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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 15, 2017 15:47:31 GMT
Much to my regret I never got to visit Dark They Were and Golden Eyed. For one thing I was simply too young to have any knowledge of such places when it was a flourishing concern. It was a bit like 84 Charing Cross Road in that respect. By the time I was old enough to have developed the interest in what it stocked, and had money of my own to invest in it, it had closed. Even today, nearly forty years on, whenever I find myself in the vicinity of either of its two locations, be it Berwick Street or nearby St Anne's Court, I cannot stop myself from musing regretfully over the loss of a formative experience. Imagine my delight therefore when I recently came across this amazing piece of promotional material for the shop printed in an obscure fanzine from 1972. The art looks to me to be a very early example of the work of the great David Lloyd. I think I have another ad or two for the shop around here someplace but nothing on this scale or of this quality. I'd be interested in hearing anecdotes or reminiscences of vaulters of a vintage to have patronised the shop. Thought it might be a nice idea to see any other old ads too for this and other long defunct bookshops/comic shops vaulters used in their formative years.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 15, 2017 19:44:57 GMT
As briefly featured in Dan Farson's 1974 documentary, The Dracula Business. No visits but scanned a couple of ads.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 15, 2017 22:53:44 GMT
Thought it might be a nice idea to see any other old ads too for this and other long defunct bookshops/comic shops vaulters used in their formative years.
Here's some stuff.
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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 16, 2017 9:33:51 GMT
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Post by helrunar on Apr 16, 2017 17:04:35 GMT
Those are marvelous old ads. Love to see more.
I had a bit of fun imagining all the colorful eccentric characters Steed and Mrs. Peel would encounter visiting the Fantasy Centre in an episode of The Avengers. I then reminded myself it was probably mostly rather dour chaps in dark coats shuffling about peering at models and paperbacks. Much as I did when in a shop back then...
cheers, H
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elricc
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by elricc on Apr 16, 2017 19:28:30 GMT
I use to work just round the corner at a city farm for 6 months in about 1990, I use to pop around there in my dinner hour and buy Jack Vance and Jack Chalker paperbacks, I remember feeling very out of place as a female as it was full of older men and the guys on the counter I recall were really obnoxious. When it was shutting down I rang up to order some books and it was obviously the same people, as he told me I should have fucking bought them for full price to keep the shop going
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 16, 2017 20:21:03 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 7:05:57 GMT
Well I still miss my monthly pilgrimages up the Holloway Road anyway. Characters H? yes there were some. But my abiding memory of the place is either Ted or Eric parroting the mantra "No, we're SF specialists" to the fiftieth student from the campus opposite popping in to ask for his course textbook. The Pulp & Paperback Fairs have often doubled as surrogate Fantasy Centre reunions in all but name. This was certainly in evidence at the Victoria Plaza Hotel in the mid-noughties (and, most likely even more-so during the 'nineties). An abiding memory of FC is a visit one Christmas Eve morning - snow, etc - direct from a night shift and Dave Gibson, in festive mood, offering me a can of Heineken. One of few occasions I actually got to talk to anyone in the shop beyond the usual pleasantries. It was only later, via this forum and attendance of aforementioned fairs, that I had some names to go to faces. The market bookstalls outside were likewise a happy hunting ground - in fact Holloway Road in general was paperback heaven from personal experience (So were Brick Lane's Slater Street & Cheshire Street markets before despised '00's regeneration/ gentrification). Personal pilgrimages would invariably culminate in visit to The Lord Nelson opposite to gaze in wonderment at the day's haul. Very much a student hangout on Friday afternoons back then, the Primitive's Crash and Altered Images Happy Birthday doing heavy rotation on the jukebox. Anyone remember Heroes off Islington High Street? This was very late 'eighties/ early 'nineties. Mostly comics from what I remember ( Tales From The Crypt reproductions & Co). Next door, a shop specialising in theatrical props. So one day I'm browsing the racks and a girl from same pops in and asks proprietor if he could help her shift a chair for a customer. He wisely cries off with a bad back so, being a mug, human skeleton self plays the gallant (PO training: "Her majesty's postmen are never off duty, sir"). Turns out lifting a lightweight mini-throne up flight of stairs is a cinche. Could not believe said customer, able bodied beardie with young woman in tow, couldn't do it himself, but that's a nouveau for you. Upshot was young lady from shop gave me two long black 'Satanic' candles for my troubles, which was a lovely day-making gesture. Bride of Dem certainly agreed seeing as she liberated them before before I could finish saying say "hey, look what I got!"
