A few days ago we shared a book cover inspired by a 1948 Life magazine photo. We wanted to show you a more direct inspiration from that shot. Here you see Tony Calvano's The Hellions, from 1965 for Greenleaf Classics, published by its sub-imprint Leisure Books. Calvano was in actuality Thomas P. Ramirez.

The art on this is by Robert Bonfils, and he basically copied the dynamic figure in the Life photo, and did so brilliantly, making changes to her hair (more and wilder) and bikini (smaller and flimsier). The result is an illustration that's a real eye-catcher. You can scroll down a few posts if you want to see the Life shot in a larger size. It was part of a photo essay on a performative youth movement called Activationism, centered in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 

We never went to summer school. We just weren't bad enough students for that but now we see it may have had its good points, as seen on this cover for Tony Calvano's, aka Thomas P. Ramirez's Summer Lust, about students in summer session who can't keep their minds on their work. Greenleaf Classics could turn even the most obscure scenarios into sleaze, so you know something as obvious as summer school basically wrote itself. It's copyright 1965, with cover art by an unknown. 

Science has given humanity a lot over the centuries. What will turn out to be one of its most important gifts is its conclusion, widely disseminated beginning in 1950 but by today firmly proven thanks to DNA sequencing, that race doesn’t exist in any scientific way. Of course, many don’t consider that fact a gift—but many people also had serious problems with the revelation that the Earth wasn’t flat. The concept of race comes entirely from the human imagination, and anti-black racism dates from within about the last five-hundred years, created principally as a means to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Seen in that light, scientific proof that race doesn’t exist represents not new knowledge, but a return to knowledge that was the norm before the drive for riches caused men to deliberately warp human thought as a means to cover for mass cruelty.

As an imaginary construct, however, race is persistently powerful, which the collection of paperback fronts above and below strongly illustrate. We weren’t around when any of these were written, but their existence reveals a surprisingly (to us) lively market in such material. Were all the books you see here of great worth? Certainly not. But even with their flaws—particularly woman-blaming for rape—these books are artifacts of a fascinating racial dialogue that we suspect, on balance, was beneficial. We have fifty examples and there are at least a couple dozen more we didn’t include (Black Dicks for Marcie was just a bit too out there). Some of those pieces will pop up later in a slightly different themed collection. In addition to what you see here, we also put together a related group last year featuring an Asian theme and you can see that here.

Above, 1967’s The Long, Long Lust, by sleaze pulp specialist Tony Calvano, née Thomas Ramirez, with great cover art by Robert Bonfils of a guy who’s pretty cocky considering he’s wearing lace panties. Would that we all could be so confident. You can find an extensive bio of Calvano/Ramirez here, and more Bonfils covers by clicking keyword ‘Robert Bonfils’ below. 

Allow yourself to be tortured to get laid? What sort of idiot would do that? Not you, right? No, but you did sit through all those episodes of Sex and the City. Remember that? And let's not forget all the times you ordered vegetarian at dinner. It’s coming back to you now, isn’t it? Hurts, right? Think you can take more? Ha ha. Remember that time you stayed the weekend at a B&B? I’m sorry, was that a scream we heard? No? Of course it wasn’t. You’re way too tough for that. Say, remember that time you took a salsa class? Oh, the pain. And remember that time you missed the Superbowl telecast because she wanted to go wine tasting? And let’s not forget that trip to Vegas with your buddies you missed because she got tickets to go to an art exhibit that weekend. Yes, we know. Just let it go. Let the tears flow. There there. There there. What was that? We're sorry, we couldn’t quite understand what you said through all your blubbering. You said you’d rather be chained and whipped instead? It’s too late my friend—you made your choice.