Livre des Poches de L'enfer: The Cover Art of Marc Demoulin

Lay your les yeux upon the covers of these French paperbacks, translations of well-known horror novels by some of our favorite writers. Part of a series called Presses Pocket—Terreur, which started these editions in the late 1980s. I could find out nothing about the artist, Marc Demoulin, but really, what would you need to know? In most cases it seems he read or at least was familiar with each book's content; I appreciate the little piece of setting featured at the top coupled with surreal horrific imagery. Bon travail!

First up are some Graham Mastertons, Picture of Evil, Wells of Hell, and the first two Manitou titles. Check out American editions here. I love our petit homme!

Next up, mon cheries, are the titles that comprise Anne Rice's monumental original trilogy known as The Vampire Chronicles. I haven't read these three novels in almost 30 years, but man did I dig them back then.

 

A couple James Herberts, The Survivor and The Fog, the latter of which is one of my favorite covers here; that sickly yellowish haze is c’est parfait.

Ooh, how about Thomas Tryon's two early '70s powerhouses? J'adore the skeleton poking out of that scarecrow's pants...

Nightwing was an early bestseller from Martin Cruz-Smith, an author more known for his espionage thrillers and such than horror fiction.

Two of Ray Garton's perhaps most (in)famous novels, one which was comme ci comme ça, while the other was magnifique!

And le finale: Peter Straub's first supernatural horror novel Julia, and his towering Ghost Story: the latter mingles sex and death perfectly and, mon ami, let me tell you, I am ici for it.

James Herbert Fangoria Interview, Jan 1984

From the Fangoria vaults courtesy of TMHF reader Peter F., another vintage interview with an '80s horror legend, James Herbert (1943-2013). Enjoy!

Scorpion by Michael R. Linaker (1980): Animal Magnetism

Poor Old Blighty: the once regal lord of the world would, throughout the 1970s and '80s, find itself overrun again and again by hordes of vermin which laid waste to so many of its proud, if overly class-conscious, innocent citizens—in the pages of paperback horror fiction, of course. Blame James Herbert, of course (certainly the threat from the natural world could be traced back to Wyndham and Wells, but probably found its true footing in an unassuming 1952 tale by Daphne Du Maurier's blown up to existential proportions by one Alfred Hitchcock) but it was Big Bad Jim who unleashed The Rats in 1974 and truly made the country a feeding ground for all creatures great and small. America was of course overrun as well, but there was something in British culture that was especially ripe for the taking, suffering cats, dogs, crabs, slugs, and worse (gah, do teenagers count?!).

And so we come to Scorpion (Signet Books, Feb 1981), a very slim offering from author Michael R. Linaker (b. Lancashire, 1940). Originally a writer of Westerns set in America, he apparently gained the notice of someone at New English Library and was commissioned to write one of their popular horror novels. At least Linaker had a familiarity with the English language, and knew how to deploy it with some idea of suspense and efficient characterization.

Now I don't really have much to say about the storyline once you've read this back-cover copy. In fact it's about as big a spoiler as can be; intrepid characters go off in search of the cause of these mutated monsters when the answer is right there: radiation leak! Of course anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of evolution knows that radiation causes animals to grow from teeny-tiny critters to five-inch long death dealers with a knack for finding the tenderest parts of the human anatomy. I mean duh.

The cover art makes clear that sex-and-gross-death will be mingled and prevalent, and readers hoping for such lurid shenanigans will not be disappointed. At least by 1981 standards; MMV for readers raised on latter-day product of similar nature. Linaker isn't shy, as the novel progresses, with doling out the wretched horrors visited upon the helpless victims. And also of course they are drawn to only the hottest ladies, I mean otherwise why bother?

The scorpions advanced from every direction, scuttling swiftly across the floor. A few became entangled in the long, silky blonde hair, and in their frantic efforts to free themselves began to lash out with their stings. Venom, injected into the soft flesh of Casey's neck, spread swiftly into the bloodstream. Numbing agony exploded inside Casey's body and she jerked helplessly as tortured nerves emitted spasms. The pain of the stings helped to alleviate the pain caused by the ripping, tearing pincers as other scorpions shredded warm flesh from her bare legs. Blood began to stream from the countless wounds, streaking the tanned flesh, pooling on the floor beneath her body. 

