyors Wee Hours Books. In this one you get sexual doings in a touring theater troupe, with all the expected variations, including sex in exchange for funding and sex to secure plum roles, but no woman in a bat (or is it a devil?) suit anywhere. It's a classic cover just the same from Bill Alexander, whose work we haven't featured until now but who we will certainly get back to.
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 24 2016 |
He cooked up a different formula for paperback art.
Gene Bilbrew is one of those illustrators whose art seems at first glance below the usual standard, but he had a strong style, and the more you look at it the more you see it as the purposeful product of a unique talent. Like the work of leftfield illustrator Eric Stanton, Bilbrew's paintings eschew realism of any sort and instead strive to catch the eye, achieving the ultimate goal of commercial art. Check out the assortment below.
Satan PressWee Hours BooksVanguard BooksWizard BooksChevron BooksGene BilbrewRuss TrainerRay TrainLana PrestonJack VastDon KingHugo PaulJohn RoxburyLinda MartinGlenn Allisoncover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 1 2011 |
Actually, you’re playing the queen of Spurta, not Sparta, but otherwise this is pretty much like the Greek myth.
So much for taking a few days off. We’ll get out of town eventually, but since we didn’t actually leave, it gives us a chance to show you Anthony Dean’s Screen Test, from Wee Hours Books, 1966. And though the cover art by Gene Bilbrew isn’t great, we like it because it shows the moment when it dawns on the actress that when her agent said, “The movie is about fifty men crammed inside the Trojan horse,” she must have misheard the last word.
