Paperback 934: Signet 791 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: My Gun Is Quick
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Lou Kimmel

Estimated value: $4-7

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is what all vintage paperbacks should look like—authentically beat to fuck.
• People really read Spillane. To pieces.
• I love the male fear hand! Gender equity!

Best things about this back cover:

• The *Hammer* mystery will *hit* me? Stellar wordplay, copy guy.
• I feel like they should be "seductively-lit" apartments. Not "-lighted." Hey, copy guy...
• Damn, that Spillane portrait is olden. I'm used to the buzz-cut, t-shirted, gun-wielding dude. This dude:

Page 123~

Finally she said, "The baby clothes, Mike . . . it fits!"

Mike, now wearing a onesie, wondered how he would ever regain his dignity.

~RP

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Paperback 811: Signet D2116 (44th ptg, undated [1962])

Title: Vengeance Is Mine
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Uh … I doubt it.

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• It's pretty icky all around. Not sure why this hasn't been relegated to some dank cardboard box of "extras" in my basement. That said, I'm kind of fascinated by how ugly it is.
• It's like someone was noodling with a prehistoric version of Photoshop, and then realized "no one's going to care anyway," and then just sent this weird silhouette thing into the editor. Neither the silhouette nor the naked lady is large enough to be compelling. Maybe if she were doing something more than blandly standing there as if waiting for a director to shout "Action!" 
• Purple font for some reason!

Best things about this back cover:

• Without the lady inside him, he looks like he *just* got bit on his left hip by some kind of flying insect. Insect-swatting hand!
• "How many different font sizes can we squeeze in here?" "Shouldn't there be some rationale to the varied font sizes?" "[Blank stare]" …
• Copywriter is perversely fond of compound adjectives. "Action-tough" and "bullet-sparked" are meaningless. I'll give him "lead-riddled" as slightly apt, but "forty-million-copy bestselling" is an ungainly beast. 

Page 123~

My fingers were hurting her and I couldn't help it. "I want you to say it, Mike. You've played games with so many women I won't be sure until I hear you say it yourself. Tell me."

That first sentence is very telling. Mike's love and Mike's violence have a disconcerting resemblance.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 655: Gold Medal k1337 (2nd ptg, 1963)

Title: A House in Naples
Author: Peter Rabe
Cover artist: Lu Kimmel

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover: 

• "Heh, I like to watch, heh heh."
• She's like a soap actress looking off-stage to read her next line.
• She appears to be kneeling on a twin bed that is in the middle of the room, dressed in some kind of summery get-up. None of this makes any sense. 
• And here I always thought the "Spillane vein" was a euphemism for "penis."

Best things about this back cover:

• Jeez, stamp more shit on it, why don't you? I didn't wanna read the text anyway.
• First sentence of that fourth paragraph ("She was leaning...") was written by someone who should not be allowed anywhere near words.
• Actually, I think an Italian-to-English translator-bot did this copy. It's just tin-eared and awful.  

Page 123~

Charley watched the yawl heel and take a close, steady course. He was sure the guy at the wheel was a Sardinian. They can handle a ship when they're half dead. 

Chapter-closing line. I quite like it.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 602: Signet P3221 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The Body Lovers
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo cover (pictured: author Mickey Spillane himself)

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover: 

• In which Mike Hammer hunts down the monsters who designed this poor girl's wardrobe.
• The budget for this cover shoot appears to have been about six dollars. Give or take.
• Somewhat unfortunate that, in this pose, it looks like Hammer was caught on the verge of violating a corpse. Talk about your "Body Lovers!"
• This is flawless, unread copy.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, I actually like the tricolor effect.
• Underground orgy cults are the best kind of orgy cults. All the other orgy cults are too mainstream.
• Next time someone claims to be a V.I.P. ... now you know.
• Is that Buffalo News blurb praise or horrified observation? "Moose bondage!? Dear lord!"

Page 123~

"Just so you can't say we're not covering every route I'll see what Interpol has on Ali Duval and have them pick up anybody in a fez who isn't a shriner."

Exotic headwear enthusiasts, beware.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 576: Bantam 14597-5 (1st ptg, 1981)

Title: The Day the Sea Rolled Back
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Maroto (?) — book is illustrated (!?) by "Maroto"

Yours for: $16
Best things about this cover:

• In honor of Hurricane Sandy (and just because it's next in line), I give you: the opposite of a storm surge!
• I assume that chest is full of Cheerios 'cause no way that kid lifts it otherwise.
• I'm weirdly in the middle of the latest Lemony Snicket book (gorgeously illustrated by Seth), which features a strange ex-sea landscape like the one suggested here.
• Unless Hammer is about to emerge from behind that boat skeleton and put some .45-sized holes in those kids, I don't think I want to read this book.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mickey Spillane: Stud.
• If you ever wondered what it would be like if Mickey Spillane wrote a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book ... well, first of all, you are alone, and second of all, here you go!
• Bar code! Well there's an unwelcome stylistic development ...

