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Doug Draa on Weird Tales and Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years

Doug Draa on Weird Tales and Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years

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Creeps by Night-smallLong before Doug Draa became an occasional blogger for Black Gate, I was a reader of his blog, Uncle Doug’s Bunker of Horror, which we’ve celebrated before. I especially enjoyed his habit of using any excuse whatsoever — and I do mean any excuse — to post luscious high-res images of countless beautiful old paperbacks. Reading Uncle Doug’s Bunker was like browsing a superb used bookstore (without any money).

As Doug has become busier with other projects, including becoming an Online Editor for Weird Tales, he’s been less and less able to keep up his blog. So I was delighted to see that he’s now started to post at the Weird Tales site. His recent articles include “The 15 most entertaining Horror Films from the 1980s,” “Four Decades of the Lovecraftian Aesthetic in Paperback,” “Lin Carter’s Weird Tales” and more fun stuff like that (see a complete archive here.)

On May 25, Doug posted one of his best recent articles, continuing his series on 90 Years of Weird: Keeping the Brand Alive: The Paperback Years. Doug surveys three decades of paperback anthologies reprinting WT fiction, from the death of the pulp magazine in September 1954 through its rebirth in 1988, generously illustrated with nearly three-dozen high-res scans. Here’s a quick snippet:

Lin Carter has a special place among the ranks of Weird Tales preservationists and revivalists. During the late 1960s and early 70s he edited and reprinted many H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith collections as part of his Adult Fantasy Series published by Ballantine. Mr. Carter never failed to sing praises to Weird Tales from the roof tops in his numerous introductions to the collections in this series. At the beginning of the 1980s Mr. Carter even went as far as to revive Weird Tales in paperback format for four issues. This incarnation wasn’t a darling of the critics, but I found it to be enjoyable and true to the original vision of the magazine… Thank you Mr. Carter, I drink to your Shade!

See the complete article here.

Kirkus Looks at Andre Norton’s Young Adult Novels

Kirkus Looks at Andre Norton’s Young Adult Novels

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Star Born Andre Norton-smallAndrew Liptak has written a fine series of pulp and classic SF retrospectives SF at Kirkus Reviews over the last few months. In his latest, which he introduces at his website, he looks at the often-neglected YA novels of the great Andre Norton:

Norton wrote largely for what we now call the YA audience: teenagers, with fantastical adventures throughout numerous worlds and times. She was also largely ignored or dismissed for writing ‘children’s literature’, which is a shame, because it’s likely that she had as great an influence on the shape of the modern genre as Robert Heinlein, [whose] Juvenile novels attracted millions of fans to new worlds. Norton was the same, and influenced countless readers and writers for decades. It’s fitting that the major SF award for YA fiction is titled The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Go read the entire article here. Or have a look at some of Andrew’s previous articles, including:

Astounding Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Donald A. Wollheim and the Ace Double
The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Gnome Press

Digging further, I note that Andrew has also published blog posts on Leigh Brackett, Heinlein and Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Francis Stevens, C.L. Moore, Judith Merril, Margaret St. Clair, Katherine MacLean, and Anne McCaffrey, all at the Kirkus site. How did I miss all that? Clearly, I have some catching up to do!

In Praise of Paperbacks

In Praise of Paperbacks

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The Chessmen of Mars-smallFirst, a disclaimer. The Luddite rant that follows is my personal view only. I acknowledge the many benefits and advantages of electronic reading devices and to all of the people (many of them dear friends of mine) who would never think of parting with their Kindle, iPad, Nook, or whatever, this is in no way a judgment or condemnation of you or your reading preferences. It is simply about me and my preferences. Now, let the rant begin.

I teach elementary school, and when I began that job, ten years ago, I was faced with the “problem” of what to do with my summers. Yardwork? Get the garage in order? Any of the thousand other home projects that clamor for attention during the working week and never get done for lack of time or energy? Attractive as these options are, I quickly hit upon the happy idea of passing my summers in the same way I did as an adolescent, in reading through as many SF/fantasy paperbacks as I possibly could in the allotted time. Though age does take its toll, and gone are the days when I had the stamina to read The Chessmen of Mars or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel through in a single sitting, as I did when I was thirteen, I still manage to do all right. The choice to spend my extended vacations reliving those great days of blissful, carefree reading is one of best I’ve ever made.

