“any author could end up inside of a Pan cover—”

June 14, 2017 9:41 AM

The Strange Allure of Pan Books: Vintage Cult Film, TV Tie-In and Fab Fiction Book Covers [Dangerous Minds] “Everyone knows Penguin. They publish classic lit and high-end middle-class novels about those things people discuss over lattes. Pan books [wiki] were thrillers, pulp novels, movie and TV tie-ins, romances, some classics (Bronte, Trollope, Dickens), and best of all the dare to read alone horrors. Everyone read Pan. Because Pan books were always a guaranteed great read. [...] Pan Books was started by a former World War One flying ace, Alan Bott [wiki] in 1944. Bott believed in enjoyable reads available for all. He focussed on paperback books the public would enjoy which might bring them back to the brand for more.”
posted by Fizz (19 comments total)

We can all agree that Zardoz is a garbage film that is so terrible it's enjoyable to watch. That being said, this cover is phenomenal. More of this please.
posted by Fizz at 10:18 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

We can all agree that Zardoz is a garbage film that is so terrible it's enjoyable to watch. That being said, this cover is phenomenal. More of this please.

One would hope Excalibur would buy a man some forgiveness for the errors of his past.

Apparently not.
posted by Samizdata at 10:39 AM on June 14, 2017

One would hope Excalibur would buy a man some forgiveness for the errors of his past.

Boorman made a ton of excellent films and if you told me he was doing another one, I would definitely check it out.

But the back to back Zardoz/Exorcist 2 run is proof that he was directing from a place of insanity I would associate with a five day coke bender for a bit there.

Tailor Of Panama is probably my favorite deconstruction of Bond ever.

/derail.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:00 AM on June 14, 2017

During the 80s, every secondhand bookshop in the UK would have at least one of the awesome Pan Book Of Horror Stories collections. Glad to seem then make an appearance because those covers were iconic.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:13 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

These Bond covers are very much 'get down to the theatrical prop store and grab anything that you can think of that was in the novel / vaguely James Bond... oh and pop into Harrods and get a can of caviar - cheap as you buy!'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:20 AM on June 14, 2017

No we cannot agree that about Zardoz. It's fucking great and I can see the mountains in it out my top floir skylight.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:47 AM on June 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

These are great! I'd grab books like these at the used paperback store my mom frequented when was a kid. You know exactly how those paperbacks smell - old cigarette smoke, a touch of mildew, and what? A whiff of turpentine and Jean Nate? Paprika and cooking oil? These covers, combined with those scents, are my madeleines.....
posted by but no cigar at 11:53 AM on June 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

My dad had that 'Dharma Bums'.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:55 AM on June 14, 2017

Was John Burke a real person, or the Alan Smithee of 60s British novelisations?

And did they leave out the Raymond Hawkey Bond covers? Some of those are genuinely brilliant (for example, the Thunderball with the bullet holes cut out).
posted by Grangousier at 12:07 PM on June 14, 2017

The Pan Books logo, showing the ancient Greek god Pan playing pan-pipes, was designed by Mervyn Peake.

And into this world of confusion and orange presnidets, comes a comforting, little "well, obviously" fact.
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:18 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I like that some of these covers say "GREAT PAN" instead of "PAN BOOKS". It starts to sound like an invocation.
posted by egypturnash at 12:18 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Some of those are genuinely brilliant (for example, the Thunderball with the bullet holes cut out).

Here's a fun and relevant link: James Bond: The 1960s Pan Covers and Raymond Hawkey

“The previous paperback series had more typical painted illustration covers, but these simple, conceptual and iconic covers remain fantastic examples of design. They were the first series of Bond books to use modern typefaces (Helvetica and News Gothic in this case), and minimalistic imagery that included photographs. They would have stood out on a spinner rack that was still dominated by traditional imagery. While I’ve listed the books below with the date of their first printings, the first cover designed was Thunderball, by Raymond Hawkey in 1963. The rest followed and were done by designers on staff at Pan.”

posted by Fizz at 12:23 PM on June 14, 2017

Ooh, I stand corrected. They're still pretty good (I used to collect them from jumble sales), but Thunderball is definitely best.
posted by Grangousier at 2:16 PM on June 14, 2017

I own a cherished complete set of Bond Pan books.
posted by parki at 2:37 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Was John Burke a real person, or the Alan Smithee of 60s British novelisations?

John Burke
posted by dannyboybell at 3:52 PM on June 14, 2017

The Pan logo was based on designs by Mervyn Peake.
posted by unliteral at 7:34 PM on June 14, 2017

So, are those actual breasts I see on the one cover?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:57 PM on June 14, 2017

I had the Bond ones. I can't now remember why there are false teeth on the cover of Casino Royale.
posted by Major Tom at 7:00 AM on June 15, 2017

I had the Bond ones. I can't now remember why there are false teeth on the cover of Casino Royale.

In the dossier on Le Chiffre, as part of the Description section, is: 'False teeth of expensive quality'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:36 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]