I know what I’m re-reading today. And if you haven’t read Maus: A Survivor’s Tale yet yourself, you should. Comics really don’t get much better.
Consider it a rebuttal to all the people who insist that the Holocaust never happened, and that it’s a shame that it didn’t.
Beginning a series of articles focusing on the major and minor players in the pulp publishing world! The first company to fall under the microscope is Wild Cat Books.
WILD CAT BOOKS
HISTORY: Originally began as “Secret Sanctum” in 1997 as a home-made, Xeroxed “fanzine” and was the first of its kind to feature full-color throughout. After 3 years and 17 issues, it officially became Wild Cat Books (WCB) and continued for a while as your typical “fanzine” but in B&W. Soon after, they became involved in the Print-On-Demand (POD) feature which allowed them to publish square-bound Trade paperbacks and magazines and started a bookstore at Lulu.com where orders could be placed, and only those orders would be printed as needed. This was a fine option that allowed them to not require a minimum press run and helped keep expenses and inventory to a more manageable point. Eventually, they became involved with Amazon, which allowed them to produce even better looking books at an even more reasonable price. For the past few years, Amazon has been their printer of choice.
STAFF: Ron Hanna was the Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief and remains in that position today. Ver Curtiss is the Art Director and has been involved with Ron from the very first issue of “Secret Sanctum”. They remain good friends and collaborators to this day. One of the best, and earliest, writers for them was Kevin Noel Olson, who created and wrote the critically acclaimed “Spring-Heeled Jack: Gunfighter” series that included many short stories and a full-length novel. After several years of writing other projects, Kevin is returning to “Jack” in an all-new series. There are a number of Artists involved with WCB, each having their work appear in a variety of projects. Some of the more popular of these are Nick Neocleous, David Burton, Ver Curtiss, Gary McCluskey… all of whom are professionals in their fields. Another very important person involved with WCB is William Carney, an Award-winning Graphic Designer who puts that very special professional touch and look to WCB’s productions. He is also the Managing Editor and is one of the most important people on staff at WCB. The Writers involved vary considerably… This is probably the most wide-ranging group of people involved. Some have been with WCB for a long time, others for just a few submissions. The most prolific of these has been Barry Reese, who has done many wonderful books for WCB and his “Rook” series is up to 5 volumes now, with more on the way. He’s also written some stand-alone novels that have also garnered great reviews, including “Rabbit Heart”, “The Damned Thing”, and “The Savage Tales of Ki-Gor”. Barry is also the Marketing Director for WCB and you can find his works published not only by WCB, but many other small-press publishers as well. Other writers of note are K.G. McAbee, Tim Jones, and Chris Carney.
PUBLICATIONS: Along with the continuing series of “The Rook”, the other on-going publication that WCB is famous for is their revival of the old pulp magazine “Startling Stories”. This quarterly magazine features both new material as well as reprints from the Golden Age of Science Fiction. It’s one of their more popular titles and always features something for everyone, from “Retro-Reviews” to the exclusive “Saucy Blaine” comic feature by acclaimed writer and artist Ron Wilber, who has been involved in pulp fandom for over 20 years. They also publish full-length novels, anthologies and short stories in many genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Pulp Hero, Weird Menace and other popular genres. They have a website where you can peruse their recent releases and even order them directly from Amazon with a “Buy Now” button. See http://www.wildcatbooks.net for what they currently have to offer… Some other books that were originally published through the Lulu site remain there, and are some of the best reference books the pulp fan could ask for: “The Captain Future Handbook” by Chuck Juzek is a massive full-color Hardcover that is the definitive collection featuring this classic space hero. Other excellent reference works are by Award-winning pulp historian Wooda “Nick” Carr, and those include “The Pulp Hero”, “Master of the Pulps” and “The Pulp Magazine Scrapbook”. All of these belong on every pulp fan’s bookshelf.
SUBMISSIONS: WCB does accept submissions but they currently have many projects in the works, so any new submissions, even if accepted, may not see print for some time. This is because WCB is dedicated to producing the finest books that they can deliver. They believe in “Quality over Quantity” and may only publish about 6 books in a year, but the results are most definitely worth waiting for!
NEW SCRIBE ON DC’S DOC SAVAGE!!
From DC Comics’ Blog-
April’s DOC SAVAGE #13 kicks off a six-issue story arc written by extraordinary artist (and Doc Savage fan) J.G. Jones, whom DCU readers will recognize from his outstanding cover work on Final Crisis, 52, Wonder Woman and of course Doc Savage and First Wave.
