The Pulp Reader

McLevy The Edinburgh Detective Series 8

2011-12-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

The latest season of McLevy came out last month. I missed some of it, but it looks like BBC Radio 4 is currently rerunning their McLevy catalog. I don't know if they will be running all 8 seasons, but they are right now on season 1.

Click here to do a search for the latest episodes.

Don't know about McLevy? Check out the Pulp Reader's McLevy subsite to learn about Edinburgh's 19th Century beat detective.

McLevy

A Pulp Holiday Gift Guide

2011-11-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot going on in the retail world of the pulps this year and I would like to offer some suggestions for holiday gift giving:

First off, pulp historian and fictioneer Will Murray has been full steam ahead in his new Doc Savage novel writing and pulp audio adaptations. Radio Archives has been adapting several pulp classics to audio this year. You will find THE SPIDER: PRINCE OF THE RED LOOTERS, THE BLACK BAT: BRAND OF THE BLACK BAT, DOCTOR DEATH: 12 WILL DIE and of course DOC SAVAGE in THE JADE OGRE, PYTHON ISLE, WHITE EYES plus a digitally restored CD of the Doc Savage radio dramas FEAR CAY and THE THOUSAND HEADED MAN. All of these can be bought as CDs or digital downloads from RADIO ARCHIVES.

Also in the aural zone is film director Larry Fessenden's new horror audiodrama label Tales From Beyond the Pale. These are tales of horror inspired by the classic Old Time Radio shows and star the voice talents of many genre favorites such as Vincent D'Onofrio, Ron Perleman and Doug Jones. The full season 1 (10 episodes) is available as DVD packs, a complete boxed set or digital downloads. For more info and samples please check out their website at talesfrombeyondthepale.com/

In the visual landscape there are a few DVDs to take note of. One is the nutty mashup of Raymond Chandler's FAREWELL, MY LOVELY and apocalyptic mad scientist genre, The BIG BANG, directed by Tony Krantz and starring Antonio Banderas. Probably an either love it or hate it movie, it has a daring and brazen edge to it that keeps it visually and plot-wise quirky. I thought it was a lot of fun.

I have to mention one of my favorite modern hard-boiled flicks, GIVE 'EM HELL MALONE which is an over the top action mystery that is part Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT and part fevered action romp as seen in the writings of The Spider's author Norvell Page. This is a really fun movie that doesn't take itself seriously but hits all the right buttons for super pulpy action.

And finally for DVDs, as I mentioned on Facebook, what I consider the must have movie of the year for the Weird Menace pulp aficionado is Vincent Cortez's The HUSH. This is an indie movie made on $8000. But don't let that fool you into thinking it is not a quality production. The Hush has everything hitting the right marks. It is a dark, brooding, supernatural hard-boiled neo-Noir with loads of action, drama and phantasmagorical effects. I have a full review here. You can now buy a signed DVD for $15 straight from the director. If you want to have a really interesting stocking stuffer for your pulpy friends this year, I highly recommend this film!

A late breaking entry for DVD is the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's latest film THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS. Previously the HPLHS produced the silent short movie THE CALL OF CTHULHU and they have now produced a feature length "talkie" adaptation of Whisperer. It is now on sale at their website.

And then we have the books and magazines! First off, we have the holiday issue of The STRAND magazine which is printing a lost Cornell Woolrich story "Never Kick a Dick" which is set in a hotel overlooking Biscayne Bay. The STRAND also rediscovered a lost Dashiell Hammett story "So I Shot Him" published in the Feb 28th 2011 issue.

As mentioned above, Will Murray has a new line of Doc Savage novels being published. These can be found at Adventures in Bronze.

Also, earlier this year I talked about Donald Keyhoe's Philip Strange, WWI flying ace. Strange fought demons and dinosaurs on the European battlefront. How can you not love biplanes vs pterodactyls!

There is also a whole world of pulp reprints and new material being published these days. The best place to keep track of it all is at Coming Attractions.

Tang Dynasty's Judge Dread

2011-10-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

van Gulik illustrated his own books.

I was going to write a big article on the historical figure Di Ren Jie. He was a magistrate during Tang Dynasty (7th Century via Western calender) China. But I keep coming across articles and blogs that have already covered the territory I was going to cover. So I have a brief review of two books and then for the more curious, a few links at the bottom of the page to the most enlightening articles.

Just briefly: Di Ren Jie was a judge who it turns out like most judges of the time, were more like Judge Dread than Judge Judy. They were out in the field doing detective work and police procedurals with investigating, interrogating, torturing and convicting criminals. The only thing they didn't do by hand was the physical act of torturing or capital punishment.There is apparently a long history in China of these judges being written about in fictionalized accounts. Sort of like epic pulp fiction, as the cast of characters ranged into the hundreds along with an even higher number of chapters, with each chapter being hundreds of pages. These books were huge and full of intricate information.

This is something that went by the Western world without anyone ever noticing. But then, enter Robert Hans van Gulik. He was a mid-20th Century Dutch diplomat whose work brought him to Japan and China where he became an expert on Chinese history. He stumbled across an anonymously written 1800s pulp story about one of these judges from the 600s. Because of the brevity of this story, being shorter than thousands of pages with much less than hundreds of characters (so being more close to what the modern world would consider a book), he felt it would be great material to translate for a modern audience.

The result was THE CELEBRATED CASES OF JUDGE DEE (Dee Goong An 1949). In this book three crimes are unfolded. Each case is completely separate from the other but completely intertwined in the telling of the story. Again, I'll let someone else speak for me, in this case wikipedia, about the plot:

There are three cases in this book. The first might be called The Double Murder at Dawn. The case describes the hazardous life of the traveling silk merchant and the murder which is committed to gain wealth.
The second is The Strange Corpse which takes place in a small village, a crime of passion which proves hard to solve. The criminal is a very determined woman.
The third case The Poisoned Bride contains the murder of the daughter of a local scholar who marries the son of the former administrator of the district. This case contains a surprising twist in its solution.

All three cases are solved by Judge Dee, the district magistrate - Detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury all wrapped up into one person.

First edition of Celebrated Cases.

I found this book to be really grippingly intriguing all the way through. The way the plot elements intertwine and van Gulik's knack for writing very clear prose is highly enjoyable and very easy to digest. The penchant for torture being pretty much the answer for everything was a bit unnerving. But then that was the way of things at that time and van Gulik did not whitewash the original prose. A very in-depth and fascinating introduction puts the torture, the way of life of Magistrates and how the Chinese legal system itself worked into historical perspective. All in all, if you want to maximize your experience with Judge Dee on a historical and fictional level, this first book is definitely the one to read.

van Gulik went on to write 17 original novels and collections about Judge Dee. Since CELEBRATED CASES was a direct translation of another author's work I wanted to try one of van Gulik's original titles and jumped on JUDGE DEE AND THE HAUNTED MONASTERY (1961). This is from about mid-way through van Gulik's Judge Dee series. It seems to have its basis in the "Old Dark House" mysteries of the 1920s-50s, where a group of people typically become trapped in a single maze-like location and as bodies pile up, the hero has to figure out whodunnit. This book definitely has that feel.

For the plot this is again from wikipedia:

Judge Dee and his three wives are on their way back from a visit to family in the capital accompanied by the Judge's aid Tao Gan when a terrible storm forces the party to take shelter for the night in an isolated Taoist monastery of sinister repute. The wives go directly to bed but the Judge is required to pay a courtesy visit to the Abbot. Thus begins an endless night of murder, mayhem and madness as the Judge, suffering from the beginnings of a head cold, solves the mysterious deaths, punishes the guilty and brings two star-crossed young couples together.

