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Post by justin on Nov 16, 2007 19:18:17 GMT
Dem, May well move this one... I mentioned to Cal that the next issue of The Fanatic is already written (by Phil Harbottle, Andy Boot and Steve Holland) with the exception of an article on Satanic Sleuths. As ever I was coming at it from a 60s/70s angle and was focussed on Night Hunter, The Guardians, Kolchak, Sabat, Spectros, Chill, Father Hayes, with some historical background on Carnacki and Jules De Grandin. (Aapparently there's no-one connected to this site in any way who knows anything about De Grandin.... ) 'Til Cal knocked me for six with this e-mail... "Kev' is obviously the world's greatest living authority on Jules De Grandin. I don't envy anyone else who has to write about Grandin! This article could be a way of really opening PF up in new ways. Nayland Smith and photos from Fu Manchu films. Recently we learned about Mongo the Magnificent, a dwarf detective in novels which use SF and horror themes. I've recently downloaded audio books featuring Carnacki in The Gateway of the Monster and The Whistling Room - useful if reading time is limited. There's a Lee Coye Brown illustration for The Hog in Les Daniels' anthology Fear (can't find the picture on the net but will scan if you like). I've been thinking of doing a post on Hodgson when I get a moment. Listening to those two recently, I was struck by how visual the Carnacki stories were, with people being strangled by a giant hand; and the floor in a haunted room turning into an obscene whistling mouth. Doc Savage of course. And The Shadow! How about Dr Strange? It's just a thought. And there was a brilliant old comic, Will Eisner's The Spirit. Can't miss him out. There's Wheatley's Duke... who now I can't read about; the spirit is willing, etc. I wrote up Aylmer Vance: Ghost Seer and transferred it to the new Vault recently - one of the weaker entries in the field. Blackstone the Magic Detective was a radio show, featuring... Blackstone the magician - this is another weak one, though I liked the episode called The Reluctant Buzz Saw. Charles Black told me the name for stories where the ghost is explained away at the end - I forget it now, but Blackstone's stories were that type. The comics seem to be full of them. Mandrake was another magician. And there was an occult adventurer in some British weekly comic I can't remember offhand - but possibly I have some of the stories. Graham Masterton's Harry Erskine in The Manitou and Burial was the inspiration for my own Austin Chambers who will be making his debut in Black Book 3 in The Scavenger - a story Charles says he really enjoyed - though I'm afraid only a couple of people have read it yet, so it hardly counts!  We can hardly leave out Poe - Murders in the Rue Morgue - and Clive Barker did his own twist on that in The Books of Blood. The Hon' Charles Mortdecai takes on witchcraft and rape in Kyril Bonfiglioli's Something Nasty in the Woodshed. Cornell Woolrich's stories were usually pretty sinister detective tales. Black Alibi, Night Has a Thousand Eyes - and the story starring Roy Castle and generally turned into a pig’s ear in Dr Terror's House of Horrors was Woolrich’s. That’s all that’s come to me so far, but possibly one or two of them might be new to you. Lovely idea for an article!" So many characters I hadn't even considered- you genius Rog. Over to you Vaulters. Who else should be covered off as a Satanic Sleuth/Psychic Detective? |
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 16, 2007 19:33:51 GMT
Curt has been writing reviews of Doc Savage books on his blog.
Weird menace.
Someone on the BHF board pointed out it was based on Papa Benjamin by Robert Bloch. Haven't read it, so I don't know.
Possibles: John Silence, Lucius Leffing.
Does Solar Pons count? Or are they more in the Holmes line?
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 16, 2007 19:52:30 GMT
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Post by dem on Nov 16, 2007 19:59:01 GMT
Mustn't forget Marcus Obadiah, quite possibly the world's least charismatic man, who plays a blinder in the 'Richard Tate' (Anthony Masters) vampire versus film crew classic The Dead Travel Fast and Birds Of A Bloodied Feather. Manly Wade Wellman had old timer Judge Pursuivant, John Thurnstone (a friend of de Grandin's: they'd consult each other over particularly trying cases) and guitar-strumming mountain man John the Balladeer, a big favourite of Steve's as I recall. Even though they were mostly written earlier, there were seventies editions of Wellman's stories from (among others) Star so you can probably cheat a little and use him. Same with De Grandin: Half a dozen paperbacks of his adventures were published by Pocket Books (and given a, frankly, laughable "science fiction" tag) in 1976 including the one novel, The Devil's Bride, remarkable for a scene where-in the evil Satanists crucify a woman and throw snowballs at her. Want the real authority on Seabury Quinn & De Grandin? Robert Weinberg. He edited the books: www.robertweinberg.net/ I'm more like .. the Pound Shop version.  Oh, and Sev's your man for 'The Phantom Detective'. |
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Post by killercrab on Nov 16, 2007 20:05:37 GMT
Quote:
Doc Savage of course.
