There’s certain kinds of art-related crap that I’ve always really loved. And I use the word “crap” very fondly here; I just mean artistic works that don’t really fall into the admittedly arbitrary and frankly bullstool category of “highbrow” art or whatever we want to call it. Pulpy stuff, you know the kind I mean. And in this category for visual art, you really can’t beat 1950s to 1980s paperback sci-fi book covers.
I encountered two things over the weekend that can be considered the deadbeat parents of today’s Cold Start: one of these old pulpy sci-fi paperbacks from 1972, and this Mercury brochure from 1974. A pair of contemporaries, with two very different goals: one to sell you the book in your hand, the other to sell you the car in the showroom you just stumbled out of.
Here’s the book cover:
We’ve got some squishy-headed aliens looking at a statue of David (not the Michelangelo one, a cheap knockoff), and they’re dressed in some mumus that rival the peak of Cosby Show-era sweaters. I looked up a review of the book, which wasn’t too flattering:
“The Light That Never Was is structurally a disjointed mess of a novel with no real characters (they are interchangeable names), no tension, and a complete refusal to develop the animaloid Mesz species into anything else than pseudo-human looking gentle folk.”
Yikes. Thankfully, none of the reviews on my book have accused me of a refusal to develop any animaloid species.
Anyway, while I had that whipping sh*tties in my head, I happened to encounter this 1974 Mercury brochure, complete with a painting of one of those Mercury-favored cougars on the hood of a Mercury Cougar:
Ah, the year of the cat! Actually, according to my extensive research, 1974 was actually year of the cat, or at least a tiger, which is close enough. But it was the particular art style of the painting – the color palette, the brushwork, that moody Tatooine sky – that put me in the mind of old pulp sci-fi book covers.
So, with that in mind, I re-imagined this Mercury brochure painting as some possible ’70s pulp sci-fi book covers, and now I’m demanding you to look at them:
Picklecobra’s 1975 space opera did actually feature Mercurys in it by name, as they were the vehicle of choice the Felinianors of Slankton 5 used to convert into their spacecraft with which they patrolled the galaxy, seeking out stagnant civilizations and then invading them, whereupon they would sit on surfaces and knock things over until the population surrendered.
Creed of the Claw was quite an influential book in Reform Wicca communities in the San Fernando valley, and came close – but not quite – to becoming the basis of a small but potentially enthusiastic cult. That’s probably why Field & Stream found it so enthrapulating.
Wetmoose’s strength has always been about worldbuilding, and this exploration of life on the Cougarine homeworld and the Great Catlitter deserts, with their intense litterstorms, is a surprisingly nuanced literary experience.
This one is an interesting and somewhat experimental exploration about a society of beings whose only mode of communication is annoying one another. Some read it as a warning to contemporary society, others just took it as an elaborate, irritating thought-experiment.
Even among this group, there’s some genuine crap: Damp of Claw, True of Sword was a nearly pornographic, unhinged romp through a world that attempted to merge fantasy with far too many scenes of feline-human hybrids masturbating.
Who isn’t familiar with the Motorcats series? This was book 35 way back in 1974 and today most estimates put the number of books in the series at well over 212 books. Sure, many passages are copied wholesale from Chilton’s repair guides and random newspaper articles, but somehow it all works.
The 1983 Motorcats movie Motorcat, Motorcat, Purr Your Engine was based largely on this book, along with parts of Motorcats 32, 27, and 38.
If you see any of these at your local used bookstore, you should absolutely pick them up! They’re worth it, sort of!
Your random number for today, is yet again not random, but rather the temp of boiling water. Perhaps one of my favorite torch quirks is random not random numbers.
It was solid through Celsius and still readable through Fahrenheit, but it was clear by the time they got to Kelvin they were just phoning it in.
I imagine anyone worshipping at an altar of David is too busy chanting about the four holy liters, hallowed be thy driveshaft, my your soul remain in blissful four-low in the afterlife, to be worried about their budding animaloid bodies and urges.
Do those aliens on the cover of “The Light that Never Was” remind anyone else of the Scammer Aliens from “Bender’s Big Score”, only clothed and hairy?
Absolutely 100% yes they did remind me of that! I wouldn’t be surprised to find out David Cohen had a copy when he was a kid.
Lloyd Biggle, Jr
H. Melish Picklecobra
Gregory Mangoes
Sylvie Wetmoose
C. M. Pastrymole
Morena Chipsnakes
Blowmix Tandorian
WITHOUT LOOKING BACK AT THE ARTICLE, can you pick which is the real author name?
I look at that brochure and hear the tagline “1974 Mercury Cougar: It’s Fucking Huge!”
The 70s were a bad time.
You, Sir, have offended my decade. How dare you offend the era of Blowmix Tandorian and Sylvie Wetmoose’s penultimate works? The Soul Train will be stopping by your front yard today and it won’t be pretty.
I’m already writing the contract for the advance. NYT bestseller list here we come!
Also, happy Mercury Monday!
https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/
Stick a big ME on the hood and you’ve got yourself a killer high-brow (ish) Talladega Nights movie poster
Thank you for this – just what was needed after dreading the start to a post-holiday work week
They should have put an actual cougar, early 50s, divorced and wearing a skirt that would make a priest sweat, sprawled all over the hood. That would have sold Mercury.