Sarg

Strangely, Matt Fox cited Alex Raymond as his biggest inspiration. I can't think of an artist more unlike Raymond than Fox.

Heritage's description of The One Between by Arthur Adlon (Beacon, 1962) is ludicrous: "The One Between dates to what's called the "golden age" of the lesbian pulp genre. These books used the public's appetite for erotic, lurid, and sensational stories to create space for representation of queer characters not allowed elsewhere in mainstream American culture and are highly collectible today." Beacon's strategy in publishing was purely and simply to peddle cheap thrills and sleaze to the prurient interests of men. Heritage knows this, of course, but decides instead to rewrite history to retroject a false motive of "inclusion" on the publisher's part. I hate dishonesty in advertising.

8.5 ... highest graded pulp so far?

Will CGC Note Pedigrees on Pulp Labels? Just curious.

Fascinating stuff. Until now, I had no idea there was a "Pocket Book Armed Services Editions" series.

I wish someone would start a thread on just the Strasser Collection. The most mysterious of all pedigrees?

What the heck is a "N.J.P.O. Bandit"?

Pulps were periodicals printed on uncoated pulp wood paper. It was a medium that thrived between 1895 and 1950. Pulps specialized in popular fiction, and selling at a price of 25 cents, were more affordable than hard cover books ($3.00 to $6.00). The introduction of comic books and mass market paperbacks in the USA in the mid-to-late 1930s started a competition with pulps, which contributed to their decline. True Detective, Stag, Saga, and many more men's adventure titles from the 1950s onward are magazines, not pulps. However, the writing style in many stories in those magazines can be called "pulp fiction." Weird Tales, Black Mask, The Shadow, Doc Savage, The All-Story, Astonishing Stories, Adventure, are prime examples of pulps.

So the woman was the famous comic strip artist? If three dames are the suspects, why is a man's hand holding a smoking gun? Early transgenderism?

I still have never understood why they were planning on bringing out a NEW horror title in late 1954 (The Crypt of Terror), as this editorial alludes to.

Famous comic strip artist does what?

I wonder if any of those still exist?

Fully clothed, but prominent headlights.

An Avon cover with a fully-clothed woman must be the rarest of all paperbacks.

What are the most desired, most valuable western pulps?

The Library of Congress sold their pulps? When did this happen?

Does this open up slabbing for all magazines in general?

Good to finally see these...

Strong Jack Davis influence, but not as good as Jack.

The Fountainhead Signet PB is "rare"? That's surprising. It was a well-publicized best-seller in hardcover, so you'd normally assume that the paperback would be pretty common. I guess the size and cost (three times more expensive than a regular 25 cent PB) turned buyers off.

Gotta be a George Gross cover, no?

That's quite a cover for Jonas. He's quoted in "Paperbacks, USA" to the effect that the other paperback covers were pornography, but not his "symbolist" Signet covers. The above shows that even Jonas could not escape the editorial demand for cleavage, cleavage, cleavage! -- as Tom Waits would say.

That cover is so ludicrously inappropriate for the story that it's hilarious. A greatly missed opportunity, IMO...if someone like say James Avati had been given the assignment, it may have been one of the classic paperback covers.

Those are new to me. Amazing.

The rarest Schomburg item?