The first part of J.G.’s globe-trotting adventure kicks off in the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spans all the way to Cairo, which gives him the perfect excuse to give us this painting of DOC SAVAGE fighting a mummy.
THE BOOK CAVE MEETS RAVENWOOD THIS WEEK!!
Available later today, this week’s episode of THE BOOK CAVE puts Ric and Art across the table from the writers for Airship 27’s latest Pulp Anthology, RAVENWOOD: THE STEPSON OF MYSTERY VOLUME 1! Tune into to hear how a pack of the best writers today bring back a little known pulp classic for a modern audience!! Then stay tuned for the ALL PULP news!
Check out THE BOOK CAVE! http://www.thebookcave.libsyn.com
FnF Editor-Lee Houston, Jr.
BUY IT TODAY!!! EBOOK OR PRINT!!! https://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions
NOTED PULP AUTHOR’S DILLON HITS E-BOOKS!
From Derrick Ferguson, Pulpwork Press-
This is the day for new ALL PULP features!! A BOOK A DAY will cover a title that pulp writers and creators may find useful as a reference tool or for research. These books can also add to the knowledge base of pulp fans, making their enjoyment of pulp even better! If you have books that need to be here, then email to allpulp@yahoo.com with a title, description, and if possible, an image of the book and ALL PULP will make sure its A BOOK A DAY!! Now, for our first book guaranteed to improve knowledge/provide great information/be a rollickin’ good time!!
From Bear Manor Media- http://www.bearmanormedia.com/
| Chicago Jazz and Then Some: as told by one of the original Chicagoans, Jess Stacy by Jean Porter Dmytryk  |
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From December 1934, this Spider adventure has me exhausted just from reading it. I don’t know how Wentworth does it; once the case begins, he apparently runs all over Manhattan for three days and nights without once stopping to eat or sleep (except when he’s knocked unconscious). Professor Brownlee must be brewing him up some amphetamine or something.
If you want frantic, headlong action as a single man fights desperately to save the public from an evil mastermind, this book delivers it. All over Manhattan, thousands of people suddenly start screaming, clawing at their throats and dropping lifeless to the street. It turns out someone has been tampering with tobacco and now cigarettes are deadly. (What? Cigarettes are harmful? Come on now…) As Brownlee explains to our hero, “…this gas has the power of building up the nicotine in one cigarette to the killing point.”
It’s hard to realize today, when people pretty much have to go outside to smoke, but in 1934 there were almost no restrictions on the habit. Restaurants, theaters and stores were filled with people puffing away. Men used pipes and cigars a lot more, but smoking was about as common as wearing shoes. So the idea of poisoned tobacco must have really hit home to readers of the story when it first came out. Imagine all the guys on the subway, lighting up a cig and reading about people dying horribly from smoking.
(And behind this is the fiendish plot to corner the market with safe Denict cigarettes which will then gradually have dope introduced into them, so that they will become addictive. Whoa…)
By this point, the Spider novels had moved on from their rather traditional mystery origins and were starting to be apocalyptic disaster stories with huge body counts and the end of the world seemingly at hand. Right away, Wentworth’s sweetie Nita has been kidnapped by the unknown enemy, his semi-friend Commissioner Kirkpatrick has apparently turned against him and ordered him shot on sight, and his attempts to warn the public are laughed at (they think he’s just another reformer preaching about the evils of modern life.)
Well. The Spider has a real challenge this time.
In addition to being on the run from the police and heartsick over Nita’s kidnapping, Wentworth finds he seems to be investigating two seperate gang of Chinese criminals. One is led by a skeleton thin creep with a red veil but the other, more serious threat, is the organization run by the Red Mandarin… a genuine supervillain worthy of any pulp hero’s mettle.
There are enough running gunfights and car chases and desperate narrow escapes to make your average private eye think about changing careers, but Wentworth thrives on this stuff. As fast as he sends a bullet through a crook’s forehead, he’s reloading. I have to say that (as Norvell Page presents him) the Spider is one of the most dangerous characters in adventure fiction; I think he could hold his own against Robert E. Howard heroes like Francis X. Gordon or even Solomon Kane. It’s not so much that he’s cornered in a room with a dozen killers, it’s more like they’re trapped in there with HIM. After a sword fight with two giant guards and then plowing through a dozen Chinese fighters, when Wentworth is finally brought down and dragged away, he starts laughing at seeing the carnage he’s caused. That gave me an uneasy chill.
