Pulp Muse: Musing on Art from Nitro’s Pulp Bookshelf. I have read some of most of these and all of SOME of these… But first, I like to judge these books by their covers.

Fig. 66: The Beast Master

Nitro’s Note: This book by Andre Norton has nothing to do with the 80’s movie where Prehistoric Dar (Marc Singer) uses ESP with animals to save a slave girl (Tanya Roberts) from a sorcerer (Rip Torn). Pity. Andre Alice Norton, one of the foremost women SF authors, got her first book out in 1934, and only just died in 2005.

Fig. 65: The Martian Missile

Nitro’s Note: This picture is a metaphor for the whole male experience

Fig. 64: The Sioux Spaceman

Nitro’s Note: There was a time in SF when this kind of not-so-bad situation seemed like a plausible scenario. That bird dude is not formidable. Now, mostly SF is about everybody you know is dead and there’s wires and bugs in your brain and the robot dogs are coming for you and ALL THE WATER HAS TENTACLES

Fig 63: Space Plague

Nitro’s Note: Groovy. I appreciate the unnecessary silhouetting of a single nipple

Fig. 62: A Man Obsessed

Nitro’s Note: SHOWGIRL! SURGEON! SYRINGE! This is Masterful, even if she does look like she’s about to fall over backwards.

Fig 61: The Stars Are Ours!

Nitro’s Note: Nope, I don’t understand their relationship. So, these ACE TWO COMPLETE NOVEL  books which I bought off some Kiwanis- you flip them over and reverse the book the read the second one. So once the text inside turns upside down, you know you’ve finished the first story. Awesome. 35 cents.

Fig. 60: We Who Survived

Nitro’s Note: This is a great cover! It reminds me of the winter of 2013

Fig. 59: The Last Planet

Nitro’s Note: If you’re going to make a robot, why not make him cute?

Fig. 58: Mankind on the Run

Nitro’s Note: Terrible cover. That poor woman has lost an arm and her nose and her dress fits really badly. The guy’s trying to console her but he’s overwhelmed because GIANT KEYS. Here’s the stated problem: NO PLACE ON EARTH TO LIE DOWN. That is not demonstrated by the graphic.

Fig. 57: Crashing Suns

Nitro’s Note: I’m sorry, but I do not believe that any sequence of situations could legitimately result in the evolution of the pink spheroid alien.

Fig 56: Adventures in the Far Future

Nitro’s Note: Lady, you go to all the trouble to wear that midriff -baring pink space vampire outfit, and that’s the best pose you can hit??

Fig.55: Year of Consent

Nitro’s Note: That’s a great cover! It’s a 1984y novel, but more advanced because it supposedly occurs in 1990. Plus! The Matrix totally stole that dude wired to the machine

Fig. 54: Bayou Girl

Nitro’s Note:  They don’t teach this stuff in Louisiana Schools, obviously, but technically it’s “mating season all year round” for homo sapiens in general always

Fig. 53: Bamboo

Nitro’s Note: Nice ink, bro. This is a book written by a guy who was in the Regular Navy– not your Hollywood navy, see?

Fig 52: She’ll Get Hers

Fig. 51: The Citadel

Nitro’s Note: HOW COULD IT BE MORE OBVIOUS THAT THIS IS SERIOUS LITERATURE. I mean, it’s The Great Novel”. and it’s “A Great Novel” both. Plus there’s a tempted Doctor

Fig 50: The Dog Star

Nitro’s Note: This guy is just about to lose it if she keeps talking Captain Marvel while he’s writing a tone poem to Kerouac

Fig. 49: Killer in White

Nitro’s Note: This one is about the Capitalist American Health Care System and how it murders people and molests women. Well, it should be. Nice back cover too:

Fig. 48: Tribesmen of GOR

Nitro’s Note: You know I usually stop around the 1960’s with these pulp covers, but I do like this dancin’ girl art, and it reminded me of how horrible this misogynistic pervy slave-girl GOR series was for my teenage sex mind

Fig. 47: By Blood Alone

Fig. 46: Tales for Salesmen

Nitro’s Note: This is a tedious collection of groaners and B-Level Celebrity bon mots from people like, I don’t know, Lady Forsythe Pendergripe and Noted Hillbilly Representative “Corncob” Skeeterpoon. But this book was also where I found my very favorite joke of 2017, which appears in modified form here. I just had to dig hard to get it-

Fig 45: The King’s Lust

Nitro’s Note: This is actually a retelling of the Salome story. It’s Klassical Literature. I like the expressive type of the title! YAY LUST. Plus, I approve of ANYTHING set against a background of Roman Wickedness.