This book, a completely original tale, has no torture to speak of and Judge Dee comes off more as an everyman detective as you might find in contemporary (1950s) fiction than as the high and mighty Magistrate portrayed in CELEBRATED CASES. Though there is no problem with the first book and it is completely enjoyable, this shift in focus on Dee's personality makes it less troublesome to get through. Judge Dee is fairly likable in this. I just have to admit that anyone who uses torture is probably not going to seem that amiable or likable, so the character has a one-up in HAUNTED MONASTERY. Though these two books are different animals, they are both eminently readable. I will absolutely continue reading further Judge Dee adventures. Next will be THE CHINESE MAZE MURDERS.

I have to admit I'd never heard of Judge Dee until a movie about him came out last year. DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME is an original story by Lin Quinyu and filmed by the legendary director Tsui Hark (Chinese Ghost Story-1987, Once Upon a Time in China -1991). This big budget epic intrigued me about the character and the more I researched the more I realized how much Judge Dee there was out there to read and learn about!

Reference materials:
The movie DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME is out in various DVD formats but I believe the valid Region 1 DVD comes out in December (2011). It is also currently touring the US at art house theaters. Roger Ebert's review is here. There is also a movie from 1974 that is an adaptation of THE HAUNTED MONASTERY, called JUDGE DEE AND THE MONASTERY MURDERS which you can find a review here.

There is a chronology of the stories along with lots of background data here.

And there is an excellent and in-depth essay on van Gulik and Judge Dee here.

If all of this fires your sparkplugs and you can't get enough, then be advised that a Chinese TV series on Judge Dee will be available on DVD with English subtitles starting in November.

Another nice overview of the character is at this blog.

And here I thought this was going to be a brief article.

Arsene Lupin in: The Crystal Stopper

2011-09-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

As promised on Facebook, The Pulp Reader is presenting Maurice LeBlanc's Arsene Lupin thriller THE CRYSTAL STOPPER. After watching the first episode of the French 1971 television series starring Georges Descrieres, which is an adaptation of this story, I felt compelled to see how different it is from the book. The TV adaptation was surprisingly good and imagine the novel to be even better.

Information from Wikipedia: The Crystal Stopper is a mystery novel by Maurice Leblanc featuring the adventures of the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. The novel appeared in serial form in the French newspaper Le Journal from September to November 1912 and was released as a novel subsequently. Maurice Leblanc was inspired by the infamous Panama scandals of 1892 and 1893. The novel borrows from Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Purloined Letter the idea of hiding an object in plain sight.

Plot Summary: During a burglary at the home of Deputy Daubrecq a crime is committed and two accomplices of Arsène Lupin were arrested by the police. One is guilty of the crime, the other innocent but both will be sentenced to death. Lupin seeks to deliver the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but struggles against Deputy Daubrecq's ruthless blackmailer, who has an incriminating document hidden in a crystal stopper.

* Head over to the Internet Archive
* Download the ZIPPED files (13 Chapters)
* Listen through your media player

* Listen to the stream right here:

The Phantom Ace

2011-08-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

When I first started The Pulp Reader there were what I considered a top handful of interesting pulp heroes; Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider, Secret Agent X and G-8 and his Battle Aces. Sure there's hundreds of pulp heroes out there, but those were the ones I was most interested in.

G8 seemed to be one of the more oddball characters as he was a WWI ace pilot who was also a top spy and happened to fight giant bats, flying tentacled behemoths, panther men, animated skeletons, intelligent apes and a whole menagerie of bizarre and supernatural creatures conjured up by the madmen employed by the Kaiser.

The ideas were over the top and crazy and a lot of fun. The only hindrance to the reading experience was that though creator Robert Hogan had a fertile and unfettered imagination, his writing skills were pedestrian, suffering IMO mainly from direly wooden dialog and sometimes vague descriptions of action.

The story setup was so sweet but the execution was unexceptional.

Well, there's a lot of pulp history that I just don't know about. But I'm always happily discovering new information! What I've discovered this week is that 2 years before the creation of G-8 there was another author writing about a pilot fighting the same type of Weird War...

The pulp reprinting publisher AGE OF ACES specializes in WWI aviation. They've been around for a few years now, putting out high quality collections that you just weren't likely to see anywhere else. They've culled the stories of The Red Falcon (also written by Hogan and existing in G-8's universe), Captain Combat, The Three Mosquitoes, The Iron Ace, Smoke Wade and others.

I was recently made aware that they would have a new book premiering at Pulpfest 2011 called Captain Philip Strange: Strange War written by Donald Keyhoe. If you are into Ufology you may have heard of Keyhoe as he wrote a few books about and was heavily into the UFO phenomena scene.

Well before the UFOs he was a Major in the USMC as a fighter pilot. And drawing from that experience he entered the pulp world, writing for magazines such as WEIRD TALES and notably FLYING ACES with stories of heroic pilots who fought weird menaces at the WWI Front lines.

AGE of ACES describes Captain Strange as such:

Welcome to a Strange War! In Donald E. Keyhoe’s imaginings, the stormy skies of World War I are filled with giant pterodactyls, mystic fireballs and demon aces. But America has it’s own unnatural secret weapon: Captain Philip Strange. A mental marvel from birth, he was so terrifyingly effective that the Allies referred to him as “The Phantom Ace of G-2.” But to the Germans he was “The Brain-Devil,” whose penetrating green eyes were both a legend and a nightmare. Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories ran for nine years—from 1931 through 1939—in the pages of Flying Aces magazine. This first volume in our new series contains six exciting tales of terror skies! It also features an introduction by Sid Bradd and is beautifully wrapped up in an exciting new design by Chris Kalb!

Having my interest piqued I started roaming around the 'net and found a few of these Strange tales online. The one I'm reading right now is the short story The Skeleton From the Sky. I have to tell you that having that true life experience in the deadly skies really set's Keyhoe's writing apart from Hogan's and probably most everyone else's. Like Dashiell Hammett who was employed by the Pinkerton's before embarking on writing about The Continental Op and Sam Spade, Keyhoe's working knowledge of his subject matter comes through especially in the air combat. His character studies are quick and concise but let you know each person remarkably well. This was somebody doing what Hogan got famous for with G-8, but doing it much better.

Captain Philip Strange: Strange War should be out at the regular online bookstores any time now. I know I'm ready and waiting!

To whet your appetite, instead of an audiobook, I'm going to point you to The Skeleton From the Sky in PDF and HTML form.

Hop Harrigan

And for the aural aerial experience, the comic book turned Radio show turned cliffhanger serial Hop Harrigan can be found at my neighbor, archive.org. This is a surprisingly good show that reminds me a lot of a cross between these weird aerial pulp adventures and the early adventures of Steve Canyon. The files at archive.org are a bit out of order, but it's the only place I've seen them around lately.

Of Charm and Violence

2011-07-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard the tag line at some point in your life. And if you grew up in the U.S. and are over 35 and had a radio or TV, you certainly heard it used and paraphrased a lot in the 60s, 70s & 80s.

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and this has been one of them."

I heard it a lot and got to know it well. The phrase that is, but not the show it comes from.

In 1945 a photographer known as "Weegee" put out a book of sensationalistic photos. He cruised the night life of New York City and captured in stark black and white the life and death of it's denizens. The book is still in print today. This tome of lurid images became the basis for the Film Noir classic with the same name as the book: THE NAKED CITY (1948). Shot in a semi documentary form, the film revolves around two cops trying to solve the case of a female fashion model murdered in her apartment.

The opening narration to the film does not introduce the story itself but instead talks about how it was created. Eschewing Hollywood back lots and studios, it was filmed on the streets and in the apartment and office buildings of NYC itself. Thus defining the city as a part of the overarching character of the movie. This type of show-casing of the environment in a police drama was put to good use 30+ years later in The Streets of San Francisco.

Fraciscus and McIntire in
a Naked City publicity photo.

