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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2021 19:59:30 GMT
Eric J. Guignard [ed.] - Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror (Dark Moon Books, 2019) Eric J. Guignard - Introduction
Seanan McGuire - The Golden Girls of Fall
Weston Ochse - Sea Lords of the Columbia
Kasey Lansdale & Joe R. Lansdale - Tremble
Gary Phillips - The Demon of the Track
Jason Starr - Outlawed Ink
Nancy Holder - We Might Be Giants
Duane Swierczynski - Universal Monsters
David J. Schow - Draggers
John M. Floyd - The Starlite Drive-in
Lisa Morton - Dr. Morbismo's Insaniterrorium Horror Show
Bill Pronzini - Hot Babe
Yvonne Navarro - The Prom Tree
Steve Perry - I'm with the Band
Max Allan Collins & Matthew V Clemens - Mystery Train: An Arcane Investigation
Jeff Strand - Lab Experiment Turf War
Amelia Beamer - The She-Creature
Will Viharo - Fish out of Water
Brian Hodge - I was a Teenage Shroom Fiend
Editor's Request
About Editor Eric J. Guignard
About Illustrator Steve Chanks Blurb: WELCOME TO THE COOL SIDE OF THE 1950's, where the fast cars and revved-up movie monsters peel out in the night. Where outlaw vixens and jukebox tramps square off with razorblades and lead pipes. Where rockers rock, cool cats strut, and hot rods roar.
This is the ’50s where ghost shows still travel the back roads of the south, and rockabilly has a hold on the nation’s youth; where lucky hearts tell the tale, and maybe that fella in the Shriners' fez ain’t so square after all. Where exist noir detectives of the supernatural, tattoo artists of another kind, Hollywood fix-it men, and a punk kid with grasshopper arms under his chain-studded jacket and an icy stare on his face ....
This is the '50s of Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters and Hot Rod Horror. This is your ticket to the dark side of American kitsch... the fun and frightful side!
THRILLS! HORROR! PULP! ROCK & ROLL! FUN!  Steve ChanksPicked this up hoping for something in similar vein to Martin H Greenberg & Norman Partridge's It Came from the Drive-in. Early days yet. Seanan McGuire - The Golden Girls of Fall: The Johnson's Crossing Fighting Pumpkins are not your common or garden High School cheerleaders. Andrea Lomax, nominal leader, is a vampire, and her teammates include an alien, a reanimated corpse, and a vat-created composite of at least three former students. The glamorous troupe fall foul of hot rod greasers led by Frank Harker, grandson of the late Abraham, a veteran vampire slayer. Weston Ochse - Sea Lords of the Columbia: Returned home to Oregon from the horrors of Korea, Doogie and Hemmo are at a loose end — until a talking fish asks them to rescue a dying mermaid held as a sex slave in a mean Astoria bar. The suicide mission gives them renewed purpose in life. John M. Floyd - The Starlite Drive-in: Terry County, Mississippi, present day. Wasp-woman, the Fly, Reptilicus, the Mole Men, the Killer shrews, the teenage werewolf and fellow iconic 'fifties B-Movie monsters emerge from a spilled stack of film canisters to tear apart the living. Sheriff Bill Foley and Deputy Katie Burns are the only ones who can save us! Lisa Morton - Dr. Morbismo's Insaniterrorium Horror Show: Ginmill, Texas. When the Doc's travelling Spook show play a one off performance at the Rialto Movie Palace, they face competition from a genuine ghost. Jim Black, usher, fell from the balcony during a scrap with his best pal, Billy Crockett. Despite the Judge exonerating him of blame, Billy is despised as a "murderer" by local folk, when he's really a decent-at-heart, misunderstood, crazy mixed-up teenager! On learning that Billy fronts a rockabilly band, Doc hires them to open the show. The audience get lairy. Phantom Jim waits in the wings.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 23, 2021 19:27:20 GMT