Two scenes in particular stand out. In a small unlit room with a group of gangsters, Wentworth sits on a corpse’s stomach and makes it groan when he expells air from its lungs… and since this seems to unnerve the crooks, he does it again and scares the thugs into thinking the dead man is talking. But what I will always remember from this book is one very unlikely series of events. In crowded Manhattan, absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, several people scream and began thrashing around from the poisoned cigarettes (is that a tautology?), and the mob starts to panic. Hundreds will be hurt in the stampede, so Richard Wentworth seizes a cornet and gets them all to start singing, “Silent Night”. I kid you not. I don’t know if this scene stands up to cold examination, but caught up in the heat of Norvell Page’s overwrought writing style, I believed it while it was happening….
I should note here that Page (along with Harold Davis in a few Doc Savage novels) seems to have the idea that hypnosis is some sort of telepathic emanation, and that the moment the hypnotist is killed, all his subjects will snap out of their spells wherever they are. Maybe he was thinking of Dracula.
The big finale has our beloved Nita in a cell, with a lustful orangutan just aching to have his way with her. Now my first thought was, “Not Clyde! He would never be so crude!” But a little research shows that in fact subdominant male orangutans do routinely rape their females as well as other males, despite the victim’s struggles. There are even documented cases of orangutans raised in human households becoming sexually aggressive with human females, and of course the peoples who are native to the areas where these apes live have always said the hairy brutes will occasionally carry off a woman for an unpleasant experience. So I’ll never be able to watch EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE again wtthout keeping a suspicious eye on that Clyde character (although not even he found Sondra Locke attractive).
ALL PULP is glad to announce that periodically it will be turning attention to particular sites of interest to Pulp fans. Now, ALL PULP already does that through interviews, reviews, news, etc, but this little feature will be aimed at one specific site that hasn’t been covered yet on these pages to raise awareness amongst pulpsters and for ALL PULP to explore for further attention, like interviews, etc. Our first Site Spotlight today shines on -THE ELDRITCH DARK-The Sanctum of Clark Ashton Smith.Â
http://www.eldritchdark.com/
From the site’s introduction-
Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961), perhaps best known today for his association with H.P Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, is in his own right a unique master of fantasy, horror and science-fiction. Highly imaginative, his genre-spanning visions of worlds beyond, combined with his profound understanding of the English language, have inspired an ever -increasing legion of fans and admirers.
For most of his life, he lived in physical and intellectual isolation in Auburn, California (USA). Predominantly self-educated with no formal education after grammar school, Smith wore out his local library and delved so deeply into the dictionary that his richly embellished, yet precise, prose leaves one with the sense that they are in the company of a true master of language.
Though Smith primarily considered himself a poet, having turned to prose for the meager financial sum it rewarded, his prose might best be appreciated as a “fleshed” out poetry. In this light, plot and characters are subservient to the milieu of work: a setting of cold quiet reality, which, mixed with the erotic and the exotic, places his work within its own unique, phantasmagoric genre. While he also experimented in painting, sculpture, and translation, it is in his written work that his legacy persists.
During his lifetime, Smith’s work appeared commonly in the pulps alongside other masters such H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and E. Hoffmann Price and like many great artists, recognition and appreciation have come posthumously. In recent decades though, a resurgence of interest in his works has lead to numerous reprintings as well as scholarly critiques.
The Eldritch Dark is a site to facilitate both scholars and fans in their appreciation and study of Clark Ashton Smith and his works.
The big news this month is that Subterranean Press’ new collection, UP THE BRIGHT RIVER, will be shipping any time now. If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy, you might want to check out these two online reviews we’ve added to the site, one from SF Crows Nest and one from Strange Horizons.
One thing we forgot to mention is that with the publication of this book, the forthcoming books page is now empty! No new titles have been announced from any publisher. This is the first time this webpage has been blank in years, hopefully it won’t stay that way for long.
Today, January 26th, would have been Phil’s 93rd birthday. In honor of this I’m asking everyone to read a short story or essay by Phil. Then, if you are on facebook, go to this fan page. If you have not already, “Like” this page, and then you can write on the Wall. Post the title of the story or article you read tomorrow. Just something like, “In honor of Philip José Farmer’s 93rd birthday, I just reread his short story ‘Sail On! Sail On!’ today.”
Now, if you won’t have access to any of Phil’s work tomorrow, here is a link to one of his great short stories, The Sliced-Crosswise Only-on-Tuesday World. Or you can visit the articles page where you will find several “read it here” links.
For those of you who don’t use facebook, you can still participate. Read a story, then reply this email and tell me what you read. I will go to the Farmer facebook page and say, “My friend Tim Howller read the article ‘The Lord Mountford Mystery’ today in honor of Phil’s 93rd birthday.”
