Well, after yet another failed New Year’s Eve effort to obliterate ourselves before the calendar turned we find ourselves here in the strange and uncharted territory called 2014. Never thought we’d make it this far, but since we did let’s get back to some pulp with yet another excellent Jacques Thibésart, aka Mik, cover, this one for Ça va être ta fête, aka “It’ll Be Your Birthday.” We really like this piece, especially the foreboding monochromatic landscape into which the beleaguered femme fatale is about to pitched unless she comes up with some groin destroying karate or a fingernail rake to the eyes. Not related to the 1960 French movie thriller of the same name (as far as we know), this was published by Éditions le Trotteure for their series Les Grands Romans Noirs in 1953, and written by Peter Viane, who was a pseudonym used by Pierre Cambon and his wife Viviane Pernet. To see more Mik, click. 

Is that Humphrey Bogart? It could be if he’d ever received a makeover. You know, spray-on tan, some blonde highlights. A head-to-toe cure de jouvence, as the French would say. Crack waxing, the whole nine. Not that we know anything about it. Anyway, whether this is Bogart 2.0 or not on the cover (which is uncredited, but very possibly was painted by that slippery devil Jacques Thibésart), we really like it. It’s from Éditions Le Globe and Éditions Le Trotteur for the collection Espions et Agents Secrets. Which is to say it’s a spy novel written by Jak Delay in 1953. After a week, it’s time to move on from France. We will have more French pulp later. 

We’re back to the French pulp today, with R. M. Letenre and his 1953 thriller Carte grise pour vienne, number 18 for Editions le Trotteur’s series Espions et Agents Secrets. We also have his 1954 effort for the horror series Frayeurs, Jennifer filleule du diable. The first book is illustrated by Mik, and the second by Aslan. We found zero information on Letenre, even on the many French websites and blogs we frequent. We'll dig, as always. In the meantime, it seems like a good opportunity to mention that our pulp uploader (in the right sidebar) is working again, so how's about somebody research this Letenre for us and shoot us some data?