Paperback 1165: What D'Ya Know For Sure? / Len Zinberg (Avon T-093)

Paperback 1165: Avon T-093 (3rd ptg, 1955)

Title: What D'Ya Know For Sure?

Author: Len Zinberg

Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 3/10

Value: $2?

Best things about this cover: 

• "Who's got one thumb and no idea how to control his emotions? This guy!"
• "Did you run over my book with your car and then try to tape it back together? Did You!?" (this may be the worst-condition still-fully-intact book in my collection)
• Poor lady. She's got extreme "Sir, this is an Arby's" face.
• Avon first published this book as Strange Desires, and yeah, she definitely looks like she wants nothing to do with his strange desires.
• Not a big fan of the implied domestic violence here, but that dude's expression is an all-timer.

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Here is the Hollywood of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN—the writing quality of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN, sorry, we don't got none of that."
• Side effects of reading this book may include frantic bedlam of the underside ...
• "Full of awareness" LOL wot? "After reading this book, I am aware ... that it sucks."

Page 123~

Joe was busy changing into a sport shirt. His body was hog-fat with age.

Side effects of aging may include hog-fat ...

~RP

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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

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Paperback 823: Last of the Breed / Les Savage, Jr. (Dell First Edition 37)

Paperback 823: Dell First Edition 37 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Last of the Breed
Author: Les Savage, Jr.
Cover artist: Stanley Borack

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "I told you I didn't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no calves! I told you!"
• Mysterious stranger just wants to borrow a bucket.
• Wardrobe malfunction in 5, 4, 3 ...
• We get it, Stan Borack—you are good at drawing hands. Stop showing off.
• "I don't know, Les, I think this tale might be a bit too savage. Do you think you could make it …?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Looks like this book was in Brian Sheridan's back pocket when he got into whatever he got into on the front cover. Books with war wounds!
• He came alive as a man. It was a good feeling. If this isn't a tale of sexual awakening, I'm gonna be very disappointed.
• What is up with the design on this cover? "The blue arrow going round and round symbolizes life's twists and turns, while the sloppy gray daubs that frame the arrow symbolize the artist's not giving a shit."

Page 123~

Jess Miller was helping a pair of bonneted women near the rear.

Because bonnets make it practically impossible to see back there.

~RP

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Paperback 692: Give a Man a Gun / Leslie Ernenwein (Gold Medal 220)

Paperback 692: Gold Medal 220 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Give a Man a Gun
Author: Leslie Ernenwein
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12



Best things about this cover:

• You know what they say: "Give a man a gun, he'll ... shoot some fish ... something something."
• Fear hand—man style!
• "Trigger tramp" = "closeted cowboy," I think. "Don't judge me just 'cause I got this ascot and your girlfriend and these dance moves and you didn't!"
• "His gun made him a man—the story of a Very Western Prosthesis."

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, stop right there: CLEE? Give a man a name, why don't you?
• Everybody from Texas—we get it, you're from Texas. You can take off the hat now.
• I wonder what's next from the very Westernly named Leslie Ernenwein—maybe "Give a Gun a Gun" or "Gun Night in Guntown" or "The Joy Luck Gun Club."

Page 123~

He went out to his horse then and stowed the two bottles in his saddlebags. Seeing Doc Stonecypher come down the Empire Hotel steps, Dude called, "How's Johnny Frayne?"

Doc Stonecypher replied, "Hmmm, I'd say fair-to-middlin'. Gotta go now. Gotta fight Spider-Man."

~RP

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