Ten years after the movie came out, a spin off television series went into production. It used the same foundation of the streets of New York City as its true life backdrop. In its first season it was a half hour action show starring James Franciscus (Det. Halloran) and John McIntire (Lt. Muldoon). McIntire burned out on all the location shooting about halfway through the first season and when he left the show, his character was murdered in a flaming car crash, ran off the road by an assassin.

Writer Stirling Silliphant had gone out of his way in the 30 minute opening season to engage in a lack of plot in order to get a concise, action packed story out and done with. It was full of shootouts and tense situations with vignettes of personal pathos. There was some focus on the criminals themselves, hinting at what was to come later. Though full of terse action and drama, it failed to garner high ratings and at the end of the season it went on hiatus for a year.

Paul Burke and Nancy Malone

When it returned in 1960 it had been retooled into an hour long show focusing less on action and more on drama with a new lead; the unconceitedly charismatic Paul Burke as "Det. Flint". What really began to stand out with NAKED CITY as different from other crime dramas was this greater focus on the criminals. Almost all of the shows spend more air-time looking at the lives of the criminals than on the police procedural itself.

The criminals in this show turned out to be humans. Not just brief character sketches to push the plot along. Some are normal people thrown into unfortunate circumstances that force them into crime, some are born bad and show it through and through. Others straddle the fence, some eventually falling on the side of the law but usually on the side of villainy.

There was still plenty of violence though. I imagine there must have been a directive from the studio execs requiring a certain amount of violence in each episode. There was a lot of shoot 'em up in almost every episode. The only episode I've seen so far that did not have some type of explosive amount of lead poisoning is the Dennis Hopper starring episode "Shoes for Vinnie Winford", which though it has a car chase, does not have any gunplay.

Bruce Dern and Alvin Epstein

in "The Fault of Our Stars"

Though this interesting and different angle of centering on the criminal elements made it unique, what made it shine was the writing. Every episode I've seen so far has been perfectly written. There is always a balance between drama, horror and comedy. Comedy? Yes, there tends to be a lot of funny and cute moments amidst the turmoil. The dialog especially for the heroes tends to be very witty and charming. Something that with the modern focus on verity method acting and method writing seems to have all but disappeared from television and movies. Too bad, I say, as contemporary entertainment could use a lot more charm and wit.

Some episodes are very funny throughout (The Virtues of Madame Douvay), some are heart-warming journeys to redemption (Debt of Honor), and others deal with irredeemable and uncompromising evil (A Death of Princes). Each story whether being about horror, action, love, comedy or equilibrium, they have, in my opinion, all been successful.

Dustin Hoffman in

"Barefoot on a Bed of Coals"

Another interesting thing about this show is the staggering amount of up coming actors who guest-starred in the series who went on to very successful careers. Forgive me for cribbing from wikipedia, but here is a small list of actors seen on NAKED CITY; Rip Torn, Tuesday Weld, Jack Klugman, Peter Falk, Robert Duvall, Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Suzanne Pleshette, George Segal, Martin Sheen, Robert Redford, Sylvia Miles, Jon Voight, Sandy Dennis, William Shatner, Christopher Walken and Dustin Hoffman.

The show also featured such established performers as Kim Hunter, Eileen Heckart, Nehemiah Persoff, Betty Field, Luther Adler, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jan Sterling, Mildred Natwick, Walter Matthau, Viveca Lindfors, Claude Rains, Jack Warden, Eli Wallach, Burgess Meredith, Mickey Rooney, and Aldo Ray.

Well, at the beginning of this post I mentioned not actually seeing the show. That is until recently. Retro Television Network started rerunning the series in July. RTV shows the half-hour episodes on the weekend and the hour shows during the week. Watching it on RTV got me hooked and am very happy about the discovery of this television relic. It may be over 50 years old now, but the writing, acting and overall production still have a moxie and life that makes it very entertaining and engaging today.

If you do not have RTV, there were 3 box sets of the "best of" episodes put out by Image Entertainment. They are out of print but easily findable at online retail outlets and on Netflix.

Lurking Shadows

2011-06-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

The new visitor to The Pulp Reader may not realize that this blog started out as a repository for Text to Speech generated audiobooks. If you look at the mission statement at the very bottom of this page you will see where this all started.

As time has gone by there has been some evolution in the content. The Pulp Reader covers pulp, Noir, cliffhanger and classic movie reviews, news of what is going on in video and audio related media and anything else of a general interest to a pulp book, audio and movie fan.

But once in a while I still have a book I'd like to share. And this is somewhat exciting, at least for me, that today I'm experimenting with a new TTS reader. I'm always looking for the latest in technology so that the TTS audiobooks can sound as natural as possible. I stumbled across a nice British voice that seems to pronounce most words very well without the hitches and sometimes garbled sounds that come with machine driven audio.

Today's experiment is from the man who is considered the father of the "Hard-Boiled" genre, Carroll John Daly. Though his writing can be a little creaky, it is for the most part a truly pulpy thrill ride that is full of tough good guys and even tougher bad guys. Outside of my acute admiration for both his Race Williams and Satan Hall stories, there is not much I can tell you that has not been told by more capable hands than mine.

Therefore I leave you with some links for further edification and finally the book Lurking Shadows. I would be interested in knowing what you think of this new TTS voice. Is it easy to listen to? Is it a better voice than the traditional TTS voice that I use? Let me know.

Daly at the Vintage Library where you can buy etext of many Daly classics.
The first Daly Hard-boiled story "Three Gun Terry" is boiled down.
A brief biography and look at the themes in Daly's stories at gadetection.
And at Davy Crockett's Almanack, Evan has written extensively about many Daly titles.

LISTENING OPTIONS:
listen to LURKING SHADOWS at archive.org!
Direct Download the zip file here

Play the stream in your media player.

The HUSH

2011-06-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Vincent Cortez is a man on a mission.

And a man of many talents.

Zachary Gossett as The Hush

He is an artist, a writer, a director, a producer. He even mixes his own audio and records Foley in a closet-sized audio studio in his home. Cortez's ingenuity and resourcefulness shows how an indie movie can be brought to life with a budget of $8000 and still compete with anything coming of Hollywood.

Cortez also garners a lot of loyalty and admiration from his actors, co-workers and family. I found out why when I attended a screening of his haunting, supernatural Noir adventure The HUSH. For the proof is in the puddin'. Outside of a brief synopsis and the trailer, I didn't know what exactly to expect. But what I got was an amazing journey into darkness, into a haunted realm of memory, sorrow, loneliness and regret. All are prime elements that go into the making of the best films Noir.

An extra ingredient that is rare in the genre is the supernatural. It is an ingredient that is well-added and takes this movie far beyond the norms of Noir.

"The Hush" is hit man Freddy Burnett who as a child was indoctrinated into a world of violence and death, making him a hardened one man killing machine. Zachary Gossett plays The Hush with a quiet intensity and verve that is unsettling. The calm and assured way of dispatching his victims and his opponents lets you know who's side you want him on in a fight. Gossett pulls this vibe off without a hitch.

Melody Gomez and Zachary Gossett

The beginning of the film finds The Hush, who works for a mysterious group known as "The Horsemen", dispatching a local, crooked judge for them. But as the judge is killed, an unforeseen complication arises when his mistress, Lillian, walks out of a bathroom, witnessing the hit. A struggle ensues and she is killed. Lillian is played by Melody Gomez, who is appropriately haunting. A spectral presence who's death changes the direction of The Hush's life. For soon after she is killed her ghost follows her killer around. Taking an innocent life has changed him and now he has to work towards some type of atonement for his victims.

As the story progresses, another inadvertent death and more ghosts to follow The Hush around. Each with their own story, history and their own mission for The Hush. Each mission a stair step towards redemption. But doing so will turn his employers against him and he starts to discover the true, dark nature of The Horsemen. Now The Hush is in a one night race against time and a fight for his own life, and soul.

