AIM TO DISPLEASE

Okay, hah hah, I get it. You’re a "crack shot." Now how about you point that somewhere else?

Today, we’re sticking with a Japanese theme by sharing this amazing 1958 poster for… well, here we go again. The seller said the movie was called “Mermaids and Sea Robbers,” which makes some sense, because the movie is basically a swashbuckler about rival bands of pirates trying to get hold of a priceless treasure. But the poster actually says Mermaid Ascension. So take your pick. Moving on to the art, it’s impossible not to notice the weird visual juxtaposition that has Tatsuya Mihashi seemingly sticking his rifle right up Yuriko Tashiro’s rear end. We can understand the attraction, but that’s just impolite. Luckily, there’s an alternate version below in which Tashiro’s crack is in not is mortal danger. You see? Gun control works.

Japan, Mermaid Ascension, Tatsuya Mihashi, Yuriko Tashiro, poster art, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

July 11

1960—To Kill a Mockingbird Appears

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.

July 11

1962—Nuke Test on Xmas Island

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.

July 10

1940—The Battle of Britain Begins

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.

July 9

1948—Paige Takes Mound in the Majors

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.

July 8

1965—Biggs Escapes the Big House

Ronald Biggs, a member of the gang that carried out the Great Train Robbery in 1963, escapes from Wandsworth Prison by scaling a 30-foot wall with three other prisoners, using a ladder thrown in from the outside. Biggs remained at large, mostly living in Brazil, for more than forty-five years before returning to the UK—and arrest—in 2001.

DON’T RIDE THE WHITE HORSE

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.

BARN GIRLS

Two Spanish language digest novels from Argentine publishers Malinca Debora and Malinca Nueva Pandora.

Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.

LOVES OF A BLONDE