Sinister Stories #1: Feb. 1940

[dem bones]

Costa Carousso [ed.] - Sinister Stories #1: Feb. 1940 (Wildside Press, 2004)

Francis James - Brides for the Half-Men
Gabriel Wilson - The Wind Monster Wants Me!
Glenn Harper - Death Loves My Wife
Len O'Dell - Satan's Studio of Sin
Emerson Graves - Corpse-Physician
William A. Rossi - A Beast for Every Home!
Harrison Storm - White Flesh Must Rot
Russell Gray - Song of Evil Love
Jerry Toblin - They Trade in Mangled Bodies

The Editors - If Your Heart is Weak
A Department - The Monster Speaks

Blurb:
Sinister Stories was a short-lived (only 3 issues) "weird menace" magazine, designed to thrill and titillate through a mix of suspense, science fiction, bondage, nudity, and grisly horror. Stories such as "Brides of the Half-Men," "Satan's Studio of Sin," and "White Flesh Must Rot" are surely masterpieces of over-the-top pulp writing!
This is the very first issue, reproduced in facsimile, with a fine lineup of macabrely wicked stories - complete with all the gloriously naughty original illustrations!

Good, honest, no nonsense shudder pulp from tail end of the golden age. Lit bores need trouble themselves no further.

Len O'Dell - Satan's Studio of Sin: "Indecent," Jane Gibson murmured, and color flooded her cheeks as she thought. Did men like to think of women - that way? Even nice men, like Dave? Was that how he dreamed of seeing her? ... How depraved men could be! Gloating over just the thought of a woman's nakedness!"

Such are the thoughts of very innocent, very beautiful Jane Gibson as she studies the exhibits in the gallery. Her shame turns to horror when super smooth Anthony Farrenc, controversial artist of international renown, insists she pose nude for him. Farrenc is not a man to take 'no' for an answer, and, before she knows it, Jane has been overpowered and whisked off to a secret cellar studio cum dungeon. Farrenc operates a blackmail racket, but his real interest is photographing torture porn. Poor Jane is stripped, chained to a wall and smeared in a fiendish pain-enhancing lotion prior by Ivan, Farrenc's brutal henchman, and subjected to the most despicable tortures devised by the mind of man! Will fiance Dave Harrison (a former "football" star turned Daily Trib reporter) discover Jane's whereabouts before she suffers both death and a fate worse than death? Lucky reader also exposed to the snuff content of Farrenc's portfolio.

"Pain! Agony! There's something fascinating about it!"

[andydecker]

Nice one. Bruno Fischer always delivers, if he writes as Russel Gray or Harrison Storm. The rest I don't know.

[dem bones]

Satan's Studio of Sin

Emerson Graves - Corpse-Physician: Back from the grave came the mad, murderous man of medicine - to take a horrible revenge upon the soft, white flesh of pretty Selina Castle!

Stanley Ogden, grasping relative, hatches preposterously convoluted scheme to drive niece Selina Castle insane so that he can claim his late brother's entire inheritance. Selina has taken digs at Mrs. Le Long's boarding house just in time for its annual visit from the vengeful bones of Dr. Oliver Siever, who, seven years ago, died in that very same bed she sleeps in. Every anniversary, Siever's skeleton returns with trusty nurse the hag in black to visit death or insanity on the current occupant. "This is my revenge on mankind. In life men refused my friendship, women turned from me in disgust. They took away the only thing I possessed worth anything - because I could not make a living as other doctors did. Then the world left me to die of loneliness and a broken heart." Fools!

Russell Gray - Song of Evil Love: Once, my music was pure and sweet. Then I met Bronka, whose eerie beauty and strange power made my fingers create music which turned men and women into slaves of sin!

Rodney Valdis, the celebrated concert pianist, falls foul of a blood-sucking Siren taken to hanging around backstage. Bronka seduces her prey with a melody of her own composition, "music of a soul that was not human, that was bestial, utterly degenerate." Rejected by Valdis who is engaged to be wed at the end of the tour, Bronka assures him he will never be rid of her. Rodney finds himself helpless but to play her tune at his next sell-out concert, driving the audience to orgy and riot. Seemingly supernatural content ultimately rationalised - sort of. Good fun but, given the author, disappointingly low on mindless sadism and inhuman lust.

[dem bones]

Amos Sewell (?)

Harrison Storm [Russell Gray] - White Flesh Must Rot: Her only sin was that she was beautiful, desired. But that was enough for those jealous hags of Timberton. They rendered her a mass of shattered bone and tissue!

Where do you start? This is terrific!

