Book Covers

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  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Movie & TV Tie-ins…Series…Sleaze…




    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff

    Some nice covers there, and a few happy memories - eg the TV series "Search", known in the UK as "Search Control" for some reason.

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    I vaguely remember the series, I think I remember an episode which was very much like the movie DAF, but it may well have been a different series that I’m (mis)remembering.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff

    That looks like some resort if she’s there hostess 😁

    I vaguely remember reading Jaws 2 πŸ‘€

    YNWA 97
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    I haven’t read Jaws 2, I did read Jaws, it has several subplots not used in the movie. Benchley wasn’t a particularly good author, he was in the right place at the right time, so good for him, many authors who were much better never got that break.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Edgar Wallace died at 56 in 1932 (during the script drafting for the original King Kong film), but despite his relatively short life, had a reputation for being very prolific. Wallace wrote screenplays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace’s work. The Edgar Wallace Mystery Hour, an anthology series of his mysteries and thrillers, was a popular television series. Later, there was The Mind Of Mr J G Reeder, a detective series in 1969-1971. So Wallace’s popularity continued way beyond his death, although it has faded somewhat in the 21st Century, with few of his books still in print. In one of Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence novels, there is a reference to a bookshelf with a ‘yard of Edgar Wallace’.


    Arthur Upfield’s Chief Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is a Aboriginal Australian detective with a reputation for solving difficult cases by finding subtle clues. Upfield introduced the character in his 1929 novel The Barrakee Mystery. He published a total of 29 novels, through 1966, featuring this character. I’ve read a few of this series and they’re very good.


    A retitled Triffid book and other nice covers…



    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff

    Interesting stuff about Edgar Wallace…πŸ€”

    YNWA 97
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff
    edited January 22

    I read a couple of his when I was very young, thought them unexciting. As I've mentioned before, my grandfather was a great reader and they were lying around next to his others (Fleming, Maclean, Christie, etc) but didn't grab me like the rest did.

  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,940MI6 Agent

    I've had that Champions tie-in novel, The Sixth Sense is Death, by John Garforth since 1995. I believe it's quite valuable now as it's pretty rare.

    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    John Garforth wrote a number of The Avengers tv tie-ins as well. He was a part-time author, his main career was in local politics serving on councils. I was getting £20 each for those books by the time I stopped trading 12 years ago. I would imagine they’re getting more than that nowadays.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,940MI6 Agent

    Yes, that's right. I've since purchased those too. The late John Garforth has an interesting blog site where he discusses his past writing TV tie-in books. Here are some links to it:

    John Garforth – Author, councillor, local government, and the arts

    Writer – Hack Writer and Jobbing Playwright – John Garforth

    My Avengers Past Catching Up with Me – John Garforth

    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Thank you for the links @Silhouette Man they’re very interesting 🍸

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Sleaze…Nick Carter…Sci-fi…Movie Tie-ins…




    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff

    Hammer! A noir classic! And Ed Wood! I believe that's Ed's final gasp which is ... terrible. As a movie, that is, I didn't even know there was book.

  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,940MI6 Agent
    edited January 25

    Thanks, @CoolHandBond. John Garforth was an interesting man by the sounds of it! It's good that there's a website on him as some of these TV tie-in authors are pretty obscure.

    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff

    Sleaze…Nick Carter…Sci-fi…Movie Tie-ins…


    I'll let you decide which is my favourite ☺️

    YNWA 97
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    It has to be Nick Carter, no it’s sci-fi…or perhaps movie tie-ins…oh wait…!

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,723MI6 Agent
    edited January 28

    Following on from a sub-theme created in the Pulp Art thread and also another in the Last Book Read thread, my set of Dan Streib's Michael Hawk novels. I don't pretend these books are anything but throwaways, but the covers really drew me in.

    The first four are my pics as I couldn't find any on line. They were published in the UK by Sphere in 1982 and by Jove in the USA in 1980. The 5th & 6th novels came out in 1983 [UK] and 1981 [USA]. The series concluded quite effectively after #4, but I think Streib had already written the whole series, so on it went. I expect diminishing returns stopped the UK cycle. as the remainder never appeared in print here. In the USA, #5 - #14 were all published in 1981. I have downloaded the US pics rather than photo my own. I have also included the US versions of the covers for the first half-dozen.

    For me, the UK versions are better in the hand. I think it is the different coloured blank borders that do it, they gather the action of the picture more effectively than the descriptive blurb and picture frame device used on the US versions. The US versions look good in photo, but in the hand, they simply are not as powerful to look at, seeming disjointed and rather busy.

    Referring to my comment about series novels needing to all look the same, while Sphere deliberately altered the colours of their backgrounds, the mytstifying choice by Jove to paint the backgrounds of #13 & #14 black merely reinforces my assumption that marketers do not always understand collectors. Note also that USA #3 doesn't feature the cartouche of Hawk in the top right hand corner.

    I have tried hard to find out the artist to no avail.

    Sorry it is a long post.

    Thematically similar, other than #1, #3, #4 and #9 they are not very well written unless you enjoy sleaze and sex an awful lot of fighting.

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Thanks for posting those brilliant covers @chrisno1 the artist is Samson Pollen who had a long career painting pictures for pulp paperbacks and mens adventure magazines. Your final eight words encapsulates everything required for a successful pulp novel 😁

    Sex and violence sells, it always has done and always will. Many celebrated authors moonlighted on pulp books to earn a decent living, for they would outsell their critically praised work many times over.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff

    @chrisno1 sleaze, sex and fighting you say? I’ll be on the lookout for these then ☺️😁

    Great posts, guys 🍸

    YNWA 97
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff

    Smashing covers, and today I've learned a new word - "cartouche".

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Movie tie-in…Noir…Horror…Sci-fi…Westerns…Rohmer…




    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff

    Some interesting covers there, most of which I didn't know and all of which I haven't read.

  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 28,215Chief of Staff

    I didn’t know any of those 😳

    YNWA 97
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    I don’t remember ever hearing of, let alone seeing the movie Morituri, even though it stars Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner and Trevor Howard!

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 7,650MI6 Agent

    Thrillers…Sci-fi…Roger Moore…Sleaze…Movie Book…




    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 38,439Chief of Staff

    I remember seeing those Roger Moore books on the shelves, but never bought one. They looked a bit ... silly.

    The cover for "The Maltese Falcon" is very exploitative and barely πŸ˜‰ represents the story at all. About half a page, so unimportant to the plot that it isn't in the famous film which is otherwise very close to the book.

  • Silhouette ManSilhouette Man The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,940MI6 Agent
    edited February 1

    I've never heard of those Roger Moore books before. They do look rather silly as @Barbel says. No doubt it was a cynical attempt to tenuously link Roger Moore's name and popularity to an unrelated product. Interesting nonetheless.

    "The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
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