Two Great Sleaze Pulps With Gene Bilbrew Art.

Vacation Fun by Lee O. Miller (Wizard Books, 1967)

Neighborly Love by Frank Eaton (Corsair Books, 1968)

The Death Cycle Fury or Two Biker Pulps From The 1960's.

The Death Cycle by Charles Runyon (UK Gold Medal Books, 1963)

 Sometimes I wonder if I’m really a fiction writer.  The motorcycle story was based on an unusual honeymoon my wife and I took, riding double on a Harley through the back roads of Mexico in 1957.  Add another couple, a murder, a stash of cash and some loose gash and you get The Death Cycle.  It was fun to write, and to know that every bone-rattling jolt on that old Harley was paying off in hard core realism.

John Runyon.

Cycle Fury by Reggie Car

Two classic Biker books from the 1960's. A popular genre spawned by the interest in all things Hells Angels. NEL books would later dominate the genre with the likes of Mama, Chopper and a slew of other English imitators.

Both have sublime cover art and some amazing stuff on the reverse and remember the names Terrible, Itchy and Joe, they are coming for our wifes no doubt.

The Best of The Bunch by Alice E. Rowe ( Jolly Miller Books,194?)

Printed and published by L. Miller & Sons Ltd, 344 and 352, Hackney Road, London E.2. this is just about all the information I could scrape from the over sized pamphlet apart from the advert on the rear (see above) for more titles, if they were indeed published. No price tag either????

Jolly Miller Books are better know for their children's hardback titles about planes, trains and cars etc that ran into the late 1960's at least. The author Alice E. Rowe penned a large number of Romance pamphlets and books for publishers like Newnes, Piccadilly and Phoenix in the 1930's/40's. So this could possibly date the book?

It's a pretty standard Crime/Romance yarn that stretches some 33 pages, but the real interest for me is the stunning three colour cover that is full of atmosphere, just look at the claws on the shadow, wonderful. If anyone has anymore information then please get in touch.

The Jolly Miller.

Detective Novels Magazine - Issue 1 UK Edition (Thrilling Publications, 1938)

Note the slight difference in artwork from the UK (left) to the US (right)

The Garden of Hanging Men by Norman A. Daniels.

Dead Man's Gold by E. Hoffman Price.

Pardon Death's Glove by Donald Bayne Hobart.

Burst of Glory by John L. Benton.

Hot Freight by Avin H. Johnstone.

Thirteenth Witness by Herman Landon.

As with the last entry this was also published by Pemberton's of Manchester  and distributed by WDL (World Distributors Ltd) although this was a few years earlier in 1938. This seems to be a straight reprint of the US issue from the tale end of 1937.

I'm not 100% sure I like the cut out style artwork, whilst the painting is great it just feels like it's missing something, well it is DOH! but you get what I'm saying, the prolific Norman Daniels tends to comes up with a decent yarn and he doesn't disappoint here, his short also gets the interior artwork treatment pictured below.

Great, if a little dark in theme artwork that accompanies Daniel's piece.

3 Detective Novels Issue 1 - UK Edition (Thrilling Publications, 1949)

The UK edition is on the left and on the right is the US proof copy.

Death on An Ocean Liner by Richard Sale.

The Murder Bridge by George Harmon Coxe.

To Tough To Die by George Bruce.

Right! first things first, look at the cover art........look again closely and tell me what you see? you probably see a fine Rudolph Belarski bad ass dame, popping a cap in an unsuspecting dudes ass painting? right now screw your eyes up think Russ Meyer and look up close, yes the the dame is so jazzed up with her gun action her nipples are erect, you could hang your coat on them bad boys.

Now that's out of the way let's tackle the Pulp its self. It was published by Pemberton's of Manchester in 1949 and distributed by WDL (World Distributors Ltd) the book is a reprint of the November 1949 issue of 5 Novels Magazine(top right image) omitting Paul Ernst's The Hooded Killer & Steve Fisher's Murder in Mexico.

This was a very common practise in the UK when reprinting US titles, this edition would set you back the princely sum of 9d. So an essential purchase in regards to both the artwork and content, marvellous.

Wonderful interior artwork from the UK edition.

"H" For Horrific By Sutro Miller (Sentinel Publications, 1947)

"H" For Horrific By Sutro Miller

1. Two Died, One Survived.
2. His Lordships Request.
3. The Man Who Hated Open Windows.
4. The Intruder.
5. The Little Green Man.
6. Ships That Pass.

Classic 1940's Pulp from Sutro Miller, nice blurb on the bottom, Miller For Chillers! Not the most horrific of covers but the fonts are nice enough, 6 stories for 1/6, not a bad return all in all. The good news is it's not that rare so copy's turn up quite frequently which is always nice.

Short and sweet this time, next up is a couple of Detective Pulps from the late 1940's with some serious nipple action.

Ray Theobald Art, Three From the Curtis Warren Stable.

Winged Guns By Ken Ford ( Curtis Warren Books, 1953 )

Six Gun Law By Tex Faro ( Curtis Warren Books, 1953)

Space Men By David Shaw ( Curtis Warren Books, 1951)

A nice trio of Mushroom titles popped through my letter box this week. Two things connect them, they were all published by the prolific Curtis Warren Publishers based in Holbex House London and the cover art is by the wonderful Ray Theobald.

Spanning Aero Fiction, Western and Sci-Fi genres. Pick of the bunch has to be the Space Men cover, unusually this doesn't bare the authors name (he penned a further two books for Curtis) as if stating  "SCIENCE FICTION" is enough of a selling point alone.

 This is the Swedish Pingvin Books edition, utilising similar  artwork as Theobald's, they published a large number of Curtis Warren titles.

Ray Theobald's distinctive signature.