Page 23~ (it's only 119 pages long)

They scrabbled for footholds in the irregular crevasses of the ballast rock, then got past them and hauled themselves to the top by grabbing hold of the thumb-thick sea grasses.

Nothing good was ever "thumb-thick." Nothing.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 567: Popular Library 821 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The Whipping Boy
Author: S.E. Pfoutz
Cover artist: that guy that did a lot of Popular Library covers in the '50s ... always wore a shirt ...

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• The tragic stair-falling scene from Mickey Spillane's final novel: "Mike Hammer: The Big Knee Replacement"
• Meanwhile, in the background: "I'd like to cross your color line, baby." "I ... don't know what that means. Please leave." "Oh, alright. Hey, do you think I'm OK to drive? Here, smell my breath, haaaaaaaaaaaah..."
• I feel like the author's name is some kind of code I'm supposed to break.
• This is the most unracial racial cover ever. "Did we say 'color line'? We meant big, bold primary colors—the blue THE, the red WHIPPING ... it's about a boy who likes to make whipped cream. Why do you have to make everything about race?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I ... I can't decide. Do I stay with midget Vulcan or run off with black Jerry Seinfeld?"
• "A talented young Negro," HA ha. "Wow, you are really good at being Negro."
• Why would you go with "piercingly honest" when "frank" is so much more concise? "Frank" novels should just call themselves "frank" and quit hiding behind these flowery euphemisms. This message brought to you by Proud Frank Americans for Frankness. Thank you.

Page 123~

"Don't get funny with me, lover boy," said the creature, leering. "I know your kind from way back."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 536: Signet Y5626 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: The Last Cop Out
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• The logical end point of the lurid cover arms race: magnificent, unadorned, naked ass.
• I have never hated text more than I do at this moment.
• I seem to remember hearing that the model was Spillane's wife. Likely the same woman who did "The Erection Set" cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Next!
• "Super virile" and you named him "Gillian?" Would've been more "virile" if you'd named him "Gilligan."
• Knowing Spillane, "orgy of blistering destruction" may not be a metaphor.
• "Volcanic explosion," on the other hand—probably a metaphor.

Page 123~

"I was there when Lederer was blowing his top. I could hear him right across the hall. City Hall must have leaned on him because he's gotten all leaves canceled, got the detectives working overtime and eating the ass out of Bill Long because Burke's disappeared someplace and nobody can find him."

It's writing like that that makes me happy the 50s were a more censorious decade—"eating the ass out of" would never have passed muster in the Mike Hammer era, and I'm OK with that.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker at Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 421: Signet 1000 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Kiss Me, Deadly
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: James Meese

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "OK, you can see my left boob, but it's gonna cost you. *Really* cost you..."
• What room are they supposed to be in? The kitchen? An office? Somebody's workshop? I'm kind of mesmerized by the miniature barn-like structure directly over the guy's head. And by the crimson carpet, of course.
• I have a huge crush on Spillane's writing. Lush and emotive and tornadic and fearless. I haven't read this one, though—just seen the (insane, campy) movie. It is one of the great Bad movies of all time.

Best things about this back cover:

• In case you didn't know, in the middle of the last century, Spillane was the best-selling author since Moses. Infuriated critics, who still don't know what to do with him, frankly. Easy to love Hammett and Chandler. Hard to love the (gun-toting, dame-ogling) bull in the china shop.
• If you've never read Spillane, I recommend "One Lonely Night" most of all. It develops the idea that Hammer is "evil for the good." It also features a very memorable spanking scene.

Page 123~

[The ropes] were wet and slippery with my own blood. My fingernails broke tugging at them, but it was the blood that did it. I felt one come free, the next one and my hand was loose. It only took a few minutes longer to get the other one off and my feet off the end of the bed and I was standing up with my heart trying to pound the shock away and the pain back in place.

~RP

P.S. blog traffic here is up but comments seem down. I would be happier if things were the other way around, actually. Of course I'd be happiest if traffic *and* comments were up. So feel free to chime in, and spread the word.

P.P.S. I am toying around with focusing my Crime Fiction course (this fall) on the Vietnam War era (roughly '60-'75). Books and movies don't have to have anything specifically to do with the war. Recommendations are welcome. Also, this summer I will be watching my way through Every Crime Movie (VERY broadly defined) in that period (though I may not make it out of 1961, who knows). I'll be letting you know what's on tap every week or so. So far I've watched "Portrait in Black" (1960) (Anthony Quinn, Lana Turner; horrible) and "Never Let Go" (1960) (Peter Sellers; amazing). "Never Let Go" was a revelation, with Peter Sellers as a sadistic garage owner at the center of a stolen car ring. Definitely makes the "Recommended" list. I'm halfway through "Le Trou" (1960), a prison escape movie that (so far) is wonderful. Also halfway through "The Girl in Lovers' Lane" (1960), which I'm watching as an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," so that should give you some idea how good it is...