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 7:31:29 GMT
I use to work just round the corner at a city farm for 6 months in about 1990, I use to pop around there in my dinner hour and buy Jack Vance and Jack Chalker paperbacks, I remember feeling very out of place as a female as it was full of older men and the guys on the counter I recall were really obnoxious. When it was shutting down I rang up to order some books and it was obviously the same people, as he told me I should have fucking bought them for full price to keep the shop going That's disgraceful. I thought one of the main reasons they were shutting was because Ted was retiring - that's certainly what he told me at one of the fairs. Now you mention it, there was an older male vibe about the clientèle. In latest Pulp Horror, Mr. Marriott remarks the same of the most recent Paperback & Pulp Fair ("I'm in my late forties and felt as if I was amongst the youngest there."). I'm truly sorry you had a bad experience.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 17, 2017 9:34:02 GMT
There are two great articles, one by George Locke and one by Stan Nicholls on the history of Fantasy Centre, Dark They Were... etc., in issue 11 of the late Pete Weston's zine Prolapse. Stan notes that Derek (Bram) Stokes of Dark They Were first began as a mail order business called Vault of Horror. That was when I first bought books from him. People sometimes found Bram difficult (Pete Weston, in a footnote, calls him a "surly little brute"!), but I think his diffidence was his way of hiding shyness. I got on with him just fine. Anyway, you can download a PDF of the relevant issue of Prolapse here: efanzines.com/Prolapse/Prolapse11.pdf
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 11:01:52 GMT
There are two great articles, one by George Locke and one by Stan Nicholls on the history of Fantasy Centre, Dark They Were... etc., in issue 11 of the late Pete Weston's zine Prolapse. Stan notes that Derek (Bram) Stokes of Dark They Were first began as a mail order business called Vault of Horror. That was when I first bought books from him. People sometimes found Bram difficult (Pete Weston, in a footnote, calls him a "surly little brute"!), but I think his diffidence was his way of hiding shyness. I got on with him just fine. Anyway, you can download a PDF of the relevant issue of Prolapse here: efanzines.com/Prolapse/Prolapse11.pdfAh, thanks so much for the link, Ro. Fantasy Centre was where I first learned of the existence of Ghosts & Scholars (and other soon to be favourite publications, including the admittedly less Jamesian Web Terror Stories). First G&S I bought was #10, wrote you and took out a subscription off the back of it, then started buying up the issues I'd missed (plus various Haunted Library booklets) via the shop, all of them still at cover price. Got the Crucible edition of the anthology there too, £4 second hand inside about a month or so of publication. Different times for sure. I loved that you had to make an effort, every book jaunt a unique experience, never knowing what, if anything, you'd come away with. Ordering stuff off Am*z*n or whatever is so impersonal, takes the adventure/ enjoyment out of the thing.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 17, 2017 11:25:21 GMT
There are two great articles, one by George Locke and one by Stan Nicholls on the history of Fantasy Centre, Dark They Were... etc., in issue 11 of the late Pete Weston's zine Prolapse. Stan notes that Derek (Bram) Stokes of Dark They Were first began as a mail order business called Vault of Horror. That was when I first bought books from him. People sometimes found Bram difficult (Pete Weston, in a footnote, calls him a "surly little brute"!), but I think his diffidence was his way of hiding shyness. I got on with him just fine. Anyway, you can download a PDF of the relevant issue of Prolapse here: efanzines.com/Prolapse/Prolapse11.pdfAh, thanks so much for the link, Ro. Fantasy Centre was where I first learned of the existence of Ghosts & Scholars (and other soon to be favourite publications, including the admittedly less Jamesian Web Terror Stories). First G&S I bought was #10, wrote you and took out a subscription off the back of it, then started buying up the issues I'd missed (plus various Haunted Library booklets) via the shop, all of them still at cover price. Got the Crucible edition of the anthology there too, £4 second hand inside about a month or so of publication. Different times for sure. I loved that you had to make an effort, every book jaunt a unique experience, never knowing what, if anything, you'd come away with. Ordering stuff off Am*z*n or whatever is so impersonal, takes the adventure/ enjoyment out of the thing. It's always fun to know how people found out about G&S. I never supplied to many shops as my experience was that most (especially the big non-specialist ones) need chasing up with multiple letters which wiped out any minimal profit I might have made on each issue. Fantasy Centre always paid up quickly as did Ken Slater's Fantast (Medway). I still supply Andy Richards' Cold Tonnage and Simon Gosden's Fantastic Literature from time to time when I produce special booklets, as both pay pretty much by return (sometimes even in advance).