Curt has been writing reviews of Doc Savage books on his blog. >>
Actually one of his contributors is writing the Doc Savage reviews.
ade
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Post by dem on Nov 16, 2007 20:47:00 GMT
Someone on the BHF board pointed out it was based on Papa Benjamin by Robert Bloch. Haven't read it, so I don't know. Pretty sure it's Woolrich's story Dark Melody of Madness ( Dime Mystery (1935), liberally adapted by Bloch as Papa Benjamin for Boris Karloff's Thriller series in the early sixties. |
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Post by Calenture on Nov 16, 2007 21:43:30 GMT
Someone on the BHF board pointed out it was based on Papa Benjamin by Robert Bloch. Haven't read it, so I don't know. Pretty sure it's Woolrich's story Dark Melody of Madness ( Dime Mystery (1935), liberally adapted by Bloch as Papa Benjamin for Boris Karloff's Thriller series in the early sixties. Good grief! What's up with you lot tonight! In Tales of the Dead edited by Bill PronziniPapa Benjamin by Cornell Woolrich: New Orleans, the 1930s, and at Four in the morning a scarecrow of a man staggers into police headquarters saying that he’s murdered someone. The walking skeleton is Eddie Block, a bandleader, a celebrity, and officers Humphries and Desjardins don’t understand why he’s so concerned about murdering a black man. This is the South. Block says that Papa Benjamin has been killing him by voodoo, directing hostile thought waves through the air. That’s why he’s lost so much weight that his wrist is about as thick as another man’s thumb. The police think he’s crazy, but he’s Eddy Block, and they have to investigate. They take off in the band leader’s car, a policeman “just touches it with a nail and they’re off like velvet” with Desjardins on the running-board, into the Congo Square area where prostitutes whisper from windows in narrow alleys. Eventually the commissioner coaxes the story out of Block, how he’d followed one of his band members into that run-down area one night and had seen him entering a building using a severed chicken leg as a pass. Hearing the wild music from within, Block realises that here is the answer to his problem: his music has become stale and he has just a week to come up with a show that will draw the crowds back into Maxim’s or his contract with the club will be lost. Now he decided to crash the voodoo party and steal the voodoo chant. At this point, you might be beginning to recognise the storyline from a certain 1965 Amicus film (it was also filmed in 1961 as a segment of TV’s Thriller). The story was first published in 1936 in one of the shudder pulps, Dime Mystery. It runs for almost 50 pages without wasting a word, with twists and suspense right up to the end. The voodoo rituals are convincing and threatening, and the story takes in suicide, maiming and dismemberment. I finished it almost breathless. No doubt about it: Woolrich was the real Master of written suspense. |
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Post by justin on Nov 16, 2007 21:46:52 GMT
Just had an e-mail from Bob Weinburg who has graciously agreed to answer my De Grandin questions, and dropped in that he also wrote an occult detective series himself- Sid Taine. Another one to add to the list!
I really think I've bitten off more than I can chew on this one...
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Post by Calenture on Nov 16, 2007 21:54:17 GMT
I suppose it's possible that Bloch retitled the story for the screen and the new title was used in my book, so maybe you got it. I can't check at the moment as I can't find that damned great Tales of the Dead and hadn't put it in database yet!  This is definitely a hardboiled yarn. I've got write-ups on Black Alibi and Night Has a Thousand Eyes - and the first-mentioned book is required reading. |
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Post by Calenture on Nov 16, 2007 22:29:29 GMT
I really think I've bitten off more than I can chew on this one... You have no choice. We have the photographs. A lot that I mentioned above could be dealt with in a line or two. I think I’ve remembered yet another Satanic Sleuth mentioned in a Haining hardback I have which uses a great magazine illustration. 3 more Doc Savage ‘occult’ thrillers are Hex, The Squeaking Goblin and The Devil’s Playground. |
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Post by dem on Nov 16, 2007 22:36:43 GMT
Just had an e-mail from Bob Weinburg who has graciously agreed to answer my De Grandin questions, and dropped in that he also wrote an occult detective series himself- Sid Taine. Another one to add to the list! He's a great bloke! Perhaps further along the line you might want to do something on the barking 'Weird Menace'/ 'Sex & Sadism' pulps in which case he's your man for them, too. Good grief! What's up with you lot tonight! Pronzini changed it to Papa Benjamin for Voodoo! and Tales Of The Dead, but it was first published as Dark Melody of Madness in Dime Mystery Magazine for July 1935. |
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Post by nightreader on Nov 17, 2007 8:40:36 GMT
Not sure if these qualify... Has anyone read the 'Black Oak' series by Charles Grant (who seems to have dropped his 'L' for these)?
Black Oak Security is a "crack team of private investigators led by brilliant, enigmatic Ethan Proctor. He takes on cases the range from the normal to the unaccountably bizarre..."
'Black Oak 1: Genesis'
'Black Oak 2: The Hush of Dark Wings'
'Black Oak 3: Winter Knight'
'Black Oak 4: Hunting Ground'
'Black Oak 5: When The Cold Wind Blows'
There could be more...
The series began in the late 90's in the US, published by ROC. It's been a while since I read them but I recall enjoying them - very much along the lines of Sherman's 'Chill' books...
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 17, 2007 19:48:05 GMT
Lin Carter's Anton Zarnak is another.
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Post by timothymayer on Jul 7, 2008 16:27:21 GMT
Spectros?
Did someone say Spectros?
I fished a weird western out of the trash that had to do with a magical gunfighter by that name.
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Post by Calenture on Jul 27, 2008 15:20:01 GMT
Spectros? Did someone say Spectros? I fished a weird western out of the trash that had to do with a magical gunfighter by that name. Happy birthday, Rummah. I was looking at your posts and of course Googling Spectros brought me right back to here. Extra bloody stars for fishing that book out of the trash!  |
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