Darwination

Grades in. I'm thinking C+

Those eyes!

Untamed Darling - Jack Woodford (1950.Avon 297) cover Peter Driben SA sold a beautiful copy of this in his last pb sale. This copy ain't beautiful (horribly miscut and half falling apart) but it's going in the gym bag for cardio time where the poorest of my books suffer a little extra mistreatment. I hope it was Woodford himself who did the revision and editing here, I suspect it was. A bunch of these Avons must be from the Woodford Press HCs. Being a sex novel, I doubt I'd notice too much anyways (really just know Woodford from the girlie pulps and 10-Story Book). He named his protagonist Melville what a card.

Close-ups of your faves! There's some great ones in there.

v01n01 https://archive.org/details/esquire-v-01n-01-1933-autumn.-esquire-d-m-ia

😍😍

How droll

I've got Gunnison's Belarski art book at home but haven't looked at it in years. Looking recently at his pb covers has given me a fresh appreciation. I dunno about renumeration/resale details for him, as that arrangement could vary by author and publisher on who got to keep the painting and if reprint rights were included. I like the fact that some artists and authors could juice that system and get paid for all the various formats a painting or story/novel/screenplay might appear in. If you're getting paid in peanuts, make some peanut butter.

Love Stockton Mulford's blue M as the signature there. The big faces he was doing in this period are very daring, imo, and he pulled them off to great effect.

I absolutely agree, but I don't think I've seen any good copies of the pulp, either. (calling @detective35 ) I see it go both ways on pulp/magazine/digest versus paperback reprint superiority depending on the publisher(s) involved. I did some Belarski tracking in the pulps recently after admiring his pb covers, dude got around!

I'm passing on this one but thought I'd share because of the PB crossover. Rough shape (if that cover's not detached it will be), but first use of a classic Belarski posted a couple pages back for those of you that collect the pairs. https://www.ebay.com/itm/196357860479

Yeah, I don't see the non-painted covers on the True Crime mags taking off. The painted covers, though? Going nuts right now for the high grade gems c.1950. I bid on one at more than twice that I'd ever bid last weekend and still came up way short.

I like it, too. It's neat how the figure takes up most of the space but sort of blends in. It's disturbing, too. You've got the beautiful blond, but she's covered in dirt and grime. When I was picking a copy (they're all cheap) I thought the grub on her knee was maybe a stain, but then you see it all over her. Grimey just like this story's no doubt gonna be with Fletcher Flora *grimace*

I'm crazy about pocket mags. Digestible scattershot media decades before the internet.

I went 7 as the absolute highest I thought you can go with rust (so much rust). Replace those staples and call it a reader - for real, though. That one hurt, but I overgraded everything else, too. 8 points, rough round.

Look at those reds, woo! That's an absolute gem. John Coughlin isn't an artist that stands out to me very often, but that's some profound tears of a clown business right there.

Whoa, went to see if I couldn't find a deeper black image for that Crimson Clown ish I was raving over. I did find a slightly better copy that was sold last year at Heritage: Hammer price? Sold on Apr 13, 2023 for: $13,200.00 Guess I won't be adding this one to my collection any time soon, egad.

I was tracking down some Belarskis just last night to put on my pulp huntlist when I realized some of his classic paperback covers are repeats from the pulps. Some of his best Oh yes, there are many clowns with guns in the pulps, I recall messaging with @waaaghboss (who I'm tempted to just call Groo :D) about one in an auction grouping recently. I don't think I have any but I'll post a few images. This first one was the one at eBay auction recently (sold dirt cheap iirc): Saunders Heritage even has the OA for that one another DD from one of the pulp scanners, Grant Hargis art Saunders again, this copy is at MCS right now for just under a grand o.O (I'll stick the in my fat "to restore" folder) Belarski Belarski again Saunders OK, it's been more than a few. Damn you, Bob. I'm like a toy you wind up. Actually most of these were found via the tag system at https://pulpcovers.com/ That's a great site for cover surfing (and IDs, not rock solid, though), and I totally endorse his methods. There's a whole bunch of Johnston McCulley Crimson Clown covers on Detective Story, but I'll just post one. Absolutely f*ckin classic. John Coughlin. A top ten pulp cover imo, and I'd love to have the issue. This one's one of my rotating screensavers on my phone. Be careful of clowning around with guns, though. James Meese. Last one, SPACE CLOWNS WITH RAYGUNS. Leo Morey Mind you, this is only clowns with guns. There are many other clowns on pulp covers

Speaking of high slab asks -

Detective Novels Magazine Pulp Nov 1946 Vol. 18 #2 VG/FN 5.0 Thought I'd throw a pulp in here.

I'm not sure it's either.

I think I've seen a later Shadow around here (maybe a Doc, too) at like 9.2. Could be imagining that, though.