Fig. 44: Burial of the Fruit

Nitro’s Note: Wait, those are Teenage Brooklyn Gangsters? He looks like an aerospace engineer, and real Gangsters don’t have quilts. This one I can imagine a dialogue for, however:

Him: “Grr!”

Her: “Gasp!”

Fig 43: Shell Scott: Gat Heat

Nitro’s Note: Shell Scott books are A-OK pulp, and “Gat Heat” is just a marvelous name for a book. This cover art could also be pressed into use to warn of the danger of slip-and-falls at your local municipal swimming pool

Fig. 42: Some Women Won’t Wait

Nitro’s Note: Ah, the seventies, half-naked in appropriated tribal patterns, smokin’ and drinkin’ on wicker.

Fig. 41: Death on the Rocks

Nitro’s Note: This tableau makes me happy but I do not believe those are real chinese characters

Fig. 40: Crows Can’t Count

Nitro’s Note: Nice feet! I envy people who can draw feet.

Fig. 33: The Awful Egg (Doc Savage)

Nitro’s Note:

1. BALZAN! I see: like Tarzan, but ballzier.
2. Question: Is there some kind of Fantasy-Action-Hero-Name-Generator? KARNOK! TOKNAN! BARFORK! HARSHO! KRUNKAN! RUBRIK! Because there should be.
3. Seriously, what’s with the frolicking flat-tailed dragon? “Oh BALZAN! I wanna be your BESTEST FRIEND!” P.S. I hate dragons with insufficient wings.
4. Let’s see if the back of the book gives us some insights:

   

5. No, it just gets weirder. “Emblazon a path between hallucination and reality?” Like Tim Leary?
6. I can’t help but wonder what technique “Orala” would employ to seduce BALZAN…
7. Wait, so instead of a lame frolicking dragon, the artist could have painted a six-legged spider anthropoid? That’s a tragically squandered opportunity.
8. I do like cats, but I have to say, “of the Cat People” just doesn’t deliver the formidable vs. “of the Apes.”

Fig. 31: Mexican Brown (The Penetrator)

Nitro’s notes: As literate as The LAMINATOR!

From 1978 comes The Penetrator: Mike Hardin (SUBTLE!).This book is really poorly written, but I had to get it- because between Mike Hardin’s extremely tedious dangerous assignments he recuperates in a secret hideaway in a borax mine. Other observations:

1. Boy, those guns are pointing everywhere. Not a sophisticated composition.
2. The girl with the floppy neck in the trenchcoat and weird negligee has an itchy calf. Or she’s part flamingo.
3. Lionel Derrick: Jeez, another implied erection? You got a problem, dude.

Fig. 30: Desire in the DUST

Nitro’s Note: I had to look up the movie: HOLY CRIPES it’s RAYMOND BURR gets the pailful o’ trouble, evidently

Fig. 29: Talk of the Town (Big Eyes)

Nitro’s Note: Man, that’s livin’.

Art by the amazing Earle Bergey. This came out in 1951, the year before he died, and pulp and magazine covers were worse ever after. He gets so much redneck into this picture: A corncob pipe, a tin cup, a little brown jug, a plaid shirt, suspenders and overalls both, a harmonica… and then why is the disaffected & oblivious cheerful Greek Goddess cavorting with those dudes?

. 28: Circle of Desire

Nitro’s Note:

1. Do they really issue all sailors striped shirts? I have always wondered that.
2. Q. Why doesn’t someone refill his glass? A. Because the bottle’s empty, too.
3. Q. Do people really sit with hand in pocket? A. Not unless there’s something sneaky in the pocket.
4. I like the color diagonal in this composition.Red, Blue, Yellow. Hot, Cool, Caution!

Fig. 27: The Burning Court

Nitro’s note: “She worshipped evil and made murder her religion” -they say that like it’s a BAD thing. I’m trying to imagine the other steps in the dance she’s doing, and I can’t. Also confused about the low skull shelf. Might be on the corner of a coffee table?

Fig. 26: Too Many Cooks (Rex Stout)

Nitro’s Notes: Nero Wolfe is not unduly startled when shot in the cheek in bed. It’s probably because of the lager he keeps handy on the nightstand.

P.S. is that a great keyhole logo or what?

Fig. 26: The Big Kill

Nitro’s notes: A first edition, no less. You know what’s great about Mickey Spillane?