The Horsemen on The Hush's trail

Cortez has created a moody and feverish nightmare. A phantasmagoria of death and specters all pushing and pulling against The Hush and against each other. It is a delirious ride that seats itself in deep introspection and accented with hot blasts of action.

Visually the colors are muted, almost black and white, with shifting fields of focal depth that keep the viewer in a blurred off-balance stupor living in the same night-land of the dead that The Hush is surrounded by. We are not just viewers, but participants. Watching from the backseat of his car, from under a table in the midst of a firefight or as he runs through a deserted train yard. To be clear, this is not "cinéma vérité" with shaky cams jostling the viewer around, this is your personal entrance into Morpheus' Underworld.

Jeremiah Turner gets into makeup

Like La Pantera Negra, another indie title I reviewed recently, this is a solid film with solid acting, directing, visual effects, audio and a great soundtrack. It is the sort of story that lovers of Noir, hardcore pulp fiction and lovers of ghost stories will appreciate. The Hush is being shown locally in the SF Bay Area, but will be hitting DVD and other digital distribution channels in the near future. Find this movie when you can, you won't regret it. Cortez and crew will rock your ghost-haunted world.

Did I mention that Vincent Cortez also composed the background music?

Keep up to date with The Hush at the Mitchell Street website and their facebook page.

UPDATE: The Hush is trying to make its way into the digital media circuit (Hulu, Netflix, etc) and they could use your help at IndieGoGo. Go check it out as it's a project worth backing!

Comics - Audio - Film!

2011-05-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

Another catch up day here at the Pulp Reader. There's some interesting things going on in various media that should be of interest to the pulp and noir aficionados. Enough has built up that I felt I should pass some of this on here at the blog. If you are a Pulp Reader facebook fan you already know about these events, plus even more news and trivia not covered in the blog. If you aren't yet, then go try it, you might like it!

Jaques Tardi's Adele Blanc-Sec comics

I've been eagerly awaiting several books to be published by Fantagraphics. I just found out that two of them (both by Jacques Tardi) are now out. One is two stories of Adele Blanc-Sec adventures (Pterror over Paris and Eiffel Tower Demon) the other is The Arctic Marauder. Here's a glimps at the latter at COMICSBEAT. Fantagraphics was originally putting Adele Blanc-Sec out in conjunction with Luc Besson's new movie. Since the movie doesn't seem to be getting a roadshow in the US, the publisher has decided to start releasing the newly translated books now.

Audio Adventures of Doc Savage, The Spider & Secret Agent X!

Radio Archives will start producing audiobooks based on pulp historian Will Murray's 7 Doc Savage novels, and from there record The Spider and Secret Agent X. From Radio Archives' press release:

"Radio Archives today announced a new series of audiobooks, based on favorite pulp novels of the 1930s and 1940s. The audiobooks will begin Radio Archives' new line of original audio productions based on classic pulp fiction.

The first series of audiobooks will be the seven Doc Savage novels penned by pulp author and Doc Savage authority Will Murray, featuring cover art by Joe DeVito. Future series will include the exploits of pulp heroes The Spider and Secret Agent "X", as well as other pulp fiction properties. The new audio productions will utilize the talents of some of the top voice actors and recording talents in the United States. The first audiobook release is scheduled for June 2011.

"We're thrilled to have Will Murray's excellent Doc Savage novels as the lead-off offerings in this exciting new series," said Harlan Zinck, president of Radio Archives. "The audiobooks and other new audio productions will nicely complement our classic radio and pulp reprint offerings."

Murray's Doc Savage stories were published in the 1990's and were the first new Doc Savage stories in more than 40 years. "Creating audiobooks of these extensions of the Doc Savage canon brings a new dimension to this classic pulp character," Murray said.

The new audiobook line, which will be recorded and released in digital stereo, will be produced and directed by audio producer Roger Rittner, who created The Adventures of Doc Savage full-cast radio series, available in a deluxe CD set from Radio Archives. "I'm delighted to be able to bring the superb quality of Radio Archives productions to these exciting stories," said Rittner, who has a 30-year history of both recorded and live classic radio and audio productions."

More info and listening samples at RA.

NPR covers the new rise of old pulps
NPR takes a look at several selections of pulps that are currently being reprinted. From their article:

After the dawn of the 20th century, popular fiction could be found at the corner newsstand by a nation eager for the tales. Each issue was printed on cheap, pulpy paper that was soon synonymous with the lurid style typical of the contents. The pulps have a well-earned reputation for purple prose, but there was gold among the dross.

Fine adventure stories from other genres were printed in pulps like Adventure, Weird Tales and Planet Stories, but unfortunately, many of these authors remain neglected or marginalized. Today's readers might expect to find nothing but legions of square-jawed heroes, wilting damsels and tentacled monsters in the old magazines, but there were also skilled, inventive writers plying their trade, evoking thrills and chills without formulaic plotting.

Check out their rundown here.

THE HUSH Screening and Event

Freddy 'the Hush' Burnett is a hitman with his own code of justice. In one night, a simple job gets out of control as he takes an innocent life. Now, as mysterious forces threaten his life, his only chance for survival and redemption rests in the ghosts of a troubled young woman and a sadistic psychopath.

"The Hush" is the the first feature film of Oakland CA born-and-based Writer/Director Vincent Cortez. The film is a spiritual journey featuring supernatural and action elements, done in film noir style, that deals with fear, violence and change.

If you are in the SF Bay Area and are into supernatural detective fiction and film noir, you might want to try and check out this new indie feature. From the writer, director and editors' blog we get this info:

"The Hush", will be showing at the Historic Bal Theatre in San Leandro CA on Saturday night, June 11th 2011, followed by an exclusive in depth retrospective about indie filmmaking and tackling high concepts on a low budget. The cast and crew will be in attendance.

Time and Location:
7PM @ The Historic Bal Theatre
14808 East 14th Street
San Leandro CA 94578
Box Office: 510.614.1224
info@baltheatre.com

Tickets: $12
NOTE: Check Facebook Deals for discounted tickets.

*The retrospective will include a 10 minute behind the scenes video exclusive, as well as a Q&A and discussion with the cast/crew.

Today: FANTOMAS!

2011-04-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that the 100 Years of FANTOMAS event is this week in San Francisco.

Details can be found here and here. I'll be there!

At City Lights it was Standing Room Only.
So packed I could not make it to the absinth bar.

Fantomas makes an appearance to spread fear and paranoia!

Jill Tracy and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket)

as musical duet

Studies in Cornell Woolrich

2011-03-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

Cornell Woolrich

I've been on a Cornell Woolrich bender lately, mainly fueled by many episodes of the radio series SUSPENSE.

Today's average pulp reader or watcher of mystery/noir/horror films might not have heard of Woolrich, it seems a lot of people haven't. According to Harlan Ellison's intro to the Woolrich short story collection ANGELS OF DARKNESS, it seems he was becoming obscure even by the early 1970s.

Certainly he's not as well-known today as Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. But ironically even though you may not know him or his works intimately, you've probably bumped into an episode of a TV show that uses one of his stories as its basis, or seen a movie adapted from his books. In fact he's probably the most directly-adapted pulp mystery writer out there.

Some examples are (most famously) Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW and (most recently) Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie's ORIGINAL SIN. IMDB lists 93 adaptations in various forms, not including radio plays.

Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW

We get a very concise and terse overview of his life from the description of the biography written by Francis M. Nevins, FIRST YOU DREAM, THEN YOU DIE:

Cornell Woolrich was called the Poe of the 20th century and the poet of its shadows. He lived a life of such deep despair and terror that he could do nothing with its experiences but put them between the covers of some of the century's finest novels of suspense.