With any luck, so many people will see their friends reading a Farmer story tomorrow and posting about it, maybe we’ll get some to do it that are not on this newsletter list. Or how about this; 951 people currently “like” that fan page. Let’s see if we can make that number go up by the end of the day, let’s see if we can create any kind of buzz today.
One final note for you. The 30% off discount on the Estate Sale (which can go up to 50% off if you purchase multiple books) will end on February 9th. After that only the volume discounts will remain.
That’s all for now, don’t forget to read some Farmer today!
DOCUMENTARY ON ‘MOST HATED MAN IN COMICS HISTORY’ ANNOUNCED
PRESS RELEASE:from sequart.com
Sequart Research & Literacy Organization is proud to announce a documentary film about the most hated man in comics history: psychiatrist Fredric Wertham.
Tentatively scheduled for an early 2012 release, Diagram for Delinquents: Fredric Wertham and the Evolution of Comic Books (directed by Robert A. Emmons Jr.) will study Fredric Wertham’s crusade to link comics with juvenile delinquency, which helped spur burnings of comics in the United States, Congressional hearings into the role of comics and juvenile delinquency, and the creation of the Comics Code Authority as a censoring body. The film will explore these events in light of comics’ subsequent evolution into more sophisticated material that is no longer primarily children’s fare. To illustrate this story, the film will use recreations and Wertham’s own files, almost none of which has ever been seen before.
(By the way, we’ve already lined up some great people to interview: Bart Beaty, Amy Kiste Nyberg, and Douglas Wolk!)
To make this film a reality and tell this important story, we’re asking for your help. We’ve set up a page on Kickstarter where you can pledge donations through 24 April 2011. In return for your generous help, we’re offering various rewards, from the movie poster and Wertham DVD to various Sequart products — and even an array of credits in the film. (Also, pledging through Kickstarter is currently the only way you can order our other upcoming documentary, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, and our upcoming book on Planetary, Keeping the World Strange.) We’re looking for $6,000 in pledges, and even a dollar donation helps! Any money over our goal will be used to support Sequart’s overall book and film production.
Thank you for supporting this project and helping to ensure that this captivating and important chapter in comics history is told. For more information, go to kickstarter.com/projects/sequart/diagram-for-delinquents and fredricwertham.com.
THE FILM IN MORE DETAIL:
Beginning in the late 1940s, Wertham began publishing articles linking comics to juvenile delinquency. This work culminated in his now-infamous 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent. Burnings of comics were reported across the US, and Congress held hearings into the matter, which helped spur the creation of the self-censoring body the Comics Code Authority (only just recently dropped by DC and Archie Comics).
Wertham was himself a contradiction. Although forever linked with artistic repression, he was a social crusader whose writings on the damaging effects of segregation were used as evidence in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Although forever linked to the Comics Code, he claimed to be against censorship. Wertham developed his theories about comics while caring for juvenile delinquents, which biased his analysis by ignoring healthy juveniles who read comics — a fact that has caused his case to be often used as a negative example in statistical analysis. But his theories about comics, highlighting Wonder Woman’s themes of lesbianism and bondage, claims of Batman and Robin’s homosexuality, and the excesses of the era’s crime comics, had a lasting impact on the medium.
Wertham’s last book, in 1974, defended the culture of comics fanzines, almost as a belated and lackluster apology for his involvement in the by-then infamous Congressional hearings. This led to him being invited to speak at the New York Comic Art Convention, where the audience heckled him. He died in 1981.
Featuring interviews from comics scholars and professionals, this documentary will not defend Wertham. Instead, it seeks to place the wider story of Wertham and his effects on comics into a historical context.
The film’s title comes from Wertham’s own notes, in which he claimed comics provide a “detailed diagram for delinquents.”
ABOUT THE FILM’S CREATORS:
Diagram for Delinquency is written and directed by Robert A. Emmons Jr. It is produced by Robert A. Emmons Jr., Peter J. Gambino, Julian Darius, and Mike Phillips; with first assistant director Justin J. Emmons; first assistant camera Stephen P. McMaster; and production assistant Andrew Tan Mai. The film is produced in association with Gambino Boys Studios and Scifidelity Pictures.
ABOUT SEQUART RESEARCH & LITERACY ORGANIZATION:
Sequart’s first documentary film, Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods, was released in 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Its follow-up, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, is scheduled for release later this year.
Sequart is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting comic books as a legitimate artform. To this end, it publishes books, produces documentary films, and maintains online resources that encourage comics scholarship.
