Maurice Flanagan [ed] - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector

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Maurice Flanagan [ed] - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #7 (Zeon, 1992).

Gerry Haylock

Maurice Flanagan - Editorial

Peter Haining - A Passion for Pulp Fiction
Gary M. Dobbs - The Literary Travels of Dr. Who
Philip Harbottle - Norman Austen Lazenby: Spinner of Yarns / Interview with Norman Lazenby/ Select Biblio & Price Guide
Maurice Flanagan - Phantom: A Magazine of the Weird and Supernatural
Mike Ashley - Weird Tales: English Style
Ivor Sainsbury - Hugh Cleverly
Steve Holland - So long Suckers: The (short) Life and Death of Comyns Ltd.
Andrew Darlington - Michael Moorcock: The Unexplained Dimension
Syd Bounds - Idle Thoughts about Busy Fellows
Paperback & Pulp News & Reviews
Steve Holland - Writing for a Living, or just Living for Writing? The Holland Column
David Whitehead's Western Column
Paul Duncan - The British Association of Paperback Collectors Progress Report
Readers letters: Bill Lofts, Ivor Sainsbury, Iain W.M. Taylor, Ruth Pyecroft, David Ashford.
The Preston Speculative Fiction Group

Seventh and, I think, final (?) issue of Maurice Flanagan's superior 'zine.

Mr. Haining reminisces on the great pulp loves of his youth - Hank Janson, Virgo Stratton, John Russell Fearn - and subsequent life and career in books.

"From my lengthy run of Weird Tales I produced a facsimile of that legendary magazine which was first published in 1976 by Neville Spearman (though not too many copies saw the light of day as the publisher suffered a fire at his warehouse!). This volume has been reissued by Xanadu."

Peter also reveals his future plans include a facsimile volume of Black Mask and "a collection of the illustrations from the eye-popping "Spicy pulps" to be entitled, not surprisingly, Passion!." Shame neither of these saw the light of day. Possibly the material was absorbed into 2000's The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines?

Syd Bounds - himself no slouch - marvels at the prolificacy of certain golden age pulpsters (although he questions if some were quite as phenomenally productive as their legend suggests). Article ends with the sad realisation that it's over.

"And what of the future? The pulps have gone, along with the boys' papers and cheap paperbacks. It looks like the end of an era - there is no longer a market for the high speed merchants to fill."

Mike Ashley focuses on the British editions of Weird Tales. Article is available to download in a variety of formats via Archive.org

More to follow ...

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Strong claim for finest article in the issue is Maurice Flanagan on the suitably mysterious, Bolton-based 'fifties pulp, Phantom: True Ghost Stories, as inspired a young John Campbell, private psychic investigator (retired);

Disconcertingly, the book proves to be little worse than its main influence. This was Phantom, a magazine from Bolton, Lancashire, apparently edited by a large spider whose editorials were headed "A Word from the Web." The first (April 1957) issue claimed to publish "True Ghost Stories," but by the end, in July 1958, the subtitle had become "Weird Tales." Indeed, Weird Tales provided some reprints, by Leiber and Wellman and others, but it's the influence of tales by unknowns you will find in the present book. I believe I began writing these tales with an eye to submitting some of them to Phantom ; some (not necessarily the most technically competent) would have been entirely at home there.

- Ramsey Campbell Ghostly Tales (Crypt of Cthulhu #50, Michaelmas 1987)

Briefly owned a copy of #2 (May 1957), bought from and sold back to the Fantasy Centre (desperate times: don't even wanna think about the other titles went with it). Maybe it improved, but that particular issue was not so much a British Weird Tales, more sub-mediocre Ghost Stories minus the staged photo's. Somebody really ought to compile a 'Best of' selection.

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Picked up six issues of this excellent 'nineties Paperback Fanatic precursor at the recent pulp fair - details to follow ....

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Maurice Flanagan - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #2 (Zeon, 1991)

Dennis McLoughlin

Editorial
Ken Cowley - Reminiscences of a Pulp Collector
Maurice Flanagan - Robert Bloch: Master of Horror
David Whitehead - The Life & Times of Marshall Grover
Gary Lovisi - An American view of British Paperback Collecting
Pete Tombs - Murder Can Be Fun. The Strange Case of Fred Brown
Cathal Tohill - Fred Brown in Hollywood
Philip Harbottle - The British Imitators of Tarzan
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - Too much to do and too little time. A Portrait of Dennis McLoughlin
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - TV Boardman & Co Ltd 1937-1969
Paperback & Comic News
Richard Williams - An Introduction to Pan Books
Mick Harvey - Comics: More that just Nostalgia
UK Paperback Dealers By Post
Letters: Jason Burley, Bryann Platt, Ruth Pyecroft, Geoff Bradley, Ferencz Puskas, John A. Hogan, Link Hullar, John Tuska, Guy N. Smith, Phil Harbottle, Steve Holland
Jim Allinson - Andy Capp Books & Collectables