Born the child of a broken marriage in 1903, Woolrich spent his childhood in revolutionary Mexico, coming to New York in his teens. While still a student at Columbia, he sold the first of several mainstream novels, which led critics to compare him with F. Scott Fitzgerald.

During the 1930s and '40s, when he was acclaimed as the preeminent author of American suspense fiction, Woolrich lived with his mother in an apartment-hotel near Harlem. After her death in 1957, Woolrich became a self-imposed prisoner in a series of lonely hotel rooms until his death in 1968. Few attended his funeral, and his million-dollar fortune was left to Columbia University to establish a scholarship fund.

Though he perceived himself as a failure, Woolrich's work was a critical and financial success. His novels, such as 'The Bride Wore black,' 'Phantom Lady' and 'Deadline at Dawn,' inspired the French roman noir and film noir. His novella 'Rear Window' became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most acclaimed films.

Sounds like someone living out his own stories, which is quite sad but very fascinating.

Adapted as The Leopard Man 1943

Since he is fascinating and his writing so amazing, what I have for you today is a load of information from various sources to pull you further into his work. These links all contain some type of synopsis or overview for many of theWoolrich adaptations.

Escape-Suspense

First up is the Woolrich page at escape-suspense.com. Here we find a comprehensive cache of Woolrich adapted to radio. Mainly in episodes of Suspense but also in other programs. Webmeister Christine gives a good overview of each episode and when possible other background or behind the scenes info which is presented along with downloadable MP3s.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Reviewer for The Chicago Reader, Jonathan has a richly illustrated essay on Woolrich film adaptations originally printed in Film Comment, Sept 1984.

Black Gate

Recently reprinted by Hard Case Crime

Black Gate online magazine has an article on the Weird Fiction bent of some Woolrich tales and focusing on the Frankensteinian tale "Jane Brown's Body". Writer Ryan Harvey puts succinctly what I also feel about Woolrich's prose:

His specialty was the “emotional thriller,” harrowing trips into fear and paranoia with suspense set pieces that no author has equaled. Often called by admirers and critics “the literary Hitchcock” and “the twentieth-century Edgar Allan Poe,” Woolrich could wring more palpitating dread out of everyday life than any writer I’ve encountered. His style is defining of noir, the existential crime tale.

Noir of the Week

This blog does an in-depth review of a Film Noir every week. Writer Steve-O has submitted a review every week since 2005. He has a selection of Woolrich to read about. Keep in mind these are not glib summaries, but well researched articles with plenty of background info on the films and writings.

CornellWoolrich.com

This site has a ton of pics of book covers, movie posters and lists of currently available books and films. Also presented are scans and reprints of Woolrich articles from a plethora of sources such as TWILIGHT ZONE Magazine, Francis Nevins column from Mystery File, and scans of some of Woolrich's actual letters and notes.

The Mysteries of London

2011-03-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the most innocent turn in your travels lead down darker paths.

This might sum up the Penny Dreadful The Mysteries of London and also my experience in finding such a story.

I had my curiosity piqued when following a link from a newspaper comic strip archive to John Adcock's Yesterday's Papers. The post displayed covers painted by Robert Prowse Jr for a Spring-Heeled Jack series. I found this to be very interesting. When looking into the print history of this well known boogieman I started reading up on some of the Victorian English Penny Dreadfuls which made Jack a household name.

The history of Spring-Heeled Jack in print starts in the 1830s with accounts of his accosting lone travelers. In the early publications readers had to wonder if he was man, beast or demon? Whatever he was, he wasn't a nice guy. But by the 1860s, in the Penny Dreadfuls this started to turn around and Jack was reinterpreted as a hero.

Spring-Heeled Jack became possibly the very first prototype for Batman; A rich young man loses his parents to a tragedy at sea. When trying to claim his ancestral home he finds the estate and even his family name stolen from him by his villainous cousin. When fleeing for his life after a murder attempt Jack decides to create a costume and his Springed Heel apparatus in order to start a new life as a vigilante.

You can read this account here.

As someone so into hero and horror pulps I found a natural affinity for this style of writing. It has lead to further reading. And in the case of The Mysteries of London, further listening. Though The Mysteries of London can be read online, right now my reading stand is full.

This is exactly how The Pulp Reader first came into existence; too many books and too little time. I was going to make a digital TTS edition of Mysteries but first thought I'd see if anyone had already made an audiobook of it. And yes, there is one... in progress.

Cori Samuel is an etext / digital book maven. She has proofread and assembled a large amount of material for Project Gutenberg and has also gotten into the audiobook realm at Librivox. I have to tell you honestly that I'm not always a fan of Librivox. While there is the rare reader who is a delight to listen to, some of which I've mentioned in the past, mostly I find the quality to be painful. Cori falls into the first category and is an excellent and riveting storyteller with great delivery and cadence.

Here's the thing though, Cori has been stuck for a while and has possibly not felt inspired to get past whatever hurdles are preventing her from continuing the reading. What about you head over to her page and give a listen to the first chapter, then if you like what you hear, drop her a line in the comments section and let her know you would love to see her finish this epic story. I know I would!

In the meantime, you can find a few other Penny Dreadful audiobooks at Librivox and Archive.org. Here is a quick list:

The String of Pearls (the first appearance of Sweeny Todd)

The Old Man in the Corner (Sherlock Holmes-ish)

Varney the Vampire

G. K. Chesterton's Defense of Penny Dreadfuls

McLevy Season 7

2011-03-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

The Ides of March also bring new episodes of McLevy.

Who's McLevy? Head to the Pulp Reader subsite to learn all about him!

Unfortunately I was caught off guard and we are already mid-way through the four episode season. But as of right now you can listen to the current episode Prince of Darkness on the BBC Radio 4 iplayer!

100 Years of FANTOMAS Event

2011-02-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

A three day celebration of 100 years of Fantomas is coming to San Francisco in April. But before getting to this big event, I'd like to point you to Tim Lucas at Video WatchBlog who has reprinted his essay from HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS at his site. It gives a great recounting of the history of Fantomas. Tim starts by saying:

One hundred years ago today, the criminal genius known as Fantômas was first released into the world in the form of a fat paperback novel printed on uncut pulp paper. Written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, it sent shock waves throughout popular culture which resonated in literature (with numerous knock-offs), silent films (the Feuillade serial adaptations, but also notably F.W. Murnau's FAUST, which quoted Gino Starace's striking cover painting), and which still resonate today. One of these still-rumbling shock waves we now know as the Anti-Hero.

Head over to Video Watchblog to check it out!

Fantomas By The Bay

April 6, 7, 8, and 9, 2011
This news is reprinted from the City Lights Bookstore website:

City Lights Bookstore, Mechanics' Institute Library, and an Undisclosed Secret Location

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in conjunction with the Cultural Services of the Consulate General of France & the Mechanics' Institute Library present:

A Centenary Celebration of the Literary Creation of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain.

WHO IS FANTOMAS?? Arch-villain? Mad genius? Master of disguises? Agent of chaos?

In 1911 the pulp fiction writers Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain introduced a fictional character to the French reading public that was to capture their imagination and keep them yearning for more. The ultimate anti-hero, as enigmatic as he was treacherous, Fantomas executed the most appalling crimes with ruthlessness and precision. He spread terror and chaos amidst the lives of a bourgeois society that he took pleasure in ridiculing. Souvestre and Allain were in tune with the pulse of the public's fascination with shadow-side of modernity. Fantomas was to become one of the most popular serials in the history of French crime fiction anticipating the future arrival of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse and the master villains of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. On the occasion of the one hundred year anniversary of the creation of the FANTOMAS series, City Lights Booksellers and Publishers joins centenary celebrations in Paris to commemorate this extraordinary literary event.

