Whipping Up Some Golden Age Book Bondage

From WR (Whip and Rope Publications) comes a title that triggers no confusion: A. deGranamour's MELISSA'S BONDAGE DEBUT.

The author was prolific in this niche, and often branched into erotica with a historical perspective such as SADISTIC PIONEERS.

This also featured pencil drawings by a "Ms. Jackie".

A title that purported to be a serious examination of spanking culture, but was little more than juicy anecdotes.

It always helps to list an M.D. on the cover.

Author G. Bennett Lockwood sounds serious.

"The Well-Spanked Farmgirl" from Wyndham Press (writer not noted), a publisher not affiliated with a similarly-named firm specializing in educational tomes, is adorned with some simple, evocative art. Of course, one could argue that the above is an education.

Again, no author mentioned, although some sources identify the author as Jaime Maran.

Craving Pulpy Porn

This fella has a 'Lust List', and she's at the top of the list, apparently.

Male and female, we've all had our own personal Lust Lists over the years. Not all of us have posed like this while considering the state of our lists, though, so his Charles Atlas pose does make me doubt the young lady's  placement on his list... unless she's a mid-op transsexual?

Perhaps Tom of Finland had a son.

These novels existed before paperbacks embraced full-on pornography, so they conveyed a pleasing noir vibe.

For me, her total nudity takes some tension away, although I like the suggestion that she may be standing behind a mirror, or window.

Mother and daughter competing for the same men. A pulpy chestnut, for sure. And most guys would welcome the eventual compromise.

Massive themes of voyeurism in art of this nature, and it never fails to work.

Love the hook of a book being taken from a 'file'.  A 'file' suggests reality, something highly classified, highly taboo. Must try to get my mits on more of Harding's 'files'. Come to think of it, who the hell is Harding, and why is he sharing his files?

A lot of cover copy here to get us to the deliciously lurid title.

Personally, I hate covers with real photos, but this sweaty shot of a wanton woman who turned nympho after being slipped some 'stuff' does evoke a successfully sleazy tone.

"She was a hot enough broad without any outside help..."  Is it too much too expect a woman to be hot without outside help these days? Must ponder that.

Someone came into her store to take advantage of a 'Sale', but stayed to sample the merchandise that wasn't on sale, I suspect.

So, does the title suggest that he'll stick around until she screams? Or does the screaming kick things off in a whole new direction?

Captive Women of Pulpy Porn

 

They were a product of the good old days when the good old days meant there was a big difference between fantasy and reality. Now, because of ambitious DA's and politicians, the lines have been deliberately blurred.

There's still a yawning chasm between the real and the imagined, but you wouldn't know it.

On-line porn favors some of the scenarios here, but most of it is cheap and shabby and lacking imagination.

Hopefully, text-based pornography will endure in digital form if not on paper, even though these very fine examples of the genre scream for a revival.

The fellow on the left looks decidedly ape-like, and the rural setting would not have been out of place in Craven's Last House on the Left. Surely a role for the late David Hess?
  

 

Enthusiastic biker does his thing as the victim's husband (?) considers the ramifications of abandoning his drink in favor of rescue.

The figure behind him (a black man?) appears relatively unconcerned and marginally disfigured. 

It made most middle class readers comfortable to think that, on the w(hole) sex criminals were deformed tragics and uneducated hicks. A young Ted Bundy may have had a different opinion. 

 

 

The cameraman is a terrific touch here, his activities pre-dating an era (now) where filming the sex act has become extremely common. He's using one of those great old cameras with the rotating lenses. A good choice for illicit porno making, my friend!

The use of the long phallus seems very matter-of-fact with the male showing little emotion.

 

Another photographic opportunity pre-internet with wide distribution doubtful... lucky for the lady perhaps?

These days, one photograph is forever.

Back then, most photos ended up in someone's locked desk drawer or buried between pages in a nondescript book, far from the wife's prying eyes.

Another reason the 70's may have been the good old days for some.

 

The Captive Women Series stretched (excuse the pun) to hundreds and hundreds of titles and were a bargain at $2.50 apiece. Now, many sell for over $100. 

