You really want to turn me on? Try helping with the laundry.
“A lusty novel about Florida crackers,” the cover bluntly proclaims, but the crackers actually originate from Mississippi, which they've had to leave in disgrace after a preacher becomes the source of a scandal. In Florida he takes up his dubious ways while his son gets into woman trouble of his own. Author Charles H. Baker, Jr. wins extra points for his usage of the word “ho,” a tricky term, with so much encompassed by its single syllable, and which we've discussed in detail before. Dell Publications pioneered the usage of mapbacks, which you probably know, but sometimes the company deviated from that tradition and this book is a very nice example. Just take a look at the amazing rear cover below. The front was painted by Victor Kalin, the back presumably by some under-appreciated in-house artist, and the whole shebang was published in 1951.
A history of Rome in three volumes. We watched Frank Sinatra’s 1967 detective movie Tony Rome last week and, except for some nice Miami exteriors and the presence of Jill St. John, it was strictly average. But it did give us the idea of digging up the source material, so above you see the covers of the three popular books in the literary series, published in 1960, ’61, and ’62. In an attempt to make readers think the tales were real-life adventures they’re credited to Anthony Rome, but they were actually written by veteran author Marvin H. Albert, who churned out more than one hundred books in the western, mystery, spy, and history categories. In addition to writing as Rome, he published as Albert Conroy, Al Conroy, Nick Quarry, Ian MacAlister, and J. D. Christilian. The cover art above is by, top to bottom, George Porter, Bob Abbett, and Victor Kalin. A while back we published a rare promo image from the film version of Lady in Cement and you can see that rather unusual shot here.
Never trust a man in expensive clothes. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends want more depictions of men on the site. Can we oblige them? Probably not. Vintage paperback art features women about ninety percent of the time, and they’re often scantily clothed. Men, on the occasions they appear, are not only typically dressed head to toe, but are often sartorially splendid. There are exceptions—beach-themed covers, bedroom depictions, gay fiction, and romances often feature stripped down dudes. We’ll assemble some collections of all those going forward, but today the best we can offer is an assortment of g’d up alpha males, with art by Victor Kalin, Robert McGinnis, and others. Enjoy.
But I’ve been super tense, and my masseur—his name is Pablo, by the way—he offered to make a house call, and… Above is a Victor Kalin cover for the John D. MacDonald thriller Soft Touch, a book that originally appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine as Taint of the Tiger in March 1958, back when Cosmo used to print abridged novels. It’s the story of a man whose old war buddy approaches him with an offer to commit a seven-figure heist. The idea is to rob a courier of cash he’s shuttling from Latin America. The lead character is willing to do the job because his work sucks, he misses military action, and his wife is a cheating lush. Basically, he sees the crime as a way out, but of course he actually ends up getting way in—everything goes wrong. Taint of the Tiger was published in hardback as Soft Touch shortly after its Cosmo debut, and appeared in August the same year as a Dell paperback edition, above, with Kalin’s art. This is MacDonald before he invented Travis McGee, which, as we've mentioned before, is where we—and consensus concurs—he did his best work. This one isn't perfect, but it's well worth a read.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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