Design Cult. Steven Heller

be kitsch—and the cover size is just perfect. And that’s the case with almost all these forgotten paperbacks: The size was perfect for the art and the art perfect for the size.

      A Mass for Mass-Market Paperbacks

      In the beginning was the hardcover book, comprising multiple typeset pages containing knowledge and insight—tales small and tall—fiction and non. As the vessel of word and image, it offered pleasure and enlightenment; it bound messages and stories together and illuminated the mind; darkness became light. And as time passed the literate few did multiply and purchase more books, and the publishers who roamed the earth were blessed. Yet the hardcover was too costly for many people, so in its image, though somewhat more condensed and less smartly typeset and splendidly adorned, publishers begat another somewhat smaller format that was fertile and appealed to more masses at a cheaper price. Thus it was dubbed the mass-market paperback, and it sold well, bringing low and high literature to those who might never have read a book before. Publishers quickly realized how successful were their offspring and the industry rejoiced.

      This homily should not imply that, inevitably, mass-market paperbacks would be successful, yet the genre was a calculated risk that certainly paid off over the past century. The consuming public, it was proven, yearned for volumes that they could read anywhere without having to lug around cumbersome tomes. A book that could fit into a coat pocket—hence the trademarked and generic classification “pocket book”—was perfect for train, plane, or beach chair; sold on racks in drugstores, supermarkets, and terminals, they were an economic boon for their producers and economical savings for their consumers. Inexpensive to print, they could be disposed of or passed on to others. This was key to the evolution of modern Western civilization that began with the invention of moveable type and the printing press during the fifteenth century. Mass-market paperbacks may not have been what Johannes Gutenberg or the Church had envisioned when the presses started pumping out ecclesiastical texts, but they were a force that altered what and how the masses consumed and digested everything from pulps to classics, and eventually self-help books, too.

      Sometime during this evolutionary process, however, conventions were established that forever distinguished the look of mass-market paperbacks from trade-paperbacks (which were ostensibly “soft-shell” hardcover books because they looked the same only without the casing). At some key juncture it was decided in the bowels of the publishing industry that mass-market books should be a particular size (based logically on the most cost-effective, standardized printing formats), and look a particular way (doubtless based on the pseudoscientific assumption by marketing experts about the aesthetic tastes of the masses). Some of those distinctions are as follows: Hardcover books looked more imposing; mass-market paperbacks looked more informal. Hardcover jackets were more artful; paperback covers were more commercial. Hardcover graphics were more nuanced; paperback covers titillated by leaving little to the imagination. Hardcover graphics merely suggested the content; paperbacks pounded the plot and/or the characters home. Many hardcover books relied entirely on type to announce the book, while most paperbacks were realistically, romantically, or surrealistically illustrated. Nonetheless, despite the contrasting approaches (distinguished as commercial versus literary) at their very best and most effective, mass-market paperback covers exemplified distinctive artistry. Moreover, the best of those who practiced the art of mass-market paperback design really understood how to capture the readers’ attention and imagination.

      Although it does not take a cognitive psychologist to know that a scantily clad woman will appeal to a certain segment of the male population, or that a well-endowed male, usually embracing said woman, engenders interest among the female audience. It does, however, take talent to render the human form—expression and gesture—and the garments—be they torn or tight—to stimulate a viewer’s prurience. Not every illustrator is capable of being evocative. And not all mass-market paperbacks are so sensual or sexy: Mysteries must look mysterious, thrillers must look thrilling, horror must be horrible, and science fiction must be otherworldly. All book jackets and covers are ostensibly advertisements, but the mass-market paperback must be the most totally convincing of them all. With only a limited time frame in which to attract the proverbial fish, the lure must be bright and shiny. Mass-market paperback artists and designers prided themselves on making the best lures and being incredibly alluring.

      The most alluring (and at times disturbing) for its noir-like melodrama (albeit in color), Dell’s popular Mapback book series serves as the model of the mass-market ethos. Influenced by dime novels of the nineteenth century and pulps of the early twentieth, Dell’s Mapbacks were seasoned with a hint of B movie. The Dell Publishing Company was founded as a pulp house in 1922 by George Delacorte, Jr., a twenty-eight-year-old entrepreneur. The pulp, which takes its name from the cheap newsprint on which it was printed, was, according to Tony Goodstone, who edited The Pulps (Chelsea House, 1970), “the cradle of sensationalism in American art and literature” and featured some of the best and worst fiction ever written by the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Ray Bradbury. Delacorte’s biggest sellers were adventure monthlies, such as Danger Trail, Sky Riders, Western Romances, and War Birds, all inexpensively printed and distributed through news dealers rather than bookstores. Soon he became successful and by the late 1920s branched into magazines, including Radio Stars and Modern Screen as well as Ballyhoo, one of the most popular American humor magazines of the 1930s.