Knuckle Girls
Gang Girls
Guerrilla Girls
Promotion TourGood Show Sir Comments: GSS Superfan Reggie M. (who prefers to keep a low profile) sent in these fine examples of literature printed by the New English Library back in the 70s. We here at GSS are familiar with the terrible sci-fi cover art overachievers at N.E.L. See here.
But N.E.L. is also know among paperback aficiandos for their sleazy girl covers. These here show the exciting lifestyle choices of a comely English lass who starts out as a fist-fighting brawler, graduates to shiv-lady in her local gang, then a Patty Hearst terrorist clone, before moving into a steady day job in the publishing business as a naked copy editor.
I am sure these attractive young misses are all quite proper British grannies now and remember fondly their previous modeling careers. So let’s reward them all with a Good Show Sir Honourable Mention.
Published 1970s
(Average: 4.71 out of 10)
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May 5th, 2020 at 9:12 am
1: Hey, somebody needs a wedding ring on that knuckle!
2: Hey, somebody needs to be cutting wedding cake with that shiv!
3: Hey, somebody needs to, er, fire that gun into the air in celebration at her wedding!
4: Hey, somebody forgot their nightie on their wedding night!
Today’s comments are sponsored by 1970s chauvinist oppression.
May 5th, 2020 at 11:46 am
Jane Austen fanfic?
May 5th, 2020 at 11:58 am
The Spice Girls were originally very hardcore.
May 5th, 2020 at 2:26 pm
The ‘See here’ link takes me right back to this page. Does that mean these are all sci-fi as well as, er, literature?
May 5th, 2020 at 2:27 pm
Scroll down. The “See here” link takes you to all the posts with the New English Library tag and today’s Honourable Mention is just the latest.
May 5th, 2020 at 3:02 pm
The New English Librarians?
May 5th, 2020 at 3:49 pm
But surely these covers will pass the Bechdel Test?
May 5th, 2020 at 4:43 pm
@ARY: probably not: ‘Richard Allen’ (James Moffat, a Canadian living in Cornwall and thus a real expert on East End street-gangs) tended to write orgies where people use the word ‘intercourse’ a lot then have the protagonists go and throw bottles at people. It’s like ‘A Clockwork Orange’ with dialogue from ‘Dawson’s Creek’.
May 5th, 2020 at 5:59 pm
It’s the same model wearing different wigs and showing her incredible range of expressive powers.
May 6th, 2020 at 12:35 am
Even though the last lady isn’t wearing any clothes, you can still tell it’s the 1970s.
May 6th, 2020 at 12:37 am
“Tawdry” was the first word that came to mind. (The first noise was “Ewww”).
1. If one goes in for bare-knuckle brawling, should one be wearing a loose necktie that one’s opponent could grab in said brawl? I can’t imagine there are any rules in that sort of thing (other than “you don’t talk about it”), so that would be a prime target for someone else to grab for choking or a Glasgow kiss. (Manchester kiss? Something in Cockney rhyming slang?)
2. She’s going to defend the last roll of toilet paper, no matter what!
3. She’s obviously a new guerrilla by her lack of gun skills. Who shoots with their middle two fingers? #1’s been to Kentucky, she could show her how.
4. Bit of fantasizing there, eh, “Terry Harknett”? Other than the photographer who got to snap these lasses, pretty sure paperback publishing and book tours weren’t that exciting. Even in the 70s. Maybe Terry was hoping to get a tour with something more interesting.
@B’mancer: Heh. Posh is too skinny for any of these covers. These 4 were all Scary.
I have the margarita fixings all set up to celebrate today. Oh, and some food to go with.
May 6th, 2020 at 12:46 am
The pose #4 is being forced to hold looks very uncomfortable.
May 6th, 2020 at 3:20 am
Most people think that No. 1’s shirt says Kentucky. It tells you a lot that I read it as “well #uck you.”
May 6th, 2020 at 3:33 am
@Tor – Is that a tragedy/comedy mask tie pin on #1. This lady is multi-talented.