Maurice Flanagan - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #8 (Zeon, 1993)

Reginald Heade (Take It And Like It: Ron Turner (Creature from the Black Lagoon)

Editorial
John Ellis - Deep Cover: UK Paperback Artists of the 1950s
Graham Andrews - Ron Goulart's Challengers of the Unknown
Gary M. Dobbs - Gerry Anderson is Go! A Look at the wealth of Gerry Anderson Spin-offs.
Philip Harbottle - The Creature from the Black Lagoon
David J. Howe, John Ainsworth - Dr. Who Revisited
David Whitehead's Western Column
Paperback & Pulp News
Paperback & Comic News
Steve Chibnall - Artwork News
Sam Peffer & Pat Owen - Blood, Toil, Sweat & Gouache! Paperback Painters Peff & Pat in Conversation with Steve Chibnall
David A. Simpson - The Jungle Lord Comes Home. Tarzan Comics in Britain
Steve Holland - The Holland Column
Ivor Sainsbury - The Henshew Family
Letters: David Simpson, Sydney J. Bounds, Norman Lazenby, W.O.G. Lofts, Hal CF Astell, Mark Rose, Leo Baxendale
Graeme Flanegan - An interview with Marshall Grover
Sales & Wants

Selected highlights:

Phil Harbottle - The Creature from the Black Lagoon: A celebration of John Russell Fearn (as much of his writing tends to be)/ overview of the Gill-man in print. "In 1977 a new novelization of the film was published as a paperback in America, attributed to E. K. Leyton. This edition had an interesting and sympathetic introduction (to the film) by Ramsey Campbell, but has absolutely nothing else to commend it. The story and dialogue bears very little relation to the original picture. The story is "updated" and contains scenes and contrivances completely alien to the original. Frankly, it can only be described as "sleaze." The book was reprinted in the UK by Star Books in 1980. It belongs in the dust bin."

John Ellis - Deep Cover: UK Paperback Artists of the 1950s: Low key but extremely handy precursor to PF's Artists Assemble. Is he the John Ellis (ex Vibrators, Stranglers, Peter Hammill & Co?). This is not as stupid a question as you might think.

Sam Peffer & Pat Owen - Blood, Toil, Sweat & Gouache! Paperback Painters Peff & Pat in Conversation with Steve Chibnall: "Between them [Peff and Pat] ... must have painted more than 400 covers for Pan Books between 1956 and 1967." - and that's not the half of it. Peff also worked for - among others - Corgi, Panther and Digit. During the 1970s he created over 200 film posters, "mostly for Brit sex comedies." Here they chat about everything from their cover models (often family members and/ or themselves) to censorship (Pan's policy was no nipples, no knife violence - though use of gun or cosh was acceptable). "The covers didn't set out to be art. No one really thought of them like that."

David Whitehead - The Life & Times of Marshall Grover, and Graeme Flanegan - An interview with Marshall Grover: Aus pulp. Tribute to the late Leonard 'Marshall Grover' Meares, proud hack, author of 700+ Western novels from 1955 through to the early nineties.



Ken Cowley - Reminiscences of a Pulp Collector: One man's lust for a complete run of the original Weird Tales.



Maurice Flanagan - Robert Bloch: Master of Horror: Slight (one page) if welcome celebration of TMWWP.


Graham Andrews - Ron Goulart's Challengers of the Unknown: Future Paperback Fanatic and Worlds of Strangeness regular's enthusiastic appraisal of Goulart's superhero crime busters, Red Tyan, Rocky Davis, Ace Morgan and Prof. Haley. The fifth Challenger - June Robbins - is an "unofficial" member on account of her being blonde and a soppy girl.

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Maurice Flanagan - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #3 (Zeon, 1991)

Ron Turner

Editorial
Andrew Darlington - Garth: Man of Flesh and Steel
Maurice Flanagan - W. R. Burnett: Originator of a Genre
The Steve Holland Column
Paperback & Comic News
Roger Allen - H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain Novels
Maurice Flanagan - Frederic Brown: SF Books & PB Bibliography
Philip Harbottle - Ron Turner's Tit-bits: Science fiction comic series
Link Hullar - Civilization and the Noble Savage: The Apache novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Sydney J. Bounds & Philip Harbottle - No Greater Love
Steve Holland - Who was John Theydon?: John William Jennison: A Working Checklist
Paul Buck - P. J. Wolfson
John A. Hogan - Edgar Wallace Paperbacks
Steve Holland - Turn on the Heat: The Story of Muir Watson
Readers Letters: Norman Lazenby, Capt. Keith A, Hockney, E. C. Tubb, Paul H. Birch, Malcolm Henderson, W. H. Smith News, Rose Idlet.
Link Hullar & Nick Car - Vengeance is Mine: The Life and times of Richard Henry Benson & Justice Inc.