Original New English Library ed, June 1980

Sectioned into three parts (hey! just like a scorpion!), each with a pretentious title ("Encounters," "Engagements," "Invasion"), Scorpion follows the template of all books of its type. Characters are introduced, given a quick backstory (usually incredibly class-conscious; in fact the guy who identifies the culprits is a rough-hewn working stiff, "Er, whatcha call 'em, a scorpion!"), and then shuffled off this mortal coil posthaste. A scene in a supermarket, with scorpions marauding dozens of (female) shoppers, is a show-stopper. Two villain-types, involved with the responsible nuclear plant, are dispatched with max grody pain and suffering, so there's that.

Otherwise Linaker gives more depth to his expendable players than he does to his mains, so you might mix up some of the doctors perplexed by all the "bee sting" vics suddenly dying in excruciating, mystifying pain. Requisite love angle introduced, breakfast-in-bed scene during a lull in arachnid apocalypse, blame is placed at modern world advancements (though not as blatantly as in some novels; here's it's more a given), and quick wrap-up climax holds things at bay for now but... the sequel would scuttle from the darkness, and a third was perhaps promised by Linaker, maybe even with the scorpions arriving in the States, but it never happened. Whew!

Allan crouched beside the woman's body. He couldn't help noticing, despite the mutilations, that she had been young and very attractive.

Tangled Up in Blue

French Paperback Horror, Part Deux

Quelle horreur! And it continues, these covers for French translations of some terrific vintage horror (for more, much more of these as well as artist info, go here). For their splatterpunk magnum opus The Scream (1988), Skipp & Spector get a Heavy Metal-esque cover, pretty fitting considering the metal mayhem contained within.

Ah, The Cipher! Here, Kathe Koja's stunning debut novel becomes "Breach of Hell," fitting, although the cover image doesn't quite capture the amorphous quality of the cipher itself, which was basically a nothing... Still, creepy cool.

A simplistic, not too impressive rendition of Fletcher and Jaffe, the warring spiritual duo in Barker's 1989 novel of the fantastique, The Great and Secret Show.

Holy shit is that terrifying. And erotic. And terrifying. Nice work! Don't know this book by the recently late Gary Brandner, who is most famous for writing The Howling (1977).

A glorious rendition of the images contained in Poppy Z. Brite's essential 1993 short story collection, variously known as Swamp Foetus and Wormwood. I believe the title translates as "Stories of the Green Fairy," that being an old literary term for absinthe - clearly visible and ready for the imbibing. Watch out for Kali though!

This noxious cover reminds me that I really need to reread The Fog since I really member nothing about it; the James Herbert classic from 1975 is highly praised for being a pure pulp delight in Steve King's Danse Macabre. But you knew that.

A gorgeously Gothic and evocative work of art for Straub's 1980 novel. "La terre l'ombre," if my high school French serves, could've been the translated title.

Last but not least, Lansdale! Lurid and lusty. Lovely!

Childmare by A.G. Scott (1980): A Riot of Their Own

A pack of children had reduced London's most highly trained law enforcers
to a chaotic rubble.

This quote is the essence of Childmare (Signet, June 1981). It's a horror novel that almost voyeuristically revels in death and destruction, both up close and at a distance. Appropriately enough, I was reading it when James Herbert died, because Childmare is 100% in the Herbert tradition of fast-paced, graphic pulp horror, filled with snippets of everyday British life and locales. At times I even forgot it wasn't written by Herbert! But these are not criticisms at all, not for a moment: Childmare is a rip-roaring ride with some nicely tasteless moments of bizarre violence and cruelty that I think will make quite an impression on horror lovers.