A couple of summers ago, having just finished one book (I think it was one of E.C. Tubb’s Dumarest of Terra novels), I looked around for my next read. There on the shelf was a paperback copy of The Stars Are Ours by Andre Norton. My copy is a 40 cent paperback, published by Ace in 1954. The book is great fun and I quickly zipped through it.

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Vintage Treasures: The Great Steamboat Race by John Brunner

Vintage Treasures: The Great Steamboat Race by John Brunner

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The Great Steamboat Race John Brunner-smallJohn Brunner is one of my favorite writers. He wrote one of the finest SF novels I’ve ever read, the Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zannibar, and over a career that spanned 40+ years he produced nearly 60 SF novels  and 15 short story collections.

I have virtually all of his SF output, but a few months ago I stumbled on a Brunner novel unknown to me: The Great Steamboat Race, published in a premium trade paperback edition by Ballantine in 1983. Based upon the true story of an epic race between the steamboats Natchez and Robert E. Lee down the hazardous Mississippi River on the July 4th 1870 weekend, The Great Steamboat Race is a massive historical saga and a significant departure for Brunner. It’s the only book like it in his catalog and Ballantine obviously sunk some money into the production — it’s packaged very much like a historical bestseller.

A decade before it appeared, a virtually unknown sword & sorcery writer named John Jakes escaped midlist obscurity by turning from SF and Fantasy to historical fiction with his novel The Bastard. That single novel made Jakes one of the most popular writers in America and the series that grew from it, the Kent Family Chronicles, eventually sold 55 million copies (to put that in perspective, that’s roughly twice George R.R. Martin’s sales for all the volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire.) Jakes’s success inspired many of his fellow SF writers to experiment with straight historical fiction, including Robert Silverberg (with Lord of Darkness, 1983) and a handful of others.

Although The Great Steamboat Race was well-reviewed, it was not a success. It was never reprinted in mass market paperback (although copies of the trade paperback edition are easy to find, even today) and John Brunner returned to writing SF and fantasy. He never wrote another historical novel.

The Great Steamboat Race was published by Ballantine Books in February, 1983. It is 568 pages, originally priced at $7.95. New copies are available on eBay for roughly the same price today.

A Bomb on a Plane: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Four: Death Takes the Wheel

A Bomb on a Plane: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Four: Death Takes the Wheel

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Adventures of Captain Marvel Part 4-smallAll right, you kids — put those squirt guns away and stop throwing that popcorn; it’s time for this week’s exciting chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Today’s thrilling episode: “Death Takes the Wheel.”

Three title cards should bring any late arrivals up to speed. “The Scorpion – Sends his men to Oak Mountain Lodge for Carlyle’s lens.” “Billy Batson – Tries to beat them to the Lodge in his plane.” “Whitey – Fails to warn Billy that his plane will blow up at one minute past eight.” Now, speak the magic word and gain the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of… whew! I’m bushed. Never mind the rest; let’s get started!

In a flashback to the end of last week’s segment, a grinning Billy wings his way to Oak Mountain Lodge to retrieve the lens from Carlyle’s safe, blissfully unaware that an “atmospheric exploder” has been planted in his plane, while an agitated Whitey (there were a lot of them around in the 40’s) desperately tries to radio a warning to his friend. Neither he nor Billy knows that the plane’s radio wires have been cut.

As the time for detonation approaches, Billy glances down and sees the dangling wires; he reaches down and twists them together, restoring the connection just in time to hear Whitey say, “There’s a bomb wired to explode in your plane at one minute past eight! Bail out!”

On hearing this, Billy wastes no time in saying “Shazam!” Now transformed into Captain Marvel, he immediately opens the door and leaps from the plane, showing solidarity with all those who have ever been presented with a warmed-over airline turkey meal or an in-flight movie starring Rob Schneider. The airplane explodes (hope your insurance was paid up, Billy) and Captain Marvel flies away unhurt.