FANTOMAS BY-THE-BAY shall feature: readings, lectures, film screenings, art exhibitions, and performance art, featuring Robin Walz, Dominique Kalifa, Daniel Handler, Mel Gordon, Marc Ellis, Howard Rodman, Jonathan P. Eburne, Janaki Ranpura, Jill Tracy, and more.

Schedule:

EVENT 1.) FANTOMAS STRIKES THE BAY!

Date & Time: Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 7:00 P.M.

Location: City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, 261 Columbus Avenue, S.F., CA 94133 (admission free)

Reception and Absinthe tasting followed by an evening of readings, diatribes, and manifestos – accompanied by a display of FANTOMAS book covers & artwork

Opening Statements by Peter Maravelis & Robin Walz

Readings and performances by Jonathan P. Eburne, Marc Ellis, Andrew Joron, Daniel Handler in a musical duet with chantuese Jill Tracy, Dominique Kalifa, Brian Lucas, Joseph Noble, Howard Rodman, and Robin Walz, and more tba.

EVENT 2.) FANTOMAS! AGENT OF CHAOS!
An exploration of the origins of Pulp Surrealism

Date & Time: Thursday, April 7, 2011, 6:00 P.M.

Location: Mechanics' Institute Library, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94104 (admission charge $12.00, members free)

Join four erudite cultural explorers as they delve into the history and lore of one of the most notorious literary creations ever. Fantomas was the ultimate anti-hero who was adopted by the surrealists as a cultural mascot. On the occasion of the centenary celebration of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain's pulp serial, the roots of pulp literary history will be exhumed in evening of lively discussion.

-Opening Statement: Peter Maravelis/ City Lights

-Session 1: The Genealogy of Fantômas - From Lacenaire to Ravachol via Rocambole (Robin Walz)

-Session 2: From the Hills of Montmartre to the Bay of San Francisco : One Century of Fantômas's Friends (Dominique Kalifa)

-Session 3: The Shudder of History (Jonathan P. Eburne)

-Session 4: The Origin of Fantomas: Why there isn't one (Howard Rodman)

EVENT 3.) AN ELEGANT THREAT

A performance piece and soiree by Janaki Ranpura

with a special musical appearance by The Slow Poisoner

Location: Undisclosed & Secret (admission free)

Date & Time: Friday, April 8, 2011, 8:00 P.M.

Engage in crimes of love, where visiting crime scenes is the dating game. Interactive environments and puppets take you on a noir journey to the human heart, which is made of candy. The spector of Fantomas looms in the shadows.

(This event is by invitation only. Admission is free, but on a first come first serve basis. Invitations become available at the front counter of City Lights on 4/6/2011)

EVENT 4.) THE SCREEN BLEEDS: FANTOMAS on Film

Location: Mechanics' Institiute Library, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94104 Date & Time: Saturday, April 9, 2011, 7:00 P.M. (admission $10.00, members free)

A screening of selected excerpts from the Fantômas films over the course of the last century. We shall visit the work of such directors as Louis Feuillade, Paul Fejos, Andre Hunebelle, Jean Sacha, and Robert Vernay. Also included in the program will be a special focus on the Fantômas inspired films (i.e. Judex, Les Vampires, and more.)

-Opening Statement: Peter Maravelis/City Lights

-Commentary by Howard Rodman & Robin Walz

-Special presentation by Mel Gordon (Fantomas in French Musical & Brothel Culture)

(Films for this evening were curated by David King and Peter Maravelis)

The Nameless Detective and Pulp Audios

2011-01-20T08:35:00.000-08:00

Free AudioBook!

Wow, busy busy! I have just way too much going on right now and it is keeping me from dedicating the time that I should to The Pulp Reader. But until things simmer down, I have some interesting stuff for you to check out.

First up, Jesse over at SFF Audio has alerted us to a free ebook in Bill Pronzini's series of "Nameless Detective" stories. The story is Booktaker and takes place in a bookstore. Besides being a fun mystery, there's lots of talk about pulps and the pulp aficionado will probably get a kick out it. Being a Bay Area native, Bill luxuriates in describing San Francisco scenery in just enough detail to where other San Franciscans can really visualize the surroundings of the story, which is also a lot of fun. Head over and check it out.

In Other News:

There's two fairly new groups who are adapting some classic pulps to audio.

One is called Pulp Radio and they are adapting a broad spectrum of pulps, from Detective to SciFi to Western.

From Pulp Radio's info page:

At the Pulp Radio Network, we've combined two of our favorite entertainment forms – "pulp" fiction and audio drama – to create an exciting new dimension in listening.
We take favorite pulp stories – in all genres – from the popular fiction magazines of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s ... adapt them to the audio format ... then record the stories in stereo with professional casts, live sound effects, and complete music scores.

We're a bunch of pulp fiction fans who also love audio drama. So we decided to combine the two.
Our group is led by Roger Rittner, an award-winning communicator and producer of audio programming for National Public Radio, local Los Angeles radio stations, and commercial clients.

Among Roger's radio projects are the now classic Adventures of Doc Savage, the mystery series Darkness, the suspense series Midnight, and the musical comedy Charlie Sent Me!, all heard on National Public Radio stations. Roger also created the Variety Arts Radio Theatre, which recreated old-time radio shows as live stage productions for more than 10 years at Los Angeles' Variety Arts Center.

The cast and crew of Pulp Radio are accomplished voice and sound effects artists, and audio production professionals. You've heard their work in hundreds of films and television shows, radio commercials, and video games.

The other is AudioComics which is concentrating on Hero Pulps. Press release:

AudioComics Brings Pulp and Classic Comic Heroes to radio drama in the “Audiothology” MEN OF MYSTERY
Official press release:
Contact: Lance Roger Axt and William Dufris, Co-Producers (audiocomicsinfo@gmail.com)
Captain Zero. The Woman in Red. The Domino Lady. Secret Agent X. The Black Terror. Airboy and Valkyrie. The Flame. Ms. Masque. Beginning in 2011, these classic pulp heroes and comic book characters from the 1930’s and 1940’s will come to audio drama for the first time in brand new stories from today’s leading pulp authors as The AudioComics Company presents its follow-up project to their critically-acclaimed adaptation of Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta’s Starstruck: the Men of Mystery series.
AudioComics Company founders William Dufris and Lance Roger Axt: “For these stories, we’re keeping these characters rooted in their origins and time periods: Hammett’s San Francisco and Chandler’s Los Angeles. California in the dirty thirties and forties was the new wild west: immoral, violent, and wearing the white hat and a badge didn’t mean you didn’t have suspect motives. With the lines so badly blurred, the only way to meter justice was behind a mask.
“Furthermore, characters such as The Black Terror and The Flame will be written with a ‘pulp sensibility,’ as if they were originally written as pulp heroes. Men of Mystery adventures will feature all of the suspense, all of the hard-boiled action, and the breakneck cliffhanger energy of classic movie serials. Suffice to say, we’re very excited to commence work on this!”
Writers and CD/Mp3 artists will be announced in the new year, with recordings commencing in late 2011 in San Francisco, beginning with several new Green Lama and Domino Lady stories. MoM plays will be released first as pay-per-download Mp3 serial recordings and then to community radio stations, with collected compact disc “audiothologies” available starting in 2012. In addition, The AudioComics Company will release several free short MoM pieces as digital content for mobile phones.
The AudioComics Company provides superior audio entertainment with its professional full-cast audio theatre adaptations of licensed and original properties from the worlds of comic books and graphic novels, and related genres. Our productions of classic, contemporary and world premiere properties will reach new audiences far beyond readers and comic book fans through the universally popular entertainment medium of multi-track recorded sound and music on CD and in downloadable form, accessible in today’s market with today’s sound. For more information, visit us www.audiocomicscompany.com.

