vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above: two more covers by Dutch artist J.H. Moriën for Nederlandsche Keurboekerij and its S.O.S. Series, this time for Blackshirt’s dubbel-ganger by Roderic Graeme, 1958, and Na de ramp de liefde by Mary Richmond, year unknown. The art on these is maybe a bit middle-of-the-road for Moriën, but still very nice, and at his best he’s unique and great. See what we mean here, here, and here.
Above is another cover from J.H. Moriën for Amsterdam based publishers Uitgeverij Orion, this time fronting Danny slaat geld uit de vrouwen by Loren Beauchamp, aka Robert Silverberg. We’re pretty sure this is a translation of his 1959 novel Another Love, Another Night. The title in Dutch means, “Danny beats women out of money,” which we assume refers to a beating of the grifter variety rather than anything physical. Moriën’s art, with its beautiful color palette and sheet-wrapped femme fatale, is sublime. Click his keywords below to see more.
We wanted to bring back Dutch illustrator J. H. Moriën, so above you see a signed cover for Jan de Winter’s 1960 novel Schaduw over Scheveningen, published by Nederlandsche Keurboekerij for its S.O.S. series. The main reason we’re revisiting Moriën is because there’s confusion about his identity. The Amsterdam-based auction site Catawiki, which we figure is pretty well informed, tells us this signature belongs to a J.H. Moriën, who was active during the 1920s and 1930s, then again during the 1950s and 1960s. He was born around the turn of the century, so he’d have been working into his sixties, which was common for illustrators.
But we’ve now seen some Dutch covers signed Moriën E. Beck, and though the signatures on those are slightly different, they’re on Nederlandsche Keurboekerij S.O.S. editions from the same period, leaving little doubt it’s the same person. But is his name J.H. Moriën or Moriën E. Beck? Hell, if the Dutch can’t agree, what can we possibly say? American illustrator Ernest Chiriacka signed some of his work as Darcy, so maybe it’s a similar situation. The answer will probably present itself in time. Until then, you can see two more brilliant Moriëns here and here.
Edit: What did we tell you? We got an e-mail from Bert:
I am reacting to your article about the book covers of J.H. Morien. I am preparing an article about his work and so I discovered that he had an office in the fifties in Amsterdam where he worked together with C. Beck, Damrak 45. They were specialized in commercials and advertising, but they also worked together for book covers (C. Beck the lettering?). I hope you can use this information.
Yup, we can use the information alright, Bert. And an immense thanks to you for taking the time to write.
A while back we learned about Dutch illustrator J.H. Moriën through his re-imagining of a famed Paul Rader cover, and here he is again doing good work on the front of Verboden Vruchten, an Erosex-Pocket paperback published in the Netherlands and written by Linda Michaels. We assume that’s a pseudonym, but we can’t find more info. We stumbled across the cover in a Flickr collection, so thanks to the original uploader. The title translates as “forbidden fruits,” although this particular fruit gets eaten plenty as the story deals with a stripper named Sophie and her various assignations, including with a horny judge named Johnson and an abuser named Leander. We don’t know the copyright on this, but Moriën was working in this mode during the mid-1960s. We have other pieces from him that we’ll show you later.
Update: We’re now thinking this author is Joan Ellis, aka Julie Ellis, who sometimes used Linda Michaels as her pseudonym. After searching everwhere for info, you know where we learned that? Right here.
Above you see a cool little treat—a colorful cover for Zonde op wielen from Amsterdam based publisher Uitgeverij Orion. It’s a Dutch translation of the 1962 Midwood Books sleaze novel Sin on Wheels (larger image for laptop and desktop users here), written by Loren Beauchamp, who was in reality sci-fi legend Robert Silverberg.
The art is a translation too, sort of. It’s a new angle on Paul Rader’s painting for the Midwood original—and as you can see, it features the same character in the same groovy outfit standing in front of the same trailer, but painted from a different angle. It’s the first time we’ve seen this—an artist painting what another artist painted, but changing the viewpoint. We think the Uitgeverij cover is even better than Rader’s. We know—sacrilege, but we really like it. Or maybe we’re responding to the impact of its novelty. Let’s just say they’re both excellent efforts.
The brush responsible for the Uitgeverij art belonged to Dutch illustrator J.H. Moriën, whose distinctive signature you see at the righthand edge. He was born in 1897 and was active during the 1920s and ’30s, then after a mid-life hiatus began producing a lot of art again during the ’50s and ’60s. Maybe he wanted an RV of his own in retirement, but realized he didn’t have enough cash. We found other pieces by him, so maybe we’ll get back to him later. Though this one will be very hard to top.
Mexican-born serial killer Juan Vallejo Corona is convicted of the murders of 25 itinerant laborers. He had stabbed each of them, chopped a cross in the backs of their heads with a machete, and buried them in shallow graves in fruit orchards in Sutter County, California. At the time the crimes were the worst mass murders in U.S. history.
Harper Lee’s racially charged novel To Kill a Mockingbird is published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. The book is hailed as a classic, becomes an international bestseller, and spawns a movie starring Gregory Peck, but is the only novel Lee would ever publish.
As part of the nuclear tests codenamed Operation Dominic, the United States detonates a one megaton bomb on Australian controlled Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The island was a location for a series of American and British nuclear tests, and years later lawsuits claiming radiation damage to military personnel were filed, but none were settled in favor in the soldiers.
The German Air Force, aka the Luftwaffe, attacks shipping convoys off the coast of England, touching off what Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes as The Battle of Britain.
Satchel Paige, considered at the time the greatest of Negro League pitchers, makes his Major League debut for the Cleveland Indians at the age of 42. His career in the majors is short because of his age, but even so, as time passes, he is recognized by baseball experts as one of the great pitchers of all time.
