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Post by justin on Feb 17, 2008 18:43:17 GMT
Issue 6 of The Fanatic will be back from the printers on Friday 22nd. Rog and Kev have seen it, so hopefully they'll post a few comments over the next few days to tempt you into the Fanatic lair....
Contents-
Peter Haining interview- long chat with the late Peter Haining about his trail-blazing days at the New English Library fiction factory. Discusses authors such as Jim Moffatt, Terry Harknett and Chris Priest, and books such as Skinhead, Chopper and Edge.
Haining's Web of Terror- noted genre expert Mike Ashley's dissection of Peter's classic horror anthologies
Sexton Blake and The Guardians- Andy Bugg/Boot's investigation into the murky world of Bill Baker's Press Editorial. Great stuff for any fan of 1960s pulp!
Philip Harbottle's Vision of Tomorrow- how did the excellent SF mag Vision fail? Editor Phil reveals the inside story on the rise and fall of the UK's only SF mag of the early 1970s.
Plus- Robert E Howard in UK paperback, NEL and the Mafia, letters, updates and reviews. 44 A4 pages.
Cover price £3.95, post-free to members of this site. Payment by paypal to my e-mail address.
Thanks.
Justin.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 19, 2008 10:41:15 GMT
Really, Justin hasn't left me or Rog with much to say without ruining any surprises before paperback fanatic # 6 is even back from the printers, so I offer this as an off the top of my head stream of conscious thing. I think every issue to date has been my favourite and, predictably given the main features, #6 never looked in any danger of bucking the trend. Actually, if this is the first one you ever buy, am quietly confident that Mr. Marriott can look forward to doing a roaring trade in back-numbers. When the desperately sad news of Peter Haining's death was announced last year, his wife and children put around an email as by 'Peter Haining - from beyond the grave' in affectionate acknowledgement of Peter's sense of humour. So, with this issue of the fanatic being dominated by a tribute to the legendary anthologist and Nel editor, it seems entirely appropriate that Justin has resurrected the title for his invaluable, all-encompassing interview with the great man. The piece is offset by some original, strangely spectral and poignant photographs of Peter hamming it up good and proper before bibliographer extraordinaire Mike Ashley weighs in with his superb article on Haining's anthologies (regular readers will know how excited we were to learn that Mike was tackling so complicated and confusing a subject: check out the lively 'Hell of Mirrors' thread!) Ok; we already have reason enough to grab a copy, but there's more! Andy Boot shares his considerable knowledge on his beloved 'Peter Saxon', the Guardians and the Sexton Blake library which would make for a great lead article in itself. Also, as has been the case since the very first Pulpmania incarnation of PF, there's the stuff I know little or nothing about [Harbottle's sf venture and the REH UK offerings] which I always think I won't get into but everything is tackled with such contagious enthusiasm that I end up swept along regardless (I still look at my copy of 'Captive of Gor' and shake my head). Am really delighted that Justin has devoted a generous amount of space to readers feedback - doubly so because plenty of vault people and several non-vaulters whose work I admire have leapt at the opportunity to share their views and voice their support. As I've mentioned to the editor, this section is like the final piece of the jigsaw to my way of thinking: I do so love a club feel to a publication and there's a great sense of belonging about the Fanatic now. ladies and gentlemen, 'paperback fanatic' - your regular fix of pure pulp TREASURE. my sincere respect and gratitude to the editor and his splendid array of contributors! |
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Post by carolinec on Feb 19, 2008 12:16:19 GMT
I think I'd like a copy of this, being a HUGE Peter Haining fan, but I see that payment is by PayPal to your email address Justin. I'm registered with PayPal, but the last time I tried to pay anyone straight from PayPal to their email address, it didn't work for some reason. I'm OK if it's like on eBay with a "pay" button to press direct from the site, but I don't know what I do wrong when it comes to paying direct like you request.
Any ideas why this might not work for me? Is there something I need to do to my PayPal account before I can do this? Or is there some other way I can pay you Justin?
Thanks!
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Post by carolinec on Feb 19, 2008 14:06:27 GMT
OK, ignore my last comment about not being able to get PayPal to work for me previously when trying to send direct to an email address. It seems to have worked fine this time. Maybe it was a dodgy email address I got last time? Justin obviously isn't dodgy!
So I hope I have paid you for a copy, Justin - PM me if the money hasn't come through to you though.
;D
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Post by David A. Riley on Feb 19, 2008 16:33:14 GMT
This is the firtst time I've ordered a copy and I must say, looking at the contents, I am reallky looking forward to getting it through the post. That cover looks fantastic.
David
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Post by justin on Feb 24, 2008 20:33:57 GMT
Mags back from printers- looking good if I say so myself!