Please send manuscripts as a .DOC, .DOCX or .RTF attachment to trembleshorrormag@gmail.com with a cover letter in the body of an e-mail. Do not send your manuscript in the body of an e-mail, it will automatically be deleted. Make sure your manuscript uses standard formatting like 12-pt New Times Roman font and double-spacing. On the first page of your manuscript, please include your name, address, phone and e-mail in the upper-left corner and the word count rounded to the nearest hundred in the upper-right.
For complete guidelines, visit http://www.tremblesmag.com/
http://www.bearmanormedia.com/
Martin Grams, Jr.’s massive history of Sam Spade!
When Dashiell Hammett’s THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE made its debut over CBS in August of 1946, personable Howard Duff, a comparative unknown in Hollywood circles, was assigned the title role. The selection of young Duff for the hard-hitting detective was perfect casting, his success was immediate, and Hollywood began predicting important things to come for this new personality.
The enormous success of the Sam Spade radio program spawned a series of comic strips, magazine articles and radio cross-overs, not to mention numerous radio programs attempting to become just as popular with their own hard-boiled detectives. Broadcast from 1946 to 1951, THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE ruled the airwaves, and fought both network censorship and the threat of Communism to remain on the air.
This book contains the following:
* A history of the radio program.
* A biography of Dashiell Hammett, Howard Duff and Lurene Tuttle.
* The origin of the fictional character and the origin of the radio program.
* Info about the Sunday funnies comic strip based on the radio series.
* Information regarding the difference between the “live” radio broadcasts and the “transcribed” radio broadcasts.
* How the radio series often broke the fourth wall and the inside-jokes.
* The events leads leading up to producer/director William Spier’s fight against the networks to keep the series on the air when Hammett’s suspected Communist sympathies became public.
* How and why Howard Duff was replaced by Steve Dunne.
* A complete episode guide for each and every episode of the radio program, including plot descriptions, trivia and inside-jokes.
* A reprint of “Babe Lincoln,” a female detective that never came to be, and the Sam Spade connection.
* A reprint of “The Persian,” an unused Sam Spade radio script.
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PRIVATE EYES IN THE COMICS
Okay, you mugs…reach! It’s time for a lesson in crime from the comics, heavily illustrated and bustin’ with baddies, babes and tough animals in hats!
Ever wondered what role the private eye played in comic books? Now you get your lesson: from master pulp historian John A. Dinan comes the first book on PIs in the Comics! A history and appreciation of the tough guy, the deadly dame and the dog in the trenchcoat. Illustrated.
The Green Hornet was one of radio’s best-known and most distinctive juvenile adventure shows. Britt Reid, publisher of The Daily Sentinel, was in the position to learn facts about criminals that only the police had access. Armed with this knowledge, a gas gun that rendered foes momentarily unconscious, and a black speedster known as The Black Beauty, he donned the guise of The Green Hornet. Feared by the underworld and sought after by the police, the masked vigilante fought racketeers, gangsters and saboteurs. When the police were faced with red tape, The Green Hornet, with his sidekick Kato, an oriental valet, circumvented protocol and legal procedure in their determined battle to put away crooks.
Since The Green Hornet first appeared on radio in 1936, he has made the transition to motion pictures, comics and television. Very little has been written about the masked marvel and what has been recorded in magazine articles and encyclopedias prior to this publication has never explored the character as deeply… or accurately. For the first time, the complete story of this crime fighter is unmasked, as prolific TV and radio historians Martin Grams and Terry Salomonson usher you into the Black Beauty.
A complete history of the radio series from the creation to conception sketches, reprints from production files to the untold adventures, biographic details of the cast and the characters they played (including Mike Axford, Kato, Gunnigan, Lenore Case, Linda Travis, Ed Lowry, Clicker Binney, Commissioner Higgins, etc.) and background information is all provided under one cover. Also included are details of the two cliffhanger serials produced by Universal in the early forties, the unaired 1952 television pilot, the long-running popularity of the comic books and the William Dozier television series (1966-67) starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee. A complete episode guide documents every adventure including unproduced scripts and plot ideas. Whether you are a casual fan or a serious enthusiast of the series, here is everything you want to know about The Green Hornet!
Numerous magazine articles, web-sites and reference guides have reprinted the same errors over the past two decades. The authors of this book have spent more than a decade researching this subject through various archival materials belonging to the family relatives who were responsible for the formation of the series. No matter what you have read in the past, this book is certain to correct all the myths and mistakes that continue to get reprinted
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
