Born with nothing and raised on lots more of the same

One of my favorite used book stores closed down a few weeks ago. There are two other good used book outlets remaining in San Diego but the one that closed had the greatest selection and the highest turnover in stock. The remaining store closest to me is kind of stuffy and the one downtown is run by a couple of sharp operators who know the real value of books and have an internet presence to exploit sales, something the one that closed and the other remaining store did not take advantage of. I blame all of you for not reading enough books in print to support it. Shame on you.

The upside to the store closing was being able to snag lots of books that I otherwise thought were too pricey on previous visits at substantial discounts. The W. B. Huie paperbook below, in spite of the visible wear, was still out of my sane price range until the day of the closing sale. Unaware the store was shutting down I had made my usual pilgrimage there and had gathered up a bunch of books and pulp magazines. I was fully prepared to pay full price for them. Instead the proprietor quoted me a cost of seven dollars for the pile. I felt like I was ripping him off and protested, offering more but he declined. I suspect he wanted to avoid the cost of shipping and storing leftover stock and knew the collectibles were going to a good home.

Yay for me!
So represented here are the front and back covers featuring the classic and perhaps most famous cover art by Robert A. Maguire for the novel The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956 re-issue). The book was re-released in conjunction with the movie of the same name featuring Jane Russell. The book is a good read and far more honest about Mamie than the rather sanitized film. The Maguire image on the cover is one of the inspirations for the pulp noir character of Diamond Bomb.

Book of Revelation in 3-D!

Nothing says Halloween like shock horror, and for the very best one should look no further than the Bible! In the 1950s one of the art jobs that Basil Wolverton accepted was to illustrate passages from the Christian Bible for Ambassador Press. This project likely came about after the market for the lurid and ultra-violent comic books he was used to illustrating dried up in the wake of parent groups and politicians interfering with subject matter they deemed inappropriate for children. Of all the work he did for that company his illustrations depicting Armageddon from the Book of Revelation have garnered the most attention. Wolverton, a master of stomach-churning illustration outdid himself in this instance.

Presumably the same demographic who got the vapors over a corpse being manipulated by an alien Brain Bat from Venus had no problem with the far more horrifying imagery he created for the Christian market. I never accepted the joyful glee and anticipation of horrible death on a planetary scale that so many fundamentalists embrace. While Wolverton worked on the Bible project for several years usually only a few pages of his highly detailed work are readily available for study. While copies of these pages in color or black and white can be located here and there it is most unusual is to find this art in a 3-D format. While the 3-D panels are an interesting novelty it is the full color versions that are the most horrific. You can read a bit more about Basil Wolverton and view some other illustrations from that project here.

You will need the traditional red-and-blue 3-D glasses that I posted about previously to fully experience the End Times for yourself. Enjoy!

Click the pictures to bring about the Apocalypse!

Ambassador Press (1955).