| Vintage Pulp | Feb 17 2023 |
Hammett plants a bumper crop of betrayal and murder.
We've already shown you John Vernon's and Lou Marchetti's artistic takes on Dashiell Hammett's seminal debut novel Red Harvest. Above you see another top artist running with Hammett's inspiration—Harry Bennett. This appeared on the cover of the 1961 Perma Books edition, with Bennett taking a less representational route than Vernon or Marchetti. We especially like mottled brushwork inside the red border. You may have thought that was damage to the book, but it's in the art alright. It fits what is an incredibly blood soaked tale. Bennett was tapped by Perma for a series of Hammett covers, which he painted in similar style, including unusual border work on those too. We've added those below. To see everything we have from him, click his keywords at bottom.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 21 2022 |
For a fulfilling killing nothing beats a blade.
Today we have for your pleasure a collection of vintage paperback covers featuring characters on both the giving and receiving ends of knives—or knifelike tools such as icepicks. Above you see Harry Bennett art of a poor fella getting a knife from nowhere. Maybe Damocles did it. It's a funny cover because we don't think we'd grab our throats if we got stabbed in the spine, but let's hope we never find out. Below, in addition to numerous U.S. and British offerings, you'll see covers from France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. There are many, many paperback fronts featuring knives—we mean hundreds—but we decided to stop ourselves at thirty-two today. These do not represent the best (as if we could decide something like that), or our favorites, but merely some interesting ones we've come across of late. If you're super interested in this particular motif we have plenty more examples in the archives. They'd be hard to find, because we don't keyword for knives, so here are some links to get you there: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Robert Caine FrazerKenneth FearingJean FonroyGeoffrey HomesJerry CraytonLeslie CharterisGeoffrey HomesHelen ReillyFletcher BennettPaul I. WellmanBob McKnightMatthew HeadStuart JamesIan FlemingCarter BrownWilliam R. CoxJohn Dickson CarrTony TowersLynton Wright BrentJohn ShepherdS.S. Van DineJean NormandSam Merwin Jr.Roger DelvartJohn RhodeJack KelsoAdam KnightDashiell HammettM.M. KayeFletcher BennettAndre CaroffHelen ReillyMickey SpillaneJean Le RusseVan Wyck MasonRichard S. PratherEllery Queencover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 18 2022 |
I'm not only beautiful. I'm expensive, inconvenient, and unreliable. You'll spend years explaining all this to your therapist.
We have another paperback collection for you today, and this one is a no-brainer for a pulp site. There are hundreds of covers featuring women in bars, many of which we've already shared, such as here, here (scroll down), and here. Above and below are more, and as soon as we uploaded them we went to do exactly what the art depicts. Have a happy Friday, everyone.
Monarch BooksPaul DanielsCharles GorhamCharles O. GorhamGlen WatkinsJack EhrlichJean PedrickJ.M. FlynnMike PanosFaber BirrenJames ClayfordHansford MartinAllan HorneJack NortonAlbert L. QuandtRichard MezatestaVicki EvansGerald FosterJoan ShermanRafael DeSotoGil BrewerMark ClementsCharles-Louis PhilippeFlorence StonebrakerJack WaerEve LinkletterFan NicholsSimon KentMartin YoseloffHenry EllsworthFrank KaneMarch HastingsLindsay HardyJean BruceEric ThomasHoward BondGil BrewerPaul Rénincover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 6 2022 |
We always have space for Giovanni.
Benvenuti is an Italian word that means “welcome,” and an artist who's always welcome here is Giovanni Benvenuti, a genius we've featured several times. But it's been a while so we've put together another collection of his work below.
ItalyFranceÉditions DitisGarzantiGiovanni BenvenutiAnthony MortonBruno BaxJean Pierre FerrièreMichel AverlantManning LongStuart PalmerMickey SpillaneJohn CreaseyD. Miles Disneycover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 9 2021 |
It's a carnaval of mayhem in Brazil.
