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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 7, 2017 10:07:51 GMT
Memories! Even before I discovered fandom I was avidly reading Famous Monsters, which I used to buy from a weird newsagents that also sold Vargo Statten magazines! I know what you mean - I bought these because I used to buy FM as a kid in the 70s. I'll post some of the ads, which are hilarious.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 9, 2017 3:16:01 GMT
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Post by ropardoe on Jul 9, 2017 12:59:47 GMT
Marvellous. I had several of those books - and married into several others! Were they really selling monkeys, I wonder? If so, that was incredibly cruel. But, then again, maybe foolish customers ended up with a packet of those sea monkey creatures, and a very tiny leash?
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Post by andydecker on Jul 9, 2017 20:16:46 GMT
Marvellous. I had several of those books - and married into several others! Were they really selling monkeys, I wonder? If so, that was incredibly cruel. But, then again, maybe foolish customers ended up with a packet of those sea monkey creatures, and a very tiny leash? I always wondered this. I can't imagine they really sold real monkeys. The parents must have been thrilled.
The book-ads look like those in the Warren magazines.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 9, 2017 20:52:56 GMT
The book-ads look like those in the Warren magazines. Famous Monsters was a Warren magazine.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 9, 2017 20:55:20 GMT
Marvellous. I had several of those books - and married into several others! Were they really selling monkeys, I wonder? If so, that was incredibly cruel. But, then again, maybe foolish customers ended up with a packet of those sea monkey creatures, and a very tiny leash? I guess trafficing in endangered species was less frowned upon in those days. I bought a packet of sea monkeys once - I was disappointed they looked nothing like monkeys.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 9, 2017 20:56:44 GMT
[/p] The book-ads look like those in the Warren magazines.
[/quote] Andy, Famous Monsters was published by Warren.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 9, 2017 21:12:46 GMT
Andy, Famous Monsters was published by Warren. As I said . . .
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 10, 2017 8:40:13 GMT
Andy, Famous Monsters was published by Warren. As I said . . . So you did! I'm sure that wasn't there when I posted...
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Post by andydecker on Jul 10, 2017 11:05:24 GMT
So you did! I'm sure that wasn't there when I posted... Of course! (slaps head). I read Canberra and wrongfully assumed that this was another licensed magazine instead of an import. I have a lot of Warren, but not one Famous Monsters. Never could work up enough interest for this. I never knew that Warren did his mail-order thing that early. They did a great service, even overseas. I ordered a few Lory's back then at the end of the 70s and of course the wonderful Vampirella poster, which I later sold. How could I have been so stupid?
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Post by cromagnonman on Jul 12, 2017 0:07:26 GMT
This week's provincial second-hand bookshop recommendation is for Oxford Street Books in Whitstable, Kent. This is a place which has everything you could possibly want from a second-hand bookshop: varied and abundant stock, friendly and knowledgeable owners and a layout that just lends itself to exploration. Its actually much bigger than it initially appears to be; the modest frontage extends sinuously into an array of back rooms, nooks, crannies, corridors and even descends into a basement area. Full marks can be awarded for allotting vintage crime and thrillers its own bookcase - though it might be tempting providence to situate it so close to the top of such a murderously steep staircase. Credit is also due for seperating the SF, fantasy and horror stock into seperate sections instead of lumping them all together as so many bookshops do. Some of the pricing did appear to me to defy understanding: £75 for a Haining HALLOWEEN HAUNTINGS ?!?! £25 for a Kimber Chetwynd-Hayes ?!?! And yet conversely a mere £4 for a Gemmell HERO IN THE SHADOWS first. But its idiosyncracies of this sort that are half the joy of provincial bookshops. Generally speaking the prices did appear to be a slice or two under London standards. In the aftermath of my Odhams researches I seem to find myself increasingly becoming an advocate for book club editions generally. Rather than disdaining them contemptuously as many do I actively seek them out. And so I was particularly pleased to come away with several volumes from the Companion Book Club like these: was particularly amused, under the circumstances, to find a reference to Whitstable oysters within the first few paragraphs of the Amis Bond. Can't say I know anything at all about Helen MacInnes, but any woman who could carve a niche for herself in the male dominated world of 60s thriller writing demands respect. All in all a venue well worth anyone's effort in visiting. The added bonus is that Whitstable itself is such a nice place to explore. Sadly it is at the extreme limit of my foraging range and so I wasn't able to linger for very long. But it has its own community hall, a still functioning theatre, a museum, and even appears to have once boasted a particularly impressive art deco cinema. Unfortunately that is now a Wetherspoons called The Peter Cushing in memory (honour hardly seems appropriate) of the town's most famous one time resident. Regrettably there wasn't the time to check its menu to see if it boasted the expected Frankenfurters-Must-Be-Devoured, The Feast Must Fry, Oyster Wars, Platter and, of course, Chicken Wings of Evil.
But I bet it did.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 12, 2017 6:09:17 GMT
Can't say I know anything at all about Helen MacInnes, but any woman who could carve a niche for herself in the male dominated world of 60s thriller writing demands respect. I read THE VENETIAN AFFAIR some time ago. I found it intensely boring.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 12, 2017 21:10:26 GMT
Nice cover on Colonel Sun. I do love a bit of Yellow Peril now and then. Am currently re-reading President Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer from 1936. Not much has changed in US politics, it would seem.
Great post, CMM!
cheers, H
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Post by jamesdoig on Jul 13, 2017 9:48:55 GMT
Here's one for Andy, bought for a buck for no reason except the wolfy cover. Utopia seemed to translate and abridge English science fiction novels: Wolf
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Post by pulphack on Jul 15, 2017 10:43:50 GMT
To backtrack to Robert Markham and Helen MacInnes. Colonel Sun must have come just after my dad died and his CBC subs were up, as I've never seen that. I recall seeing the Pan edition, and I always got Amis' pen-name confused with (Sir) Robert Mark, who was Met Commissioner in the early seventies. Which is kind of apt, as Amis ended up flogging his reputation to death as 'poetry editor' of The Mirror when Cap'n Bob was at the helm and Sir RM ended up flogging his to the grave with tyres, alarms and shutters (actually, wasn't that last one John Stalker? Anyway...).
Helen MacInnes I remember well as the CBC issued a few of hers through the 50's and 60's. I lumped her together with Mary Stewart in my youth, as they were both female thriller writers, which was rare (whodunnits and crime being the female author genre of choice during this period). MacInnes has more in common with John P Marquand than Fleming for me, her books seeming old and laboured next to the male writers. Mary Stewart on the other hand blended gothic romance elements with her thrillers and was somewhat unique. If I remember right, Jojo, you're an admirer of hers as well? A quick google reveals that Helen MacInnes passed in the 80's, while Mary Stewart only passed a couple of years back, at the grand age of 97!
I love those CBC jackets - unlike some of the other book clubs, they never bothered with the original art, heving that generic cover originally, and then these one or two colour drawings that are not lurid or eyecatching, but quite wonderful.
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