Vintage Pulp

June 3 2017

FACING A CHOICE

Hmm. Should I be mostly impossible me today, or should I go with completely intolerable me?

In real life everyone has secrets, and they’re almost always pointless and tawdry. Not true in mid-century literature, where the secrets are always deadly. In 1950’s False Face, a biographer decides to write about a society woman who died in a car crash, and discovers her past to be a labyrinthine trail leading from her oversexed teenage years, to her time as a Chicago gang moll, to her stripping career, and eventually to her to final, respectable incarnation. All her past iterations were under different identities to hide the truth, and now as the writer puts the final pieces together, he comes to have questions about her death—questions it seems some mysterious person is out to prevent him asking. The book was written by Leslie Edgley, who had a small bibliography along with some television credits before fading from the literary scene. He also wrote as Robert Bloomfield and Brook Hastings, the latter in partnership with his wife Mary Edgley. This edition of False Face is from Handi Books and the cover art is by unknown.

Handi-Books, Leslie Edgley, Brook Hastings, Mary Edgley, Robert Bloomfield, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 18 2014

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

The cover changed substantially between editions but the weirdest bit stayed.

Remember our set of paperback covers featuring women who had died with their eyes agape? Here’s another to add to the list, which we saw over at Bill Crider’s blog. It’s Robert O. Saber’s The Affair of the Frigid Blonde, published in 1950 by the Handi-Books imprint of Quinn Publishing Company, Inc. This one is a bit strange, though, because of the three men seemingly hovering in mid-air to get a look through the deceased’s skylight. We chalk the bizarre perspective up to artistic license, or maybe we’re just not seeing it right. In fact, maybe she’s not even dead. Maybe she’s just in a state of shock. If we saw three guys floating above our skylight we’d fall into a stupor too. But no, the synopsis makes clear she’s dead.

Anyway, Robert Saber was a pseudonym used by Milton K. Ozaki, who also published frequently under his own name. The book also appeared in Australia as The Deadly Blonde in 1953, published by the Australian imprint Phantom Books, with slightly altered art. Among other details, what looks like a robot but is probably supposed to be a lamp was removed from the background, a clock disappeared, a humanoid shadow at the far right edge vanished, and the woman’s undies were made less sheer (though the floating guys still get a pretty interesting angle). All in all, this is very instructive example of how cover art changes between editions of pulp paperbacks. We’ll dig up more examples later.

Australia, Phantom Books, Handi-Books, The Deadly Blonde, The Affair of the Frigid Blonde, Robert O. Saber, Milton K. Ozaki, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

September 15 2009

YOU DON’T SAY?

For the murderer or just the murderee?

All this time I thought it was safe as milk (thank you Captain Beefheart).

Submitted by ScoreBaby, via Pulp Intl.’s now departed pulp uploader for visitors.

Handi-Books, Saul Levinson, Norman Saunders, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 22

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

April 22

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.

April 21

1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down

German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is “Kaputt.” The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes.

April 21

1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity

An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.

April 20

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

April 19

1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail

American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy.

April 19

1971—Manson Sentenced to Death

In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.