#pulp novel cover

[spacenoirdetective]

Paul Stahr, pulp cover art for "Dwellers in the Mirage" by A. Merritt, mid 1930s

He kinda has a look on his face like "Should I bother with this today? I don't know if I feel like bothering with this today."

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Paperback cover art by Paul Rader (1960s)

[saintmichale]

Snap girl I think you dropped something, my jaw

[retropopcult]

1962

[maddie-grove]

I do think there’s something to the volume of distribution that the Internet allows making it easier to put works of a very wide range of quality before people’s eyes, as well as the increased push for writers to do self-promotion cutting into time/energy that they could have used for writing. I do think that’s going to increase the number of bad books that a person encounters. But it’s also easy to romanticize the pure-t crap of the past, for a few different reasons:

You’re more likely to have to seek out something that didn’t just come out, so you don’t feel like it (or its imitators) are being shoved down your throat. A 2009 pop song about Going to the Club is more charming when it’s not sandwiched between two nearly identical songs on every Top 40 station.

Its initial pop culture moment has probably come and gone, so you aren’t worried that it’s going to be boy bands on the radio ad infinitium.

You might have been the target audience for that boy band/superhero movie/sketch comedy show/paranormal romance/ghostwritten kids’ book series/animated princess movie ten or twenty or thirty years ago. You might not be now. I have a lot of affection still for Beauty and the Beast: the Enchanted Christmas, more so than almost any Disney movie that’s come out since 2001 or so. That doesn’t mean it’s good.

Not everything that survives in the pop culture consciousness is good, per se, but it’s usually somewhat memorable or entertaining. It’s not the dreariest rank-and-file Twilight imitators or disco songs that are still with us; it’s Twilight itself, or tight shit like “I Will Survive.”

[theactioneer]

The Penetrator #24: Cryogenic Nightmare by Lionel Derrick (Pinnacle, 1978)

[oakendesk]

book cover - unknown western novel - circa 1967

Walter Stackpool

[wewillbewormandwife]

[victusinveritas]

Published in 1966. I can't find the cover artist, but Vin Saxon is a pseudonym of Ron Haydock, who also appeared in some B-movies and put out some deranged post-rockabilly singles.

[scandalousadventures]

🩸 Enter The Ocean House Hotel... if you dare! 🩸

[torpedobob]

Cover art for russian Pulp sci-fi action book from late 90s

[atomic-chronoscaph]

art by Edmond Gray

[saintmichale]

[retropopcult]

1973

[gingerbredman1989]

Retro Pulp Novel Cover Art, LGBTQ style.

Bing AI

[theactioneer]

The Penetrator #35: Black Massacre (Pinnacle, 1980)