Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

CURL UP AND DIE

Is it the most comfortable position in which to breathe your last? Surveys have been inconclusive.

If you have to go, do it in relative comfort, as demonstrated by this Dutch cover for the Al Wheeler mystery Meisjes op zicht, which means “girls on sight,” and is a translation of the 1957 novel No Law Against Angels, known in the U.S. as The Body. The art is Dutch fave J.H. Moriën, who based his art on that of Barye Phillips, directly below. We have many links for those of you with time to kill, and the willingness to kill it with us. First, click here, here, and here for Moriën at his best. That’s mandatory. Then click here, here, here, and here to see more curled up (or semi-curled) corpses. And finally, we have a couple of dead body collections that include a curled up unfortunate or two here and here. We just thought of this theme today in a flash. Does it mean we’re morbid? Don’t answer that. Below are more examples, with the last showing the approved step-by-step process of curling up and dying.

Netherlands, Australia, Carter Brown, Alan G. Yates, George Bagby, Brett Halliday, Ellery Queen, Thomas B. Dewey, Erle Stanley Gardner, Peter Cheyney, John Shepherd, Craig Rice, J.H. Moriën, Paul E. Lehman, James Hadley Chase, Ferguson Findley, H. Vernon Dixon, Frank Kane, W.R. Burnett, John B. West, Agatha Christie, Richard Marsten, Helen Reilly, Bill S. Ballinger, Louis Trimble, Jonathan Craig, G.G. Fickling, René Roques, Jean Bazal, Barye Phillips, cover art, cover collection, literature

ELLIS’S ISLAND

Finally! Not another soul in sight. For some reason, the beach always gets crowded right where I am.

In this 1937 promo image U.S. actress Patricia Ellis has channeled our exact sentiment, as our local beaches begin to fill with vacationers. Luckily, we have lots of beaches, and like Ellis, we know some secret spots. She had a busy run in Hollywood, appearing in more than forty films from 1932 to 1939. Among them were The Lady in the Morgue, based on a Jonathan Latimer novel, The Case of the Lucky Legs, based on an Erle Stanley Gardner novel, While the Patient Slept, based on a Mignon G. Eberhart novel, and The Narrow Corner, based on a W. Somerset Maugham novel. That’s a lot of high quality source material. We’ll try to see one or more of those films.

The Lady in the Morgue, The Case of the Lucky Legs, While the Patient Slept, The Narrow Corner, Patricia Ellis, Erle Stanley Gardner, Mignon G. Eberhart, W. Somerset Maugham

MONSIEUR BLAMESHIFTER

Erm... before you shoot... I just want you to know it was all her fault.

Crime en deux temps, or “crime in two stages,” was originally released in 1939 as The Case of the Rolling Bones. For some reason the French publishers of this book, Presses de la Cité, call legendary mystery author Erle Stanley Gardner just Stanley Gardner, which sounds, well, non-legendary. Stanley Gardner is a guy at the office you don’t talk to because he’s a skin picker. Erle Stanley Gardner is a guy who, if he likes you, can get you into Nobu. So, the Erle is needed.

Plotwise, this revolves around greed, gold, and a group of people who want to prevent their relative from losing his fortune to his prospective wife. In order to stop this imagined horror, they commit the relative to a nuthouse before he can get married. Which backfires when he escapes. As always with Gardner there’s a murder, which brings Perry Mason onto the scene to sort everything out.

As you might guess, because Gardner was (and is) an immensely popular author there are several English language paperback covers for this, and they all feature dice in some form. Which makes sense, because the original title came about because there’s an actual die maker in the book. He makes crooked dice, and he gets murdered. This uncredited French cover from 1950 caught our eye because of its non-literal approach. No dice, but it’s a winner.

France, Presses de la Cité, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason, cover art, literature

SHE’S GOT HIS BACK

Fine. Explain. But don't turn around. I hate your face so much right now I might shoot it on general principle.

Above, a cover for Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Haunted Husband, eighteenth in the acclaimed Perry Mason series, from Pocket Books. Generally considered one of the best Mason mysteries, this one tells the story of a female hitchhiker who accepts a ride from a guy who gets a little too handsy, leading to a multi-car crack-up. The woman awakens behind the wheel, with the driver nowhere to be seen, and a fatality in one of the other cars. The cops don’t believe she wasn’t the driver, so they arrest her and charge her with negligent homicide. Things get worse when the car turns out to be stolen, and suddenly she’s on the hook for that too. Enter Perry Mason. Nothing is haunted in this book, but the mystery is a winner. We also were reminded how effective short chapters can be in drawing a reader into a story. The hardback of The Case of the Haunted Husband appeared in 1941, and the above paperback with Bernard Safran art followed in 1949.

Pocket Books, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason, Bernard Safran, cover art, literature

TROUBLE AT THE DOOR

If someone knocks, don't answer.

It’s a good thing the real world isn’t like the worlds of pulp and mid-century crime fiction. In those realms, when a woman receives an unexpected visitor the result is often disastrous. Bad cops, evil crooks, ruthless blackmailers, lecherous uncles, and all sorts of nasty characters usually await on the other side of the door. Above and below you see a collection of mid-century paperback fronts showing those fraught moments just after a woman opens her door to trouble, or trouble takes matters into its own hands and busts its way in. Our recommendation: in the event of an unexpected knock just go out the window.

James O. Causey, Thomas Sterling, Norbert Fagan, Lora Sela, Edwin Rolfe, Lester Fuller, Leslie Ford, Erle Stanley Gardner, Jack Karney, Ed McBain, Fan Nichols, Woody Craft, Alain Moury, Lindsay Hardy, Oscar Montgomery, Ed Lacy, Watkins E. Wright, Paul Gregory, Charles Higham, Dan Marlowe, Howard Rigsby, cover art, literature, cover collection

HOME ALONE

In the end I have to admit this minimalist look is kind of depressing. Maybe I should buy an ottoman.