The Green Hornet's Great Uncle

2010-12-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Though George Trendle and Fran Striker were the creators of both The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet, due to rights for the properties being with different companies the two characters could not explicitly exist in the same universe. But the intent was there. The Green Hornet AKA Britt Reid was the son of The Lone Ranger's nephew Dan Reid. Young Dan Reid who's father was one of the original seven Texas Rangers ambushed and killed by the Cavendish Gang, rode with the Lone Ranger on many adventures during his time on radio and TV.

The November 11, 1947, radio episode of THE GREEN HORNET "Too Hot to Handle" insinuates this relationship as Dan Reid tells his son, Britt, about his history with the Lone Ranger.

I had read plenty of times about this fateful episode, but for some reason never got around to listening to it. Finally I did this morning and I do have to say it sent a tingle down my spine as Dan Reid recounts the story and the William Tell Overture fades into the background. Here is the pertinent part of the radio script. The episode itself can be found here.

BRIT: I saw political grafters and confidence men bend the law nearly double without actually breaking it. I had inside information on political bribes. I knew of crooks in our government and there wasn’t a thing that could be done about them. We couldn’t even publish their activities because the law couldn’t get proof that would hold up in court. A lot of criminals went free because of tricky laws and red tape.

DAN: But the Green Hornet – everyone thinks the Hornet is a criminal.

BRIT: Dad – I could see only one way to get those rats. Someone had to meet them and play the game their way, with no holds barred. Putting them in jail was the most important thing in the world to me. It came ahead of the newspaper. Ahead of my reputation. Ahead of everything. (beat) If you’ll look at the records, you’ll see that I was successful. Maybe I was wrong…

LINDA: No. No, you were not wrong!

DAN: Who knows about this?

BRIT: Kato. Linda Travis. And now you.

DAN: And now that the secret is out – what’re you gonna do?

BRIT: The secret is not out unless you let it out. Kato has shared the secret with me. Linda will share it. It could be shared with you.

DAN: (dismissively) Ahhh!

LINDA: Mr. Reid – regardless of what the public thinks, there isn’t a single charge against the Green Hornet. The police haven’t a thing on him.

DAN: There were charges! The Sentinel has been offering a reward…

LINDA: Yes, but the record is clean now. The last murder charge was wiped off the books a few days ago.

DAN: And Linda – you’d forego the reward to keep this secret?

LINDA: Oh, I… I don’t want that kind of money.

DAN: (softening) Well… you can’t buy loyalty like that.

LINDA: Oh, there’s such a need for someone like the Green Hornet.

BRIT: It’s up to you, Dad. Are you… with me?

MUSIC: STING; SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC

ANNOUNCER: After announcing his identity, Brit Reid hadn’t taken his eyes off his father. He had seen various emotions. Shock. Disbelief. Controlled anger in the strong, rugged face. This had given way to a hurt expression.

MUSIC: FADES OUT

ANNOUNCER: But as he explained his position, Brit saw his father’s chin come up. Then, during a momentary silence, the eyes of father and son met. Between the two, there flashed a spark of mutual understanding. A look of confidence came into Brit Reid’s clean-cut features and the older man looked proud.

DAN: (begins chuckling under Announcer’s speech.)

ANNOUNCER: Then there was a faint grin that expanded to a chuckle.

BRIT: (beat) Dad. You’re not angry.

DAN: Angry? Why, how can I be angry with you? I know exactly how you feel. Because… I went through the same thing.

BRIT: You?

DAN: Look at that picture on the wall. The man on that horse is one of your ancestors. And those hills are in Texas. When I was a boy, I rode with that man.

MUSIC: WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE FADES IN VERY QUIETLY

DAN: I saw him six-gun his way through red tape and ride roughshod over crooks who thought they were too smart for the law. He rode for justice.

MUSIC: WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE BUILDS, THEN FADES OUT

DAN: Brit. I gave you the Daily Sentinel because I knew you’d learn a lot about smart crooks that the law couldn’t get. I’d hoped you’d do something about those crooks, just as your pioneer ancestor did. I wanted to see you use the paper as a crusading weapon. I wanted to see sparks fly. But… nothing came!

BRIT: But Dad…

DAN: I was disappointed, son. I wondered what was the matter with you. Wondered why the American heritage didn’t assert itself. That’s why I sent Linda here. I sent her to find out what was wrong with you. And… now I learn. (deeply moved) Why, confound it, Brit… you’re more like the man in the picture than I dreamed you could be. (This man is definitely using every ounce of willpower to hold back tears.) This is the biggest thing that’s… that’s ever happened to me. This is…!

BRIT: (beat) Dad…

DAN: (sighs; regains control; chuckles a bit at his “weakness”) You and Linda will have to forgive an old man his emotions.

BRIT: (beat)

DEVIL DOG and the SHADOW KNIGHTS

2010-12-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of new articles on the Pulp History series. "Pulp History brings to life extraordinary feats of bravery, violence, and redemption that history has forgotten. These stories are so dramatic and thrilling they have to be true" And they are true!

DEVIL DOG

This TRUE story is about the man who saved America:

DAVID TALBOT: One day after Roosevelt is elected, two men come out, and they begin to lay out a plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt.

But, you may never have heard of Smedley Butler. His history in many ways parallels the birth of the American empire and modern American history.

This is not your dry stuff of texbooks. Local author David Talbot and his crew have created “pulp history” series, telling the exciting tales of forgotten history.

TALBOT: You can’t make this stuff up.

Pulp history author David Talbot brings us the story of Smedley Butler, the man he claims “saved America.” In his new book Devil Dog, Talbot brings to life the adventures and heroism of the most-decorated Marine in history as he runs down rebels in Nicaragua, throws gangsters out of Philadelphia and blows the lid off a plot against FDR. Let’s drop in on one of Butler’s many tales of heroism, when he was a young marine occupying Nicaragua.

Listen to and/or read the rest of this story at CROSSCURRENTS.

SHADOW KNIGHTS

In “Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler,” one of two books in the series that Simon & Schuster released last month, a British spy named Harry Rée wrestles with a Gestapo agent: “He gouged at one of the man’s eyes, but it wouldn’t come out. He tried to bite off his nose, but it was too tough. Then Ree shoved his forefinger into the German’s mouth, between his teeth and cheeks, and pulled up hard. The man squealed in pain and sent Ree flying over his head.”

Mr. Talbot explained: “We definitely did not want to make history like spinach, good for you but boring. We wanted to do the stuff that wasn’t good for you, with good guys, bad guys, blood, guts and sex.”

Read the rest of the story at NYTIMES.

For extensive previews of both books head to Simon an Schuster page.

The Lone Ranger's Cave of Terror

2010-11-24T17:21:00.000-08:00

I was never really a huge fan of the Lone Ranger. I watched the Clayton Moore TV show as a kid, and the Filmation cartoon that came on in the late 70s or 80s. The idea of a masked avenger is a cool one, and one that is tried and true in the pages of the pulps. The list of masked vigilantes in comics, film, TV and books is too long to go into here.

I should admit I'm not a big fan of Westerns in general as well. But in some cases I do find them fun, especially if they are on the weird side. Cowboys fighting zombies, werewolves, vampires and wendigos can be good entertainment.

Lately I've been watching some pretty crumby but very fun Mexican horror/western/masked vigilante movies such as El Charro de las Cavaleras and El Latigo contra Satanis. That sort of got me looking back at the Lone Ranger and I did find some interesting stuff. For one thing there was a Lone Ranger cartoon in the 1960s which seemed to be mirroring or even cashing in on the popularity of The Wild Wild West as it pitted Kemosabe and Tonto against an array of steampunk machinery and vampires and ghosts. That sounds pretty cool! But too bad it isn't available on DVD anywhere.

An episode of the weird west Lone Ranger cartoon from 1966
Another interesting cartoon is this silent short subject.

