We're Off to the Witch, We May Never Never Come Home

British author Brian N. Ball was born today in 1932. I haven't read a word of his books, but damn do I love these UK covers from the early (when else?) 1970s. I believe The Venomous Serpent was the only title published in the States, but retitled The Night Creature.

 

 

 

You can learn a little about Ball at (where else?) Vault of Evil!

Is This for Real or Just Some Kind of Hell

You tell me!

Seriously though how can  you resist this stepback art (artist unknown)? Read a review however in which the reader lamented that this scene never appears in the book! Ha. And thanks to Evans Light for the incredible scan.

Go Waltzing Mephisto with Me

I present for your satanic delight a "classic" post-Rosemary's Baby occult horror novel, The Mephisto Waltz (1969), from a writer who would go on to write bestselling mainstream historical fiction about the Civil War and whatnot. Great covers all around, from both the US and the UK. All but the original 1970 Signet paperback below highlight the nude female form, titillating potential readers about what might reside within. But I'm not surprised to learn the novel (and its 1971 movie adaptation starring horror-film icon Alan Alda) is fairly lackluster and lame; check out The Midnight Room review, in which it's referred to as "late '60s quasi Satanic hooey." Ha!

 

This Devil's Work

Last week I received an email from a TMHF reader asking for help identifying a half-remembered horror novel from the '70s or maybe '80s. Thanks to her clue of the title - a name like Luka - I recalled recently seeing the cover for a book called Lupe, a mainstream thriller/horror/occult novel by somebody named Gene Thompson (actually a writer of TV classix like "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Gilligan's Island"), published in mass market paperback by Ballantine in 1978. Turns out that was the right one!

The back cover makes it sound like pretty standard post Rosemary's Baby/Exorcist-style bestseller fiction, with its historical prologue and afterward, a modern woman suddenly at odds with the supernatural. Dig the none-too-tasteless bit about "a grotesque eleven-year-old boy with a demonic sexual craving"! You've got the rave blurbs from horror fiction experts like Newsweek and Cleveland Plains Dealer (oh and New York Post, what the eff are "the bejabbers"?!). Add in a creepy-kid stepback cover and you have a pretty decent example of paperback horror fiction of the 1970s.

And this is the generic 1977 hardcover from Random House:

So a reminder: any of you TMHF readers out there looking for a book you read years and years and even decades ago, don't hesitate to email me about it! I love a good challenge....

Devil's Playthings

Who can resist 'em?

Malevolence Sneaking Up the Spine of the World

Jeff Jones: The Paperback Covers

These stunning covers illustrations by the late Jeff Jones help confirm that 1960s and 1970s horror-fantasy paperbacks were a world unto themselves. Like his comrade-in-ink Frank Frazetta, Jones reveled in the mythical past, but it was one perhaps darker, more Gothic, less heroic. Rather than hulking loincloth primitives and armor-clad villains, though, Jones's covers here showcase a misty nighttime world of sorcerers and shadowy cults, of masters of occult powers and animal familiars, the hungry undead and their victims. My faves? Definitely The Vampire Women (Popular Library, 1970) and The Curse of the Undead (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1970). But could the books themselves deliver as well as their covers...?

The Witching Night by C.S. Cody (1953): She Comes on the Eve of Dusk

Seems I totally overlooked one fairly well-regarded novel of witchery written under a pseudonym, C.S. Cody, of an author I've never heard of named Leslie Waller. So I give you The Witching Night in all its paperback (and hardcover) glory! Some very excellent and evocative art on these. The Bantam edition from 1974 above features groovy satanic hullaballoo by artist unknown, alas. I've seen lots of post-Exorcist paperbacks from Bantam with the same cover design/font, it was a whole thing I guess.Totally cool.

This is the original '53 hardcover, art by John Hall, all boobs and sultry eyes; then below is the Lancer 1968 edition with simply marvelous witchy art by Jerome Podwil. Love the lady, love the bats, poor dude in suit and tie besieged by supernatural forces. Some of my fave horror fiction cover art of late.

