Comics, Pulps, and Paperbacks: Why such a discrepancy in values? 25 25

[Surfing Alien]

On 1/25/2022 at 12:55 AM, Randall Dowling said:

These are a few of the books that I've picked up.  Year of Consent has one of my favorite Richard Powers covers.  And I love Popular Giants!  

I'm slowly chipping away at a very specific period of Avons with this colored flag logo, price and number at the top.

A little Ray Johnson, a little Rafael DeSoto

Some classic Dells.  Cats Prowl at Night is a classic cover to me.  The artist on Unfinished Business looks familiar... 

And these last 2 are completely normal purchases.  Sherry is a story of a young lady negotiating a complicated world.  Wild French Nurse is a perfectly ordinary title to collect... 

Popular Giants are awesome. The Naked Rich is Ray Johnson as well. Ray painted nearly a quarter of the early ones and he changed his style from the airbrushed looking pulp paintings at Avon to a more impressionistic, luminous style with glowing highlights. Here's a scan of the original art for this one.

 

The Avon T series are scarcer than the regular series because they shrank their print runs in the mid fifties so they're a challenge to collect  - I like the Kalin girl on yours but I'll still take Ray Johnson's insane entendre headlights cover on the original It's funny that the woman with less clothes on (Kalin's) is less overt than the fully clothed but in-your-face pinup sized one. Avon moved away from the pin-up sized good girls on the covers around 1952-53. The move was surely directly related to the Gathings Committee Congressional hearings on "Current Pornographic Materials" launched in 1952, aimed at protecting America's women from the wholesale rape the Committee thought would be enacted on them by men stimulated by book covers

 

 

Unfinished Business looks like a familiar artist because? Well you know why, it's by the Great Mystery Man himself lol. He only did a few Dell covers but they stand out from the usual Bob Stanley covers because a) the models are clearly not Stanley's wife, who he used on so many of his covers, and b) Ray's girls are just sexier and more dangerous - look at that face, the (lack of ) clothes, that pose - and that knife   I'm actually surprised the prim Dell editors let this one out on the racks!

 

 

[Surfing Alien]

On 1/25/2022 at 12:55 AM, Randall Dowling said:

Wild French Nurse is a perfectly ordinary title to collect... 

Just got this nurse in today. Not sure she's up to speed on the Hippocratic Oath 

Seriously, the Carl Pfeufer covers on these Off-Beats are insane. Here's a couple more from the same lot 

[Book Guy]

For the Avon enthusiasts. Not a Mass Market Paperback, but interesting anyway. There's a nice copy on ABE for $45 now.

[Surfing Alien]

On 1/29/2022 at 3:31 PM, Book Guy said:

For the Avon enthusiasts. Not a Mass Market Paperback, but interesting anyway. There's a nice copy on ABE for $45 now.

Pretty cool, I seem to recall seeing others, probably Bruce Brenner showed me some since he has/had everything Avon imaginable

[damonwad]

Here's a non-first printing of Avon #5 with the globe endpapers. It shows 16 titles on the back and 12 titles on the interior.

Then Avon #18 is in the first group of books that has a first printing without the globe endpapers. This has 20 titles on back and 19 titles on the inside (it doesn't list #20, League of Frightened Men).

[damonwad]

The hitchhiker with the bleeding hand makes me think of the hitchhiking scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I cant even remember the last time I saw a hitchhiker.

[frozentundraguy]

Picking up books has been quiet for me the last month or so, as I'm saving up for a vacation shortly. I did obtain Woffbane by Kornbluth and Pohl  recently, as I liked the story line. Earth has been pulled out of orbit by some mysterious aliens and the number of humans alive is down dramatically due to the insufficient light and heat from an artificial sun.  The cover art is by Richard Powers.

 

I'm saving up to go south.

Spoiler

 

I managed to scrape that pesky price sticker off without damaging the cover.

Edited February 1, 2022 by frozentundraguy

[TerrysComics]

Remember when this was controversial?

Listed as a Paperback but priced like a pulp.

   

[Surfing Alien]

Couple more in recently

This Hammett edited tome collects Wandrei's title story and  Lovecraft's The Music of Erich Zann among other classics. The uncredited cover is a cool mix of photo and painted elements

An actual Hammett with a Bob Stanley cover

Classic Jack Floherty bare breast wrap around cover

1st print Mickey Spillane with a great Lou Kimmel bondage cover. You see a lot of Spillanes because they sold so many but the 1st prints are pretty tough.