1. His picture on the back of the book:

If I’d taken that picture, I’d label it “A Stewbum with a Gun.” He’s clearly toothless, The shirt is ill advised, he holds the gun without any real conviction.

2. His Signature.

3. Sometimes his titles are pretty good

4. That’s about it.

Fig. 25: Modesty Blaise

Nitro’s notes: Printed in 1966: She’s slightly younger than me. Merely $5.50 at Aunt Agatha’s. Peter O’Donnell was the writer of the Modesty Blaise comic strip, 1963-2001-  This novelization follows O’Donnell’s script of the movie Modesty Blaise (1966), which script was heavily, heavily doctored to be campier and all 1960’s weird.

He ended up writing 11 Modesty Blaise novels, a couple short story collections, and over 10,000 strips. Would be awesome except, rapey.

Fig. 24: The Gods of Mars

Fig. 23: Thuvia, Maid of Mars

Fig. 22: The Monster Men

Fig. 21: The Iron Skull (The Avenger)

Fig. 20: The Monsters (Doc Savage)

James Bama cover. His Doc Savage never seems concerned, but probably constipated.

Fig. 19: The Monster Men

Nitro’s Notes: Amazing early Frazetta cover. Good book, too, (cough) Island of Dr. Moreau (cough).

In my humble opinion, Frank Frazetta did most of his best paintings for covers of Edgar Rice Burroughs books. Well, and some Conan. The later, more painterly ones for the Pellucidar and Warlord of Mars series are legendary- but I got this for just $3.50 the day before yesterday- the 1963 edition of  The Monster Men. It makes me happy.

Fig. 18. The Case of the Brazen Beauty

Nitro’s Note:

1. Q: How can you tell this is from 1973? A: CHIANTI
2. From the Back Cover Blurb: “The D.O.A. Selby and Rayder found turned out to be a stab job.” OK, “STAB JOB” is NOT a real police term. Nice try, though.
3. Awesome wicker hat echoes the Chianti Cozy
4. What a fabulous window seat, to slouch against in your animal print bikini

Fig. 17. The Passionate Witch

Nitro’s Note:A lesser work by the dissolute 1930’sish author Thorne Smith, who also wrote “Topper” and “Night Life of the Gods” which are much better than this posthumously published (and “completed” by another writer) book.

It was kind of made into, or more, I would say, inspired,  “I Married a Witch” with Veronica Lake. Which kind of led to “Bell Book and Candle” which kind of led to “Bewitched” and all of those are pretty awesome.

Fig. 16. He Wouldn’t Kill Patience or Murder in the Zoo

Nitro’s Note: “Murder in the Zoo” was a better title than “He Wouldn’t Kill Patience” and they knew that so they just left it  the cover.

I can’t decide if she’s scared of the snake, or describing what she overheard Rhonda Perkins a-sayin’ to the Pastor down in the undercroft last shrove Thursday when Widder McFillips was a-lookin the other way

Fig. 15. The Transistor Girls

Nitro’s Note: The concept of “part-time prostitutes” just bothers me all over. Seriously, I appreciate the Art by Robert Maguire but I looked inside briefly and kind of wanted to glue all the pages together

Fig. 14. Big City Girl

Nitro’s Notes: Purchased for 50 cents at Honest Injun’s Trading Post, in the UP. I did some minor cosmetic surgery to get her face unlined. Actually, I fix flaws, distort things and pump the colors around frequently, full disc.

Fig 13. The Golden Sorrow

Nitro’s Note: Just look at this shameless cad, if you can even bear it. A pinky ring, really? YOU’RE GOING TO MEET THE SAME PEOPLE WHEN YOU’RE ON THE WAY BACK DOWN, you dog.

Fig. 12. Dolls Are Deadly

Nitro’s Note: Wait- LOOK OUT MIKE! Is that a VOODOO PIN STICKING OUT OF A LEMON MERINGUE PIE way down at the bottom, cut off by the cover crop?

DON’T EAT THE MERINGUE MIKE!!!

…seriously, they cropped out the titular Voodoo Doll, really? That’s how little the publishers cared about these pulp books in general and the cover art specifically.

Fig. 11. The Beach House

Nitro’s Note: “A reckless blonde in a wide-open town.” The vice versa is implied, I think. But she looks more anesthetized, or petrified, than reckless. I prefer the totally different, smirky reckless blonde with the weird right arm on the back of the book. Totally not the same blonde though. Nice try, Popular GIANT.

Fig. 10. The April Robin Murders

Nitro’s Note: That is “April Robin” depicted. She’s outstanding in her field.

