Justin Marriott [ed.] - Paperback Fanatic #40

[dem bones]

Out now ...


Justin Marriott [ed.] - Paperback Fanatic #40 (Aug, 2018)

Artists Assemble: Crepax: Sauciness beware! It's the naughty Italian smut-maestro.

Go Ape!: Come visit der Planet der Affen with a mini-gallery.

Robert Bonefils: Sleaze paperbacks favourite painter passed away in 2018.

Beware! Richard Laymon: The Fanatic takes on a fistful of horror-perv Laymon's earliest.

Lin Carter Looks At Books: Man of a thousand books, reviews about a thousand books from 1965.

Fit To Be Tied: Graham Andrews on Scotland Yard's finest in Gideon's Day.

Behind Every Great Man Is A Woman: Tom Tesarek's public declaration of his love for his wife ... sorry, Fritz Leiber.

Segretissimo: Rob Matthews definitive guide to the Italian espionage imprint.

Kings Cross Pulp: James Doig sports his trusty rain-coat as he goes deep-cover in Australia's legendary sin capital.


Order via:
Am*z*n.co.uk

Am*z*n

Check the tantalising 'look inside' preview.

Congratulations and a huge well done to Justin and all the contributors on reaching the big 40. Am not sure anyone was predicting such longevity when issue #1, aka Pulp Mania!, hit the scene back in 2006! Truly a phenomenal body of work.

[dem bones]

The very beautiful #40 arrived in this morning's post, along with a copy of Nigel Taylor's "novelisation" of forgotten 70's horror portmanteau Mystery Tour, so that's the next few days' reading material sorted.

[dem bones]

The Planet of the Apes Terra's and Guidio Compax SAS mini-galleries are striking enough, but personal highlight of issue's Artists Assemble feature is the tribute to Robert Bonifils, joyously decorated with six of his most audacious paintings. Scars of Lust, as featured on the cover, is a model of restraint in comparison to Swap Seducers ("No sensual stimulus was too strange for them"), Holiday Gay & Co.

The Bonifils spread provides a strangely appropriate bridge to Justin Fanatic's commendably even handed appraisal of Richard Laymon's ever-so-slightly-creepy early 'eighties blood feasts, The Cellar, The Woods Are Dark, Night Show, Out Are The Lights and Beware (shame Funland came too late to make the cut). Had been looking forward to reading this piece since Mr. Fanatic mentioned it in Pulp Horror 7. How would the man who brought us The Sleazy Reader react to Laymon's endless procession of voyeurs, rapist, fledgling sex-fiends and cannibals? It's worth finding out, trust me.

Lin Carter Looks At Books, reprinted from Castle Of Frankenstein through 1965. No idea why I wasn't expecting to enjoy this, but it's terrifically entertaining. Month by month, LC provides opinionated micro reviews of new releases and reprints of old favourites, his tastes eclectic enough to accommodate occult non-fiction and comics alongside the horror, SF and fantasy titles. In true fanzine style, LC showers adulation of his literary heroes (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, etc), scorn on those - poor Ray Bradbury! - whose work does not meet with his approval.

Where to next? I should have thought that was obvious. An appreciation of John 'J. J. Marric' Creasey's Gideon of Scotland Yard in paperback, film and TV series by Graham Andrews. Graham eschews synopses in favour of bio/ bibliographic detail which might make for a dry read were it not for his judicious choice of relevant quote, fondness for the fascinating titbit, and sweet autobiographical interludes. Anyone else been watching the Gideon's Way series on Talking Pictures recently?

More to follow. Only disappointment. No Fanatical Mail - no editorial come to that - when we should have been throwing a party.

[helrunar]

That sounds quite cool, Kev. I have some of the 1960s Castle of Frankenstein issues--all of them are available to read online here:

www.zomboscloset.com/zombos_closet_of_horror_b/2016/09/castle-of-frankenstein-no-10.html

To search, just type Castle of Frankenstein in the search box, towards the upper right hand area of the page.

Anyhow, it's fascinating to read Lin Carter talking about the best books of 1966, or whatever year, and ponder the various glimpses he offers of genre fandom back in the days when you had to be quite persistent and "know somebody" to even find out about fandom. Mags such as CoF were a lifeline for many of us back then, in ways that today's internet-saturated kiddies can't possibly imagine.  Of course, this is why genre conventions and events today often have to be run as if they were military operations, particularly if any media celebrities are present.

cheers, Steve

[dem bones]

Many thanks for the link, Steve. Never got the appeal of Famous Monsters, but COF is a far more interesting proposition. As hoped, several issues are available in a variety of formats via archive org

Am so glad to see a Richard Laymon feature in PF. The Cellar blew me away when I first read it in the early nineties, an antidote to the post-Books of Blood vogue for cerebral horror, "Dark F*nt**y," etc. His stuff is nasty, twisted, perverted, bizarre, nihilistic, and ridiculously entertaining. The later novels are essentially variations on a fixation - Amazons in red shorts fleeing the local Sawney Beane/ Deliverance mountain-folk tribute act - but he seldom strays far from Cellar roots. An exception of sorts is Savage, which sees Jack the Ripper jump ship to America (minus his nose) within hours of murdering Mary Kelly.

Back with the programme.

Sept 24, 2018 19:49:42 GMT cauldronbrewer said:

Sept 19, 2018 5:49:40 GMT dem bones said:

Tom's homage to Fritz

Great book, and a great cover--even though the gothic feel of the latter doesn't seem to fit the modern "urban horror" tone of the former.

To which you can add "great article." Tom Tesarek's piece really is "a public declaration of love" for a particularly cherished novel (one, I sheepishly confess, I've yet to read). From Tom's synopsis, I'm thinking Mary-Rose Hayes drew inspiration from Conjure Wife for her neglected, thoroughly unpleasant conspiracy classic, The Neighbours, though in her novel the black magic menace is localised as opposed to global. Added bonus, as the scans attest, Conjure Wife has blessed with gorgeous cover artwork down the years.

More to follow ...

[dem bones]

Carlo Jacono

Vault vets corner begins with the first of two instalments of Rob Matthews' The Top Secret Series chronicling the history of Italy's Segretissimo imprint from 1960-69. Had no prior knowledge of these paperbacks before reading this article - turns out they specialise in translations of espionage thrillers by novelists as diverse as James Hadley Chase, Michael Avallone, Robert Sheckley, Gerard De Villiers, Brian 'son of' Edgar Wallace, and James Workman (of The Mummy's Curse obscurity. Particularly like Jacono's distinctive paintings of Bondesque sirens flaunting legs and cleavage while bullets fly and planes explode behind them. For further examples, see Severance's Segetissimo gallery.

Fitting that we should round off the issue with a walk on the wild side. James Doig explores "the twilight zone of gambling, drugs and vice" that is Sydney's Kings Cross Red light district, as celebrated in a series of novels published by Horwitz from 1963 through to early the next decade. James concentrates on the work of three of the most prominent Kings Cross pulp authors, Rena Cross, Marcia McEwan and Dianne Irwin/ 'Joanne Joyce,' whose 1967 offering, The Swingers - "The sensational story of the switched-on generation" - sounds particularly with it in a most The Party's Over kind of way.

Ain't no such thing as a "typical" issue of PF, the sheer scope of the thing precludes it. #41 is perv-next-door horror, Brit crime & detection, international espionage, suburban witchcraft, Aussie vice pulp, sleaze art. #41? Anyone's guess.