Peter Saxon was a house name for a bunch of these Black Magic/Witchcraft titles. Nice semi-Gothic bare breasted cover by Victor Kalin.

[Surfing Alien]

On 2/2/2022 at 3:39 PM, TerrysComics said:

Remember when this was controversial?

Listed as a Paperback but priced like a pulp.

   

Combo of great author/story/cover art and notoriety has it on every collectors grail list 

[OtherEric]

Found at a local store today.  I'll never read it but what a spectacular cover!

[ThothAmon]

Not particularly appealing covers on these.  Nice shape though. 

 

[ThothAmon]

Dracula. 
 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Hit the local flea market today for the first time since Covid. Really low on dealers and less attendees. Comic searching is a joke so I don't pause long to look at those. Instead I search for other interesting things like BLB's Pulps and Paperbacks. Scored these three today. The Philip D**k Ace Double was $8 and the other two were $2. Most comics there are priced higher and are mostly junk. I bought these mainly to read; the Fritz Leiber book looks entertaining.

@Robot Man were you there today?

Edited February 6, 2022 by 50YrsCollctngCmcs

[Surfing Alien]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:51 AM, ThothAmon said:

Dracula. 
 

Never saw this before your post. Very cool cover and book. Looks like a sleeper "comic book" pb but actually well priced up in the couple of places I could find one so I wouldn't call it a sleeper. I just didn't know about it. Others apparently do!

[Surfing Alien]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:48 PM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Hit the local flea market today for the first time since Covid. Really low on dealers and less attendees. Comic searching is a joke so I don't pause long to look at those. Instead I search for other interesting things like BLB's Pulps and Paperbacks. Scored these three today. The Philip D**k Ace Double was $8 and the other two were $2. Most comics there are priced higher and are mostly junk. I bought these mainly to read; the Fritz Leiber book looks entertaining.

@Robot Man were you there today?

You can't buy 3 new paperbacks to read for that price, and these are so much cooler! 

[frozentundraguy]

I picked up a couple of books this weekend. My vacation is pretty much funded now.   I was fortunate to obtain these for $2 each. They are hard to pass up at that price.

Espionage and counter Espionage on the coast of China

  The 13th PB (1951) edition of "The Spanish Cape Mystery". Both of these books look to have been read very rarely.

 

I thought I would share how I keep track of my collection. I have my collection stored in Xcel and also use Xcel to load a data base that I setup using Microsoft Sql Server. I currently maintain a different DB for my Ace Double books. I'm thinking of merging the two into one DB. Below is a screen shot of part of the non Ace double books.

 

[Robot Man]

On 2/6/2022 at 10:48 AM, 50YrsCollctngCmcs said:

Hit the local flea market today for the first time since Covid. Really low on dealers and less attendees. Comic searching is a joke so I don't pause long to look at those. Instead I search for other interesting things like BLB's Pulps and Paperbacks. Scored these three today. The Philip D**k Ace Double was $8 and the other two were $2. Most comics there are priced higher and are mostly junk. I bought these mainly to read; the Fritz Leiber book looks entertaining.

@Robot Man were you there today?

No, I missed it today. I was set up at the San Fernando Con instead. My boothmate and a couple other guys went before the con. Word was it was REAL sparce. I can understand vintage comics and pulps ect being super hard to find but if my buddy left with nothing not a real good sign. He deals, like I do in all kinds of stuff.

I hope this show continues to recover from the pandamic. I think a lot of the older dealers might have retired from the business.

Good to see you scored some good PBs. Wouldn’t have been worth the drive for me. But you are a local. 

[Book Guy]

Another scarce digest with a good cover. Note the contents: Lawrence Block (and the suspicious B L Lawrence); Reynard (Fox) Jay, Jay Folb and Jay Fox all make me think of Harlan Ellison (whose middle name was Jay), but I can't find any info online. Presumably the same guy whoever it was! Most of the other names look pseudonym-my to me as well. Great story

titles!

titletitles!

 

 

Jay Fox

Edited February 10, 2022 by Book Guy

[Book Guy]

Devil just turned up 'in a box'. I think there was one posted a couple of weeks ago but you can't see it enough.

Corpse has the flying/floating eye motif which I like a lot