Stephen Gresham Born Today, 1947

According to his informative website, author Stephen Gresham wasn't thrilled with these Zebra paperback covers for his novels. Can't say I blame him, but looking back on 'em today, hoo boy. Awesome. Credit goes to illustrators David Mann (Runaway), Lisa Falkenstern (Rockabye Baby and Shadow Man), Jim Thiesen (Blood Wings) and Richard Newton (Abracadabra).

 

 

 

 

A Perpetual Halloween: Charles L. Grant's Oxrun Station Paperback Covers

While not as well-known as Lovecraft's Arkham and Innsmouth or King's 'Salem's Lot and Castle Rock, the fictional town of Oxrun Station created by Charles L. Grant was the setting for his many tales of quiet horror and dark fantasy. Beginning in 1979, when The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (1977) was published in paperback, the various editions of the series show an interesting evolution in the marketing of horror fiction. The first three were put out in hardcover by Doubleday, but as ever, it's only the paperbacks I'm interested in.

At the top you can see the Popular Library edition with the requisite comparison to 'Salem's Lot, and with artwork that combines then-popular Gothic and occult imagery as well as the gender-free author attribution "C.L. Grant," thus (I'm assuming) appealing to male and female readers alike.

1987 Tor Books

Throughout the late 1980s, the early Oxrun books were republished in paperback by Tor Books, with cover art by David Mann. These covers are a perpetual Halloween of old-timey scares: pumpkin-orange title fonts, full moons, inky night skies, swirling mists, dead trees, imposing old houses, and graveyards...

The second novel in the series, The Sound of Midnight (1978), we get a young woman on fire - flames were popular post-Audrey Rose - and another reference to a bestselling King novel. Now Charles gets his first name on the cover!

1979 Popular Library

1987 Tor Books

The ever-present King blurb now on a Nancy Drew-ish cover for The Last Call of Mourning (1979). I like the Tor edition, with a woman looking - expectantly? - out into the night and the growing fog...

1980 Fawcett Popular Library

1988 Tor Books

The Grave (1981) is a reductionist horror title if I ever heard one! Note the name on the tombstone of the Tor edition.

1981 Popular Library

1988 Tor Books

Now I dig this '82 cover for The Bloodwind: demonic face hovering over a quaint little town, quite a common image for horror paperbacks. The Tor edition is kinda cool as well, hinting at children gone missing into a creepy... well, bloodwind, I guess. Way to keep it literal!

1982 Fawcett Popular Library

1989 Tor Books

From my research it seems that Nightmare Seasons (1982) was the first Oxrun title that Tor published, though it was the sixth in series; we can assume this was the beginning of that stylized cover art. This one is actually a collection of several novellas set in Oxrun Station. The next book was The Orchard (1986), also a collection of novellas, which I read last year and reviewed here.

1983 Tor Books

And we start to move out of the vintage horror era with the two last books in the series, Tor's Dialing the Wind (1989) and The Black Carousel (1994), the latter boasting of Grant's "X-Files" novelizations. Can anyone explain why his middle initial would be excised?

These final three titles seem like a treat: Grant haunted his fictional town with the Universal Monsters! These first came out in hardcover from long-time specialty genre publisher Donald M. Grant, and then in paperback by Berkley Books. None are without a King blurb, of course. The artwork is a little on the nose for my tastes, perhaps, and Dracula doesn't look scary at all (is there perhaps a copyright on Lugosi's image?). They are: The Soft Whisper of the Dead (1982/1987), The Dark Cry of the Moon (1986/1987) and The Long Night of the Grave (1986/1988). A perpetual Halloween indeed!

William W. Johnstone: The Paperback Covers

Another author whose books are perfect examples of the hilarious depths to which 1980s mass-market paperback horror novels could descend to is William W. Johnstone. A handful of his titles were published in the early 1980s, and resemble the more "artistic" imagery of 1970s bestsellers, but as the decade of excess rolled on, publishers had to come up with more eye-catching tactics, so we get silvery reflective foil-stamped titles, capering skeletons (in slippers!), and even holograms.

Wolfsbane (1982) The cover art at the top is nicely reminiscent of then-current An American Werewolf in London, of course, and still looks like a '70s paperback. The 1987 reprint - by the one and only William Teason - that at least acknowledges wolfsbane is a plant - but bet you didn't know it's given to you by a tri-headed skeleton!

The Nursery (1983) This one is all classic medical thriller, a genre in which I've read precisely nothing. But damn if they weren't once the rage. There's a missing question mark, however, that's driving me crazy.

Sandman (1988) I freaking told you about the skeleton in slippers! You didn't believe me, did you?! Isn't he supposed to be sprinkling dust on the baby? You know, to make it sleep? Praise artist Richard Newton for this stunner.

