vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
We showed you a cover a while back for Robert Tachet’s Les morts sont toujours collants painted by Jean Sidobre, aka Francis Leroy. Above is a Dutch language cover for Conald Leüger’s Zwak Vlees that remixes Sibdore’s original effort into a pleasing bright orange result. The title of the book means, “weak flesh.” It’s from Antwerp based Uitgeverij Publiforce and appeared in 1958.
Above are two versions of a piece of Alain Gourdon art first used on Yann R. Patrick’s Vénus des neiges by Éditions de l’Arabesque in 1955, then repurposed by Antwerp based Uitgeverij Eros for Mickey Spencer’s Geen tijd voor Kusjes. Everyone’s an aka here. Gourdon painted under the moniker Aslan, Patrick was really Jacques-Henri Juillet, and Spencer is an obvious pseudonym, though we don’t for whom. Whether dark or light, this is lovely work.
Here’s a nice cover for a Dutch paperback titled Nachtkatje, which translates as “night kitten,” written by Mike Splane, and published by Antwerp based Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp in 1957. This publisher is not the same as Uitgeversmij, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and whose output we’ve shown you here and here. The cover on this is uncredited, but A.B.C.’s Vamp series often had Alain Gourdon art that had been modified from a previous form, and this piece has that look.
Everything we just wrote, we learned with minimal research. Now comes the part where our research falls short. You might guess that this is a translated Mickey Spillane novel, but we can’t confirm that. If it’s a translated Spillane it’s mighty short—just sixty-plus pages. Which presents a problem. Spillane’s short stories weren’t published in book form until after 1957, at least not in the U.S. So finding out if this is a Spillane short—which we doubt—will have to wait for more knowledgable people than us. See more covers in the same vein here.
Above are three Dutch language covers for Antwerp based Uitgeverij Publiforce and author Conald Leüger painted by the famed American pin-up artist Peter Driben. Sex Appeal en Bloedzuigers (Sex Appeal and Extortionists) and Sex Appeal Liefde en Hormonen (Sex Appeal Love and Hormones) date from 1957, and De Pekelzonde (The Peccadillo) with its charming image of a girl having trouble hanging a picture dates from 1963. If you’re inclined you can see more Dutch language pulp at this Flickr group.
In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission’s conclusions.
