Surfing Alien

New York City back in the 70’s & 80’s was filled with more 2nd hand bookstores/thrift shops/flea markets than I could imagine existed anywhere else in the country. I mostly collected comics as a teen and went for old Sci fi & JD later. I picked up a few pulps here and there. You never saw them as much as comics & books but nobody seemed focused on them back then either. They were pretty cheap. The best one I picked up (for a song) was Private Detective #1 with a great Ward bondage cover. I sold it on ebay at some point in the early ebay days because one day I noticed the paper was deteriorating due to being stored in the closet in my apartment in a non-central AC building. I wish I still had it but I knew I had to sell it or it was going to get bad. Hopefully it went somewhere where it wouldn’t disintegrate. The cover was like new. I don’t think I still have a pic but if I find it I’ll post it, it’s a great cover. I'm afraid those old bookstore days are gone though.

That said, i'm managing to find a few decent things on the web. Another Brundage cover with Howard's Valley of the Worm, can't go wrong there.

Yeah, but those 60's Avon's are getting tougher to find in decent shape. Especially the more popular titles.

Some MOAR classic JD... this one from Beacon. Is it just me or does that kid look like James Dean?

I will never see pulps in any of my LCS

Mind Boggled! That copy belongs in the Library of Valhalla.

Piper's "Little Fuzzy" turned my sister into a sci-fi fan, which she was not prior.

That's cool.... It might explain why ONJ got away with being a high school student in "Grease" when she was 30 😜

Some MOAR JD, not too many in the tamer Bantam run but there's a bunch of them...

Let's kickstart this with some JD... some REAL JD...

I'm thinking mylites too, I'd think the 4 mil would put too much pressure on the edges.

Overhang unfold risk taken I taped the bag tight to put a little pressure on that bottom edge, which should press those folds into place after a few days. Looking neat n proper now. The poly bags are a little dull though. Any recommendations on a good mylar solution for these?

Pretty copy to boot

can...not...resist... little things like that bother me so much

Thanks, your trimming tutorial in the other thread helped me make the call on this one

So here's the offender. Great book, great color, but that overhang at the top looks possibly trimmed. I'm not sure... maybe... it's very even all the way around the wrap. And the bottom overhang is very large... much more than on my others so I think the whole cover may be pasted on lower than my others Why I really think its not trimmed is that the spine edge top is level with the rest of the spine edge, I'm not sure how you could even trim the spine top without digging into the page folios underneath, the paper there looks undisturbed??? I'm going to try to carefully unbend that fold on the bottom edge, hope it doesn't flake away. It looks like it's been folded a loooong time and not much paper left on the fold.

Sweet - those early Pops are tough to find that nice + I need to get more Berkley's, I never concentrated on them at all so only have a few - but they have some great art in that series

Thanks - you're right about addiction I already have another on the way lol. I am trying to get a few "types" to start, and to fulfill that there'll definitely be a few more Brundage covers involved. They're very elegant figures, softer and more refined than many of the other pulp artists. I'm less picky about pulp condition than I am about my paperbacks, some are an order of magnitude more expensive and I have to keep my collecting budget to what I can raise by selling other stuff in order to stay married lol. Still looking for nicely presenting copies though, and my pet peeves will be the same - I don't like prominent corner creases. For each thing I look at it's a price/grade weigh-in. This one has some fading on the spine, it's orange not red, but no paper loss anywhere really and the cover & pages are fairly bright so I'm happy. This one is definitely not trimmed, but the next one might be. I'll post it for comments - it was pretty nice otherwise and could just be mis-wrapped, i'll know better when it's in hand. The top edge is very sharp and lower than the pages but the bottom overhangs a lot more than this one and waaay more than the 1932 one I previously picked up (which it's closer in age to). It's a continuing education I gather.

Picked up a pretty sharp copy of a Brundage cover Weird Tales... my first Brundage Love the artwork. I've loved Henry Kuttner since I first read "Mutant" + a CAS 1st Mag appearance and an HPL 1st Mainstream Mag print of The Other Gods. The colors are nice and no bad chipping or creasing. Right in my wheelhouse. Still trying to figure out how to deal with unwinding/bending up the overhang and getting a pulp into a proper bag without damage. Am i wrong in thinking many long time pulp holders aren't as anal as comic guys are about how little corner folds and dings sit in the bags?

It's hard for me to process that my well worn copy of this is the first printing from August 1971. It was not old when I first acquired it. The cover art is very modernist but I think captures the blurred lines Silverberg was drawing in his golden period. His writing at this time was so personal it almost hurt and I don't blame him for shutting the operation down for a decade after such a prolific reveal in the late 60's, early 70's, that gained him artistic Knighthood from his peers but not full on support from his publishers. When you wrote a novel in 1971 in the first person about the illegality of the self, you got something going on!

Probably only because the 40's and 50's used classic Pulp Art types, which were much derived out of "Classical" art. The 60's on saw much experimentation (also in music & other arts) that were considered "modern art" junk by purists at the time but have come to be appreciated more over time. I personally prefer the Pulpy stuff but still appreciate a lot of the modern art.

Super happy opening the mail to ogle these... 2 Ray Bradbury Planets with Allen Anderson full length Space Babe covers. The covers were vibrant, not chipped away, just a moderate collection of small edge tears and a little spine paper separation on the Spring 1950. The inside paper was nice and creamy on the 1950 and off white on the Spring 1949 It was shot in the dark that turned out great

Another early Asimov classic double

An Asimov masterpiece in the single format

Found some more Ace's in another box while sorting - I knew I had a copy of this previously referenced goodie somewhere...