May 6th, 2020 at 4:19 am
@Raoul: It is. I wonder if she brought her own accessories and makeup, or if the photographer had a big dressing-up bin. And how did the trashed Kentucky shirt make it there? It can’t be an official UofK shirt with the red — but the lower word might be “Olympic”.
Perhaps she or the photographer broke up with the American actor boyfriend, kept his shirt, tie, and pin.
Still can’t get over the WTF of #3’s accessories.
May 6th, 2020 at 4:49 am
@GSSXn – #3 looks like she just walked out of a Banana Republic catalog.
May 6th, 2020 at 5:49 am
@B’Mancer—How do you think you’d look if you had been damned by Harry Whittington?
May 6th, 2020 at 4:17 pm
@GSS ex-noob (15):it’s Anarchy in the UofK. It’s not made the list of ‘official’ recollections* but the 70s use of distressed imported college shirts (or fakes thereof) was a pre-punk gesture of defiance. Smart-alecs who’d been to the Great Satan wore ostentatious garments with place-names on as a status symbol so defacing them was one of our ways of kicking against cultural hegemony, sticking two fingers up to The Establishment** &c &c. Do you think it’s a coincidence that punk happened around the time we were all getting sick of Bicentennial hype?
(*repackaged nostalgia led to an attempt to create a folk-memory at variance with the facts, most notoriously Dominic Sandbrook’s BBC2 series. This is only a slight exaggeration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt5fAU7tNxY. even though Meebox pre-dates the worst excesses.)
(**if anyone actually articulated it that way at the time I’d be surprised. That’s more retroactive commentary but nobody ever says ‘stick it to the Man’ because Hippies and fake-American idioms were part of the problem. And it was definitely two fingers in those days.)
May 6th, 2020 at 11:17 pm
@Tat: Aha, I am enlightened. That’s definitely a 1976 Bicentennial/Olympic shirt. Maybe the photographer had a bit of the zeitgeist about him. BTW, that girl is the only one I believe at all might be a good depiction of the book’s contents.
I’ve got an Oxford sweatshirt. It either says I’m the Establishment, or it turned unexpectedly chilly in Oxford that day and I needed long sleeves.
@B’man: Yes! All the extra useless military-style accessories, but she’s been to the salon fairly recently, judging by her hair. Maybe she’s a shopping mall commando. Picture by the Glamour Shots guy or the Sears Portrait Studio after hours.
May 7th, 2020 at 9:56 am
At least during the gang years and terrorist years she kept her clothes on, this confirms all my mother’s warnings about paperback publishing.
@THX 1139 (10): Can’t you tell it’s the 1970’s BECAUSE she isn’t wearing any clothes?
May 7th, 2020 at 10:48 pm
@Vlttp: No, she might also be naked in the 1960’s. It’s that shade of brown that dates it to the 1970’s.
Also, she appears to be preserving what’s left of her modesty with a hardcover book, not a paperback.
But you can tell it’s classy lit’rature from the applied canvas texture over the picture.
May 8th, 2020 at 9:28 am
@GSSxn: Ooh yes, I hadn’t noticed the canvas texture. We must henceforth cease and desist from sarcastic comments on classy cover no.4.
May 9th, 2020 at 12:41 am
@Vlttp: I’mma still gonna worry about the foot cramps she must have gotten in that pose.
Interesting they didn’t airbrush out her tan lines. Maybe they spent all the money on the canvas texture.
May 9th, 2020 at 11:04 pm
@GSSxn: I think the tan lines are one of the things about this that say ‘1970’s’
May 10th, 2020 at 1:50 am
Hmmmm….
“Gang Girl” must be a danger to herself and others. They’ve only given her a butter knife.
May 11th, 2020 at 2:12 am
@Vlttp: Yes, women were still allowed to have some imperfections then, not be smooth pore-free, hairless Barbies.
@Hammy: Maybe they’re a gang dedicated to proper table settings? Get your flatware straight or else!
May 11th, 2020 at 10:34 pm
@GSSxn: When you can look back and have to admit something is worse than it was in the 70’s…
In Britain, all of our street gangs strive to maintain good table manners, what else would you expect?
@Hammy: Well it’s butter than not having a knife. (I’ll get me coat)