It’s Finally Come to This

Eleven Came Back, by Mabel Seeley (Pyramid, 1968). Unfortunately, the cover artist is unidentified.

Astoundingly, today marks the 11th anniversary of my launching Killer Covers back in 2009. During the succeeding years, I have made an assortment of changes to this page, some of them providing additional ways to showcase vintage book fronts, others intended to reduce my writing burden while still keeping the site lively. Whereas I began Killer Covers with the intention of putting up just one post every seven or so days (which explains its original “killercoversoftheweek” URL), that schedule has now become less rigid. Sometimes a whole week might go by without my updating the page one iota; on other occasions I’ll publish new paperback book fronts every single day, especially if I am saluting the work of a notable artist, as I recently did stats counter to see which of this blog’s posts have accumulated the greatest number of pageviews over the years. Here are the top 10, ranked in descending order of popularity:

1. “Rader Love: Halloween Treats” (October 31, 2016)
2. “The Man Who Had Too Much to Lose, by Hampton Stone”
(April 7, 2010)
3. “Curious Catalogue of Carnality” (July 26, 2012)
4. “Oh No, Mitchell Hooks Is Gone” (March 21, 2013)
5. “Two-fer Tuesdays: What Was Your Name Again?”
(August 11, 2015)
6. “Whodrewit? I Like It Cool, by Michael Lawrence”
(November 22, 2010)
7. “Who’re You Callin’ Yellow?” (June 12, 2010)
8. “Sweet Wild Wench, by William Campbell Gault” (May 31, 2010)
9. “He Had a Way with Women” (January 26, 2011)
10. “Brown Out” (May 6, 2010)

First-place honors, by the way, have shifted over these last 11 years. The post about author “Hampton Stone” (aka Aaron Marc Stein), currently occupying the number-two spot, seemed to be a permanent fixture atop of this inventory until 2016, when I rolled out a month-long tribute to Paul Rader, the Brooklyn-born painter of so many fine, sexy paperback covers during the latter half of the 20th century. The “Halloween Treats” entry mentioned above was the handsomely illustrated final installment in the Rader series. Its ascension to the list’s summit knocked off what had for so long been my 10th-most-popular post, “Crime on His Hands,” a 2009 interview with Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai.

I must spend most of this day working outside my office. Before I go, though, let me thank all of you who have made a habit of reading and commenting on Killer Covers over the years. I really didn’t know what to expect when I debuted this blog in 2009 ... and that made the satisfactions it has brought me since all the sweeter.