Darwination

At least your senior moment was an upgrade?

Cross-post from the Pulp Digests thread, hunting Baker in the Arnold mags again. New one with all Baker interiors including Baker illustrating John D. MacDonald. Homicide Detective Story Magazine, September 1956. Only a couple of pieces of girlie art, but there is a thug sticking a gun in the face of a gentleman in a wheelchair

New one in today, chasing Matt Baker art again. Happily, an all Baker interiors issue. Sadly, only a couple bits of girlie art. Sadly, only a couple of original stories (one's a Damon Knight). Happily, one of the reprints is JDM. Some creasing on the cover but otherwise in killer shape for a crime digest. Full spine, white inner covers, OW pages.

The whole saga is the most Florida thing ever.

Wow, like 30 slabbed pulps in that auction already, wild.

Argh, I was finally gonna bite on one. That back cover mmmm

Woo, purdy! I'm surprised my first reading was also a Dell Edition probably about what my copy looks like if it's even still together >< I'm not sure I like the Gold Medals but I like the other two, especially the Dell (not to mention The Sirens of Titans is a fave. Player Piano is damned good, too). Sorry to spam up your thread here

Love Player Piano, did Vonnegut have many early ones released in paperback like this?

No matter how much it catches on, there's gonna be some issues now where it's more common to see them slabbed than "raw" (and I can't even believe I'm using that word). So to get (what's already likely an expensive issue in the first place) you're paying at least the extra 50 bucks someone paid for the grade and press and likely much more extra because "look, it's in a shiny box." In the comics down in my lowroller ballpark, viola, a 75 or 100 dollar book is now instantly a 250 or 300 dollar book. Not to mention it's giving a helluva lot of agency/cream to a third party. I see around here all the time "buy the book not the grade," then why the hell pay all the extra costs for the grading? In the Baker thread, for example, I see books in the 3.0 range that are much more appealing to the eye than others graded up around 5-6. If the comic ain't leaving the box anyways, why pay multiples more for a book that looks half as nice? Worried about resto or trimming? Because other people are? Because you're worried about your investment? If you don't know it's there, should it really bother you? I see on threads where people are perfectly happy with a book until some little defect comes to their awareness and then they just have to sell. Because of the idea of perfection. What I truly get a kick out of, though, are the people that are slabbing willy nilly, like some modern book in mid-grade. It's like, bro, put that slabbing cost towards a better copy and you could own 3 of the mintiest of the same book. And then there's the fact that sometimes a book being CGC'd actually creates a situation where a buyer has no recourse. A pal bought a slabbed expensive book to get some missing pages for a scan, cracks it, and, viola, missing cf. Is the seller at fault? Not really, how's he supposed to know? No returns on slabs - and now it's not slabbed anyways. CGC gonna kick down in this instance? sheeeeeit..... But GAC is right, collectors gonna collect. I'll just try not to cry too much over the prices doubling And I won't be if I ever sell my girlie pulps

Taking a late night through your thread here and sitting on my wallet heh heh - I can't resist a mystery, though - Copyrights assigned to Ann Cantor (we were actually talking about that the other day), but even a cursory look at covers she's got credit for shows *a number* of artists at work. She ran an art studio, you know how that goes *work for hire*. RB looks to be RG (the sig is clearer on a number of other Avons). Steve over at Flickr assigns the same artist to The Girl with the Hungry Eyes and French Summer and Midsummer Passion. I dunno about Midsummer Passion - I don't see the the sig, and it seems too good (excuse for the bluntness). Definitely not my wheelhouse, but I'd pick some other possible 47-49 Avons/Novel Library books by the same artist, too. I assume this was a young artist getting better with practice but that's a dangerous assumption to make. All sorts of possibilities where to find these artists with Avon - Short Story Monthly, Rex Stout's Mystery Monthly, Avon Western Reader... I had no luck as far as low-hanging fruit in finding a pulp artist with those initials working in that period, though, so I'm crying uncle, and leave it to you paperback fiends

LMAO. I started 20 years ago and even then knew I was decades too late

Not from my collection, but here's a Bolles I worked with tonight. I don't usually migrate towards something like a pure white for a cover background, but once in a while I do.

