Sep 26
It’s a Two-fer Tuesday – 1950s Ray Bradbury Bantam Paperbacks
Good Show Sir Comments:
#1. Paperback sales are down last quarter in Ohio, Alabama and California. Do something creative with the covers to get our numbers back up.
#2. Passive-aggressive cover artist thinks Bradbury stories are boring
Published 1951, 1954
You might remember one of these from here.
September 26th, 2017 at 9:06 am
“I shall never forget that fateful day when the Earthlings came to our world. From Ohio… from Alabama… from California… leaving a trail of bubble-gum wrappers and empty beer cans in their wake.”
September 26th, 2017 at 9:23 am
1: Pretty sure it was Captain Kirk and not Eliot Ness who said “We come in peace, shoot to kill”.
2: Do not take the brown acid. The brown acid is bad.
September 26th, 2017 at 10:53 am
1. Choose your own adventure:
They came from Ohio, Alabama, California
They carried handguns, binoculars, rifles
They hunted Martians, Milfs, wabbits
2. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
September 26th, 2017 at 12:27 pm
They came from Ohio, Alabama and California…but the gods hate Kansas, so everyone from Wichita stayed home.
September 26th, 2017 at 12:33 pm
#2: Anthony Weiner and his mental landscape, ladies and gents.
September 26th, 2017 at 1:24 pm
1. A spacecraft not built for quick escapes.
2. The dinosaur will soon discover you just don’t fuck with Lee Van Cleef. Ever.
September 26th, 2017 at 2:34 pm
#2 is why you should always check that your cryogenics company employs a janitor.
September 26th, 2017 at 3:35 pm
1. There seems to be a fifty-foot drop at the end of that ladder. Hope the low Martian gravity breaks the fall.
2. In the future, everyone will be forced to wear Trump-style comb overs and dye their hair the color of golden apples. Grim.
September 26th, 2017 at 3:48 pm
At least you wouldn’t have to worry about taking the second book on the bus: according to the top left hand corner it was a “giant” tome, so you wouldn’t be able to carry it through the doors. Although how you got it out of the shop is a mystery.
September 26th, 2017 at 3:58 pm
# 2. I should say right off that I love Ray Bradbury. I had the pleasure to run into him once, in Paris, Bastille Day 1995, at the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore. A CBC film company was doing a documentary on him and my wife and I just wandered in. He was very cool, very gracious, very wise; we hung out and chatted for about an hour. We and he were living in Santa Monica at the time so it was like a neighborhood thing.
But it’s a little ironic that he got so angry at Michael Moore for titling his documentary “Fahrenheit 911,” when he seems to have had no trouble taking the title of this work right out of a Yeats poem (it’s the last line of “The Song of the Wandering Aengus”).
Just reminiscing . . . .
September 26th, 2017 at 4:00 pm
@THX 1138—Isn’t a Bantam Giant the corollary to a Jumbo Shrimp?
September 26th, 2017 at 4:29 pm
Cover 1: I suppose the gun is for harrying locals. I mean, colonialism and all.
Cover 2: I see no golden apples or suns. This cover lies. I mean, who the hell is that sleeping golden guy, anyway?
September 26th, 2017 at 4:47 pm
@BC #11: I suspect it was inspired by the giant chicken in Food of the Gods. There was one in the movie, anyway…
September 26th, 2017 at 4:52 pm
1. I’m pretty sure Louis Jourdan came from Marseilles
2. The hair might be Trump’s but the colour’s a lot more natural.
(isfdb claims Joe Muglaini did the latter cover.)
September 26th, 2017 at 4:57 pm
@THX 1138—Do you mean these little fellas?
September 26th, 2017 at 5:07 pm
I thought Martians came from Mars.
September 26th, 2017 at 6:31 pm
Anyone else noticing the huge hole drilled into the Martian Chronicles dude’s left side, under the armpit and through the shirt pocket?
Anyway, he’ll be dead in a few more seconds for not wearing a space helmet on Mars.
@Anna – That sleeping golden guy is apparently the Bantam art editor, snoozing on the job.
September 26th, 2017 at 7:44 pm
Martian Chronicles dude in front: “Wait, do I shoot the binoculars and look through the gun? Shoot the gun? If I shoot the gun through the binoculars, does the bullet go farther?”
Second dude: “Idiot. You shoot the gun and talk through the binoculars, like I’m doing, see? Hello? Hello?”
Third dude: “Any minute now somebody is going to get shot through the eye and somebody else through the ear. That’s why I carry this rifle walking stick.”
September 26th, 2017 at 7:49 pm
@Winter Maiden – Apparently the Martian Chronicles is the story of refugees from three random states who sought political asylum on Mars.
September 26th, 2017 at 8:25 pm
I guess in 1951 Mars couldn’t be depicted in a nice accurate shade of pinko.
September 26th, 2017 at 8:48 pm
#1. I think I see these guys in the background:
http://bibliomancy.com/goodshowsir/Abbot_and_Costello_Go_To_Mars.jpg
September 27th, 2017 at 8:13 am
Oooh! Return of In-Troyj!
1. There were some serious restrictions on immigration, in other words. And they had to bring their own blue and/or khaki outfits.
2. No golden apples or sun. No wonder the giant green-haired head is bored.
@B’mancer: The two badly-diapered guys on the right, above the dinosaur? I was wondering about them… you might have it.
@THX: Can’t be Capt. Kirk. He’s from Iowa.
September 27th, 2017 at 10:22 am
@BC #15: Buck-Buck-Buck Rogers would know what to do about the giant chicken menace.
September 27th, 2017 at 1:34 pm
@THX 1138— 🐓 🐓 🐓