Men Of Violence #7 & #8

[dem bones]

Justin Marriott (ed) - Men Of Violence #7 (Summer, 2017)

Justin Marriott - Editorial
Mailbag Of Horror. John Gallagher, Andy Boot, Art Black.
Justin Marriott - James Leasor Update
Peter Enfantino - A Dirty Way To Die. The Sharpshooter series.
Justin Marriott - Flying High. The Thrillers of Gavin Tudor Lyall
Justin Marriott - J. T. Edson's The Sheriff of Rockabye County
In The Interrogation Room: Stephen Mertz interviewed by Paul Bishop

48 pages.

Justin Marriott (ed) - Men Of Violence #8 (Summer, 2017)

Justin Marriott - Editorial
Justin Marriott - A Pair Of Claws: Matthew Kirk's Claw and W. L. Fieldhouse's Klaw
Justin Marriott - Machine Gun Preacher: James Graham's The Wrath Of God. Vintage thrillers from legendary British author Jack Higgins and his pseudonyms.
Paul Bishop - The Good, The Bad, And The Very Bad: Ben Haas: an overview of the author responsible for Fargo and Sundance!
Bob Deis - "Walter Kaylin, Come Back!": An Obituary.
Justin Marriott - Lyle Kenyon Engel: overview of the legendary book packager with checklists!
Joseph McLellan - The Fantastic Novel Factory Paperback Impresario. Cranking Out Boooks, Raking In The Money (Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1979)
Joe Kenney - Now Books For Today Readers! A Working Checklist for the books packaged by Lyle Kenyon Engel

56 pages.

Arrived in same package as Pulp Horror 6. Mens Adventure ain't my genre, so how comes MOV is among my all-time favourite publications? These issues are notable in that both contain articles about authors/ publishers I've either heard of or, in two instances, actually read!

Available now from Paperback Fanatic

Comments to follow ....

[dem bones]

Men Of Violence #7

For those who like their books deplorable, entirely bereft of socially redeeming factors, etc. .... Only one place to start, and that's with Pete 'Scream Factory' Enfantino's marathon, A Dirty Way To Die, a crash course in "Bruno Rossi" and "his"/ their Sharpshooter titles for Leisure Books from 1973 through to 1975. Proper reviews, these, sixteen in a row (!), examining each entry in the series. The basic plot. John 'Rock' Rocetti - that's him going about his usual business on cover of the MOV launch issue - is a millionaire psycho-vigilante with a down on the Mob for killing his entire family at outset of #1: The Killing Machine (Aug. 1973). All you need to know other than the above is (a) he's arguably an even greater threat to civilian life than the entire global Mafia network, (b) those few women he takes a liking to are doomed to die horribly, and (c) he's a master of disguises - but only sometimes (depends on which house author has been assigned ghosting duties). It goes without saying that this reader has never experienced the undoubted delights of a Sharpshooter novel but that didn't stop me getting off on Mr. Enfantino's enthusiastic, insightful and frequently hilarious appraisal of Rock's ultra-murderous exploits. My first thought was the novels might be a bit samey. The way Peter tells it, that's both true .... and not the case at all (so perhaps they've something in common with the 'When Animals Attack' on that score). How comes? Here's a line from Andy Boot's letter to Mailbag Of Violence

"I like formula stuff, but I like it more when its written by someone who either gets the rules wrong on purpose or (even better) doesn't get that there are rules ..."


I'm guessing that some versions of "Bruno Rossi" fall into the former camp and some - don't.

Peter singles out #13: Savage Slaughter for especial praise ("easily the best of the series"), but then again, identifying #11: Triggerman as the "most boring" and dismissing #9 Stiletto as "swill" is good as telling us "add these your most wanted list immediately." #3: Blood Bath, which he likens to a shudder pulp, sounds an absolute hoot. Come to think of it, Stiletto most likely is hard going as the synopsis suggests the genre's equivalent of James Darke's Witches titles at their least savoury or maybe that's just wishful thinking on the part of my inner perve.

MTF ....

[dem bones]

Cover scan via Am*zon. "The whole book is basically an excuse to have a mud catfight" (Wikip*d*a contributor).

Back mixing it with the Men Of Violence. The one drawback with running an epic like A Dirty Way To Die toward the front of the magazine is how in the name of all that's sociopathic do you follow it? Why, with possibly the most subdued article ever to appear in MOV is how! Flying High, charting the thrillers of Gavin Tudor Lyall, ex-RAF/ former-Sunday Times aviation correspondent turned very successful novelist, is a comparative model of restraint, but then the way Mr. Violence tells it, Lyall's novels are the antithesis of The Sharpshooter, The Destroyer, The Mutilator and all those other guys from places where the sun has never shone. Problem is, these books sound like they have some GENUINE LITERARY MERIT and Lyall's air ace sluggers come across as relatively sensible. Made me suspicious that brooding loners Jack Clay, Bill Cary & Co. may have snuck into MOV under false pretences.

Ex-postman turned best selling Western author J. T. Edson is more the part, and features in the issue's best apocryphal tale. "According to legend, whenever faced with writers block, [he] would fill up his old postbag with bricks and walk his old round in the pouring rain." Difficult to comprehend how the genre-hopping author of 130+ novels, numerous shorts, articles, and comic strips could find time to include fallow periods in his schedule. I've no acquaintance with Edson's novels, the few Westerns I've read are either horror crossovers or 'Spicies,' but seems one particular aspect of his work shares common ground with the latter - a predilection for kinky, busty girl versus busty girl tear ups (see "randomly selected" cover artwork above). Justin's article concerns the eleven strong Rockabye Countyseries, dragging the old Wild West into the 1980s. A good old boy Sheriff goes fist to fist with rogue deputies, gun-slingers, a highwayman stalking Lovers Lane, serial cat-fighters .... Doesn't seem like much has changed in the intervening century.

Which leaves ....

Paul Bishop's interrogation [his word] of veteran pulpster Stephen Mertz, who comes across here as quite the most charming purveyor of 'a man's gotta massacre what a man's gotta massacre' thrills you could wish to meet. Mr. Mertz talks his friendship turned working relationship with Don Pendleton, forthcoming thrillers, Jimi After Dark and The Moses Deception, the M.I.A. series (concerning a trio of veterans who return to 'nam to rescue forgotten/ imprisoned colleagues presumed dead), and his musical career. Mostly though, he speaks about the creative process.

" The process [when beginning work on a new book] is pretty much the same. A lot of walking around and thinking and taking notes. Having people call me Easy Money when I am working my ass off because it looks like I am just staring at the clouds. After about a month of that I open the floodgates and let it all come out."

[Jojo Lapin X]

Sept 11, 2017 11:14:37 GMT dem bones said:

"According to legend, whenever faced with writers block, [he] would fill up his old postbag with bricks and walk his old round in the pouring rain."

I have a problem with this story, because what if it was not raining?

[severance]

It's the U.K. - all he had to do was wait a couple of hours!