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Collector the Barbarian’s Corner: Hunting the 1978 TRASH COMPACTOR MONSTER

Collector the Barbarian’s Corner: Hunting the 1978 TRASH COMPACTOR MONSTER

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trash eyeOf course you’ll recall the Death Star scene in Star Wars when our stalwart heroes escape the Storm Troopers by blasting open a panel, jumping down a chute, and landing in a trash compactor.

Han Solo declares:

“The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea. What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”

And then the walls start closing in. But not before our heroes discover that there’s something else in that there garbage, leading Luke Skywalker to observe:

“There’s something alive in here!”

…That is, another life form besides a princess, a farm boy, a space pirate, and his wookiee sidekick. Something that is only glimpsed — specifically, a tentacle and a single eye stalk.

God, I loved that scene.

What was that thing? It is usually simply referred to as the trash compactor monster, but seeing as how virtually every aspect of the Star Wars universe has been fleshed out via franchise tie-ins, it turns out it’s a “dianoga.” According to Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki, it is not unique: dianogas “could be commonly found in trash compactors, garbage pits and sewers” and are “sometimes referred to as a garbage squids, sewer squids, or trash monsters.”

I had the original 1978 trash compactor set. Essentially a plastic box, it had a knob that rotated a screw to make one wall close in. In lieu of garbage, it was loaded with colorful bits of foam. When the foam, along with a couple of your favorite action figures, was sufficiently compacted, the door would pop open, spelling freedom for whomever you’d tossed in there.

It also came with the monster.

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Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #290

Vintage Treasures: Weird Tales #290

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Weird Tales 290-smallI’m still unpacking all the treasures I brought home from the 2014 Windy City Pulp & Paper show in April. Although, as my wife Alice points out, things would go a little faster if I didn’t fondle everything for 20 minutes.

I found the artifact at right buried in a box of magazines and fanzines from the 70s and 80s I acquired at the show. It’s the 290th issue of Weird Tales, covered dated Spring 1988 — the Sixty-Fifth Anniversary issue, a landmark, and one of my favorite issues of perhaps the most famous fantasy magazine of all time.

Issue 290 was the first issue of Weird Tales from Terminus Publishing, under editors George H. Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt, and Darrell Schweitzer. It’s special to me because the Terminus era was my favorite incarnation of Weird Tales.

I suppose some folks will find that odd. Certainly the early pulp era of the Grand Old Lady of fantasy was its most fertile and famous period — the late 20s to mid-thirties, when it routinely published groundbreaking work by Robert E, Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Edmond Hamilton, and many, many others. Those issue are highly prized by collectors and key copies in good condition from that era routinely command hundreds of dollars.

But the Terminus years, which began in my mid-20s, marked the resurgence of Weird Tales as a vibrant, important and thoroughly modern fantasy magazine, publishing short fiction by the top fantasy writers of the time. It was also the first time I was able to enjoy it as a contemporary publication, rather than a highly collectible relic of a distant era, and I appreciated that very much. I had a subscription, and looked forward to each issue eagerly.

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Blogging Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond, Part Two

Blogging Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond, Part Two

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4b19b9961e944_71847n861809-superdicklib_3The strongest scenes in Bulldog Drummond (1920) are the ones that show off Sapper’s strengths as a humorist. While it has since become commonplace to see Bondian heroes tossing off quips while being menaced by an unfailingly polite villain, it hardly compares to the way Hugh Drummond handled himself in similar scenarios. Drummond regularly displays a self-deprecating humor when it comes to his features and his intellect, yet his ability to needle villains by refusing to treat them as a serious threat displays an intelligence and understanding of the criminal mind that provides a constant source of amusement to the reader.

Drummond may start off as an independently wealthy and very bored veteran of the First World War seeking adventure, but the character soon transforms into the head of a gang of vigilantes determined to right wrongs as they see fit. He and his gang view meting out justice without resorting to the law as their right as recently demobilized soldiers. The wartime ability to kill without fear of criminal punishment continues into their clandestine civilian activities, although they take the precaution of hiding behind masks and hoods to protect their identities when doing so.

