John Creasey paperbacks (Lancer Books)
![The Famine: A Dr. Palfrey Suspense-Adventure Novel. New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1970 [More info on ISFDB]](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/56/55453/full-1400x1110/61825027/creasey_thefamine.jpeg)
The Famine: A Dr. Palfrey Suspense-Adventure Novel. New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1970 [More info on ISFDB]
Filmsense was used a number of times on Lancer Books’ editions of John Creasey’s Dr. Palfrey, The Toff and The Baron series. It has not been completely established if the design of this typeface can be attributed to Seymour Chwast or Milton Glaser. It appears in Photo-Lettering’s One Line Manual of Styles, 1971 as [Milton] Glaser Filmsense, but Chwast claims it as his own design in the book The Push Pin Graphic, 2004, and has recently presented signed Photostats as a reward in a Kickstarter campaign, stating 1967 as the design date.
The Famine (shown above) was published in 1967 [correction: in 1970, see comments] – a few years before the typeface was officially made available from Photo-Lettering, Inc. This supports the design date given by Chwast, and seems to indicate that he indeed was involved in the design of Filmsense.
![Filmsense appears at least on ten titles; three from the Dr. Palfrey series, six from The Toff, and one from The Baron (Lancer 74-602, 74-606, 74607, 74608, 74622, 74623, 74626, 74642, 74652, and Magnum 74-606, 74642, 74653). “After some legal trouble in the early 1970s, [Lancer Books] went out of business, but struggled back into existence for a short time as Magnum Books.” —Bookscans
The overview uses images by Bookscans (Lancer, Magnum, courtesy of Bob Gaines, Brian Maginnity, and Kenneth R. Johnson) and bakerbooksde.](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/57/56037/full-1030x843/598d6e55/John-Creasey-series.jpeg)
Filmsense appears at least on ten titles; three from the Dr. Palfrey series, six from The Toff, and one from The Baron (Lancer 74-602, 74-606, 74607, 74608, 74622, 74623, 74626, 74642, 74652, and Magnum 74-606, 74642, 74653). “After some legal trouble in the early 1970s, [Lancer Books] went out of business, but struggled back into existence for a short time as Magnum Books.” —Bookscans
The overview uses images by Bookscans (Lancer, Magnum, courtesy of Bob Gaines, Brian Maginnity, and Kenneth R. Johnson) and bakerbooksde.
![The Blight: A Dr. Palfrey Suspense-Adventure. New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1970 [More info on ISFDB]](https://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/56/55459/full-1071x1763/61825058/14955005943_89ac03c431_o.jpeg)
The Blight: A Dr. Palfrey Suspense-Adventure. New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1970 [More info on ISFDB]
2 Comments on “John Creasey paperbacks (Lancer Books)”
Good find!
Thanks to the the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, we can put a more precise date to this paperback series. The contributors to this resource do a marvelous job of dating editions. While The Famine was first published in 1967, this paperback by Lancer Books with Filmsense on the cover was issued only in 1970. I’ve adjusted the date. It’s still an early and remarkable use of Filmsense!