Tonight I thought I'd try to make it a quick one, and share a quintet of spooky covers from old books that I've found at Goodwill. Couldn't remember if any of these had made an appearance on the blog before now, but since most of these are recent acquisitions, I figured only a couple of them could possibly be in any kind of repetition danger.
All the books below were bought for .99 cents apiece, and fit the Halloween season to a tree... uh... I mean tee.
First up, a classic I've been meaning to read for a very long time, H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau. The cover is a great one, with the sole figure on the cover not immediately obvious as being less than human. It takes a moment or two to let the details soak in... the hair on the legs, the clawed hands... it slowly reveals the nature of the creature. Nice and simple, straight to the point, this cover says all it needs to.
Next up, this psychedelic cover of the book The Green Brain which is written by Frank Herbert, author of Dune. It almost looks like a praying mantis is pushing its head out the front of a man's face. It's layered in such a way to make the insect's features a part of the human's features, creating a nightmarish bug-man visage.
Adventures in Time and Space is a book of short science fiction stories edited by R.J. Healy and J.F. McComas. Again we are faced with a bizarre lone figure in a strange landscape, reddish and smoky this time. The figure has some sort of animalistic, almost cat-like ears atop his head... and tentacles? High above in the smoky red sky, the point of a rocket ship looms.
One of my absolute FAVORITE recent finds is this book by William Arden: Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in: The Secret of Phantom Lake! I posted a picture of this one on Instagram just a little while back with the caption: That time Groot straight-up tried to murder some kids! (or something to that affect). love Love LOVE the cover to this book. This is a frameable piece of art. From the menace of the cyclopean tree monster to the look of sheer code-brown-inducing terror on the kids' faces... this thing has it all. The colors, the subject matter... absolutely EVERYTHING about this cover is beautiful.
Next up, Kenneth Robeson's Doc Savage: Brand of the Werewolf. This thing is the definition of cool. Look at Doc Savage, shirt torn open and being forced to his knees by the mighty wolfman!!! All while a skeleton laughs at the whole situation from the background. The reds and oranges here make the whole world look like it's on fire, and there's nothing like a "savage" werewolf to fan the flames!
And finally... this gem. This absolute gem. The second "Alfred Hitchcock" book of this post, I am currently reading this collection of short horror stories and I am LOVING them. Nothing better for October than a nice collection of spooky short stories. And Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Scream Along With Me (which are apparently culled from an even longer book of stories called "Stories That Scared Even Me" which I NEED to track down...) is a genuinely GOOD collection of stories! I've had one flop of a collection of stories and a couple of crummy graphic novels so far this season, but overall I've read some great Halloween-y books. I'll do another post somewhere in the near future where I showcase some of the Halloween read-pile for this season.
So that's it kids! A short and shivery post featuring some great, spooky, pulpy book covers that I've picked up at Goodwill! I'll be back soon with more Grave Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Haunting!
The bug face might look more intimidating if it didn't look like it was rolling its eyes.
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