James Reasoner made me buy this when we were at the World Fantasy Convention. The dealer kindly put it in a plain brown bag for me.James also made me buy a copy of Young and Innocent by "Edwin West," and he tried to talk me into buying Find the Feathered Serpent a Winston SF juvenile by Evan Hunter. I resisted the latter, thanks to the $165 price tag.
But, as always, I digress. Queer Pulp is the kind of book I can't resist, being a scholarly sort. The subtitle of the book is "Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback." It's a history of the way gay and lesbian sexuality was presented in mass-market paperbacks, with plenty of covers, including dozens I've never seen, like Hot Pants Homo, Lavender Love Rumble, and so on. Classics all. There's some legit stuff included, too, of course. Other Voices, Other Rooms; End as a Man; The City and the Pillar. It was all enough to make me lament once again that I didn't pick up all those softcore books back in the days when I could've bought them for a quarter or less. Well, you can't buy 'em all, I guess. At least you can buy this book and look at the covers and relish the titles. Check it out.
8 comments:
I picked this one up at a Pulp & Paperback Expo a few years back...not exactly comprehensive, but a good start, and definitely fun to flip through. And a double-style cover (at least in my edition)...Bill displayed the better cover. From certain perspectives.
Of course, I must tut-tut the Tarantinesque title misuse of "pulp," but I can stop there.
I confess to having picked the cover that was faced out by the dealer. I figured it was the one to show. I like the double-cover idea a lot.
Always glad to see the laid back (so to speak) subtle titles celebrated, like Hot Pants Homo.
NTTAWWT
Funny, that's not exactly how I remember the QUEER PULP purchase . . . but I have to admit, I wondered at the time whether or not you'd blog about it. I figured you would.
I'm already sorry I didn't buy some of those WEIRD TALES issues at the convention, high prices and all, proving once again (all together now):
"You never regret the books you buy, only the ones you didn't buy."
All too true. You should have pressed me a little harder on Find the Feathered Serpent.
Less expensive copies of the Winston edition can be found on ABE. Probably not in as good shape as the copy at the WFC, though. I'm thinking about buying a copy of the Gregg Press reprint. I'm glad I already have a copy of DANGER-DINOSAURS!, since that was one of my favorites as a kid and I might have had to spring for the copy at the same table (which was even more expensive than FEATHERED SERPENT, I believe).
HOT PANTS HOMO sure is one of the greatest book titles in the annals of literature. Wonder if the book is equally great...?
The Stryker book is socially and historically very perspective, if not comprehensive, as Todd says. Did you already have time to read the Feral House book? There are some equally good covers and titles. I didn't know before that Eric Stanton had made paperback covers!
Those Stanton covers show up on eBay now and then.
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