 Steve Chanks Demon of the Track: Venice, Los Angeles, 1959. Deacon Coles, Jet fighter and local speedway ace, knows he'll ever be denied opportunity to race at the big venues on account of his skin colour. Playing on his disillusion, Ymar Montez, "a knock out chic right off the cover of Stag," persuades him to assist her in lifting a gold chalice from the museum, on the pretext that she must return it to her people. Of course, Deac has no cause to suspect that Ymar is a vampire Aztec Queen and the bowl contains the slimy life essence of Mictlantecuhtli! Jeff Strand - Lab Experiment Turf War: West Side Story revisited. Dr. Baleful's mutants — Grasshopper Boy, Coyote Kid, Wally Two-heads and Joey Dead-no-more — defend their turf versus Dr. Awry's petri dish disasters led by Frank, the walking pustule. "Dr. Awry ain't even a real mad scientist. Everyone knows he's just as sane as can be!" "You take that back!" A terse stand-off erupts into switch-blade slashing massacre when Grasshopper boy's sister reveals that she is pregnant with Frank's child. Bill Pronzini - Hot Babe: Rival speedway aces Jack Flint and Bruno Gianetti hate one another's guts even before Bouncy Brenda comes between them. Brenda lives for speed, sex, and watching guys perish in flames. She's none too particular about the order. Steve Perry - I'm with the Band: Bonehead the drummer and Cecil the roadie conspire to ensure Dwayne Bogan and the Blades' Mississippi gig will be their last with a racist, paedophile teen idol frontman calling the shots. Amelia Beamer - The She-Creature: Teenage lesbians Joy and Gayle, a newcomer to Oakland, break into into Children's Fairyland at midnight. Gayle's all leather jacket cool, been there, done that. Joy is an innocent who thinks she must be a Communist because she likes other girls and that ain't the American Way. The adventure turns weird. That only one girl comes back doesn't necessarily mean the worst in this instance. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Nov 23, 2021 20:09:14 GMT
Picked this up hoping for something in similar vein to Martin H Greenberg & Norman Partridge's It Came from the Drive-in. Early days yet. This looks fun. How are you liking it so far? I'm particularly curious about the Seanan McGuire story--I've never read any of her work, but it seems like it could be my sort of thing. Evidently she's written a series of stories about the Fighting Pumpkins. |
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Post by dem bones on Nov 25, 2021 18:34:09 GMT
This looks fun. How are you liking it so far? Easy on the brain, read and forget popcorn "horror" for the most part. Am enjoying it more now I've began alternating with a ghost story selection. A story built around Emily Fighting Pumpkin (the three student composite) should be fun.  Steve Chanks: It's the Sonrisa Halloween Carnival, and 19-year-old Johnny Morris, teen idol, is in big girl trouble. He's double-dated again, and the hot babes concerned — Amalia and Peggy-Sue — are sure to find out at tonight's Sidewinders vs. Cactus Flowers baseball game as they are rival team captains. Lucky for Johnny, help is at hand from an all-female race of gorgeous eggheads from planet Altara-Z who whisk him away in a flying saucer. Duane Swierczynski - Universal Monsters: "I'm not talking about 3-D. I'm talking about an entirely new film process that brings screen images to actual, pulsating life." Unfortunately, Marvel Whitehead, master of celluloid, speaks the truth. At the preliminary screening of The Crawling Shadow, a tentacled monstrosity emerges Samara-like from the screen to rip apart the audience. And that's far from the worst of it. Will Viharo - Fish out of Water: Doomed love story set in Seattle. Begins within Phinn, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, rescuing a gal from four leather-jacket greaser hoodlums bent on gang-rape. Julie is a junkie burlesque dancer at the Naughty Nautical club, whose owner, Big Frank, pimps her to all comers in return for heroin. Phinn nurses her through cold turkey, and Julie dreams of a new start on an island, just the two of them, away from the evil city. But Frank is not one to let a meal ticket slip through his hands and the greaseball gang never forgive a slight. Far my pick of the stories, probably no coincidence that it doesn't end on the cheeriest note. |
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Post by dem bones on Nov 30, 2021 11:55:04 GMT
