My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck By Lightning

obsidian-sphere:

Whoa! Step back on the wild science fiction imagery there Yankee Science Fiction, you’re blowing my mind with you Buck Rogers tomfoolery! 

Bear Alley: “The oddly named Yankee Shorts series was published by Gerald G. Swan in the early 1940s at a time when paper was in short supply. There was also a ban on new periodicals appearing, so the title changed regularly from issue to issue. To try and fool readers into thinking that the magazine was American, Swan put a 10 cents price tag on covers but sold it for 3d. for 32 pages.”

ladythatsmyskull:

From the lurid pulp stylings art of this book cover printed in 1953 this seems to be Frankenstein as if the cast was envisioned as poor Southern trash in a play written by Tennessee Williams. Scarcity of good copies of this printing demand high prices from collectors. The absurd juxtaposition of Gothic story with poorly chosen cover styling kept the book in the more adult sections of stores and out of the hands of the younger readers, probably hurting overall sales.

The art is proficient and on any other book would have been better served. There are certain design, layout and prop features of the pulp and paperback book eras that are more appealing than others a bonus for collectors is the element of the “Yellow Dress” worn by the Monster’s victim on the cover. 

The original novel was written by Mary Shelley and due to gender politics of the era was published anonymously in 1818. From thematic over-exposure and desensitization of the subjects within the book over time Frankenstein is considered somewhat juvenile fare today. But for it’s time the story was shocking.

The story of Shelley’s life is fascinating, sad and full of intrigue and drama. Mary Shelley died at age 53 from what is believed to have been a brain tumor.

 

I love the fifties pulp covers of literary classics.

(via atompunk)

atompunk:

vitazur:

Mort Künstler - Man’s Life

“Chewed to Bits by Giant Turtles!” – Man’s Life magazine, May 1957

astromonster:

The Nyctalope is a lesser-known fictional superhero who appears in a series of novels written by French writer Jean de La Hire, a prolific author of popular adventure series, many of which include science fiction elements. Léo Saint-Clair is The Nyctalope, a crime fighter who can see in the dark with his eerie eyes whose irises shift colors. It is revealed later that The Nyctalope sports an artificial heart.

First appearing in 1911 (or 1908, if one consider Leo Saint-Clair’s father, Jean Saint-Clair), he’s the first superhero of the genre, followed by the Japanese Ogon Bat, Superman and Doc Savage in the 1930s and, later again, Batman in 1939.

(adapted from English and French Wikipedia entries)

(via weaselsrippedmyflesh)

ayjay:

Another superb example

The 1953 edition [of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 book] from Bantam with art by Charles Binger.

ayjay:

From the days when they really knew how to design paperback covers

Not quite as I had imagined it,

Signet edition, 1952: cover by Alan Harmon

books0977:

Black Mask. Cover of Sept 1929 issue, featuring part 1 of serialization of The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett. Illustration of private eye Sam Spade by Henry C. Murphy, Jr. Popular Publications.

“Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting ‘v’ under the more flexible ‘v’ of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, ‘v.’ His yellow-gray eyes were horizontal. The ‘v’ motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down–from high flat temples–in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.” — Hammett

books0977:

Spicy Detective, June 1938. Cover art by H.J. Ward. “Watch the Lady!” by Robert A. Garron.

Hugh Joseph Ward (1909-1945) painted many of the most sensational and iconic pulp magazine covers in the history of the field. Ward made contributions to the earliest visual images of The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Superman.

Robert A. Garron wrote detective stories for magazines and paperback collections in the 1930s and 1940s.

books0977:

Line-Up Detective Cases, October 1939. From TRUE Police Records! 25 cents.

Crimson Past of the Murdered Playboy.

Are You As Smart As The Police? Can You Solve The Weird Riddle Of The Headless Horror?

“I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.” — Jean-Paul Sartre