All subscriber/contributor copies are packaged up and will be dispatched tomorrow. So if you haven't a copy by Wednesday morning's post it's because I think you're neither a contributor or a subscriber! If you diasgree with this I apologise in advance and please let me know.
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Post by Calenture on Feb 26, 2008 10:40:13 GMT
Tuesday morning and those Vault members who've made certain of their copies of Paperback Fanatic will be getting restless and fidgety as children on Christmas Eve. One interesting thing about the articles this issue seems to be the way they complement each other. The Phil Harbottle interview was the one that I was most pleased and surprised to see. Vision of Tomorrow was an excellent magazine and looking at my few copies now, there's still something fresh about them. Of course, I'm the only Vault member who could look at a Peter Haining special, and think the PH in a note referred to Pulphack. But I knew Andy's article was there and I was interested in learning something from it. Anyway, I won't spoil things for others, so I'll just say I wasn't disappointed. Paperback Fanatic  |
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Post by Calenture on Feb 26, 2008 16:01:59 GMT
Philip Harbottle's Vision of Tomorrow, issue 3 from November 1969. A while back I found a site with all the Vision of Tomorrow covers, but it seems to have vanished, hence another from my collection - pre-70s, yet! The cover was by Eddie Jones, of course. Shapers of Men by Kenneth Bulmer Number 7 by Eric C Williams People Like You by David Rome Lucifer! by E C Tubb The Adapters by Philip E High The Nixhill Monsters by Brian Waters World to Conquer by Sydney J Bounds Prisoner in the Ice by Brian Stapleford Science Fiction in Germany by Franz Rottensteiner This issue includes a special colour feature, The Impatient Dreamers, by Walter Gillings, and I can't resist scanning this detail of Pearson's from 1931 used inside. Illustrators in this issue of VoT include Eddie Jones, Finch and G Quinn. Paperback Fanatic |
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Post by David A. Riley on Feb 26, 2008 18:54:48 GMT
Just received my copy today and was massively impressed with it. I'm looking forward to reading the lengthy piece on Peter Haining.
The interview with Phil Harbottle and his experiences in publishing Visions of Tomorrow were particularly interesting to me after my own experiences in publishing Beyond years later, though unfortunately for me I didn't have the backing of an extremely wealthy businessman and what financial losses I incurred were my own. I wish, though, I had read about Phil Harbottle's experiences before embarking on my own venture. Chilling.
David
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Post by dem bones on Feb 27, 2008 7:55:03 GMT
Some more mindless meanderings on issue #6 now there's a copy sat open before me in all its glossy glory!
However hard I try to take in everything from a pdf, reckon I'm of that generation (kind of 'geriatric punk') that will always need a hard copy if we're not going to have something important wash over us. So, unless Justin has made some last minute revisions, Peter Haining: From Beyond The Grave reads as though there's even more of it than the version I'd examined although what's the betting they're identical? The interview dovetails seamlessly into Mike Ashley's appreciation of Haining's early horror anthologies and, lucky us, we get the best of both worlds as Mike's piece frees up Justin to concentrate on Haining's career as NEL editor and his dealings with Jim Moffatt, Guy N. Smith, Terry Harknett and Christopher Priest. It's a fascinating retrospective. We learn how Haining somewhat fortuitously landed the job, his early forays into horror anthology compilation, the projects that didn't go as well as hoped (the Olympia Press reprints: "dirty books") and those - like the Skinhead series - that far surpassed expectation and sold millions.
Likewise, Andy Boot's welcome investigation into the convoluted world of 'Peter Saxon', Howard Baker and The Short & Complex Saga of Press Editorial is far easier to follow in a magazine you can sprawl across the couch with, what with all the derring-do of house names within house names and 'Sexton Blake' adventures being partially rewritten as entries in the much loved Guardians series! As with the Haining content, I know I'll be returning to this one again and again to double-check on the facts before sticking my size ten in it as per. I love that Andy closes his article with: "It is by no means complete and possibly inaccurate in places". How much more refreshing than "this is the ultimate", "this is the only article you need to read on the subject!", blah blah chest-beat blah. To recycle an old Plan 9 from Highgate Cemetery rent-a-cliche, I think a bibliophile's work is rarely completed and the best you can hope for is to fire off the occasional, hopefully accurate and fascinating, postcard from wherever you happen to be in the investigation at a given time.
