Today I'm looking at Penguin Books from 1966. Why? Because that's the year they ditched the Marber Grid and brought in Alan Aldridge as art director to spice up their fiction covers!
He was a controversial choice, so let's see how he did...
Sleepwalkers, by David Karp. Penguin Books, 1966.
I really like this as a cover!
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. Penguin Books, 1966. Another favourite of mine.
Kiss Kiss, by Roald Dahl. Penguin Books, 1966. Art by Alan Aldridge.
Jubb, by Keith Waterhouse. Penguin Books, 1966. Richard Heimann did the photography on this one IIRC.
Boswell's London Journal: 1762-1763, edited by Frederick A Pottle. Penguin Books, 1966. Cover by Alan Aldridge.
Gunner Cade, by Cyril Judd. Penguin 1966. Cover by Ian Yeoman.
A Kind Of Loving, by Stan Barstow. Penguin Books, 1966. I do like this edition!
Island, by Aldous Huxley. Penguin, 1966. Cover by Ross Cramer.
Maigret's Special Murder, by Georges Simeon. Penguin Books, 1966. Cover by Karl Ferris.
The Penguin John Lennon (1966). Cover by Alan Aldridge.
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, by Robert A Heinlein. Penguin, 1966. Cover by Alan Aldridge.
Personally I'm a fan of Alan Aldridge's work at Penguin, though that does put me into a minority! De gustibus non disputandum est, as they say.
And finally... The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson. Panther Horror, 1969. Cover by Alan Aldridge (who had just been sacked as Penguin's art director that year!)
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Today in pulp I'm looking back at one of the greatest albums of all time.
What are the chances...
By 1976 Jeff Wayne was already a successful composer and musician, as well as a producer for David Essex. His next plan was to compose a concept album.
War Of The Worlds was already a well known story, notorious due to the Orson Wells radio play production. For Wayne it seemed like a great choice for a rock opera.
Today in pulp I'm looking back at a very popular (and collectable) form of art: Micro Leyendas covers!
Micro Leyendas (mini legends) are a Mexican form of fumetto, small graphic novels normally pitting the everyday hero against the weird, the occult and the unfathomable.
The art of Micro Leyendas is bold, macabre and very funny. The books often tell a cautionary tale of revenge or humiliation, much like a modern folk tale.
Today in pulp: what makes a good opening sentence for a pulp novel?
Now this is a tricky one…
The opening sentence has an almost mythical status in writing. Authors agonise for months, even years, about crafting the right one. Often it’s the last thing to be written.
Which is odd, because very few people abandon a book if they don’t like the first sentence. It’s not like the first sip of wine that tells you if the Grand Cru has been corked! Most people at least finish Chapter One.
The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984: these weren’t the first dystopian novels. There's an interesting history of Victorian and Edwardian literature looking at the impact of modernity on humans and finding it worrying.
Today in pulp I look at some early dystopian books…
Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, was the second novel penned by Jules Verne. However his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel rejected it as too gloomy. The manuscript was only discovered in 1994 when Verne’s grandson hired a locksmith to break into an old family safe.
The novel, set in 1961, warns of the dangers of a utilitarian culture. Paris has street lights, motor cars and the electric chair but no artists or writers any more. Instead industry and commerce dominate and citizens see themselves as cogs in a great economic machine.