My Scrapbook Become a Fingerprint Expert! Back cover ad from gawdknowswhere I JUST LOVE these corny old ads offering dubious products and services that can be found in old magazines, comics and even now on late night television and those "free" streaming services. I'm not sure where I stumbled across this one (Did someone send … Continue reading My Scrapbook: Become a Fingerprint Expert!
Tag: Magazines
The New Black Mask
A Review and Tribute by Mark Coggins Edited by J. Kingston Pierce Many fans of hard-boiled fiction are aware of the importance of Black Mask, the pulp magazine that flourished in the 1920s and 30s and launched the careers of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner. What fewer mystery readers may know … Continue reading The New Black Mask
My Scrapbook: 77 Sunset Strip (The Magazine)
77 Sunset Strip (The Magazine) July 1960, Great American Publications Okay, so it wasn't the greatest cover. It looks like it was cobblers together during somebody's lunch break. Also, this tie-in "digest" was actually closer in size to a pulp, which no doubt annoyed newsstand employees who weren't sure where to shelve it. Still, I'm sure … Continue reading My Scrapbook: 77 Sunset Strip (The Magazine)
My Scrapbook: “The Exploiters” Magazine Spread
My Scrapbook "The Exploiters" Magazine Spread Better late than never, I suppose. This is the spread from the February 1968 issue of Men's Only magazine, kicking off an excerpt from Richard Stark's 1962 novel The Hunter (aka Payback), published six years earlier. It was the first of long-running and critically acclaimed series of novels about … Continue reading My Scrapbook: “The Exploiters” Magazine Spread
Murder in the Library: The Best Crime & Detective Pulps
An Honour Roll. A work in progress; highly subjective. There were countless crime and detective pulps, of course, and almost all of them would, occasionally, publish some real gems featuring a private eye, but remember — these were the pulps, and most of the stories, even in the hallowed pages of Black Mask or Dime … Continue reading Murder in the Library: The Best Crime & Detective Pulps
Murder in the Library: The Other Crime & Detective Pulps
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? This list, mostly pinched from William F. Nolan's excellent The Black Mask Boys (1985), is almost certainly incomplete. Everyone knows the big names like Black Mask, Dime Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly, but most of the pulps came and went with dizzying speed, switching titles and publishers and formats with gay … Continue reading Murder in the Library: The Other Crime & Detective Pulps
They Also Served: The Men and Women Behind the Mask
"A Magazine of Mystery, Romance and Adventure." -- The Black Mask's first slogan The Black Mask (the "the" was dropped in 1926), founded in 1920, was aimed squarely at the cheap seats, printed on paper so rough the pages sometimes sported splinters. It was intended as a quick, money-making side project by journalist H. L. … Continue reading They Also Served: The Men and Women Behind the Mask
Murder in the Library: The Crime Mags
Non-Fiction in a Periodical Vein Yeah, it's obvious that not all these print magazines are exclusively non-fiction. Most of them have, will or are willing to include the occasional bit of fiction alongside the usual non-fiction news, views, reviews and interviews, so there's bound to be some cross-over with the magazines listed on Murder in … Continue reading Murder in the Library: The Crime Mags
The National Lampoon
If You Don't Click This Link, We'll Kill the Dick National Lampoon, that cheeky, irreverent kid brother to MAD Magazine that ran from 1970 to 1998, tried to act like the older brother. They offered "adult humour," theoretically aimed at a more sophisticated, mature crowd. But really, who were they trying to kid? It was … Continue reading The National Lampoon
Good Ol’ Holyoke, Mass.
The Place Where the Pulps Came From In helping me assemble my list of post-pulp digests, Richard Moore openly speculated that 1 Appleton Street, Holyoke, Massachusett, listed so often as the "publisher's address" of so many crime pulps and digests, must surely have been a mail drop to dodge bill collectors -- or that Holyoke … Continue reading Good Ol’ Holyoke, Mass.