Finally, the Dell 1953 first paperback, looking quite a bit like those famous pulp noir paperbacks of the day. Doesn't look too satanic, really, does it? But dig on this quote from the book I found:

Abbie brought the body of the slaughtered kitten to her mouth. I could see the lips curl and her teeth gleam fiercely until the furry black corpse masked her face. But I could see her throat, that long, smooth white column, so soft, so delicately modeled in sweeping lines. I saw it pulse as a regular muscular motion within it drew up and down in measured rhythm. I knew what Abbie was doing. She was drinking the kitten's blood.

And many thanks to Sara from My Love-Haunted Heart, who sent me the 1963 UK paperback cover, from Corgi Books.

The Dell Paperbacks of Felice Picano

Two more vintage '70s paperback covers to compare, this time Smart as the Devil, the 1975 debut novel from Felice Picano. At the top is the 1976 paperback; below, the 1978 reprint, both from Dell. I vaguely recognized Picano's name from my days shelving this kind of paperback as a used bookstore clerk; Picano wrote bestseller-type thrillers, sort of an Ira Levin lite, maybe? Ever-present '70s horror-paperback blurb comparing it to Rosemary's Baby: present and accounted for!

As for his other titles, man, I just love, absolutely love these other Dell paperbacks of his. He may have began his career writing what look to be tawdry contemporary thrillers, but he's got excellent cred in the gay literary world today. But these glorious old paperback cover illustrations are a cornucopia of bad hair and sexual threat. And I wouldn't have it any other way!

The Lure (Dell 1980)
Eyes (Dell 1977)
The Mesmerist (Dell 1977)

"When the Devil left his porchlights on..."

Satan's Manor, a paperback original from Leisure Books by someone with the utterly unassuming name Mark Andrews (doubtless a pseudonym and stuck at the top almost as an afterthought). Which one would you rather read: the original at top, or the 1983 reprint? I absolutely adore the '77 version - go figure - even though it features no monsters or demons or satanic ladies. The sanguine color scheme, the towering title carved in stone, the foreboding house itself, that squelch of lightning... dig it all. Truly an abode for evil. Meanwhile the reprint? I got nothin'.

 

Satan Whispers "Evil" with The Devil's Breath

See, I told you!

All kidding aside, this is a quick post as I've begun reading a vintage '80s horror saga, a multi-volume series by an unfortunately neglected, and now late, Southern author.... Human forces war against nature's ravages, a dead woman's legacy, and an awesome, blood-curdling dismemberment. That's just the tagline! Hot damn.

Unholy Passion I Feel for You: The Erotic Horror Paperbacks of Russ Martin

Now discovering this kind of horror paperback cover art is why I have this blog! Russ Martin is a name unfamiliar to me; none of my Google-fu turned up anything about him whatsoever, and even his bibliography is scattered and uncertain. I unknowingly featured his 1981 novel The Desecration of Susan Browning awhile ago here; I simply had no idea Martin had an entire series of erotic-satanic-cult-horror paperbacks back in the day - how wonderful! In all my bookstore jaunts I don't think I've come across one of these. You can bet if I do you'll be hearing all about it...

Above is Rhea, his 1978 novel, published in paperback in 1980 by Playboy Press. Utterly fantastic! Vintage-y lady of many looks draws you in, probably seals your doom but not before draining you of precious bodily fluids. One would hope. Love the reptilian tail trailing from the R...

Hello nurse! I really need to know what happens between The Devil and Lisa Black (1982). The bloody fingers thing has got to be some sort of fetish.

Tor Books started publishing Martin in the early 1980s and reprinted them in '88. You can see how paperback horror cover art changed during that time in the two editions of The Possession of Jessica Young (1982). I'm not crazy about either one, though; is the woman supposed to look threatening, or threatened, or what?

From 1983, The Obsession of Sally Wing. "Vastly evil sensuality"! Well alright. The cover from '88 makes the white liberal in me feel a mite uncomfortable.

1984's The Education of Jennifer Parrish. Now this is some '80s preppy shit. (What was it about the '80s and preppies anyway?) Look at that hair! I get a real "Silver Spoons" meets "The Facts of Life" vibe, maybe some Less Than Zero too. These kids don't really look all that monstrous though once you really look at them.

Be sure to read this guy's short comments on Martin's books - he loves 'em all. Anybody know these books? Are they really worth tracking down? Please, spill!