Issue is available to download via Archive org


Maurice Flanagan - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #6 (Zeon, 1992)

Ron Turner

Editorial
Paul Duncan - The Story of Crime Noir
Ken Cowley - The Trials and Tribulations of Booksearch
John Lawrence - Tit-bits SF Comics: A Postscript
John Gosling - The Telefantasy Authors: A History of American Television/ The A-Z of American Telefantasy including Radio credits.
Paperback & Pulp News
Andrew Darlington - Captain W. E. Johns & the Kings of Space: Juvenile Science Fiction of the 1950s.
Michael Avallone - Histories of Mysteries Department
Steve Holland - William J. Elliott
Ivor Salisbury - W. C. Tuttle
Steve Holland - The Holland Column
Philippe Rey - Captain Future in Europe
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - Entertaining Comics: They Shocked a Nation
Letters: Lester N. Corral, S. Marsh-Devine, Mike Ashley, Andrew Darlington, John Laurence, Francis Hertzberg, B. Hughes, Phil Harbottle.
Roland Grigg - BAP & PBC Report on the First Meeting


Steve Holland devotes his column to Britain's Most Prolific Writers. They Shocked A Nation is two pages on the E.C. Horror Comics. BAP & PBC is British Association of Paperback & Pulp Collectors - including Maurice & Linda Flanagan, Steve Chibnal, Guy N. & Jean Smith - who held their inaugural auction at the Ashfield Court Hotel on 5 July 1992. The comic strip adaptation of Syd's sad SF short, No Greater Love, in #3 is a thing of beauty.

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After eight issues as Paperback, Pulp and Comic Collector, a name change. The Flanagan's publication was now Paperbacks Pulps & Comics (incorporating Paperback, Pulp and Comic Collector).

Maurice Flanagan - Paperbacks Pulps & Comics: Vol 2 (Zeon, 1994)

Chris Bullock

Editorial
Jan Older - Horror Film Tie-ins
Stephen Gallagher - Echoes of Yesterday (collecting Sexton Blake)
Steve Holland - I Kill' em Inch by Inch! The Ben Sarlo Story
Doug Ellis - The Shadow's Justice
Steve Holland's Melting Pot: Jim Moffat obituary
Andrew Darlington - Nebula Science Fiction
Neil Cooper - Cartoon Art Productions: A Short History of the Glasgow Publisher
Graham Andrews - Easy Does It: The Detective fiction of Ron Goulart
Paperback & Comic News
News & Reviews
Colin Stanley - Colin Wilson
Simon Marsh-Devine - W. Frances Phillipps: An Introduction to the Artist
Readers Letters: Mike Moorcock, Arthur Kent, Mark Young, Peter Coady, Willy Bakken, Stephen Sennitt, Mark Rose, Terry Jeeves, Philip Harbottle, J.H. Saunders, Michael Bott, Graham Andrews.
Ivor Salisbury - John Wyllie
Dave Whitehead's Western Column
Steve Holland - Frank Humphris


Maurice Flanagan - Paperbacks Pulps & Comics: Vol 3 (Zeon, 1995)

Chris Bullock

Editorial
Jan Older - SF Film Tie-ins
David Ashford - The McLoughlin-Boardman Annuals
Giles Coren - A Passion For Pulp (review of Steve Holland's The Mushroom Jungle, reprinted from The Times, 11 May 1994)
Michelle Nolan - Garish Covers and Outrageous Themes. An interview with Paul Willie (US paperback collector)
Dave Moore - David Goodis: Poet of the Losers
Steve Holland's Melting Pot: Ian Ballentine obituary. Jim Moffat Bibliography.
Chuck Juzek - The Spider
News & Reviews
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - Interzone SF Magazine
Book & Mag reviews
Maurice Flanagan - Trading Cards in the Pulp Tradition
Readers Letters: Andy Boot, Simon Marsh-Devine, Jim Keally.
Maurice Flanagan - John Brunner 1934-1995: A Tribute
Andrew Darlington - Jeff Hawke
Maurice Flanagan - Darlow and the Unadorned Dame
Russell Edwards - Penguins in Amsterdam
Steve Holland - Byron Haven 1922-1994

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Maurice Flanagan - Paperbacks Pulps & Comics: Vol 4 (Zeon, 1995)