Would've been very surprised if I'd not enjoyed the above, but there was no guarantee I'd get on so well with sf fan turned editor Phil Harbottle and the brief, traumatic history of Visions Of Tomorrow magazine, but it's absolutely brilliant. "I was now the only editor of a monthly sf magazine in the U. K. What had been riding on [John] Carnell's back for years was now riding on mine. I little knew the tribulations that lay in store for me. If I had, I would have resigned immediately!" Me, I can only marvel that Harbottle stuck with it as long as he did. The Visions ... cautionary tale also features another encounter with Christopher Priest and a few cameo appearances from Haining in full-blown shifty NEL editor guise! One learns some harsh lessons in the publishing jungle!
Congratulations to Justin and Georgie on their forthcoming wedding - this Saturday!
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 27, 2008 8:11:03 GMT
Possibly my favourite issue yet. Justin's incredible luck in interviewing Peter Haining when he did has produced some invaluable work, and we're so lucky ourselves to have it in this particular format. The NEL section is glorious - what other publishing house would feature a number of their backroom boys leering at a scantily-clad female on a paperback cover? The cover gallery cover, and others within are pure genius. I'll just kick myself for letting The Sleeping Bomb and Death of a Bovver Boy go.
Top stuff from Mike Ashley and Andy (Pedant's corner - I think Scream & Scream Again was Tigon not Amicus - Ade?)
and nice to see even Buster Goodwin getting his chandeliers in there.
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Post by killercrab on Feb 27, 2008 9:02:40 GMT
(Pedant's corner - I think Scream & Scream Again was Tigon not Amicus - Ade?) >>
An AIP/Amicus collaboration actually FM!
ade
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 27, 2008 9:21:32 GMT
Top stuff Ade! I'll get back in me corner. Andy - Justin, you're unbeatable!
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Post by killercrab on Feb 27, 2008 11:06:10 GMT
Top stuff Ade! I'll get back in me corner. >.
To be fair FM - it doesn't feel like a typical Amicus flick to me either! I'm a stalwart fan of director Gordon Hessler and this films sits more snuggly into the AIP riff with flicks like CRY OF THE BANSHEE and THE OBLONG BOX. That said Amicus kicked out the sublime THE BEAST MUST DIE - which again doesn't toe the compendium party line that Amicus is arguably best known for!
ade
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Post by Steve on Feb 27, 2008 15:55:12 GMT
...and nice to see even Buster Goodwin getting his chandeliers in there. I'd like to say to begin with that I can't help feeling my 'lucky bags' have been blown up out of all proportion... laying them to one side for a moment though, Franklin's comment here threw me a bit until the postman arrived this morning. I couldn't think for the life of me how my name might have got into this latest issue of The Fanatic. I'm sure Justin had mentioned it but my memory is terrible these days - quite honestly I've got no idea what I'm doing here most of the time. (Incidentally, when my copy arrived today the envelope had already been opened. I strongly suspect that our postman, Neil, had been having a quick read of it himself before popping it through the door. I'll have to ask him what he thought the next time I see him) Now that I see the MEWS checklist my first thought - and not to take anything at all away from Justin's fantastic achievement in producing such a great magazine - is that The Paperback Fanatic is, at least in some ways, Vault of Evil made flesh... by which I mean that it's really nice to see something of Vault's enthusiastic ferreting about (in some of the damper & dustier corners of the paperback jungle) being included here and put to such good use. That said, in many other ways, The P.F. far exceeds our little contribution here in its detail and depth and the scope of its articles. This is a truly an invaluable reference for all of us who take an interest in these things. I don't want to say too much more just now, as some time ago (somewhere around the late 1950s I think it was) I promised Justin that I'd write to him with all my thoughts on the magazine, and I want to save something for that when I eventually get round to it later today, or maybe tomorrow. While this issue is very much a celebration of Peter Haining's life & work in books - and even though I never met the man myself - I couldn't help feeling a slight sadness, and a real sense of loss, as I read Justin's interview with the publishing legend. It's certainly a very fitting tribute. As Dem says, the photos are wonderful. One of my favourite things in The Pap-Fan is the features on NEL's various themed series; "NEL and The Mafia" this time is a real treat. The cover to Peter McCurtin's Cosa Nostra is priceless. I enjoyed Peter Haining's comments on photo-covers. How photographers used to hate NEL because they'd have to go out and persuade all the Hell's Angels and skinheads to let them take their pictures. It's little insights like that into those iconic photo-covers that make The Paperback Fanatic such an essential read. I also agree that Justin's "Fanatical Thoughts" editorial brings the whole thing together nicely. I haven't read Andy's article yet, or the Philip Harbottle piece, but they both look great. And lastly, as mentioned very touchingly in "Fanatical Thoughts", I'd like to add my very best wishes to Justin & Georgie for their impending wedding and subsequent married life together. It's a lovely thing to have a passion for something, but it's even lovelier when you can find someone who's willing to share that and encourage your dreams. I hope you'll both find much happiness. Paperback Fanatic |
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