Related:

Horror Paperback Infestation

 

I was an instant fan of Beth Holmes' The Whipping Boy (Jove Publications, '78), a strange and sometimes mind-boggling tale of child abuse. If you can wrangle a copy, you won't be disappointed.

The cover art is striking but strangely underwhelming, too. I often look at it and contemplate the thinking behind it.The interior of the sleeve is the actual face of the man whose profile is seen on the cover. 

 

Pretty decent rabies novel from Walter Harris, who preferred to be known as W. Harris. Definitely a product of the success of James Herbert's The Rats, it had a similar structure and got a little too preachy about the sexually active. You know who you are!

Cover art is great, and makes it looks like a war novel. There's a war against rabies, sure, but nothing terribly military. I'd say Star Distributors were probably trying to snag readers of Martin Cruz Smith's Nightwing ('77), the 'Bats Attack' hit of the year. Guy N. Smith's Bats Out of Hell was released a year later to further capitialize on Cruz's success. It was clearly a good time for plagues, infestations, and bats.

 

Did Victor Mullen quit the book trade after writing The Toy Tree (Paperjacks, '88)? Must have. I can't find anything else by him. I did look. Oh, yes, I looked hard because I loved The Toy Tree.  The language is awkward at times (a few too many adjectives), but Mullen captured the madness of a crazy kid very nicely. He pushed the envelope, too, with plenty of nastiness directed at kids and some juvenile games that would not have been out of place in Serrador's film Who Could Kill A Child? 

 

The book's art is very special. Probably much too subtle for the random paperback buyer, it  conveys the book's nihilism with skilled strokes of the brush.

 

The Toy Tree was another interesting release from the Ontario-based Paperjacks, the same publisher of the masterpiece The Happy Man (reviewed on this blog long ago).

The Inside Scoop On Happiness

I wasn't a happy camper until I got my hands on "The Happy Man".

After reading a glowing Fangoria review, I set out to snag myself a copy. Unfortunately, its publisher, Paperjacks (long defunct), did a miserable job of distributing the book, so it dropped out of sight. Years went by. Lives changed. TV shows got axed. Nightmares of not ever reading "The Happy Man" plagued me. The book was making me very un-happy.

A chance encounter on-line pointed me to a seller who was holding a mint condition copy. After paying them close to what Paperjacks probably paid Eric C. Higgs to write the damn thing, I became the proud owner of a minor horror classic.

The book hooked me instantly with this: "The Marshes rotted in their house two full days before they were discovered by a delivery man from Sparklett's."

I never looked back. Sick humor and ghastly horror. Perfect.

"The Happy Man" of the title finds a grotesque brand of happiness when he is plunged into a strange, suburban world of perversion, mutilation and murder.

Eric C. Higgs might well be the unsung Albert Camus of horror. His trim little novel, which is perfect at 166 pages, is a masterpiece of humor, horror, subtlety and menace.

Originally published by St. Martin's Press in '85 (hardback, I presume), the Paperjacks edition is April, '86.

It's not speculating too wildly to say that the book's terrible cover may have contributed to its market demise.

Dropping the "C" from his name, Eric Higgs' returned in '87 with "Doppelganger". A St. Martin's Press paperback, it has a stronger supernatural slant and opens with a smart quote from von Schiller: "What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul."

Higgs' opening paragraph is funny and horrible at the same time: "The shove sent Mr. Sam tripping backward, arms flailing wildly. His ankles hit against the service island's curb and he started going down, right between the pumps for unleaded and unleaded supreme..."

"Doppelganger" was never going to rise to the level of brilliance accorded "The Happy Man", but it's not too shabby, either. Grisly. Grotesque. Odd. It's all that and more.

Where is Eric Higgs now? I don't know. Was he sent to Coventry by his competition? Did he retire with the non-profits of his only two horror novels?

This inquiring mind would like to know.

There is a fresh simplicity in Mr. Higgs' language, a sense that there's no disconnect between what he's thinking and what he's writing. He's giving us the bloodied truth. That makes him important.

I'm very happy that I discovered Eric C. Higgs , but his long absence from the genre is starting to chip away at my happiness.