I first heard of Childmare through a reader who remembered one of those tasteless scenes but not the title of the book, and another, sharp-eyed reader was able to identify this book as the culprit. Later I found a copy - pretty sure it was Artifacts in Hood River, OR - and immediately snatched it up. Glad I did! This is vintage horror fiction with a pretty bad-ass mean streak, with a classick cover by, most likely, the wonderful Don Brautigam.

We get right into things with some bullying in the Martin Balliol School, a comprehensive in London, a perfect example of the modern industrialized educational facility. Small, fat and unathletic Samuel Rose is pretty much getting the snot beat out of him by a gang of teenage thugs when, at the last moment, the school's American head of security, a 38-year-old New Yorker named Max Donnelly, arrives to bark orders and assert authority. Of course Rose refuses to rat out his attackers, knowing that to do so would simply result in more, and worse, abuse. After a disgusted Donnelly dismisses him, Rose sneaks into the cafeteria storeroom, gorges himself on pilfered food - as most emotions did, fear had left him ravenously hungry - and hides out till the schoolday's end. That night, after lying to his parents about his torn clothes and various bruisings, he pummels them both to death with a cricket bat.

Original UK 1980 Hamlyn paperback

And so on from there. Soon all - almost all - of the 1,500 schoolchildren have rolled their pupils up into their eye sockets (an image sorely lacking on both US and UK paperback covers) and begun systematically attacking, in the most gruesome manners possible, teachers and other staff members. Think Dawn of the Dead-style mayhem and striking set-ups just not with bloody tattered zombies, but hordes of uniformed teenagers. There's mass destruction as special forces are called in with their guns and helicopters and tactics, all to no avail.

The children soon take to the streets of London, leaving mutilation and death in their wake. Donnelly, accompanied by sly, slovenly cop Tarrant and female interest and English teacher Tracy - herself nearly raped to death by her students in one particularly unsettling scene - narrowly escape the school and commandeer an ambulance and race through the familiar streets and boroughs of London, trying to deliver to authorities a folder of medical notes that could solve the entire unbelievable catastrophe, aghast at what the children have wrought. All too close for comfort for our protagonist:

To Donnelly it was a familiar sight, yet startling in its present context. It was Vietnam... Donnelly himself had led patrols which had perpetrated this sort of monstrous barbarity. And like the streets in Vietnam this one did not appear the victim of a sudden holocaust. There was something oddly long-term and durable about the destruction; as though it had wasted away over a period of many years to its present dilapidated sate. The street looked uncared for, abandoned, rather than the victim of a few minutes of inconceivable violence.

Childmare is, as was once said about other matters, nasty, brutish and short. The pace never slackens in its 200 pages; the writing is powerful, direct, taut. The author allows readers to see the horror from all angles: from the grimly-determined heroes to the hapless victims, from one young student not affected but swept up into the madness and fearful of being found out, to the actual perpetrators, victims themselves of a raging unquenchable thirst for violence: It was as if his cranium no longer contained a brain but, instead, an imploded star that raged with heat and light and pulsed fierce, agonizing energy through his body. Yikes. More and more of England's cities are plagued by the same nightmare, and in a few hours half a million kids are running to the town centers...

At times Childmare seems a dire, almost callous affair as the main characters must fend for themselves and leave others to the homicidal hands of the teens. Everything comes to an appropriately fiery end, but not before several pages of somewhat tiring jargon as to the origins of this ordeal - you really want to get back to the good stuff! Then there are the usual sentiments against uncaring royals and politicians, big business greed, scientific endeavor and progress: all deemed guilty of causing the tragedy. The children, it's true, are innocent, but they pay the final price.

Oh yeah: author A.G. Scott is the pseudonym of a writer named Nick Sharman, the name Childmare is copyrighted under. In the '80s a handful of genre novels were published by Signet in the US under this name, but the only other info I could find about a Nick Sharman was the fictional detective. After some internet sleuthing - and where I ended up is where I should have started, at the Vault of Evil - I discovered that "Nick Sharman" is the pseudonym of one Scott Gronmark. However I don't know why the American paperback was published as written by A.G. Scott - I suppose it's a closer pseudonym to the author's real name. Such are the interests and pursuits of a horror bibliophile.