We wanted to call attention one last time to an interesting Facebook page dedicated to vintage crime paperbacks published in Brazil by Edições de Ouro and Editora Tecnoprint. We started our webpage in 2008 and back then we had a lot of company. Somehow or other, regretfully, we've outlasted many of them. Maybe in the age of Twitter and Instagram, blogs with actual words have died. But for that reason it's exciting to see someone launch something new—especially dedicated to such an exotic (from our point of view) niche of paperback style. It was actually launched in 2017, but we saw it only recently. We can tell you this—we love Brazil, have been there for carnaval, and if we'd known these books were down there we'd have brought back more than just a long lasting cachaça hangover. We knew Brazil had produced some pulp style paperbacks—much of the art was repurposed from U.S. editions—but we didn't know it was this extensive. Carnaval 2022? Well, probably not. But one day, return we will, to old Brazil.
BrazilTecnoprintEdições de Ouro e Editora TecnoprintBruno FischerWade MillerWilliam ArdFrank KaneRex StoutBrett HallidayStephen J. Marlowecover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 19 2021 |
Into battle, me mateys! And tonight for those who survive—extra portions of organic Chai tea!
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, not an official holiday, sadly. We asked the Pulp Intl. girlfriends what they'd do if they were pirates and the answers weren't pretty. Making all the men walk the plank was the most charitable of their thoughts, with swords and whips coming into play pretty quickly after that. Good thing we're only supposed to talk like pirates. Arrr... let's tone down the homicidal thoughts, girls.
Above and below is a collection of vintage paperbacks with women pirates. Well, maybe the woman on the cover of Rafael Sabatini's The Fortunes of Captain Blood isn't a pirate so much as someone defending herself. But anyone who can handle two pistols at once is an honorary pirate, at the least. We found eleven examples, and the cover art on display is by Harry Schaare, Rudolph Belarski, Barye Phillips, Paul Anna Soik, and others.
Frank ShayGardner F. FoxPhilip RushRobert E. HowardJeramie PriceDouglas BrownRaafael SabatiniInglis FletcherFrank G. SlaughterC.V. TerryAdam ShawHarry SchaareRudolph BelarskiBarye PhillipsPaul Anna Soikcover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 10 2021 |
Filled with great flavor and extra pulp.
Above: a small collection of Benedetto Caroselli covers on which he utilized orange. We put this group together because last week's poster for Le trottoir made us realize we rarely see predominantly orange book covers, then it occurred to us that Caroselli was one illustrator who used the color often. He painted ten of these for Edizioni Periodici Italiani's collection I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore, and two for EPI's Agente Segreto series. You can see Caroselli squeeze another cover out of orange here.
Note: We put this collection together yesterday. Today a new monitor we ordered arrived and some of the colors that were solidly orange now look, well, red-orange. But you know what? Fuck it.
ItalyEdizioni Periodici ItalianiI Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’OrroreBenedetto CaroselliDouglas FergussonAbel RamkSilveralesFrank ScottJohn D. LaneFrancis AubernayChristian BuschMarion WallesFrank BoghartYuri BorinJoan Threecover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 11 2021 |
A dozen reasons to love French cover art.
We've done plenty on illustrator Jef de Wulf. Today we have a diverse collection of more of his work. As always, we'll circle back to him later. In the meantime, we recommend looking here, here, here, here, and here.
FranceJef de WulfAndré MartelKarl Von EckeJuan ManceroYvan Noé. Gore VidalNadine B.Terry CraneAlain MontbloyAllan BlythRice Lansencover artliteraturecover collection
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 23 2021 |
Paperback publishers get it up in Paris.
Below, seven more examples of vintage paperbacks using the Eiffel Tower on their covers. You can add these to the collection of twenty-two we put together a few years back.
FranceParisDigit BooksBernard NewmanMichel AtkinsonJulian PaulBarrowLouis-Charles RoyerJoseph HeronFrancoise DorysGeorge GoodmanRichard SpongPeter Cheyneycover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 1 2021 |
John Creasey's franchise sleuth gets all the best lines.
Above, mid-century design in the form of Panther Books' Toff series by British author John Creasey. These covers from 1964 and 1965 combine photo-illustrations with beautiful line-based graphic design to excellent effect. The Toff is the nickname of a character named Richard Rollinson, the classic gentleman sleuth. Creasey published more than fifty Toff novels between 1938 and 1977, and more than six hundred books total under his name and twenty eight pseudonyms. We haven't read any, and the volume of output makes us question whether his books can be of high quality, but we may try the Toff anyway. Those upper class English gents are so hard to resist.