Robert McGinnis does his usual flawless work on this cover for Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Bigamous Spouse. Many summaries of this online, but briefly, it’s about a door-to-door saleswoman who is implicated in the murder of her best friend’s new husband, who was married to two women. Rest assured, Perry Mason sorts it all out as perfectly as McGinnis sorted out this cover.  

Pocket Books, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason, cover art, literature

APRIL SHOWERS

Cleanliness is next to bawdiness.
Below, a small selection of paperback covers featuring characters getting more from their daily rinse than just a squeaky clean feeling.

Browning Norton, Paul Curtis, Andrew Shaw, Alan Marshall, Dallas Mayo, Marcus Miller, Erle Stanley Gardner, Catharine Whitcomb, George Harmon Coxe, Steve Sarver, J.D. Twigg, Jeff Bogar, P.G. Wodehouse, Dean Hudson, Don Bellmore, Richard Allen, Drew Palmer, Aaron Thomas, cover art, literature, cover collection

RIPPLE EFFECT

McGinnis makes waves with his art.


It’s always a good idea to regularly revisit the work of Robert McGinnis. Above you see his cover for Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Demure Defendant, originally published in 1954 with this Pocket Books paperback appearing in 1964. We love the psychedelic direction McGinnis goes with the ripples in the pond, alternating rings of turquoise and violet. This is fantastic work. 

Pocket Books, Cardinal Editions, Erle Stanley Gardner, Robert McGinnis, cover art, literature

SHADOW AND FRIGHT

The shape of bad things to come.

Above and below are assorted covers featuring yet another fun mid-century paperback art motif—the looming or threatening shadow. The covers are by the usual suspects—Rader, Phillips, Gross, Caroselli, Nik, as well as by artists whose work you see less often, such as Tony Carter’s brilliant cover for And Turned to Clay. That’s actually a dust jacket, rather than a paperback front, but we couldn’t leave it out. You’ll also notice French publishers really liked this theme. We’ll doubtless come across more, and as we do we’ll add to the collection. This is true of all our cover collections. For instance, our post featuring the Eiffel Tower has grown from fifteen to twenty-two examples, and our group of fronts with syringes has swelled from thirteen to twenty-six images. We have twenty-four twenty-six—see what we mean?—more shadow covers below, and thanks to all original uploaders.

Jay Barbette, Richard Deming, James Eastwood, Geoffrey Homes, E. Howard Hunt, Gordon Davis, Ovid Demaris, Anne Chamberlain, Tony Carter, Paul Rader, Barye Phillips, Lenore Glen Offord, George Gross, Carl G. Hoges, Benedetto Caroselli, Louis de la Hattais, Roy Huggins, Erle Stanley Gardner, Francis Beeding, Jon Cleary, Jannet Mills, Lesley Egan, Leslie Charteris, Lionel White, John Eugene Hasty, Vivian Marcy, Samuel Rogers, Joan Ellis, A.A. Fair, Thomas B. Dewey, Claude Ferny, Richard Craig, Richard Craig, Salva, Jean Salvetti, Mik, Jacques Thibésart, Gerald Brown, Milton K. Ozaki, Duke Linton, cover art, cover collection, literature

PAIN IN THE NECK

Yup, there's something here. Based on your personality I'm inclined to say it's a “666” but no—they're just bruises.

A.A. Fair’s Doublé de dupes, which is a translation of The Bigger They Come, was first published in hardback in 1939, appeared as a U.S. paperback from Pocket Books in 1952, and above in 1958. It’s the first in a series starring sixty-something private investigator Bertha Cool and her pint-sized sidekick Donald Lam.

Fair, aka Erle Stanley Gardner, had already made his Perry Mason series a success and the Cool/Lam shift got him out of the courtroom. In this one the protagonists attempt to serve divorce papers, but of course the seemingly simple task falls apart spectacularly, leaving a man dead and Lam under suspicion of having committed a serious crime. The British version’s title—Lam to the Slaughter—gives that aspect of the story away immediately.

The curious cover art you see here by Maurice Thomas was used on both the U.S. and French versions (a bit of a surprise considering the six year gap) and shows Lam checking out injuries on the femme fatale, who has been attacked by another character. General consensus online is that this series improved greatly after the first couple of entries.

France, Presses de la Cité, Doublé de dupes, The Bigger They Come, Lam to the Slaughter, A.A. Fair, Erle Stanley Gardner, cover art, literature
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies

American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago.

2011—Illustrator Michel Gourdon Dies

French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but produced nearly 3,500 covers during his career.

1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder

In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.

1925—Scopes Monkey Trial Ends

In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.

1933—Roosevelt Addresses Nation

Franklin D. Roosevelt uses the medium of radio to address the people of the United States for the first time as President, in a tradition that would become known as his “fireside chats”. These chats were enormously successful from a participation standpoint, with multi-millions tuning in to listen. In total Roosevelt would make thirty broadcasts over the course of eleven years.

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BABE IN THE WOODS

This idyllic scene for Folco Romano’s 1958 novel Quand la chair s’éveille was painted by Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan. You'd never suspect a book with a cover this pretty was banned in France, but it was.

PERMANENT VACATION

Hillman Publications produced unusually successful photo art for this cover of 42 Days for Murder by Roger Torrey.

LIKE AND CHAIR

Cover art by French illustrator James Hodges for Hans J. Nording's 1963 novel Poupée de chair.

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