In the crime fiction queue for this week: "Beatniks" (1960) and "Seven Thieves" (1960). Looks like "Beatniks" also got the "MST3K" treatment, so ... that should be fun.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 268: Gold Medal s1259 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything
Author: John D. MacDonald
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $23


Best things about this cover:

• "IT'S 9:30, STEVE. TIME TO GIVE BACK THE GIRL!" / "Aw, but we were goin' to a clam bake ... that didn't feel like a three-year harem lease at all!"
• That analogy makes one wonder: how many times can Bonny Lee fuck in one day? Do the math. Even if you're getting it from your entire harem only once per day, in three years, that's still well over a thousand times. And Bonny can do that in one day? No wonder the cover's on fire. The friction alone...
• More font awesomeness, though here we're pushing the wackiness factor a little hard.

Best things about this back cover:

• "If you've ever had a yeasty yearning ... please, see your doctor."
• YEASTY is, very coincidentally, a word in today's NYT crossword puzzle.
• Apparently John D. MacDonald books like to get cheeky. First there was the metapaperbackery of "A Key to the Suite," and now there's the cliche-subverting and self-erasure of "The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything."
• "Sheesh!"
• If you don't know who Thorne Smith is, see this. More to come in future Pop Sensation installments.

Page 123~

He looked at her, sitting erect, six feet away. Her back was arched, her shoulders good, the waist slender, the lime slacks plumped to the pleasant tensions of her ripeness.

I laughed out loud at "her shoulders good." What is he, a caveman? "Ugg want woman. Ugg want that woman. Hair pretty. Shoulders good. Slacks plumped. Ugg want."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

I just discovered (via writer Duane Swierczynski's "Secret Dead Blog") that LIFE magazine has a giant, easily searchable photo database - tons of classic greatness, which I will surely pillage for my blog(s) in the future. Here's a gem: crime fiction legend Mickey Spillane proudly posing with paperback versions of his (exceedingly popular) books:

Paperback 145: Signet P3077 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The By-Pass Control
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Ugh. Ugly multi-colored text crowds this poorly designed cover. And what is that photo? A leftover still from a Prell ad shoot?
• What is it with Spillane covers and naked blondes with hair that looks starchy and untouchable?
• Apparently the "By-Pass Control" is located at the base of her skull. Stop her, Tiger!
• "Multi-murder" is a ... noun?
• "They called him 'Tiger' because ... well, he snarled during sex, frankly."

Best things about this back cover:

• And you thought that little red dot was just some kind of sale sticker. In actuality, it is one of the least explicable book design concepts in paperback history. Maybe it represents the Communist menace. Or Tiger Mann's passion for gumballs. He's irrepressible!
• I'm not sure that Denver Post blurb is as positive as the publishers seem to think it is.
• How many different ways can a book convey to you that it contains rough sex? "Snarling sex," "deadly sex," "rough-tough touch," etc. Maybe the red dot symbolizes the marks Tiger leaves on his many sex partners / victims.
• If you wanna read the awesomest, most over-the-top, ridiculous conflation of rough sex and politics, please read One Lonely Night, where Hammer hammers a commie girl, and when he's done with her, she is red ... white and blue. USA! USA! Rough sex cures women of their political delusions. Who knew? Thanks, Mickey!

Page 123~

"Don't bother packing ... just get on the first one out [...]." I laughed and added, "Besides, you can use a vacation."

"Sure, without clothes?"

"What better kind?" I said.

"I didn't mean it like that," she told me, a lilt in her voice, "but you're making it sound awfully interesting. I'll see you shortly, mud dauber."

He's not just a Tiger. He's also, it seems, a wasp.


~RP

PS Here are some Hillbilly Hussy covers ... if you're into that sort of thing (and I am - here's one of my own)

Paperback 119: Signet Y5120 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: The Erection Set
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Picasso

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Is that extended leg supposed to simulate an erection or stimulate one? In either case: [shudder]
• If you ever doubted the phallic qualities of a gun, behold this cover. Of course, before this cover, I doubted the phallic qualities of a left leg. This cover's full of learning opportunities.
• Be honest: was there ever a time when that hairdo (bottle blond, unkempt yet sculpted, etc.) was attractive? I was three when this book came out, so I'm not a good judge.
  
• She is aggressively tan
• Remember when women with medium-to-smallish breasts could get shirt-removal work?

Best things about this back cover:

• "Hey, has anyone seen my artificial leg?"
• "Dogeron!!" - setting up the inevitable catchprase: "That doggone Dogeron done gone and done it again!"

Page 123~

My teeth were showing when I said, "You can always change your mind, pal. Like starting right now. I'll take all three of you out and be gone before the noise dies down."

~RP