Drummond’s gang includes his fellow World War I veterans Algy Longworth, Peter Darrell, Ted Jerningham, Toby Sinclair, and Jerry Seymour, as well as New York police detective Jerome Green. Later dubbed The Black Gang, the vigilante squad was clearly inspired by Edgar Wallace’s bestselling Four Just Men series. The secret war they wage is aimed squarely against the forces of socialism and communism to an extent that was matched only by Harold Gray’s original version of Little Orphan Annie. The anti-foreign sentiments in the first book are rooted in the perceived threat of foreigners altering the course of England’s political identity and economic status.

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Kidnapping, Murder, and Disrupting Traffic on Public Roadways: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Three: Time Bomb

Kidnapping, Murder, and Disrupting Traffic on Public Roadways: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Three: Time Bomb

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Adventures of Captain Marvel Part 3-smallToday, before the lights go down and our show begins, we have a brief public sevice message. No, it’s not about the YMCA car wash or the Friends of the Library book sale. It’s about where you can find The Adventures of Captain Marvel for your own viewing.

The serial was last released on DVD in 2003, but is now only available used — the Amazon marketplace has several copies available. They can be a bit pricey, however; the serial was ten dollars ten years ago, when I bought mine new, but now the cheapest copies on Amazon are twice that.

A true hero never despairs, though, and there’s good news for those who want to experience serial thrills first hand, instead of just hacking their way through my breathless prose descriptions. The Adventures of Captain Marvel is available to watch on YouTube, along with many other classic (and not so classic) serials. It’s a great place to get acquainted — or reacquainted — with this kind of storytelling.

If online serial watching whets your appetite for more Saturday matinee thrills, I enthusiastically direct you to the Serial Squadron, a great group of people who seek out and restore serials — many of them rare or even thought to be lost. You can visit them at www.serialsquadron.com. They make remastered copies (often with plenty of great extras) for sale on DVD and also make them available for free viewing on their own YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/serialsquadron.

Now, sit back and let the wizard Shazam transport you to a world of action and excitement where evil keeps things interesting but justice is bound to prevail!

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Doctor Strange Gets a Director

Doctor Strange Gets a Director

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Strange Tales 110 Doctor Strange-smallI’ve been getting cranky waiting for progress on Marvel’s Doctor Strange movie, and as the wait has stretched out, I’ve been getting progressively more pessimistic (see my March post, Hurry Up With That Doctor Strange Movie, Marvel.)

The property has enormous potential to be something completely original in the superhero genre — namely a faithful rendition of Steve Ditko’s playful (and totally bonkers) inter-dimensional setting, which is what first blew away so many readers of Doctor Strange in the 1960s. A hero whose adventures routinely took him to gorgeous, bizarre, imaginative, and frequently monster-filled realms where normal concepts of space and distance were useless was something totally new, and readers thrilled to it — and it took Ditko’s unique genius to really make it work.

However, Marvel Studios took a huge step forward this week, announcing that they had selected a director for the film: Scott Derrickson, writer/director of the terrific little horror film Sinister, perhaps the best horror flick of 2012. Derrickson has an impressive resume as a writer/director, including The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and the upcoming Deliver Us from Evil (July 2014). He was also the director of the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

If you’re getting a strong horror vibe off  Derrickson’s resume, you’re not alone. Matt D. Wilson at Comics Alliance did a fine job of articulating my own feelings on the announcement yesterday:

Seriously, though, that’s pretty interesting, considering that Doctor Strange has never been what I’d call a horror character, despite his many dealings with supernatural forces, demons, dark magic, and so forth. But his stories have always tended to be more fantastical, while other Marvel characters, such as Son of Satan, Werewolf By Night, and, you know, Dracula, have tended to be more horror-focused. The decision perhaps suggests a tone that won’t necessarily please Doctor Strange fans, but may be very palatable to general movie audiences, who made the low-budget Sinister a surprise hit back in 2012.

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