Cover of the Week: Bad Guy by Nicholas Brady
Tower Publications (1977) Cover artist not listed.
Popular culture in the 1970s was obsessed with male adventure stories, and the vigilante was a mainstay of this type of story. Many series titles make this point obvious: The Executioner, The Destroyer, The Butcher, etc. The quality of these stories varied considerably, but some of them were quite entertaining. The Paperback Warrior podcast/blog covers this type of paperback very well. I urge you to click the link and visit.
These types of male adventure stories also featured a cover illustration that usually had the main character in the center with several scenes from the book (usually action scenes) clustered around him. The title was in bold print at the top and there was usually a one-sentence summary of the plot at the bottom or on the side. Many noted illustrators of the era created covers for Tower Publications, but most of them used pseudonyms (like Paul Rader).
It’s a shame we don’t know who did the cover for this above-average adventure story as the design is excellent. The colors are bold and the plot summary is enticing for those who love this kind of story.
Tower Publications (1958-1982) catered to the male reader and originally published erotic fiction for men along with some science fiction and fantasy. The writer, Gardner Fox (under the pseudonym Rod Gray), wrote The Lady from Lust series for Tower in the late 1960s.
The rear cover blurb of Bad Guy is so much fun I’ve decided to quote it in full,
“Jake Colby, Souther stock car racer turned hillbilly hoodlum, had been running a dope distributorship for a double-crossing Kansas City mobster named Angella. When Angella laid out a plan for robbing a Las Vegas casino Colby went along, figuring he would pull a triple-cross once the money was in the sack. Teaming up with a wild Creole girl from north Florida, Colby set out on a one-way ride to Hell!
A searing novel of the underworld; violent action lit up by the all-night glare of Las Vegas!”