vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
A few years ago we shared some art from the French magazine Nous Deux and promised we’d get back to the publication later. Well, it sometimes takes a little while, but we’re newly dedicated to keeping our promises. Above are assorted covers from this cheery publication, all painted by the genius Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon, and the Italian artist Giulio Bertoletti, late 1960s. See two more examples here and here.
The famed French illustrator Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, saw his work reused in the unlikeliest places, including unlicensed on bootleg vinyl sleeves for The Cure and Joy Division. Today we thought we’d show you his art recycled in his native industry—publishing. The top cover for Ludwig Krauss’s Les nuits bavaroises is from Éditions Les Presses de la Nuit and appeared in 1958, and the simplified second cover for Michel de Kerguen’s Concerto pour un ange is from Les Éditions Gamma and appeared a year later. You can be sure the reworked Aslan was licensed, but none of the sites we visited seemed to realize it originated with him. So we’re giving him official credit. Both covers are nice, but the first is truly brilliant.
Casanova à Manhattan is another novel in the dekobrisme style by the author for whom the adjective was coined, Maurice Dekobra. In this one a French count rescues a woman from a concentration camp, marries her, and spirits her away to New York City. He gets a job in a nightclub and she finds work as a chaperone of debutantes. Things go swimmingly until the count’s sister-in-law turns up with designs to replace the wife. Dekobra was one of the most famous French authors of the 20th century. You can learn a bit more about him from our previous write-ups on him here and here, but the best way to know him is to read him. The cover art here was painted by Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon. He painted some of the most romantic covers and pin-ups of the last century, and some of the most erotic. We’ve been thinking about putting together a collection of his pin-ups, but have been hesitant because they’re pretty explicit. Well, stay tuned. We may do it anyway. Meanwhile, check out our collection of paperback kisses here.
We never want to go too long without an offering from the great French pin-up and paperback artist Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, so above we have his cover for Macadam Sérénade, a thriller written by Paul S. Nouvel for Éditions de l’Arabesque. Nouvel was a pseudonym. The man behind it was French journalist/author/translator/editor Jean-Michel Sorel, who also wrote as Larry Layne, Arnold Rodin, Silvio Sereno, Tugdual Marech, Jan Mychel, Jean-Michel, Yvon Brozonech, Swani Abdul Hamid (we love that one), and many other identities. In all he produced more than one-hundred forty novels—and probably could have squeezed in a couple more if he hadn’t been so busy thinking of pen names. 1955 on this.
Above, some scans from the sex obsessed U.S. tabloid National Informer, published today in 1968, with stories on penis size, nude models, spouse swapping, teen sex, and more. In fact, the editors seemed to believe the world was entering an era of sexual utopia. Which just goes to show people never appreciate the age in which they’re living, because 1968 looks a lot more like sexual utopia to modern Americans than anything going on today. There are three highlights in this issue—Swedish actress Janet Agren, who we’ve memorably featured before, on the cover, an Aslan pin-up on page three, and visions of the future from Informer‘s resident soothsayer The (not so) Great Criswell. His craziest prediction is as follows: “I predict that African brides can be bought in the open market thru mail-order. These 12-year-old brides have been trained how to be a good, dutiful wife, a good mother, and a good black magician, fortune teller, and witch doctor. Over 18,000 are now in England alone!” There’s really not much we can add to that. Except to say that if these 12-year-old fortune tellers actually existed we wish one of them would have taken Criswell’s job. You can see plenty more from Infomer by clicking its keywords below.
Above, the cover of Lewis Simford’s Mon cœur est à moi from Éditions Les Presses de la Nuit’s Collection Les 4 Vents de l’Amour, or 4 Winds of Love Collection, 1958. Simford was an alias used by Jacques-Henri Juillet. But of course the reason we’re sharing this is because of the art from the always brilliant Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon. See more from him here.
This is the last of our rare bootleg record sleeves with art by Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon. The previous two were for records by The Cure, and we showed you those here and here. This one was made for Joy Division, and though undated—the blue vinyl and inner sleeve have no text at all—probably appeared in late 1980 as a rush release after lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. As far as we know, no other bootleg records with Aslan art were ever made, though Fontana released a series of very nice licensed Aslan covers during the 1960s. All three Aslan bootlegs are somewhat racy, this one perhaps most so, but it’s a brilliant piece of art.
Update, 2020: We found the original Aslan painting that became the unlicensed cover above, plus the reference photos that were the basis for the painting. They’re all below. Model unknown. We could have shared this discovery a new, separate post, but we put it here because it was easier. Plus, it’ll keep you on your toes—you never what we’ll dump deep into the website. Also, doing it this way leaves us more time for fine glasses of white wine.
We have another collection today as we prepare to jet away on vacation with the girls. Since the place we’re going is known for rowdy British tourists (what place isn’t known for that?), we thought we’d feature some of the numerous paperback covers featuring fights. You’ll notice, as with our last collection, the preponderance of French books. Parisian publishers loved this theme. The difference, as opposed to American publishers, is that you almost never saw women actually being hit on French covers (we’d almost go so far as to say it never happened, but we’ve obviously not seen every French paperback ever printed). The French preferred man-on-man violence, and when women were involved, they were either acquitting themselves nicely, or often winning via the use of sharp or blunt instruments.
Violence against women is and has always been a serious problem in the real world, but we’re just looking at products of the imagination here, which themselves represent products of the imagination known as fiction. Content-wise, mid-century authors generally frowned upon violence toward women even if they wrote it into their novels. Conversely, the cover art, stripped of literary context, seemed to glorify it. Since cover art is designed to entice readers, there’s a valid discussion here about why anti-woman violence was deemed attractive on mid-century paperback fronts, and whether its disappearance indicates an understanding of its wrongness, or merely a cynical realization that it can no longer be shown without consequences. We have another fighting cover here, and you may also want to check out our western brawls here.
Are these pulp? Sort of. They’re Aslan, and that’s close enough. We’re referring, of course, to French master Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, and we’ve featured rare pieces of his that you can’t see anywhere else (so far) here and here. What you’re looking at above are covers for the magazine Line, billed as “le journal des chics filles.” These are Aslan in cutesy mode, which he always did quite well, and which presents a nice counterpoint to him in raunchy mode, at which he also excelled. We’ll do more on him in the latter incarnation in a bit. Late 1960s on all these.
Pulp is a place where the men are decisive and the women are as light as feathers. We’ve gotten together a collection of paperback covers featuring women being spirited away to places unknown, usually unconscious, by men and things that are less than men. You have art from Harry Schaare, Saul Levine, Harry Barton, Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, and others.
LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.
A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.
The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.
American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.
The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.
An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.
After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.
