All Around the Blogosphere

• Back in March, when I posted the front from Fawcett Crest’s 1977 edition of Dancing Aztecs, by Donald Westlake, I was less familiar than I should’ve been with cover artist Charles Gehm (1929-2015). Earlier this month, however, The Paperback Palette—an excellent blog written by Denver, Colorado, librarian Jeff Christoffersen (aka Jeffersen)—featured a splendid backgrounder on Gehm, complete with numerous examples of his book illustrations. I’m particularly fond of Gehm’s art for Anya Seaton’s The Turquoise (1974) and The Bar Studs, a trashy 1976 novel about horny mixologists, penned by Len Levinson under his familiar pseudonym, Leonard Jordan.

• Let me emphasize the point that if you aren’t checking in occasionally with Christoffersen’s blog, you’re missing out on some fine stuff. A not-quite-so-recent post looked back at the original Nancy Drew book cover art by Russel H. Tandy (1891-1963).

• A Killer Covers reader who signs himself “Lapidus” points me toward this collection of “11 Beautiful Vintage Book Covers,” assembled by Publishers Weekly in 2017. We’re talking hardcover fronts here, and some dandy examples, to boot. Check out especially painter Edward D’Ancona’s dust jacket for the 1936 mystery novel The Night Flower, by “Walter C. Butler” (otherwise known as Frederick Faust, or as “Max Brand”), and Keith Vaughan’s illustration for 1949’s A Season in Hell, by Arthur Rimbaud.

• Pulp-era artist Margaret Brundage (1900-1976)—“famous, or infamous, for her many Weird Tales covers”—receives a bit of amply earned attention from ThePulp.Net.

• Finally, did you know that Jeff Popple, a contributor to Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, also has a blog called Murder, Mayhem and Long Dogs? It’s usually rich with thoughtful criticism of new or upcoming crime, thriller, and espionage fiction. But Popple also regularly indulges his appetite for trashy book-cover art. In this post from May, for instance, he showcases really horrendous paperback photo fronts from the 1960s and ’70s; while this late-June entry displays softcovers with, um, headless bikini models.