Paperbacks 1047, 1048, and 1049: A Doc Savage trio (Bantam, 1969 (2) and 1976 (1))

Paperbacks 1047-49: Doc Savage 35, 38, and 83 (1969, 1969, 1976)

Titles: The Squeaking Goblin, Red Snow, The Red Terrors
Author: Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent, Lester Dent, Harold A. Davis)
Cover artists: James Bama, James Bama, Boris Vallejo

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $20 for the lot

[Gift to the collection from a Western NY Reader]

Best things about this cover:

• "It ain't me what's squeakin', it's me musket!" squeaked Goblin Davy Crockett

Best thing about this cover:

• It's like if Hawkman and Hulk had a pin-headed monster baby

Best thing about this cover:

• Doc Savage tried to start his life over as a crossing guard at Mystical Orb High School for Avian Cosplay, but it didn't take

Page 123~

One of the hired men pointed. "Red was a-meanderin' over thot way, last I seed a' him."

These books are all of astonishingly uniform length (~130pp.) and not at all badly written (at least on a basic grammatical level). They were originally published in the Doc Savage pulp magazine (in the '30s) and then were reprinted by Bantam roughly 30-40 years later, which puts them just before and toward the tail end of / just after the main time frame of my paperback collection (1939-69). Lester Dent (how wrote a ton of the "Kenneth Robeson" Doc Savage stories) was an accomplished crime fiction writer from the heydey of hardboild crime fiction. I covered one of his books back at Paperback 741.

Anyway, thanks to the lovely human who sent me these books in the mail today—individually wrapped! So thoughtful.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 986: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts / Donald Barthelme (Pocket 80771)

Paperback 986: Pocket Books 80771 (1st ptg, 1976)

Title: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
Author: Donald Barthelme
Cover artist: Harry Bennett

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• Holy crap.
• "Uh ... Martha ... Junior's up."
• Seriously, though, holy crap. That ain't right.
• I don't normally go past the '60s with my collection, but I discovered some time ago that '70s paperback covers are their own kind of bonkers. Not always fully painted, but often loopy enough design-wise to be really interesting. I suspect that if I ever start *adding* to my collection again (I've still got ~2000 books I *haven't* written about), I'll be hunting a lot of pristine '70s/'80s-era stuff. I mean, if the 60s were my outer limit 22 years ago (when I started collecting) ... no reason that limit can't shift with the times.
• Nice to see Harry Bennett's name in the artist credit. Hell, nice to see an artist credit at all. Bennett was a prolific '60s cover artist. No idea how long his cover career lasted. . . whoa. He lived until 2012, age 93.
• FEEL FREE TO BUY ME THIS ORIGINAL BENNETT COVER PAINTING ANY TIME.

Best things about this back cover:

• No, this "text" crap will not do, you stupid '70s blurb-driven back cover.
• It does make me want to read Barthelme, though, which I haven't done in decades.

Page 123~ (from "Alice")

I want to fornicate with Alice but it is a doomed project fornicating with Alice there are obstacles impediments preclusions estoppels I will exhaust them for you what a gas see cruel deprivements SECTION SEVEN moral ambiguities SECTION NINETEEN Alice's thighs are like SECTION TWENTY-ONE

I need to know all the SECTIONs so I can use them as shorthand I am somewhat interested in SECTION TWENTY-ONE PS there is no punctuation in this story

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 709: The Galactic Invaders / James R. Berry (Laser Books 31)

Paperback 709: Laser Books 31 (PBO, 1976)

Title: The Galactic Invaders
Author: James R. Berry
Cover artist: Kelly Freas

Not For Sale — that would be like selling my (pretend) face


Best things about this cover:

• The Original Floating Head (also, my long-standing blogging avatar)
• Love the Orange. Love the Font. Love the man who makes spaceships explode with his Mind.
• The two holes on the helmet are for the retractable horns. Or ventilation. One of those.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Can we do the painting again from my good side? Thanks."
• Finally we can see what the title on the front cover had obscured—the giant laser-equipped hairball that's orbiting Planet Orange.
• "Bryan Cranston is ... Keith Cranston in ... The Galactic Invaders!"

Page 123~

Cranston blinked at the apparent double talk. Ohm was being oblique to the point of obscurity. So far neither of them had mentioned the room with ... those people. If Ohm didn't, Cranston sure as hell wasn't going to either. 

Leave it to Ohm to be resistant. [PHYSICS PUN!]

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 103: Jimmy the Kid / Donald E. Westlake (Ballantine 24650)

Paperback 103: Ballantine 24650 (1st ptg, 1976)
Title: Jimmy the Kid
Author: Donald E. Westlake
Cover artist: Robert Grossman (if I'm reading that signature correctly)

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Originality. My collection pretty much stops in the late 60s, but there's another ten years in there where cover art / design still shows some creativity and sparkle. I love this cover, in that I can imagine the characters of all the people just by the way they are drawn. I want to know more about them. I want to know why Mickey lost his eye. I want to know why Ronald Reagan and Shelley Duvall are about to knock over an amusement park concession stand. I want to know what Woody Allen is reading. I want to know.
• Donald Westlake is a sensational writer with great comic timing, but his books have never been made into good movies, which seems not only a shame, but a surprise. His books are vivid, action-packed, and they read like scripts. The guy wrote the Oscar-nominated script for "The Grifters," so he knows dialogue. I just don't understand why Hollywood has (mostly) either ignored or botched him. Actually, "The Hot Rock" was pretty good, and "Point Blank" was great, but those are both 35+ years ago now.

PAGE 123~

(It was during that statement of the woman's that the head FBI man had extended toward Harrington a slip of paper containing the penciled words, "Tell her to prove it.")
"Um. Prove it."
"What?"
"I said, prove it."
"Prove what? That I'm gonna call you again?"
(During which, the head FBI man had been with great exaggeration mouthing the sentence, "That they have the kid!")

~RP