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Post by dem bones on Jan 9, 2010 11:01:31 GMT
exciting news just in concerning the brutal, thoroughly indefensible Paperback Fanatic spin off: Men Of Violence 2 (January, 2010) The second issue of The Paperback Fanatic's very own fanzine dedicated to men's adventure pulp fiction. Very limited print run so snap it up whilst it is available!
- Invaders From Manor- a look at the men's adventure fiction series published by the shadowy publishers Manor Books
- The Animal Must Die! a review of The Marksman series
- Captain Gringo Rides Again! The western series for those who hate westerns
- Quadrophonic Homicide - an overview of The Headhunters series including new information about the co-authors
- A Fistful of Dynamit - more about the obscure German pulp character Mr Dynamit
- Plus reviews, cover reproductions and plenty of attitude!
- 40 pages A5, colour covers, black and white interiors
Order your copy from Paperback Fanatic where you can read this blurb all over again. More details soon! |
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Post by allthingshorror on Jan 9, 2010 14:05:37 GMT
excellent news, excellent cover and if the first installment is anything to go by, this will be another 'must read now'! Very interested to read about Manor books - one of the NEL cover photographers has some interesting tales about them which I may ask him if it's okay to write about...
Brilliant work Justin!
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Post by bushwick on Jan 9, 2010 22:00:14 GMT
bloody marvellous. I'm on it. There's stuff there I know nothing about (Captain Gringo, Headhunters, Dynamit).
This Captain Gringo stuff looks promising. Amazon marketplace prices are scary indeed...
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holger
New Face In Hell
Posts: 2
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Post by holger on Jan 12, 2010 19:14:35 GMT
Received the issue today and read it in one go. Now in serious mood to read one of those books from my To Read shelf. I am just pissed that I never managed to get a copy of Men of Violence 1 so that I now have a big huge hole in my collection of Justiniana.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 12, 2010 19:34:19 GMT
I'm still suffering from failing to get the erb edition of paperback fanatic...
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Post by dem bones on Jan 15, 2010 11:19:36 GMT
why is fanboy culture in all genres so bloody po-faced? ah, but it doesn't have to be like that, pulps. i don't think i've ever even seen, let alone sat down and read, one single book mentioned in Men Of Violence #2, but that sure doesn't make it any less fun reading about the likes of Lou 'Ramsey Thorne' Cameron's adult western series, Renegade, featuring the kinky sex-crazed mercenary 'Captain Gringo' ("winning in battles and bedrooms", "fast with a gun, even faster with a girl", etc). Along with Dean Ballenger's Gannon series featured in the debut, the Renegade's would be my chosen point of entry into Men's Adventure - Macumba Killer even has bogus horror credentials - but, as Bush and Justin have pointed out, those Amazon prices are seriously f**k**g severe. Invaders From Manor continues Justin's obsession with that super-seedy, New York based operation, (see Blood, Blood And More Blood in issue 1) allegedly funded with Mob money, who many Vault readers will ever hold in the highest esteem for being the original publishers of St. Pierce Nace's Eat The Alive. This being Men Of Violence, the bias is toward their surprisingly hefty mens adventure series' which, along with brutal mavericks like Keller, Gannon, and Stoner, include The Israeli Commanders and an outrageous Death Wish rip off (then again, who was going to argue with them), Bronson, Street Vigilante. Cast your mind back to Paperback Dungeon (AKA Paperback Fanatic #2). I thought then, and still do, that the A5 format didn't suit PF, but it works for Men Of Violence. Obviously, the glossy paper brings the cover scans alive, but perhaps more importantly, it gives Men Of Violence an identity of its own, something which the threatened letters page can only further (think of how indispensable Fanatical Thoughts has become to PF). more to follow: just thought i'd best post this before i lose my notes again  |
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Post by pulphack on Jan 15, 2010 14:40:57 GMT
er, i wasn't actually talking about MOV and PF related stuff there, dem. it was more about the fact that a lot of small press and fanzine culture (as it's from my thoughts on the future of small presses, etc, i think?) is stifled by fanboys who then gain ascendance and mould things to their view. i was thinking of comics particularly when i wrote that, as i saw pat mills talking last year and he was positing that it's ALL HIS FAULT that uk and us mainstream comics are so narrow in scope as he introduced a man he described as 'number one fanboy' into the industry and saw him gain ascendancy through ambition so that now anything outside a certain scope can't get a look in.
c'mon, it's undeniable that sf and horror in particular suffer from that - the fanboys narrow the scope to their view of what a genre should be. god, i hate them... probably nice people, but honestly, when a genre starts it's wide open and the possibilities are limitless. then the fanboys clutch it to their breast and anything that doesn't fit ends up marginalised. it can only exist if it's self-financed, etc. no bad thing in some ways, but hardly likely to widen the joys of a genre to the general public.
think about what comics were like years back, what sf and horror were like and WHERE YOU COULD GET THEM... and then consider how anything outside the narrow genre confines is so hard to find now...
however, stuff like paranormal romance gives me hope. why? because it's from outside fanboy land and so brings a new audience and perspective in. of course, it CAN bring its own fanboy (girl?) culture, but that's inevitable. along the way, though...
rant over. i like a wide range within my genres and part of the reason it vanishes is fanboy culture.
er, we, of course, are not fanboys...
honest...