 Steve Chanks DraggersThree of the stronger stories, or so it seems to me. Fish Out of Water still personal #1. Kasey Lansdale & Joe R. Lansdale - Tremble: Badger Creek, E. Texas, 1953. Belinda Cane, the only rockabilly gal in High School, is systematically bullied by the other kids save four fellow outcasts, united by a love of music, and despised by the popular kids as "band queers." They call themselves the Hurricane Hunters. Belinda hooks up with the guitarist, Ronald Wilson, who persuades her to take over vocal duties. This proves a shrewd move; Belinda is a natural, on account of she's descended from the same sirens who did their damnedest to destroy Odysseus on the rocks ... When the Hurricane Hunters score a radio smash with first single, Tremble, they arrange for a homecoming gig in the school auditorium. Belinda warns her band mates that it will all end in fireworks .... Jason Starr - Outlawed Ink: It takes the funeral of their abusive father to briefly reunite estranged twin brothers, Ray and Nick, if only for as long as it takes for each to piss on the bastard's grave. Nick may not be able to accept Ray's homosexuality, but he can at least share the secret of the family's all-conquering Psychosis. It begins with a trip to a tattoo parlor on a Pauling dirt road .... David J. Schow - Draggers: Death race on the Bakehurst Field drag-strip between fresh-faced(ish) Chuck 'Breezer' Detweiler and Rodrigo the Beast, a shredded and mangled veteran of innumerable prior grudge matches. Breezer and Rodrigo won't be doing the driving - instead they'll be hanging on to the rear bumpers as two hot-rodders tear around the track. Violet Cupp, flag girl, provides the tits, arse, and brains (it's a DJS story). |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 1, 2021 12:53:24 GMT
 Steve Chanks Mystery Train: "They say someone stacks up and dies every leap year on prom night, and the only way to keep it from happening is to put something personal — meaningful — on the Prom Tree." In the four years since her father was posted here at Fort Huachuca, Katie has yet to make a true pal among her rich bitch High School contemporaries, and, with just three days to Prom Night, no prospect of a date. Still she fears something awful will happen unless she drives out to Texas Canyon and hangs an offering on the junk-laden Prom Tree. The donation has cost her much — she stole it from her beloved Mom. Will it be enough to prevent disaster? Max Allan Collins & Matthew V Clemens - Mystery Train: An Arcane Investigation: " ... Liz was on the ground, also out cold, though she was obviously breathing, the largely exposed breasts heaving as she lay sprawled in the weeds, a pin-up for a pervert." Recently widowed and desperate for money, young Beverley Raith reluctantly agrees to play 'secretary' (trans: nursemaid) to Alexander Arcane, a particularly brilliant, but problematic psychic investigator. Mrs. Arcane - her employer - explains that Alexander suffers from 'Cotard's Delusion' - he believes himself a walking corpse and therefore requires neither sleep nor nourishment. Beverley must somehow constantly trick him into doing both. Her first day in the job sees Beverley accompany Arcane to the Florida Everglades where, last night, a strange green fog descended on swampland during a Howie & the Howlers gig at Big Don Waldrop's General Store. The effect on the lead singer was most unfortunate. Found this one great fun. Glad I stuck with it as book has picked up over these most recently commented stories. Just the Brian Hodge closer to go. |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 2, 2021 18:02:49 GMT
By now I was willing Pop the Clutch to go out on a high, and it does.
Brian Hodge - I was a Teenage Shroom Fiend: "I'm the Blob! I'm the Blob!"
Maddox, the last speedfreak greaser in a sleepy college town, makes his cash from dealing drugs to Sugar Grove campus hippies and frat boys. One night he shares a cell with a dangerously tripped out Trenchfoot Tommy, who informs him that Erik Halliday, perma-stoned husband of the hottest of hot waitresses at the Voodoo Mama Lounge, has cultivated a unique crop of magic mushrooms — blue-grey, speckled with purple spots — sprouting from all over his body. Maddox pays the Hallidays a visit, slices off a quantity of these plump 'n juicy delights, sells them to regular customers, settles back to enjoy the mayhem as the campus is overrun with instant Teenage Frankensteins, werewolves, vampires, giant ants, Creatures from the Black Lagoon and the mandatory torch-wielding mob. Told from the perspective of Wyatt, the bullied kid with the lazy-eye and stutter of whom Maddox is fiercely protective. "I thought crazed hippies were just something from the movies, like in I Drink Your Blood that double featured with I Eat Your Skin at the drive-in theater a few years earlier ... But those were Satan-worshipping hippies who got rabies from infected meat pies. I would really have liked for that to be true ...."
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