I was hoping you had time to handle a couple of things for me right now.
The artist who painted this cover for Curt Aldrich's 1966 sleazer Anytime Girl didn't receive credit, which is not surprising, because it's a simplified copy of a Bob Abbett cover for the 1959 William Campbell Gault novel Sweet Wild Wench. But on the other hand, the cover for Sweet Wild Wench is a simplified copy of a frame from the 1958 Brigitte Bardot film En cas de malheur, aka Love Is My Profession. You'll see what we mean if you look here. We still like this cover, though. Greenleaf Classics and its various imprints—Evening, Candid, Midnight, Ember, Nightstand, et al—had a way of reducing cover concepts to their primal essence. Back then the results were considered tastelessly funny. Probably not so much today, but that's one reason we share these—for the cultural contrast between then and now. If you think society has progressed since then, here's a bit of evidence why that's true. And if you think everyone has simply turned into humorless drones, ditto. Want to see our greatest hits of Greenleaf Classics? Top ten: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Debate and discuss. We'll be back tomorrow to help dispose of the bodies.
An equitable exchange of services. Are you old enough to have experienced the swinging craze? We aren’t, and we wouldn’t have taken part anyway (are you reading this, Pulp Intl. girlfriends?), but it does look kind of fun on vintage paperbacks (you aren't reading this are you, Pulp Intl. girlfriends?). We’ve shared a few covers in the past dealing with the subject of swapping, and you can see a few here, here, and here. For today we decided it was finally time to do what every pulp site must—put together a large, swap-themed collection of sleaze paperback covers. So above and below is a vast assortment for your enjoyment. The trick with these was to make sure they weren’t all from Greenleaf Classics, which is a company that through its imprints Companion, Candid, Adult, Nightstand, et al, published hundreds of swapping novels. That means we had to look far afield to avoid having the entire collection come from that publisher. We think we’ve done a good job (though we will put together a Greenleaf-only swapping collection later—it’s mandatory). Want to see even more swapping books? Try the excellent sleaze fiction website triplexbooks.com.
You know, in my country they’re clear-cutting forests at an alarming rate. Above, Sucked into Sin, written by Curt Aldrich and published by Greenleaf Classics in 1968 for their Companion Books set. Typical sleaze here, with a story revolving around a woman whose husband leaves for Germany on a business trip for three weeks, prompting the horny neighbors to use the time to corrupt her. It doesn’t take much, and within days wifey's letting the whole neighborhood get on it. But what will she tell her husband? The cover artist for this is Ed Smith.
This? This isn’t the lust lotion. I’ll grab that in a sec. This is my hemorrhoid cream. I’m gonna need your help here. We were going to go with “cream for my seeping bacne” for the subhead on this one, but that struck us as too colloquial, so we went with hemorrhoid cream instead. We’re all class around here. Anyway, Curt Aldrich, who we last discussed way back in 2009, was a house pseudonym inhabited by several writers, so we hear. The only one of those to have been positively identified is Richard Curtis. The Lust Lotion, which appeared in 1967, is a tame effort for Aldrich. He would go on to write incest books like Spread Big Sister and Her Father’s Fixation, as well as bestiality novels like Daughter Loves Horses, Horse-Happy Schoolgirl, and the unforgettable Schoolgirls Hot for Dogs, so Lust Lotion is family fare in comparison. The art is from Robert Bonfils.
Shake that thang like a Polaroid picture.
Despite the racy look of it, 1,2,3… Swap! is one of author Curt Aldrich’s tamer efforts. Writing from the mid-60s and into the 80s, he specialized in swapping fiction, giving us many memorable books, including Cock ‘o the Swap, Swap Epidemic, and Swap ’69. Not one to limit himself, Aldrich also went fully hardcore with rather shocking titles like Daughter Loves Horses, Spread Big Sister, and Horny Holy Roller Family. It could be Aldrich showed such range because he was actually a pseudonym used by various authors, including Richard Curtis, who later became a literary agent. Many of these books featured low-rent cover illustrations that were little more than sketches, but this psychedelic effort by an unknown artist (looks like it could be Robert Bonfils, but absent confirmation, we'll go with unknown) is first rate. We'll be posting more Adrich books in the future. Update: turns out the art is by Darrel Millsap, who illustrated scores of covers for Greenleaf Classics. It only took four years to clear that up, but better late than never.
|
|
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1931—Nevada Approves Gambling
In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived. 1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight
During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service. 1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe
Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane. 1965—Leonov Walks in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod's airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk. 1966—Missing Nuke Found
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.
|
|
|
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
|
|