'Take A Lesbian To Lunch' And Other Great Pulp Novel Covers (PHOTOS)

My "Pop Sensation" blog is dedicated to celebrating the beauty, absurdity and unintentional hilarity of mid-20th-century paperback cover art. I started collecting old paperbacks in grad school- it was my preferred form of dissertation procrastination. I read Robert Polito's bio of Jim Thompson in the fall of 1995 and was mesmerized by the small black & white reproductions of the lurid covers that graced the first editions of most of Thompson's work. I couldn't afford those books (highly collectible), but it turned out that lots of cheap paperbacks from the same time period, with equally lurid covers, could be found in the dusty corners of Ann Arbor's many used book stores, often for just a dollar or two. I amassed over 2000 books in just a few years. Then, my collection just sat there. Eventually, God invented blogs, and now my books get the admiration/mocking they deserve.

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"Too Hot to Hold" by Day Keene (Gold Medal 931, 1959) (cover painting by Robert McGinnis)

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Possibly the most beautiful cover I've ever owned. A quintessential pulp fiction cover. Exquisite attention to detail, from her entire ensemble to the design of the taxi cab door to the cracked sidewalks. Hot woman, bad neighborhood, mysterious circumstances. Why is she looking back into the cab!? I need to know.

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Possibly the most beautiful cover I've ever owned. A quintessential pulp fiction cover. Exquisite attention to detail, from her entire ensemble to the design of the taxi cab door to the cracked sidewalks. Hot woman, bad neighborhood, mysterious circumstances. Why is she looking back into the cab!? I need to know.

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Total comments: 46 | Post a Comment

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This Cover

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Lame cover Awesome cover!

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Comments

[Wookiee1972]

10:20 PM on 08/29/2011

I think I *have* taken at least one lesbian to lunch. It was quite a nice lunch, if I remember correctly. Very nice woman.

[RedDogBear]

11:52 AM on 08/28/2011

"I challenge you, right now, to find any book in the history of publishing that has ever promised you that it would make you "VOMIT." I believe this book to be unique in publishing history, "

Well its a very recent book but The Tale of Scrottie McBoogerballs by Leopold "Butters" Stotch has just such a promise.

[AnaM]

08:03 AM on 08/28/2011

I love the artwork.
Incidentally, the surname of the author of 'Lesbian Starlet' means 'crazy' in Greek.

[thorrsman]

12:18 AM on 08/28/2011

But none of those are "pulps", just cheap paperbacks from AFTER the pulp era.

[Garioch]

05:50 PM on 08/27/2011

I've been collecting these for years now and some of them are superb.

[signgrrl]

02:28 PM on 08/27/2011

what, nothing by Shel Scott ? my grandfather used to read his stuff in the 60s and 70s.

[david3830]

01:55 PM on 08/27/2011

Ok I turned nuber twelve upside down, what am I missing ?

[Kathy Fraser]

12:54 PM on 08/27/2011

Best laugh I've had in a long time! More!

[T Ruble]

12:37 PM on 08/27/2011

The first was so brilliantly done I would have sworn it was a real picture. All were truly classic.

[BettyEverdene]

10:15 AM on 08/27/2011

I remember being absolutely fascinated by my mother's pulp novel covers. She said the books were "raw", and not for me. Nevertheless, fascinated.

[forestdweller]

01:00 AM on 08/27/2011

This is the most hilarious thing I've read in a long time. And these covers are priceless. More, please!

[PostModernGuy]

10:28 PM on 08/26/2011

This is great! Thanks for sharing!

[MoonBeamWatcher]

10:11 PM on 08/26/2011

? Have a lesbian 4 lunch ?

[Whitey Hackle]

10:19 AM on 08/29/2011

Waiter!

[Schneb]

10:00 PM on 08/26/2011

I would probably find these merely 'interesting' if I encountered them on my own, but your enthusiasm and comments add so much that I'm now tuned in to them on a 'whole nuther' level. THanks for
sharing!

ALso, though, being an A2 townie/UofM grad, I'm picturing these in the Dawn Treader (when is was still downstairs?) or on the ends of the shelves of David's books, and so on.

Also, the ridiculous album covers that Wazoo (or what it a different store?) had on permanent display seem related: 'Have Organ, Will Travel' and so on.

All good stuff. (I wonder what we're doing now that will be chuckled over 50 years from now?)

[Lottelein]

08:13 PM on 08/26/2011

Michael, love these covers! I suspect you are a fellow fan of Curtis Brown's Star Spangled Kitsch, no?