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 13:28:54 GMT
It's always fun to know how people found out about G&S. I never supplied to many shops as my experience was that most (especially the big non-specialist ones) need chasing up with multiple letters which wiped out any minimal profit I might have made on each issue. Fantasy Centre always paid up quickly as did Ken Slater's Fantast (Medway). I still supply Andy Richards' Cold Tonnage and Simon Gosden's Fantastic Literature from time to time when I produce special booklets, as both pay pretty much by return (sometimes even in advance). Used to haunt Andy Richards' Cold Tonnage during its downstairs at Murder One incarnation. Invariably a spectacular selection of used fantasy-of-all-persuasion titles, also London's go to place for 'zines & small press booklets. Personal much treasured CT finds would include Graeme Flanagan's Robert Bloch: A Bio-Bibliography, various BFS publications, J.J. Eccarius's The Last Days Of Christ The Vampire, Les Daniels' Citizen Vampire, and Tom Mason's Spicy Horror/ Mystery/ Western compilations. No visit to Charing X Road complete without visits to Quinto's (as was) and the the notorious Lovejoys (R.I.P.). Post-spree winding-down venue of choice was The Bear & Staff as a rule, though crawls taking in Aussie pub The Porcupine, The Tottenham and The Blue Posts not uncommon. Murder One/ Cold Tonnage was scene for a second brilliant straight-from-night shift, Christmas-Eve-in-the-snow jaunt with Bride of Dem in the late 'nineties. Leicester Square was as near to a ghost town as have ever seen it. Dropped into Virgin on way home, and lo and behold, a book sale. Came away with copies of 1001 Nudes, the never knowingly sane Montague Summers' The History of Witchcraft, and Fragments Of Fear: An Illustrated History Of British Horror Films by some Orient-supporting pulphack. No idea what became of him ...
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elricc
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by elricc on Apr 17, 2017 13:52:54 GMT
Well I still miss my monthly pilgrimages up the Holloway Road anyway. Characters H? yes there were some. But my abiding memory of the place is either Ted or Eric parroting the mantra "No, we're SF specialists" to the fiftieth student from the campus opposite popping in to ask for his course textbook. The Pulp & Paperback Fairs have often doubled as surrogate Fantasy Centre reunions in all but name. This was certainly in evidence at the Victoria Plaza Hotel in the mid-noughties (and, most likely even more-so during the 'nineties). An abiding memory of FC is a visit one Christmas Eve morning - snow, etc - direct from a night shift and Dave Gibson, in festive mood, offering me a can of Heineken. One of few occasions I actually got to talk to anyone in the shop beyond the usual pleasantries. It was only later, via this forum and attendance of aforementioned fairs, that I had some names to go to faces. The market bookstalls outside were likewise a happy hunting ground - in fact Holloway Road in general was paperback heaven from personal experience (So were Brick Lane's Slater Street & Cheshire Street markets before despised '00's regeneration/ gentrification). Personal pilgrimages would invariably culminate in visit to The Lord Nelson opposite to gaze in wonderment at the day's haul. Very much a student hangout on Friday afternoons back then, the Primitive's Crash and Altered Images Happy Birthday doing heavy rotation on the jukebox. Anyone remember Heroes off Islington High Street? This was very late 'eighties/ early 'nineties. Mostly comics from what I remember ( Tales From The Crypt reproductions & Co). Next door, a shop specialising in theatrical props. So one day I'm browsing the racks and a girl from same pops in and asks proprietor if he could help her shift a chair for a customer. He wisely cries off with a bad back so, being a mug, human skeleton self plays the gallant (PO training: "Her majesty's postmen are never off duty, sir"). Turns out lifting a lightweight mini-throne up flight of stairs is a cinche. Could not believe said customer, able bodied beardie with young woman in tow, couldn't do it himself, but that's a nouveau for you. Upshot was young lady from shop gave me two long black 'Satanic' candles for my troubles, which was a lovely day-making gesture. Bride of Dem certainly agreed seeing as she liberated them before before I could finish saying say "hey, look what I got!" If you carried on walking down the Holloway road, you came to the most bizarre fetish shoe shop. I can't remember the names of the books shops, but it was a great saturday afternoon trawl
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 14:05:03 GMT
If you carried on walking down the Holloway road, you came to the most bizarre fetish shoe shop. I can't remember the names of the books shops, but it was a great saturday afternoon trawl Multi-coloured, improbably stack-heeled platform boots in the window (and, I think, a spiky equivalent?) Must admit, I was tempted .... Friend Milan's wonderful if, alas, short-lived Interzone @ Type in Bethnal Green scored on suitably colourful neighbours; Playful Promises lingerie and a Hells Angels tattoo parlour.
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