signet horror paperback covers of the 70s and 80s and related desiderata

this is like what Summer is to my 8 year old brain... reading some trashy embossed cover horror novel!

p sure these are all widely available on yr amazons and yr ebays, at 1980s prices too

King was not only the Blurbmeister of that tyme (main rival: Thomas Pynchon, didn't plug horror, the wuss), his non-fiction collection Danse Macabre led me to Herbert and many other King contemporaries--also classicks such as The Monk

so signet apparently went through a period of heavy involvement in the animal/bug/reptile attack genre, some of these will be ridiculous but some are genuinely creepy like, uh, THE CATS

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_cats.jpg

snakes why did it have to be snakes

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/rattlers_1979.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Fangs_1980.jpg

was hoping for a tie-in between these two

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_spiders.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/killer_flies.jpg

"The venom of savage menace and writhing death," that's got to be way worse that regular old venom.

in GILA! a carnival is apparently devoured by a giant gila monster, I assume the broadway musical was a bomb

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/Gila_1981.jpg

these are so dope the night shift hand w/eyes used to creep me out bad

Was going to post a bunch of Robert Heinlein psych-deco Signet covers by Gene Szafran but they're not horror so

Still got a bunch of Campbells from this era
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uz_zjgCJKgM/TyZ6YUZapnI/AAAAAAAAAD0/Nuam73XFGr0/s1600/doll%2Bate%2Bmother%2BTor%2BBooks%2B1985.jpg

Fuck all these covers for scaring the shit out of me and thank you EIII for this thread.

I think I read like 2/3 of these when I was a kid!! (not the bug/animal ones though)

We have The Doll Who Ate His Mother on the bookshelves right now.

more bugs

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_swarm.jpg

the movie tie-in

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_swarm_movie_tiein.jpg

fuck a snake

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uw6KxmMct6c/TV07xOEN5WI/AAAAAAAADHg/7o6FfFfgddY/s1600/2-17-2011%2B8%253B49%253B51%2BAM.JPG

hooray american editions of Hutson

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mxc2ddvdhAM/TtQN0oCSlvI/AAAAAAAAEr4/1S-cfYYZP04/s1600/slugs%2Bshaun%2Bhutson%2Bleisure%2Bbooks.JPG

this guy was right up there with yr Kings et al

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dYol0DDQcMA/TtQv_QkNwnI/AAAAAAAAEsE/dbu5ve3eR1o/s1600/Manitou%2Bgraham%2Bmasterton%2B1977%2Bplayboy%2Bpress.JPG

movie tie-ins or novelizations usually had the worst covers, but signet's version of the omen was nicely done

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_omen.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/salems_lot_2.jpg

best shroud of turin ever

yeah, that first edition paperback of salem's lot is still blowing my mind

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/salems_lot_3.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/salems_lot_4.jpg

slightly perturbed at being detained by deadly tentacles

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_deadly_deep.jpg

that looks like frida!

http://powerlinead.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/frida-lyngstad-somethings-going-on-cover.jpg?w=450&h=450

lol

Not Signet but I have pleasant memories reading this beaut. That red color was sparkly.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-85nrXy2z54c/TtFDiCugbGI/AAAAAAAAEqk/H8PnWK-aKK8/s1600/skull%2Bshaun%2Bhutson%2Bleisure%2Bbooks%2B1989.jpg

And this one, too.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ApRzW5xApF4/Ts2_MVQFx9I/AAAAAAAAA10/10om2ctP8oc/s1600/Garden%2Bof%2BEvil%2B%25286%2Bof%2B6%2529.JPG

this was sci-fi but the cover looks like an escapee from the horror division

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_magicians.jpg

anybody found artist credits for any of these?

this was an inspirational tale of a teacher who cared yadda yadda, guess what, cover is nightmares

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/a_circle_of_children.jpg

um what now

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eFedenOpcCM/Ts2CmipfEEI/AAAAAAAAEpk/AgeK7a7YnHU/s1600/spawn%2Bshaun%2Bhutson%2Bleisure%2Bbooks.jpg

ew!

pretty sure don ivan punchatz did the art for death tour and the cats

xps to dow

OMG thanks Edward III

http://www.spectrumfantasticart.com/media_vault/images/1256340293.jpeg

Don Ivan Punchatz, for Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld

http://i43.tinypic.com/2h67m0k.jpg

so beautiful

speaking of farmer, signet's 70s editions of his stuff was awes

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/flesh.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/lord_tyger.jpg

whoa those are super cool

almost as good as the 1960 one!

http://www.fanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/flesh.jpg

those 70s farmers were by bob pepper who also did those great PKD covers for DAW in the 80s

anyone read this????

http://www.bookitinc.com/pictures225/984804.jpg

"A highly plotted tale."

"a novel with sentences"

from what i know of Beryl Bainbridge i doubt the contents have much connection to the cover

forgot about the bachman signet books

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/rage.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_long_walk.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/the_running_man.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/roadwork.jpg

ok until photobucket stops being a bucket of shit I'm done for the day

been trying to find an image of signet's first edition of the shining, it's diff than the one I posted above, but all the ones I'm finding look beat to shit

also the blog toomuchhorrorfiction is a great source for scans of old horror paperbacks

So many of these look so familiar to me. I love this thread.

http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/horror_pan02.jpg

http://panhorrors.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/pan24.jpg

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/t0/t403.jpg

http://vaultofevil.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/pan26.jpg

He's just a fun guy from Yuggoth, look at his cheeky little face.

Hooooooooly shit: http://www.quirkbooks.com/book/paperbacks-hell#

Wow

full disclosure, i'm involved with this but:

http://www.booklistreader.com/?s=we+read+dead+people

That Grady Hendrix book is a collection of his Tor.Com articles

In all honesty, I'd happily buy a book of '80s horror paperback covers with nothing but lorem ipsum dolor text filling the space between them, so that's cool.

both of these links are v v useful to me!

The Tricycle!

I'm always glad when this thread rises from the dead.

He's just a fun guy from Yuggoth, look at his cheeky little face.

― emil.y, Sunday, 8 September 2013 22:12

I was thinking "damn, I wish I'd thought of that!" but subsequently discovered there's an essay series in Crypt Of Cthulhu magazine called Fun Guys From Yuggoth from the 80s.

That Grady Hendrix book is a collection of his Tor.Com articles

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 6 July 2017 18:31 (four months ago)

Actually it isn't. His Tor reviews of books were quite lengthy but Paperbacks From Hell has quite brief summaries of books. People are definitely tracking down the recommended books, they pop up in my goodreads feed.

that book is fantastic by the way, got through it very fast

It really is. I was very pleasantly surprised by how many (hundreds) of covers Hendrix was able to pack into that thing.

Have my eye 👁 on this book.

I read it last week, it is excellent

leafing through library copy now