Chris Bullock

Editorial
Gary Lovisi: Collectible Paperbacks: A USA Perspective
Steve Holland - A Twist in the Tail: An interview with Syd Bounds
Phil Baker - Fungal Fever (review of Steve Holland's The Mushroom Jungle, reprinted from The Guardian, 5 July 1994)
Maurice Flanagan - SF Film Tie-ins 2: The Sequel
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - Beacon Books: Kings of Sleaze
[Maurice Flanagan ?] - Dennis Reader: Master of the 'fifties One-shot Comic
Book & Mag reviews
News & Reviews
Steve Holland - J. T. Edson: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Larry Widen - Lester Dent: King of the Pulps
Readers Letters: Steve Nicholas, Bob Ward-Zinski, Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe
Terry Jeeves - Edward Elmer Smith PhD 1890-1965/ E. E. 'Doc' Smith Bibliography
Patricia Weakley - Heroic Partnerships: The Green Hornet & Kato
Mike Morley - The Fab Fifties: English Black & White 1950s Space & Horror Comics
Dave Whitehead's Western Column: 'Confessions from Cleveland.' An Interview with Australian Western writer, Keith Hetherington
Steve Holland's Melting Pot

Think this may have been the final issue? If so, it's a terrific one to end on. Highlight - for me - is Steve Holland's interview with Syd Bounds, touching on virtually every aspect of the great genre-hopper's professional career be it manufacturing speaking fire alarms, cracking codes for the RAF at Stanmore during WWII, or speed-writing for Benson Herbert's one-shot 'Spicy' pulps — according to Mr. Holland, "All the stories seemed to be about girls losing their stockings." Herbert was frequently busted for obscenity all the same, but then again: "his main business was selling photographs of nude models and he only did the magazines to advertise them."

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Maurice Flanagan [ed] - Paperback Pulp & Comic Collector #4 (Zeon, 1991).

Maurice Flanagan - Editorial
Maurice Flanagan - The Thriller: The Paper with a Thousand Thrills
Maurice Flanagan - Richard Matheson: Master of Fantasy and Horror
Andrew Darlington - Warriors of Ancient Worlds
Steve Holland - The Holland Column: Of Supermen and Super-Writers
Ivor Salisbury - George Goodchild (1888 - 1969)
Maurice Flanagan - Small Presses and the Baxendale Family
Steve Hare - The Puffin Story
Steve Hare - Fifty Years of Puffin Books 1941-1991
W. O. G. Lofts - Rare Paperbacks and Comics
Bryon Whitchurch - An introduction to Collecting Classic Illustrated American Editions
Bill Sherren - The Many Faces of The Prisoner
Steve Holland - Paperbacks and Comics of the Post-war Decade: A Few Connections
Link Hullar - Michael Avallone: Some informal observations on the Writer and the Man
UK Paperback Fair Sept
Malcolm Henderson - Who is Ian Wallace?
John Tuska - Western Story Magazine
Francis Hertzberg - Denis McLoughlin Reprint Art in Moring & GT Publications
Paperback & Comic News
Readers Letters: Francis Hertzberg, Peter Dalton, Frank McKeever, Mike Ashley, Leo Baxendale, Dave Gregory, G. J. Sabin, Ian Bunker, Sydney J. Bounds, R. Hopkins
Question Time
Wants

When fanzines were fanzines. Lo-fi photo supplement commemorating the 1st pulp & paperback fair.

Includes a report on the inaugural paperback and pulp fair on 7th September 1991; " ... We sweated a little on the guests but all appeared almost on time. We even had to take an extra room at very short notice due to the crush. Jim Burns, the "in demand" SF artist gave an excellent slide presentation of his work. Denis McLoughlin made the long trek from Bolton to spend a couple of hours at the show signing autographs and chatting to fans. The afternoon saw a lively discussion of the 50s UK pulp & pb scene between EC Tubb, Sydney Bounds, Phil Harbottle and Steve Holland. Lionel Fanthorpe joined the second half of the discussion to add to Ted and Syd's experiences with the John Spencer "Badger publications. Other notables present were Guy N Smith, Denis Gifford, Brian Stableford and Richard O'Brien (Crystal Maze, Rocky Horror)." An edited version of Stephen Hare's programme notes for a Puffin Books 50th Birthday exhibition in Wiltshire County Library, Trowbridge. Penguin's first children's' paperbacks were launched in 1940 as the Puffin Picture Book series, the Puffin Story Books following the following year; the editors appreciation of Richard Matheson, highlighting his film & TV credits; a gushing tribute to Michael Avallone, celebrated genre hopping hack author of Partridge Family #2: The Haunted Hall, Beneath The Planet of the Apes, Women in Prison, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Stag Stripper, Tales of the Frightened, The Satan Sleuth, and so on and so on.