Sharing title and font design for the word DETECTIVE (for most of the run at least) with one of Goodman's long running True Crime Magazines:

There's definitely a disconnect between some of the different groups of pulp fans. There's no doubt there is an old guard that has total disdain for cover collecting, but there's also a similar disregard for entire genres (romance, girlie pulps, weird menace, Spicy Detectives). And I admit I there are genres I tend to avoid, too. But you can't really toss the baby out with the bathwater. It's similar to B-movies for me in that you might have to watch ten to find the one that really speaks to you. The funny thing is that there are some of the most revered pulp authors I think are absolutely horrible (not gonna call out any names). And then there are plenty of literary types that dismiss the entire area of pulp That said, I've got a lot of respect for the old guard when it comes to their knowledge of authors and stories, and I've been steered towards some great reading by the some of the most crotchety I love the new blood in the pulps -fresh eyes, different perspectives, etc. Still, it will be a cold day in hell when I put a pulp (or a comic) in a slab, but y'all do you

Raymond Chandler worked the screenplay with Billy Wilder. I remember reading the novel in college in maybe a 3 or 400 level English class on the Twain Tradition, this Black Lizard printing: Great prof, the first time I'd seen one give consideration to "pop" material (also remember reading Thurber in the class). The type of teacher who was just happy to pick some different books he liked and when a handful of students had actually read the book for the week. I remember a discussion about the conclusion, and I still think that's how the best noirs end - in some sort of wild fever dream ala The Getaway. The movie ending is different but still excellent. Cain in a class on Twain? Absolutely. He has an appreciation for dialogue and how people actually talk. It may not be accurate to call him underappreciated, but I still don't think he is appreciated as he should be. EDIT: I forgot I scanned the conclusion from the original Liberty serial which has the bonus of being illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. I'm sure I meant to track down all the issues and was distracted... If you click the placard from the Baumhofer cover here at Flickr there's a link to the ish: (Baumhofer has a nice splash inside, too).

If you look back a page, you'll find someone with a very similar question. It looks like someone hopes to pass this off as an original

Wynne Davies, Collectron's got a nice "tanline" one up there from Paris Nights by him, too. Same cover reprinted on one of the late 30s titles from Eagle/Consolidated that tended to reprint covers from Paris Nights and which were often sold in second hand bookstores as the censors began to crack down on "obscenity" at the newsstand. Actually not a bad reprinting, sometimes these could get grisly as far as being out of register, etc. I sadly do not own any, but Davies also did some nice work for the Shades on titles like True Gang, Murder Mysteries and Detective and Murder Mysteries and the "Scarlet" titles - Scarlet Gang Smashers, Scarlet Gang Stories, Scarlet Adventuress, Scarlett Confessions - don't think I'm missing any titles there . Not from my collection (and not girlie pulps) but some sampleage - I need to index these and track down better images for all these titles:

and Cheri Herouard

I love how quickly the blonde becomes interested at the mere idea of hooking up with older man and bad boy, George.

Love that bottom Fantastic!

I used to visit secondhand bookstores in every town I'd travel through (and record stores. and comic book stores). I'd be scouring for my authors and hoping to find new books to add to my huntlist from the "also by this author" pages as I picked them up. And paying near cover price for used books all the day long. People talk about the death of the second hand bookstores, and I get it, but damn if I don't like to hop on the internet, easily find a full bibliography, and get 90% of the books I want within minutes. 5 bucks for a used modern paperback shipped to my house?? How booksellers can operate on those margins, I do not know, but I don't think it's the "shop local" booksellers I'm ordering from - And even being able to find vintage and first editions is amazing. Sure, I'd get good books recommended to me booksellers, but it's not like I didn't get a lot of bad ones recommended, too Anyways, the life of the modern bookworm

In today, has a signed Maneely and a couple pages of likely Jack Davis but it's mostly photogags (albeit pretty cool). Likely Stan Lee behind the photogags, he was a funny guy And, of course, it's rare for me to actually beat out MM collectors on just about anything (even if it's not exactly a standout MM cover). The graphics riff on Confidential or Hush Hush and that school -

Westerns are probably my favorite genre of pulps for reading pleasure. There's a lot of subgenres within a single issue, and I rarely regret picking one up. You get humor with the action and occasionally some real History. In some ways it's the genre most bound to formula but you also get what you might call poetic writing you wouldn't expect. Added bonus - they are very affordable. As for the covers, a mixed bag. I tend to prefer the earlier years with more of an emphasis on landscape or life in the west than gunplay. My grandpops liked Louis L'Amour, but the faves I have are probably a big set of hardcover Zane Grey I got when my wife's pops passed. My own kids actually enjoyed watching Westerns with me when they were young just like I remember watching John Wayne with my grandad and spaghetti Westerns with my dad. Sadly, kind of a dying genre but they still make a good one now and then. At least they made so many back in the day I find new ones worth watching all the time

Together, what a duo I feel like my time "picking" would a lot more valuable if I was more schooled in areas outside of books, comics, and magazines (and I'm decent when it comes to vinyl records, too). In those areas, I instantly recognize the juiciest targets. But there's so much other stuff I float past hunting these things (toys, antiques, clothing, etc.) that I feel like I'm missing out on that would make the time spent more worthwhile. But, really, Memphis is not a great repository of lost treasures