Surfing Alien

Killer copy of a great cover (and book)

Those Showgirls are so cool but so tough!

A couple of early Manhunts. I'm not too picky about condition on the Manhunts since I started collecting them late so I'm glad to get whatever scraps come my way... August 1954 December 1953

McCauley, nudes in spheres

Then there's the 3rd paperback edition by Berkley with the wicked Robert Maguire cover, which is far rarer than the Avon and might be almost as rare as the Diversey digest. I don't believe there was any mass market edition after this one.

An absolute classic cover in it's own right Teen girl praying behind bars, art by Bill Randall.

It's in the 2024 February 8 Golden Age Comics Showcase Auction Featuring the Secret Sound Collection #40254 Your back cover looks as nice or nicer than the front It's true most people don't get past the cover but the book itself is considered a JD/Lesbian classic. Although I know the letters page is not in the small paperback version, I never had the hardcover so don't know if they were original to the book contents without doing some digging. The letters certainly are sleazy inbred fare but I wonder why Marty Collins' father got so upset about them when he'd allowed her to pose like this at 17 in the first place (although as many have pointed out she sure doesn't look 17 here)

Oh great, now I have an impossible run to try to collect!

I collect paperbacks, digests and mags so couldn't resist picking this beauty off. I've seen copies before but never so nice that I "had to have it"

That's a heck of a nice copy Doug!

Truth here, which is why I've been gradually cutting boards for my books, this way you can lean them back to display (so they won't jump off the shelf) without worrying about bending the spine.

Tell us how you REALLY feel! Agree mostly but it serves its purpose at least if it fits properly!

As a big RSG aficionado, I thought this was interesting https://comics.ha.com/itm/books/vintage-paperbacks/reform-school-girl-nn-reprint-edition-diversey-1948-cgc-vg-35-cream-to-off-white-pages/p/40254-16001.s?ic4=OtherResults-SampleItem-071515&tab=ArchiveSearchResults-012417#40254-16001 I'm pretty sure it's the copy Dale Roberts had on his website recently that jimjum pointed out here, the rust on the staples looks the same iirc, although I did not save a scan of the book when it was for sale. I've thought about sending my copies in for some time, just because, but have never liked the look of the giant case with the digest sized mags they slab. Seeing it now kind of reinforces that feeling. If they produced a smaller sized slab for the digests I'd be much more inclined to get a bunch of mine slabbed. The large slabs for digests was already a known issue but what I'm really not thrilled with is the labeling and wanted to see what y'all thought. Two things bug me, the most egregious is the prominent labeling of it as "Reprint Edition" - although this is technically correct, since it reprints an earlier hardcover edition (which was titled "House of Fury"), I think that nomer calls into question it's originality/authenticity, as if it were a later reprint of the rare digest it is (like the fairly recent "journal" with the RSG cover reprinted on it that can be found for sale around the web). I think it should be described as the First Paperback edition, since that is also technically accurate and doesn't have the negative connotation of calling it a reprint, and also leaves the door open for the small Avon "House of Fury" edition and the later Berkley HOF edition to be called the 2nd and 3rd paperback editions. The other thing is the notation that it was "distributed with page 2 removed by the publisher", which, again is technically accurate, but how would they label copies like mine and @Robot Man's that have the letters page intact? Not sure how they would handle that other than to indicate "distributed with page 2 intact by the publisher" - although neither of those declarations makes it clear that there are two states with one even rarer than the other. All that aside, it will be interesting to see where it ends up. The hype in the listing is hilarious and blatantly false, as you can see 5 previous copies listed in their past auction history. Still infinitely less than the dozens of sales of the later comic book that swiped the cover. I'm not a fan of the staple rust but it's pretty nice otherwise for a 3.5, the central image is clear and bright. I'm pretty sure both of mine would garner 6.0 or north thereof, likewise for Robot Man's copy, although I've only seen front cover scans of his. Anyway, it was fun to see what RSG looks like in a slab!

Such a sweet Barye Phillips bad girl cover image. Unfortunate that it was dwarfed by the invasion of the GIANT FONTS that infected art directors' souls around this time Not bad typography at least tho... still a cool cover

In the realm of standard size pbs, I brought home some grails this year that I never thought I'd get. Books like "The Killer Inside Me" have always been top tier desireable and so have been salted away into long term collections since the 1980's. Others, like "No Virgins In Cham Ky" are so rare that you barely even see images of them on the web, although the ASE of "Frankenstein" might even be rarer than that Bonfils beauty. I upgraded my copy of the Ace "Junkie" along with a nice D-1 and picked up an astonishingly mint set of the Ace LOTR along with the best centered 1st Print of The Hobbit i've ever seen. I already own the Ballantine file copy of The Hobbit, which is near flawless, and a very high grade set of LOTR, but I'd have a hard time choosing between these sets. Here's a sample of some of my favorites of the years goodness...

Some of them are pretty pedestrian art-wise (I can imagine it may have been tough to get top straight artists to paint this stuff) but I like this one. I've seen PEC line books before and they definitely have better art than most adult titles.

Those are almost parodic!

Great take, thanks! I didn't try real hard on this one back when I got these but I'll see if I can help identify which issue it was. Here's one of the best ones I have matted in gray and framed in black (artifacts on the glass are reflections), I really like this color combo for the black crayon on aged white background

Great to see such fantastic support here. I'd like to offer the first lot of the new year. A pair of signed Lealand Gustavson original pulp drawings. These two go great together via subject matter and composition. SOLD They came from a batch of Gustavson drawings from the 1930's - 60's that I acquired a few years ago. They're pretty amazing, the motion and atmosphere the guy could get with a few conte crayon lines. The portrait dimension drawing of a couple running is drawn on window shade, which creates great shading effects, no pun intended. It doesn't have publication information but everything about it is like ones I have that have Blue Book pulp information on the back. Likely from the early 1940's. 10 1/2" x 13 1/2" Loosely white pasted on to the old mat. It will come right off with no damage. I left it on to see the framing effect. The landscape couple clinching is on paper and is for "Dark Lady" by Doris Miles Disney, which was published in 1960. I believe this story was serialized and that's was the drawing was for. 14 1/2" x 10 1/2" Has a fair amount of artist's whiteout but still a compelling image. These look great cleaned up, matted in dark gray and framed in black. I have a bunch framed and hanging in my library $200 for the pair shipped. A bargain for some moody, evocative published vintage pulp production art. Bio here: https://www.pulpartists.com/Gustavson.html

The digest market gets tougher and tougher to bring home the good stuff, but I made some nice snags. There were a few bargains but mainly I ponied up pretty good coin to get what I like. Here's a few highlights of the year's haul featuring Gross, Saunders, Cole, Marchetti, Stahr and Popp art, among others...

Scary. Tempus Fugit...

Love to see signed Avon covers. Not too many of them. Downes was great.

Well. 23 is in the books. It was a great year for us for the most part, a lot of great buys and sells as well. The board sales were a real blast and I was humbled by the interest, friendliness and trust of the boardie community. We're heading back home from New York today so I'm gonna have travel downtime to kill so I think I'll dig around in my phone gallery and show some of my favorite pick ups of 23. I'll start with some Heade. It's tough to follow an act like that above, but I was happy to acquire some of the tougher titles from the Archer/Leisure Library lines.

Happy New Year I've never seen these either. Congrats 'pool, you're Heade cup runneth over and it's a treat to be shown these goodies

While not really my thing, I've seen enough to know that most of those covers are tamer than many modern risque comic covers imho. They just were wild for the times.