Vintage Pulp

December 4 2020

THE DEVIL MADE HER DO IT

Excellent work! Now make them submit sexually while I get back to those mortgage bankers I'm slow roasting.

We’d been planning to read Satan Was a Lesbian for a while, but because we have plenty of experience with sleaze novels we didn’t have high expectations. The good news is those expectations were surpassed. The bad news is the book still isn’t good. The title alone makes it sound like a punchline in search of a publisher, but author Fred Haley—actually a pseudonym for Monica Roberts—tries to be serious as she tells the story of Charlene Duval: turned to lesbianism when barely a woman, initiated into rough practices by the violent Billie and her partner Karen, emotionally touched by her innocent young lover Cynthia, eventually case-hardened into a take-no-shit woman of the world. Is she really Satan? Come on, would Satan be named Charlene?

Think of Satan Was a Lesbian as the Thelma and Louise of vintage lesbian fiction, with the added tragedy that the book sometimes sells for as much as $350. Really? Yes. Just because of a catchy title and a piece of lurid Doug Weaver cover art? Yes, and not only that, but even refrigerator magnets and posters of this cover go for fifteen bucks, so to say everything associated with it is inflated in value is an understatement. But if you poke around and show some patience, you might not have to pay a fortune. The thing about these types of books is that eventually someone always sells them without knowing what the market is because they just want to get rid of grandpa’s dog-eared old smut. Alternatively, you could buy a refrigerator magnet, stare at it, and make up your own story. It would probably be nearly as good.

Publishers Export Company, Fred Haley, Doug Weaver, cover art, literature, lgbt

Vintage Pulp

April 23 2019

DARK SECRET

Well, I heard it's a salon tan and her real name is Becky.

PEC, aka Publishers Export Company, was about a low rent as it got for mid-century fiction, and the company left no stone unturned to get at the sleaze underneath. Fred Haley’s Black Heat is one of those books designed to get all the characters laid in taboo breaking fashion. The main character, sort of a local kingpin, is shocked when his blonde daughter gets involved with an exotic “negress,” and his son has an affair with another man. He then cheats, a blackmailer sends his wife a home movie of it, and so forth and so on.

Haley is actually a bit of a legend in this field, because he wrote Satan Was a Lesbian, beyond doubt one of the most posted and reposted sleaze covers ever. But Haley was a pseudonym—in that case for Monica Roberts. We can’t be sure Roberts wrote Black Heat, though, since pen names were often shared. All these books—even the many that try to be progressive about the subject matter—are racist, sexist, homophobic, and all the rest, but they’re also fascinating windows onto attitudes of the day. Black Heat is 1966 with an unknown cover artist.

Publishers Export Co., Fred Haley, Monica Roberts, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

July 28 2016

LADY LOVE

When girl meets girl sparks fly.

Above and below is a small percentage of some of the thousands of lesbian themed paperback covers that appeared during the mid-century period, with art by Paul Rader, Fred Fixler, Harry Schaare, Rudy Nappi, Charles Copeland, and others, as well as a few interesting photographed fronts. The collection ends with the classic Satan Was a Lesbian, which you’ve probably seen before, but which no collection like this is complete without. Hopefully most of the others will be new to you. Needless to say, almost all were written by men, and in that sense are really hetero books reflecting hetero fantasies (fueled by hetero misconceptions and slander). You can see plenty more in this vein on the website Strange Sisters.

Vintage Pulp

April 15 2016

LADY LOVE

When girl meets girl sparks fly.

Above and below is a small percentage of some of the thousands of lesbian themed paperback covers that appeared during the mid-century period, with art by Paul Rader, Fred Fixler, Harry Schaare, Rudy Nappi, Charles Copeland, and others, as well as a few interesting photographed fronts. The collection ends with the eternal classic Satan Was a Lesbian, which you’ve probably seen before, but which no collection like this is complete without. Hopefully most of the others will be new to you. Needless to say, almost all were written men, and in that sense are really hetero books reflecting hetero fantasies. You can see plenty more in this vein on the website Strange Sisters.

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

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.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

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.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

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.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

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.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

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.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.

October 2

1968—Massacre in Mexico

Ten days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, a peaceful student demonstration ends in the Tlatelolco Massacre. 200 to 300 students are gunned down, and to this day there is no consensus about how or why the shooting began.