Come here, baby. You sprint out there and draw his fire while I cover you from back here. We love Vega Books. Nearly everything they released was patently terrible, but the cover art was sometimes quite funny. You can thank Bill Edwards for that. 1961 on this.
Trust me, this is the last place they’ll look for us. Above, a Vega Books front for Frank Cannon’s Hide in Hell, with art of a fugitive and his female companion, who’s probably wondering why they can’t hide in the Bahamas or Bali. Cannon, by the way, also wrote Satan in Malibu, so apparently even the Prince of Darkness didn’t like spending time in Hell. 1964 on this, with uncredited art (but it's Bill Edwards).
I’m glad you think they’re pretty, but they’re not my underwear—they’re yours. One of my red dresses got mixed in with your laundry. It’s been a while, so here’s another cover from Saber Books, Jack Moore’s Call of the Flesh, published in 1963, with art by Bill Edwards. You can see another cover from Saber here.
Sigh. Maybe I would’ve had better luck selling aluminum siding. We haven’t read this book, so we don’t know what’s in the suitcase, but clearly it’s not a product many people want. Whizzinator anyone? Automatic banana peeler? Mary Fletcher was almost certainly a pen name, but one that was used perhaps only for this effort, so we can’t tell you who the author really was. But we can tell you we think this is Bill Edwards’ cover art. He painted many of Vega’s covers, and this looks very much like his work. You can compare for yourself by looking at an Edwards collection here.
And so, inserting these two digits will get me the result I want from this boobed figure, er, I mean cubed figure… Above, a cover for A. Bunch’s sleaze novel Students of Lust. No mystery what this one is about—a high school girl decides the only way to improve her grades is to seduce her teacher. It’s downloadable in a couple of places around the web, so a search might turn up a copy you can buy.
Actually, you’re drinkin’ the kerosene I use for my lantern. The moonshine’s over yonder. But I am duly impressed. Above, the cover of Clouded Passion by Arthur A. Howe, for Fabian Books, 1962, with Bill Edwards cover art of a country girl chugging booze like a Zeta Tau Alpha. Fabian, as well as Vega Books and Saber Books, was owned by Sanford Aday, who made himself a constant target for various morality groups, including Citizens for Decent Literature, which was headed by that paragon of virtue Charles H. Keating. Aday was eventually convicted of obscenity, along with his associate Wallace de Ortega Maxey, for shipping a single copy of the book Sex Life of a Cop to Michigan. Aday got twenty-five years, but the conviction was overturned by a Supreme Court decision. The novels from Adey’s three publishing houses are somewhat collectible today, and most of the covers were exactly like this one—amusing but low quality. If you’re interested, you can see a group here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1985—Theodore Sturgeon Dies
American science fiction and pulp writer Theodore Sturgeon, who pioneered a technique known as rhythmic prose, in which his text would drop into a standard poetic meter, dies from lung fibrosis, which may have been caused by his smoking, but also might have been caused by his exposure to asbestos during his years as a Merchant Marine. 1945—World War II Ends
At Reims, France, German General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms, thus ending Germany's participation in World War II. Jodl is then arrested and transferred to the German POW camp Flensburg, and later he is made to stand before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials. At the conclusion of the trial, Jodl is sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal. 1954—French Are Defeated at Dien Bien Phu
In Vietnam, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which had begun two months earlier, ends in a French defeat. The United States, as per the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, gave material aid to the French, but were only minimally involved in the actual battle. By 1961, however, American troops would begin arriving in droves, and within several years the U.S. would be fully embroiled in war. 1937—The Hindenburg Explodes
In the U.S, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire and is incinerated within a minute while attempting to dock in windy conditions after a trans-Atlantic crossing. The disaster, which kills thirty-six people, becomes the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and most famously, Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field. But for all the witnesses and speculation, the actual cause of the fire remains unknown.
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