The narrator, researching locations for next novel, arrives at a foul-smelling cabin on a desolate lake. He's greeted by a cheery, self-effacing, white haired young man who introduces himself as "the local Devil" on account of some find his passion for Entomology a little eccentric. Mein host shows off his specimen jars. Look at those lovely worms! Does the author realise that a mere palm-full can drive a person to madness? And so begins his grim history of Janet Holm, the most beautiful, pure and lovely girl in Timberton. Or at least - she was.

Janet, fancied by every man in town, had eyes only for her fiance, Roger Godwin: but this did not prevent Mrs. Amelia Evans, Lillian Jason, and Martha Cordner, plotting against her. Unable to keep a man on account of their vile personalities, the trio despise "the flirt" her looks, and vow to bring her down a peg. To this end they lure their innocent prey into the woods, bind her to a tree and have at her with whips. This done, Janet is forced inside a chicken cage, smeared in honey and tortured with creepy crawlies until her mind snaps!

That was six months ago. Janet has since been confined in the insane asylum, while each of her tormentors have vanished from Timberton in mysterious circumstances.

The author gets to wondering how this guy knows so much about it. And what's that awful stench emanating from the cellar?

[helrunar]

Three evil, etiolated, vinegar-skinned hags on a bender... classic. But curious that the art shows a whole coven of winsome sadistic dollybirds lined up in their birthday suits, each waiting her turn to ravage and savage the disgraceful strumpet who has aroused their ire.

A "unique" tale, to be sure.

H.

[dem bones]

Jul 5, 2020 20:50:50 GMT helrunar said:

Three evil, etiolated, vinegar-skinned hags on a bender... classic. But curious that the art shows a whole coven of winsome sadistic dollybirds lined up in their birthday suits, each waiting her turn to ravage and savage the disgraceful strumpet who has aroused their ire.

A "unique" tale, to be sure.

H.

I'm not prone to overstating the merits of a story just because it happens to be a masterpiece, but if White Flesh Must Rot isn't the greatest achievement in the history of mankind then I'd like to know what is.

And William A. Rossi's A Beast for Every Home! is even better.

[dem bones]

" ... what I have done with sound is new! Inaudible sound waves cause living cells to swell to tremendous proportions, depending upon the course of treatment . Of course, an over-treatment will cause the subject to burst in pieces.However, I have learned the exact frequency pitch for various species. I shall make a race of human giants; make beasts of burden out of ordinary insects; change the dimensions of all living things to suit my whim and will. But I have one more experiment which will be the grand climax of my work. I shall make giants of you and your fiancee then mate you to see if a giant child will result."

" ——— — , you're mad!" I shouted. "Stark, staring mad!"


William A. Rossi - A Beast for Every Home!: Nature is revolting, shudder pulp style. The quiet rural community of Fermont comes under attack from all manner of domestic pets and insects suddenly turned giant-size connoisseurs of human meat. Suspicion falls on the proprietor of Lawson's Carnival, recently arrived back in town for the summer season. Lawson is sworn to get even with Arlene, the fiancee of Dr. Carl Niles, for once rebuffing his crude advances with a slap around the face.

Dr Nile and Police Captain Wallace consult Dr. Ivan Vortsch, the brilliant surgeon-pathologist, now happily recovered from a nervous breakdown, but he is at loss to explain the phenomenon. Now, if you'll excuse me gentlemen, I must return to my work ...

Since retirement, Dr. Vortsch has shut himself away in his home secret laboratory with just Jed the hired muscle and Enoch the halfwit for company. He's kept busy perfecting his greatest invention, the high-frequency sound apparatus.

When Arlene and flatmate Eve vanish feared abducted, a furious Lawson is taken into custody - but an increasing death toll suggests the Police have the wrong man. Wallace and Nile pay a visit to the Vortsch mansion, where —


Science. You just can't beat it.

[dem bones]

Glenn Harper - Death Loves My Wife: Cora Byron and Owen Thorne, the two most eligible young people in Moundville, has recently celebrated their engagement when he was lost in a canoeing tragedy on Lake Jackson. The corpse was never recovered. Now Cora is in love again, but the drowned man wants her to himself. Unusually for the weird menace pulps, a straight ghost story.

Jerry Toblin - They Trade in Mangled Bodies: "For each living, pulsing human being they seized - they left a substitute; one fresh, mangled corpse, newly turned out by the Devil's grist Mill! Ever since the mine closure, the people of Silver City have been picked off by a fifteen-strong cowled cult known as the Messengers of Red Revenge. For every pulped corpse they leave hanging from a tree, a new victim is dragged to their sacrificial altar in the caves of Phantom Canyon. Sheriff Joe Blazer is the latest to go missing, presumed mangled. Sure enough, as the headless remains of person unidentifiable are discovered, Eleanor, the sheriff's pure as the driven snow daughter, is abducted. Can Dorgan rescue his girl from the filthy clutches of He-who-stands-to-gain and his bloody chapel of rapists and perverts?