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!
Reading through this article, I began to get anxious there would not be a clam reference.. but Torch saved it for end, being the big tease that he is.
Powell’s Books in Portland OR: in the Sci-fi/Fantasy section there is an entire rack of books entitled “Buy it just for the cover” – and WOW is there variety there!
Check it out if you get a chance.
FWIW, Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat didn’t come out until 1976.
And that must have been one of the earliest examples of AI in film!
/jk
Actually, it’s an excellent album.
That’s part of the joke.
Is the genre cybercougar or cougarpunk?
Ah, the display typefaces are fun to see! Hope you didn’t have to pay too much for licensing.
The actual Mercury cover could, as designed, be a book. I’m just not clever enough to develop a plot line.
Catatonic Cacophony
by Li’l Rod Hobbled
All 1974 Cougars are launched into Glorious Gulch just ahead of Rev. Divine Responsible Recycling where they are united with disembodied alien souls to become dimension hopping runabouts.
Two post expiration kumquats
Cheap knock-off David? Them’s fighting words to all the real Verrocchio heads out there.
As an art history major, I should have called this out. It was familiar, but I always thought of it as the “lesser” David. Thank you for noting this!
Well after all, one is the most iconic sculpture of the Renaissance and perhaps the most iconic sculpture in all western art. The other is mostly notable for being a very different treatment of the same subject, and for possibly having a young Leonardo model for it.
Seriously. At least Verrocchio sculpted his to scale.
Not to be confused with Vermicelli David.
Is that in Kramer’s apartment next to the fusilli Jerry?
Show the rear of the car and you could title the book, “Mercury Retrograde”.
If I may….
“So wild that no one could tame them…until they tamed themselves!”
Feral Apocalypse by H.R. Cringeworthy.
These author names and titles are exquisite. This entire article is fine art.
My title shot:
SPACE COUGARS, FROM MERCURY
“Eat your heart out, Harlequin Romance”
My research led me to discover that Harlequin Romance novels are a Canadian invention. And for that, I am sorry.
The Space Cougars from Mercury, the 1977 and ’82 wagons.
I’m going to need to find (or create) these books so I can casually leave them on the passenger seat of my 1974 Cougar.
Meow!
Motorcats Book 35, now over 212 books reminds me of “The Destroyer” series of books totaling over 150 books. These are the books that gave us the movie Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (and apparently also ends). Staring Fred Ward, Joel Grey, Wilford “Diabeetus” Brimley, and Kate Mulgrew before she went to the Stars as Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek Voyager.
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.
If you’ve seen his socials lately, Jason is thinking up of quotes he can put on posts about the 8-bit-graphic T-shirt line he’s selling with his wife. Just gotta get their son to call it their second-greatest collab ever so they can hide among the entirely fake ones.
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?
“Melinda Snodgrass” belongs in that list. Actual name of a sci fi author from the period (and a fine one, I might add).
I knew of a family who had the last name Fortenberry, but changed it to Spencer after the kids got bullied at school.
I look at that brochure and hear the tagline “1974 Mercury Cougar: It’s Fucking Huge!”
Most cougars are pretty yuge once she reaches that age, right?
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.
Good one. The Soul Train can haul away the avocado green shag carpet, the cigarette smoked stained wood paneling, hanging oil drop lights, kerosene heaters, coffee and cigarette diet books, brown corduroy bell bottoms, and out of work steelworkers.
Kudos, you pretty much got ‘em all. Elvis has left the building.
And he took his velvet painting with him!
Thank yuh very much.
Incorrect.
OTOH, the indoor style standards of today will be just as looked down upon. “Why didn’t they paint the walls in colors? Why all the kitchens with tile backsplashes with strips made of transparent glass, copper, and mirror tiles? Why? Rip it down!”
Likewise fashion. Ferchrissake, summer before last I saw men wearing sweatpants jodhpurs.
Hopefully some things are gone forever like everyone chain smoking, lack of women’s rights, Hollywood creeps like Roman Polanski & Louis Malle, cults, and really bad cars.
I surely missed the memo when cults vanished along with the current soviet Grey Era of unaffordable, unrepairable cars.
Cults now have nothing on 70s cults.
They are far more sophisticated now.
Understanding how they work is your only defense.
I watched two friends being hypnotized by a self styled Rasputin. Tried to decide what to do first.
I grabbed my friends and told them we have to go now. They followed me quietly.
See the documentary, Missing Allen.
The more you know. ☁️ ????
For sure of course. I also remember watching the evening news as a 9 year old after 900+ people drank the kool-aid and there was plenty of other bad cult stuff.
Yeah, we’re the same age. My parents told me to clear out of the living room – so of course I made a lap around the house to my hiding spot where I could see the screen. I’ll never forget the shot on CBS centered on a dead bug in the kool-aid with out of focus bodies all around, that’s for sure.
It scared the local church so much that it came out with a handy guide to cults. They were still running the training when I hit HS. To their credit, for being a low-yield cult themselves, the training was well thought out. If your new friends try to separate you from your old friends and family… If your new friends say they have new information that no one else has – or should know about…
oof my parents had no media restrictions on me even at that age. I watched the first season of SNL at 6. Cool that you remember the details.
I really can’t recommend Missing Allen enough, just as pure documentary, aside from exposing how banal a cult can be, and yet highly dangerous.
Is everyone here familiar with the hashishins?
They changed the world.
It’s hard to simplify the definition, but one description was,
“They’re dangerous because they have a philosophy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Allen
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0316260/
Jonestown was definitely a cult.
Worst part is many think it began as something innocent.
I think people forget it’s not suicide when you drink poison at gunpoint.
Many of those with the rifles are thought to have escaped.
See the results of our last presidential election. If that’s not due to the most destructive, dangerous cult ever, I don’t know what is.
Well shiplap *is* today’s ZBrick….
And on the exterior, sand paint over foam board is today’s aluminum siding.
That still bugs me out. The first time I saw a new house finished that way, I couldn’t believe they built a house like it was a Burger King.
Leave the bitchin’ stereo system though.
I beg your pardon. The drugs were excellent. (How else could you explain the decade’s style? 😉 )
Yes – Especially 1974 when Mustang becomes a Pinto Brougham, Cougar becomes a Montego Brougham, and the Maverick/Comet is built on the remains of the old Mustang/Cougar, but severely decontented.
Bishop should do his thing with what Cougar should have been in ’74 if it had stayed on the old Falcon platform instead of PLC’d.
As someone who lived through the ’70s…well a lot of it sucked. But what didn’t suck was its own kind of awesome.
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.
Sales man: “This car attracts cougars.”
Customer: “Where do I sign?”
In my experience, it mostly attracts old men with wrinkles and white hair.
This applies, without exception, to any car a man buys to attract women.
Your name … checks out.
The 70s were not a time for “older” women in art/movies/fashion.