Really, a splendid and hilarious book, with the unwitting detectives Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, stumbling through Hollywood and over bodies. Handsome Kusak has a photographic memory for things he’s read in magazines and is otherwise apparently dimmer than his easily-duped, entrepreneurial associate Bingo.

The bookseller admonished me to make sure to read this one because she knew I was buying it for the cover. She was right. I’m really enjoying it.

You totally can tell a book by its cover if you’re just interested in the cover itself alone though

Fig. 9. The Case of the Daring Decoy

Nitro’s Note: Two highball glasses? This is what happens when you fall down the 12 steps.

Fig 8. Stranger in Town

Nitro’s Note: Not a TERRIBLE Mike Shayne Mystery, although, spoiler, evil abortionists.

Mike Shayne, Miami P.I., has red hair and is therefore short-tempered, and he drinks cognac, which gives you differentiation in the bar scene. The broad depicted on the cover is described inside as having blonde ringlets, so it’s not a PERFECT representation for this book, but a pretty perfect cover for something.

Sample simile: “Hands the size of picnic hams” -bothers me because of ham/hand is slant-homonymous, but I appreciate how it doesn’t overshoot to Dinner-Ham-Sized Hands, which would be ridiculous.

Fig. 7. Slab Happy

Nitro’s Note: Sample simile: “He had a size 20 neck, fists like large beef roasts, and arms like legs.”

Shell Scott, L.A. P.I., sure gets beat up a lot, acts like an haplessly oversexed Bichon Frise around beautiful Hollywood Starlets and engages in some Spillane-Level messy violence, but he’s a delightful cut-up:

Doctor Clark said, smiling, “Oh, you’re a doctor?”
“Not exactly.” I grinned. “Sometimes I patch up problems. But my operations are usually, well, sort of unusual. You might call me one of the unorthodocs.”

HA!

I haven’t yet come to the scene where the 70’s girl in the bikini perches on the coffin with a machine gun, but I am looking forward to it. That kind of iconic scene is what sells 40 million books

Fig. 6. The Case of the Sun Bather’s Diary

Nitro’s Note: Pretty dark for sunbathing, isn’t it? Lost in the 1950’s collage-style forest, nude but for a red book (Jungian reference). Great Cardinal logo, too.

I wish they hadn’t kneecapped her with the byline.

Fig 5. The Life and Times of the Shmoo

Nitro’s Note: This book was pressed repeatedly into service (This edition is like the seventh printing within 2 years) when the Great Shmoo Craze of the late 1940’s was at its apex, and before my friend Laurel’s Grandfather was left with hundreds of unsaleable plaster Shmoos, which he abandoned in an attic in Royal Oak, MI. I like to think they’re still standing there…

Al Capp was the evil genius behind the Shmoo, who live to serve mankind, to serve mankind joyfully of their own delicious little bodies,  which when flambéed taste like fugu and when spatchcocked taste like heritage ptarmigan.

This specific book is a cynical,  horrible pastiche of excerpted drawings ripped from the strip, thinly linked with a halfassed written narrative. featuring distracting construction-paper colored margins and backgrounds. Frank Frazetta was Al Capp’s ghost artist, so there’s that, sometimes. And the cover itself is delightful.

Fig 4.The case of the Cautious Coquette

Nitro’s Note: I liked this cover so much I had to fotoshoppe out the text, frame & hang it in the (gun) powder room.

Fig. 3: Ashenden the British Agent

Nitro’s Note: 60 cents. (sigh) In 1970 the minimum wage was $1.60 and you could buy this and a dozen eggs and a gallon of gas with that.

The minimum wage today is $7.25, and the average paperback retails around $13.95

That having been said, Ashenden is an exceedingly unimpressive Agent: It’s all haw-haw and jolly good fun having cocktails with Nazis, and I don’t think there’s a shark or a fistfight in the whole novel.

Here’s the great thing about the above art: It’s a spiced up version of the below composition, which I found on the interwebs-  targeted to better entice the the American audience, where women wear purple swimsuits with cummerbunds more often than in Britain.

Fig. 2: Death of a Citizen

Resort Girls- Nitro’s Note: Yes, I buy them for the cover art, primarily. I have to confess that I can rarely read books like this particular one  because they’re too chock full o’ full of repressed and ugly sexuality, but it is delightful the way that erogenous zones are sharply demarcated by the censors: This 1964 novel, wherein you are forbidden to describe or imply any genitalia, has a sex scene every 3.2 pages, and therefore has an exhaustive approximate 2,734,045 adjectives and verbs for breasts.