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Post by andydecker on Jan 15, 2010 21:18:34 GMT
it's undeniable that sf and horror in particular suffer from that - the fanboys narrow the scope to their view of what a genre should be. Do you really think the hypothetical fanboy has that much influence? Not with mainstream publishers. To make a profit sales must be much higher than the fanboy-community could provide. The small press is surely another matter, but they are targeting a niche audience to begin with. And I don´t have hopes for the PR. It won´t bring a new audiance in. IMHO these readers are only interested in PR, there will be no transfer. They don´t read horror. |
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Post by dem bones on Jan 15, 2010 21:48:57 GMT
Point taken, pulps. it wasn't intended in a derogatory way, but i can see it might be taken like that, so apologies to anyone i inadvertently insulted!
And we're only halfway through January ....
Without wishing to take the thread further off track, something i admire about paranormal romance is that - judged purely on the enthusiastic posts i've read on fan blogs - it plays fair with the readers and doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. It strikes me that this is very similar to the type of books featured in Men Of Violence or, say, the Hamlyn nasties, in that the reader can at least trust that they'll do what they say on the tin, whereas my beef with SOME horror/ dark fantasy/call it what you will/ of recent decades is, it's all very beautifully written but, you know, spot the horror.
andreas, on the Vault Wordpress pages, there's an inquiry which runs:
"Hi, i was just wondering if you know of any really good vampire stories,
i’ve just been reading twilight and i find them intresting. but i’d like something with a bit more blood and guts XD
Please reply.
Tisha."
so that's one at least!
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Post by pulphack on Jan 16, 2010 0:45:51 GMT
dem, no offence taken - just went off on one myself...
andy - yes, the fanboys certainly do have that much influence in mainstream publishing, certainly in the UK. many of the commissioning editors are of this ilk, and i know of at least one major uk conglom that went out of their way to lure a fanboy editor away from another house on the grounds that the long tail marketing theory is the way ahead and that such an editor would be the only way to make a long term profit on a genre list.
also, i agree with you that there won't be much crossover between the paranormal romance readers and trad horror readers per se, but my point was that the lack of straitjacketing in the list regarding what have become accepted tropes of horror, etc may actually lead to a cross-fertislisation of genre and idea creeping back from the margins as PR eds seek to give their readers something a bit different (but not too different).
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Post by andydecker on Jan 16, 2010 12:39:26 GMT
that the long tail marketing theory is the way ahead and that such an editor would be the only way to make a long term profit on a genre list.. Ironic how the paradigm shifts every few years, isn´t? This short-term-profit thinking has it´s drawbacks  give their readers something a bit different (but not too different). If there is one thing the general readers detest is change. ;D Of course one tends to forget that most of the ever shrinking readerbase has no interest in the why´s or how´s. If you like a product you consume it again. I also like to rant about the bestseller´s list, how some subpar shit is the flavor of the day and raking it in. But the majority can be thrilled by tales fans like me have read numerous times, and they don´t care about sloppy craft, don´t recognize it even. And you can´t blame them for that. i’ve just been reading twilight and i find them intresting. but i’d like something with a bit more blood and guts XD that's one at least! Yep, you have to catch them early  Of course one could argue that Twilight is no PR and YA can learn to enjoy better things |
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Post by andydecker on Jan 17, 2010 12:54:59 GMT
So, I got mine. What can I say, I liked it. Especially the article about Captain Gringo. Sounds interesting, but those prices  Absolutly strange coverart for this. A mix of Romance and Western. The new paper is great. Especially for cover reproduction. Manor must have been a strange publisher to work for. I have one or two of their books in my collection, the Rosenberger Kung Fu. I just discovered The Aquanauts, which had a german edition. Manning Lee Stokes last hurrah, I guess. Great work as always! |
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Post by pulphack on Jan 18, 2010 19:47:11 GMT
mine arrived last friday and i got some very odd looks reading it on the train to camden on saturday, which just tells me i should know better.
really, the manor books bit is the gem for me as i spent a long period of my youth reading crap from them that turned up cheap in my local newsagent. i particularly remember Garrison - Hollywood Detective as being a favourite. was it manor who published a novel about the Hindenburg disaster that was pure specualtion and had sex scenes that boggled my 12 year old mind? wish i could remember what the bloody thing was called, i'd be straight on abe books...
lots of stuff about barmy writers who - to be honest - sound more fun than their books, and the strange genre of adult westerns... didn't we have a thread somewhere about this oddest of genres?
i kinda liked it more than PF in some ways as i have immense nostalgia for the genre, and the whole thing is less diffuse than PF (which is, of course, it's strength, so what do i know?), but overall i guess it's best to keep this as an adjunct.
sterling work. well done justin, andy, and the other writers. i'm just miffed i missed issue 1, now...
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Post by pulphack on Jan 18, 2010 19:52:45 GMT
er, i just googled Garrison to try and find any on-line sales and bugger me if it don't turn out that Jeff Rovin - author of said novel - also did one called The Hindenburg Disaster! can't be coincidence - check out the guy's Wiki page, he's a bit of a pulp hero...
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Post by dem bones on Jan 23, 2010 8:56:57 GMT
was it manor who published a novel about the Hindenburg disaster that was pure specualtion and had sex scenes that boggled my 12 year old mind? wish i could remember what the bloody thing was called, i'd be straight on abe books... Now, if that doesn't have Vault Book of the Month potential ...... anyone read Rovin's novelisation of Herbert West - Reanimator? hey andreas, having read your article, i feel a bit sorry for C. H. Guenter's Mr Dynamit. He gets a really rotten deal. it must be lousy being the only Cold War action spy who isn't allowed to indulge in mindless violence and bad sex. Even poor old strictly-no-shagging-on-page Marc Gerard in The Nuclear Nazis has a better time of it. |
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Of course one could argue that Twilight is no PR and YA can learn to enjoy better things 
Absolutly strange coverart for this. A mix of Romance and Western.