Devil's Cat (1987) I remember this one the best from my used bookstore stint, with its freaky hologram Anton LaVey cackling at me. So the devil has a cat. Is that a surprise? What the hell else would he have? Everybody knows a three-headed dog got nothing on a pissed-off cat.

Rockinghorse (1987) This one isn't so outrageous, but someone should've reminded the artist that it's little girls who have skeletons, not little pretend horses.

Jack-in-the-Box (1986) More effin' skulls with bulging eyeballs! Truly a Zebra Books stock-in-trade.

The Uninvited (1982) Two covers for your delectation: the cliched eyeball widened in fright and revulsion, or the cliched skeletal hand showing off its mani in the '87 reprint. Which one would embarrass you more to be caught reading?

Toy Cemetery (1987) Yeah, yeah, we all know which horror novel this is referring to, but at least that one makes sense. I also like that the "evil comes to life" in a toy cemetery. Where else, right?

Cat's Eye (1989) Good God! As they say on the internets, kill it with fire! Or, don't, and let it grow up to attend furry conventions, it'll be a real hit. Another Newton nightmare.

David Mann provided the cover art for Baby Grand (1987). Man, what are you doin' here?

Sweet Dreams (1985) Oft-used design of innocent blonde girl and creepy skull-faced toy.

And let's finish up with two so-so covers from the early '80s that are not egregiously trying to rape your eyeballs from the drugstore racks; a cleansing of the palate, if that's not mixing my metaphors too much.

Zebra Books really went all out, didn't they? And these tactics worked - my old bookstore's horror section was filled with this kind of crap, every copy creased and crinkled, obviously read and reread like readers were searching for the secrets of fucking life. Now I realize people just read this stuff as rotten brain candy and passed it on or traded it in, but damn if it didn't irritate my self-righteous 19-year-old ass. I mean, Clive Barker's stuff was right there. Come on people.

Of course I doubt Johnstone had anything to do with choosing any of these covers, but if anyone's read any of his books, can you let me know if he's as bad a writer as I imagine? I'd like to be proven wrong... and add yet more to my to-be-read list.

Ruby Jean Jensen: The Paperback Covers

I haven't read word one of Ruby Jean Jensen's paperback original horror novels of the 1980s, published by Zebra Books (Z for dead last) and I probably won't ever. But I have to give props to whoever was doing her book covers back in the day because these are some freaky and unsettling images. I think my favorite is the above Home Sweet Home (ugh, really?) from 1985, which adds some bloodshot eyeballs to one-up Mrs. Bates. And boy do I love skulls with hair! Thanks be to artist Richard Newton for this one.

Baby Dolly (1991) Evil babies and dolls! They were everywhere in this era. But of course. The delightful Little Miss Zombie has a review here.

Lost and Found (1990) Another staple of '80s horror, the utterly generic title. I kinda like this cover, actually. Is she an albino or a statue come to life? Who knows but I find the pinpoints of light for eyes wonderfully malevolent.

Wait and See (1986) Gotdamn you have to admit eyeballs in skulls are effin' terrifying. But the hair overplays the hand, as it were. You just gotta laugh, right? Right?

Best Friends (1985) Now we even have animal skulls. I heard this in my head as a kid would say it, Best Fwends. I think a very young Andy Richter modeled for this one.

With a glorious cover by David Mann, the 1987 novel Chain Letter reminds me of a story I wrote when I was 12 about a newspaper boy who gets run over by a drunk driver; the driver rushes home without reporting the accident and tries to shrug it off, doesn't report the crime. Of course said drunk driver is also a subscriber to the newspaper so he's awakened later that night when his doorbell rings and he answers it to find.... well, you figure it out.

Smoke (1987) leaves me pretty underwhelmed because that's not really smoke, is it? It's like a green fog that will turn into a genie any minute. At least the artist, Mann again, is reading the books he's designing the covers for.

Victoria (1990) gives us two more dolls bent on evil. Or just one? Oh, I don't know.

Yes, they're utterly ridiculous and anyone over the age of 13 caught reading one should die of embarrassment but they really capture the essence of paperback horror originals that took up so much rack space in bookstores, drugstores, grocery checkout lanes (I can still recall one of a skeleton kid on a trike with a shiver), only to turn up at yard sales and thrift stores worn out and ready to fall apart. Undiscerning readers would trade these in for credit at the used bookstore I worked at and yes, I looked down my nose upon them while I eagerly devoured the latest King, Barker, Kathe Koja, Skipp and Spector, Brian Hodge, Joe Lansdale, Hot Blood, Borderlands, or Splatterpunks anthology. Snob, you say? Who, moi?