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

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Surfing Alien · December 20, 2022

On 12/19/2022 at 8:56 PM, Pat Calhoun said:

the first few 'Lions' were published by 'Red Circle'...

Very Nice. Here's the first Red Circle non-fiction title, #2, "Passionate Fool" by John A. Moroso.

#1 in the series was a non fiction title "Sex Life and You" with a non-pictorial cover, one of many "sex advice" books that started appearing after the first Kinsey report in 1948. It's interesting to know if it was planned to alert you about problems in your sex life in #1 and then start a run of sleaze romance and men's adventure type titles with sexy covers

As seen in Pat's post and the uncredited but quite classic GGA cover below and my Lion post above, Goodman hired and deployed the same stable of artists that populated his vast Pulp, and later, Men's Adventure Magazines, in the paperbacks. It was natural progression that followed the demise of the pulps and rise of the magazines and pb's.

Surfing Alien · December 21, 2022

Here's a bunch more high grade recent pickups for your holiday perusal...

This Harlequin cover is a redraw of the Phantom Books original.

One of the tougher Charles Williams Gold Medals with a pretty intense Barye Phillips cover

This Goodis Bantam is generally plagued with bad lamination peel so I was happy to get a nice one. Cover by Bill Shoyer

I didn't think I'd be able to upgrade my Dancing Detective but this one was pretty luscious and better than the undercopy

A nice addition to the Lionel White collection that I didn't have. Cover by Robert Abbett

Surfing Alien · December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas Fellas! It's a blessing to share our little treasures with such swell folks here. I think I posted this one last year but Banbery's wonderful illustrations on this cover are always worth visiting again, especially the back cover parade.

OtherEric · December 26, 2022

Found at a half price books yesterday on my way to my family's Christmas Eve dinner. It's the last of the Koontz doubles I need. I think it's probably actually the most common of the five, but I spent years thinking I had all five, counting Dark of the Woods/ Soft Come the Dragons as two. I then spent years never remembering which one of the five I needed when I stumbled across them. Happy with this one, it was cheap and looks beautiful other than a single light crease on the spine.

Surfing Alien · December 31, 2022

Married to Murder by the Great Harry Whittington. Phantom Mystery 503. Published by Hanro in 1952. The artist is uncredited but seems to be one who did a couple of the uncredited Phantoms. Very impactful, great colors and gravity-defying 😁

I still have a few more to go in this fantastic original novel digest series but I'm making progress. This title was elusive.

Pat Calhoun · December 31, 2022

this will probably be my final Atlas digest acquisition of 2022: a handsome addition to the group...

arrival date says it all: 1/1/43: happy 80th

Edited December 31, 2022 by Pat Calhoun

Surfing Alien · December 31, 2022

On 12/31/2022 at 2:46 PM, Pat Calhoun said:

this will probably be my final Atlas digest acquisition of 2022: a handsome addition to the group...

arrival date says it all: 1/1/43: happy 80th

That is beyond cool Pat! January 1 and Peter Driben rare Skull cover. Your hunt just gets better & better! Happy hunting in the new year!

OtherEric · January 4, 2023

A couple more of the McGinnis covers for Hard Case Comics:

Blorgon scum · January 4, 2023

Just one of the Zimiamvian books isn't the original earlier printings.

Surfing Alien · January 4, 2023

On 1/4/2023 at 1:28 AM, OtherEric said:

A couple more of the McGinnis covers for Hard Case Comics:

Those are some of his last covers. Here's one of his first. True Detective from October 1956, before he started getting paperback assignments in 1958.

Surfing Alien · January 7, 2023

I bought a bit of a trove of minty classic pbs and digests over the Holidays that I hope to take some pics of soon.

Here's a real nice copy of Sinner's Club by the Great Harry Whittington. Carnival Books #923. One of the first JD novels I read and been looking to find a better copy for a long time and finally did 🙂

Classic cover by Rudolph Belarski.

FoggyNelson · January 7, 2023

On 12/30/2022 at 7:23 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Married to Murder by the Great Harry Whittington. Phantom Mystery 503. Published by Hanro in 1952. The artist is uncredited but seems to be one who did a couple of the uncredited Phantoms. Very impactful, great colors and gravity-defying 😁

I still have a few more to go in this fantastic original novel digest series but I'm making progress. This title was elusive.

Wow‼️‼️ Looks 9.8 mercy ‼️‼️❤️

Surfing Alien · January 7, 2023

On 1/7/2023 at 10:55 AM, FoggyNelson said:

Wow‼️‼️ Looks 9.8 mercy ‼️‼️❤️

Thanks. It actually has some small creasing in the lower right corner but it's about the nicest one I've seen with clean staples. Rusty staples on these 50's digests are more common than clean ones

OtherEric · January 7, 2023

Pat's copy looked interesting so I couldn't resist when I saw it at my local store today:

Surfing Alien · January 9, 2023

Here's a couple of pics from the high grade collection

Sarg · January 10, 2023

On 1/8/2023 at 6:21 PM, Surfing Alien said:

Here's a couple of pics from the high grade collection

High grade ... you weren't kidding. Beautiful books.

Sarg · January 10, 2023

Got this in "hammered" condition, but no complaints ... desirable in any condition. Best cover to any Spillane book, IMO, and makes the US cover seem tame and dull by comparison.

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Surfing Alien · January 11, 2023

On 1/9/2023 at 9:07 PM, Sarg said:

Got this in "hammered" condition, but no complaints ... desirable in any condition. Best cover to any Spillane book, IMO, and makes the US cover seem tame and dull by comparison.

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One of the few great White Circle covers, most of them were pretty crude but this one gets past that with a great composition and babe👍

The US 1st paperback is great too in its own way though, and the breast-baring was quite shocking and controversial at the time. Unfortunately the colors got washed out a bit in print. The image is much more vibrant and striking on the original painting, which survived in the Spillane estate. The original also confirmed that it was by Tony Varady, a somewhat mystery man, who painted many late 40's -50's pb covers and one of the first to paint more realistic covers at Penguin/Signet after Jonas' symbolic style got dated.

Surfing Alien · January 14, 2023

Here's a few more recent pickups, mostly from the same high grade collection:

Been looking for a nice copy of this classic forever since I had one in my original collection that I sold. They don't show up often without creases, this one just has some corner wear and is one of the nicer ones I've seen in a while.