PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Happy New Year 2015

Happy hunting for all those elusive titles and I know it’s going to be the year I get that last title on my list X705 – or maybe not.

Just getting ready to hang up this years calendar and to all those who wanted one, sorry they’ve all gone, which is not surprising as there is only ever one. Last year it was a selection of Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer covers and this year features the Shute covers of George Sharp. Unfortunately PAN did not foresee that I would make a calendar and only published 22 titles which messed up my two covers a month. I’ve had to pad out December with a couple of other examples of George’s work.

Here’s to the next 52 blogs for 2015 which will be another eclectic mix of topics but all vaguely PAN related including, hopefully, something for everyone.

UPDATE Having added a screen shot to the ‘As Seen on TV’ section last week, the first for ages, just like buses another comes along. It’s one for the eagle eyed from the antiques programme ‘Bargain Hunt’

Happy Christmas 2014

KingsWith Christmas upon us this week I thought I would mention ‘The Christmas Book’ edited by David Larkin and published in 1975. It is called “a graphic celebration” but is really just a collection of 40 Christmas themed pictures by different artists ranging from Arthur Rackham, through Norman Rockwell to Anne Mandeville.

I have also managed to add screen captures to the list of “As Seen on Television“ in the Miscellany section, something I’ve not done for a while. It was an edition of ‘Flog It’ and they auctioning a model of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but it also included a copy of the PAN title from 1968 for which John Burke got paid the princely sum of £875 outright.. When they were talking about the book the couple who brought it in expressed surprise when told the original story was by Ian Fleming in spite of it quite clearly stating this on the cover! I was hoping to include a clip but BBC IPlayer has just changed the format and it will only play through their viewer but I like a challenge ….

15th Birthday, Jack Hayes and Barbara Cartland

We’re raising the flag to celebrate
the fact that www.tikit.net
will be 15 years old tomorrow.

Flags

By Hayes, not for PAN but Hamlyn. the cover of ‘Flags’

Hanging on my wall for many years have been a couple of original covers by Jack Hayes, fortunately both signed, of two titles from the ‘Captain Blood’ series by Rafael Sabatini. This made me look to see how many other covers he painted for PAN and with the two already mentioned I make it seven.
One thing I have not managed to find out is any real details of his life, DoB, death etc. so if anyone can help?

Having succumbed to a mad ‘bulk buy’ of Barbara Cartland titles I am now up to 94, all scanned and bookmarked on the site but never again! I may see if I can find a few more to get to 100 but I don’t think I’m inclined to be a completest this time even if it meant I could find out if “A Kiss From A Stranger” was the only one with the PAN logo bottom right instead of top left like all the others so far!
NB With so many images on one page it does take a while to load!

‘The Best Of American Crime Fiction’ Series

hANDCUFFSFollowing on from my reference in the last blog to Hillary Waugh, who coincidently died on this day in 2008, I began to look out the covers with the same style as ‘Last Seen Wearing’ thinking there were probably only half a dozen but I eventually found 20. This may not be all as I found them by guess work and looking along the shelves. There may be some as variants on other covers than I’ve not discovered yet.  They are all labelled ‘The Best Of American Crime Fiction’ and have the stylised ‘handcuffs’ with a graphic in the middle. I’ve not found any with an artists name and look as though they were done by two or three different hands. I’ve put them all together on one page as several people have mentioned they like to see them like this rather than one at a time. As usual I look forward to hearing from anyone who can add to the list or help with artists.

Last Seen Wearing ……

Having returned late last night from a long but very cheap coach trip weekend away in Belgium (made even longer by 2 people having out of date passports only discovered on returning to the UK which now means the driver’s passport gets confiscated until sorted so we couldn’t leave them behind even though most people wanted to!) I realised I’d forgotten this weeks blog so bit shorter than usual. On the plus side we did get to see(?) the De Panne 19th Endurance cycle race on the beach in thick fog. It also had a second hand bookshop and I was pleasantly surprised to find four in Rochester when we called in for a couple of hours on the way down to Folkstone. Unfortunately couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy at a price I was willing to pay!

Last week I was moving books around and picked up a copy of “Last Seen Wearing” by Hillary Waugh and happened to glance at the back where there is a supposed memo to PAN from P.C. After racking my brains I came up with Peter Cheyney as fitting all the criteria and so contacted Adrian at his excellent Peter Cheyney site to see if he agreed. It was then that Adrian pointed out that Cheyney died in 1951 and the book was from 1960, maybe it just takes PAN along time to make decisions – nine years?

I cannot discover who the artists were for either of the variations of cover but the 64/66 variation is in a series and I have a scan of the original artwork for ‘The Neon Jungle’ but is listed as artist unknown. I presume the same artist did all of these so will check on the others.Neon Jungle X446This has inspired me to look at more back covers, something which is on my to do list plus scanning them and getting them on the site along with larger rescans of all the titles.