So as things always seem to go it seemed like looking into Fran Striker's own written word on the Lone Ranger might be a good idea, just in case there were any cool creepies in there. Well the one title I've found so far that sound creepy is The Cave of Terror and this is our digital experiment for Thanksgiving. Seems at least kinda fitting. I don't know if Tonto agrees, but we'll hope so.

find it at archive.org

La Pantera Negra (2009)

2010-11-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

Though completed in 2009, La Pantera Negra is only now slowly making its way through the festival circuit. To paraphrase the production notes: Nico Beamonte is a private detective, alcoholic and decadent. One day he receives a call from God, who asks Nico to find "The Black Panther". What or who is the Black Panther? God doesn't say but Nico takes the job. While looking for The Black Panther he meets Mrs. M., who also asks for help. She says Pedro Infante, the idol of Mexico (a true life music and movie legend comparable to Elvis) who died years ago is more alive now than ever. So she wants Nico to find Pedro as well. What Nico does not know is that this is a plan conspired between God and Mrs. M. to face his destiny. Nico will gradually notice that the search for The Black Panther is really a search for his own existence, hidden in his past and his dreams.

Mrs. M... aka Death

This is a skirmish into an existential dreamland, full of wild tangents and seemingly side stories. It is a rare film which while watching it, the thread of the story gets washed away. As we are presented with one stylish set-piece after another forming a string of disjointed, barely discerned narrative it seems to not make any sense. Usually it's pretty easy to see where a story is taking you by the end of the first act. But with this I was left wondering until the last few minutes of the film what exactly this journey had been. But at the end of the movie I realized what I was seeing, which was a fresh adaptation of a classic story from an 19th Century American writer. I won't say more than that about which writer or story, as if you've read it or seen other adaptations, it will be a complete spoiler.

Nico has a talk with God.

La Pantera Negra is shot in black and white, oozing with Noir style and hard-boiled pulp attitude. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction mixed with some entertaining musical numbers. The music incidentally was written by Director Iyari Wertta. I am hoping that not only a DVD will eventually be available for this film but also the soundtrack, as the music really was enjoyable and impressive, fusing a 50's Noir vibe with modern rock underpinnings.

Hoping for a soundtrack CD

During Nico's quest to find the Black Panther we meet a wide array of characters. His ex-girlfriend and ex-partner who has also been contacted to find the Black Panther and spends her time dressed up as a ninja-like crime-fighting superhero. There is El Gringo, a rich white guy who sees a flying saucer and tracks it and the alien pilot down. The alien winds up switching bodies with El Gringo's daughter's lesbian partner. El Gringo sends Nico on his third mission, to track down the lesbian girlfriend alien.

In the end, all of these disparate threads suddenly collide together in a classic "Gotcha" moment made famous in the story I hinted at above. La Pantera Negra is a really interesting film mixing mystery, sci-fi, horror, music and comedy but not revealing any of its secrets until the very end. It made for an interesting thought process while watching the movie, where I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. But when it was over and as the days have gone by and allowed it to percolate in my mind, I found myself really happy with the experience, and find it to be a must have on DVD. Thus hoping for a domestic release eventually.

Tracking the Alien

La Pantera Negra is not even in the art-house circuit but is making the film festival rounds. I just saw it at the Redwood City International Latino Film Festival. The only way I know of to find upcoming dates is to become a fan on the production's Facebook page and Twitter feed. I highly suggest trying to track it down. As a lover of odd ball and outre pulp and Noir, I recommend it!

Director: Iyari Wertta
Producer: Issa Guerra
Exec Producers: Henner Hoffman, Liliana Pardo
Scriptwriter: Iyari Wertta
Editors: Luciana Jauffred, Francisco Rivera, Yoame Escamilla
DoP: Christian Rivera
Production Designer: Alejandro García
Sound Production: Marco A Hernández, Iyari Wertta, Izabel Acvedo
Music: Iyari Wertta

Cast: Enrique Arreola, Laura de Ita, Dolores Heredia, Ely Guerra, Mario Almanda, Fernando Cianguerotti, Mariana Gajá, Daniela Schmidt, Mariús Biengai, Arnulfo Reyes

A pledge for The Trail of the Octopus

2010-11-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

Although we may never see the complete serial of THE MYSTERIES OF MYRA there are other serials that may be just as amazing from the silent movie era. Serials where it is obvious that a lot of money, time and creativity went into the productions. One that will hopefully be available in Spring 2011 is THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS. This is another revelation from the age of the silents; where an amazing globe-trotting adventure comes to life as we meet great detectives, evil cults and mysterious strangers, spanning from a lost city in Egypt to the streets of San Francisco.

THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS (not to be confused with the book by Goddard & Coleman) is a serial from 1919 consisting of 14 episodes totaling 7 hours. From the Serial Squadron's page the story goes:

Dr. Reid Stanhope, a noted scientist, and Raoul Bornay, a Frenchman of questionable standing, set out upon an expedition to explore the mysteries of ancient Egypt. With their caravan of natives and camels, they pierce the very heart of the great Sahara Desert in their search for the Temple of Death and the sacred Talisman of Set, both considered mythological by everyone except Dr. Stanhope.

After weeks of searching they discover a sarcophagus upon which hieroglyphics read: “He that toucheth or taketh away the Sacred Talisman of Set will bathe his hands in human blood.” Reaching inside the sarcophagus, Stanhope takes out the Sacred Talisman which is also known as the Devil's Trademark – the cloven hoof of Satan.

From the moment the Talisman is released, murder and destruction run rampant. Stanhope is forced to kill Bornay when attacked by him and Bornay's final words are “Don't think you killed a friend – they sent me to get you and the Talisman.” Who “they” are provides the foundation for the story of the rest of the serial, which takes place after Stanhope returned to civilization.

When we pick up the story from there, we see Stanhope telling his niece Ruth he has never had a moment's peace since he hid the Devil's Trademark in a rock vault – he's been haunted by the sudden mysterious appearance of a pair of uncanny looking eyes. While Dr. Stanhope tells the story, a thunderstorm arises and the “eyes” appear outside. He tells Ruth she must get rid of the Talisman as it endangers her life. He takes a dagger from a drawer and says, “Eight other daggers like this are in the hands of eight fellow scientists for safe-keeping. You must have all of them to get the combination of the rock vault, in which is hidden the sacred Talisman.”

When Stanhope receives a telephone call from the mysterious masked Monsieur X, who tells him that his friend, Professor Hubbard, one of the scientists, is dead, Ruth runs across the street to call on Carter Holmes, the criminologist, taking the dagger with her.Stanhope's scream in the distance begins a chain of events that leads to the kidnapping of Ruth by a clan of Devil Worshippers headed by a sorceress named Madame Zora, and a three-way battle between Holmes, the Devil-cult, and an Asian mastermind known as the Octopus to possess the Talisman by collecting the remaining daggers and placing them together in a cliffside vault that will reveal its secret.

An extremely atmospheric serial, heavily influenced by aspects of THE MYSTERIES OF MYRA (the Devil-cult with its crystal ball, and characters who disappear into astral form), and anticipating DRUMS OF FU MANCHU in its noir-ish look, THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS changes location and emphasis many times but remains generally in early pulp/detective/horror mode throughout, with more than the occasional element of the paranormal thrown in to kick the mystery up a notch.

This serial is being restored by the Serial Squadron and even some missing scenes are being re-filmed with contemporary actors in order to have the story be as complete as possible. Doing this costs money though, and to get this production completed the Serial Squadron has a pledge drive going. What this means is that you pledge beforehand to pay for the DVD upon completion of its production (Spring 2011). This ensures that the costs of restoration and DVD production are covered. The TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS page explains:

Pledging does not require immediate payment, however, your pledge is a promise to pay for your DVD set when the DVDs are ready to go to press and should be considered an "order" to be billed to you. You will be sent an email confirming your pledge which only requires response in case of any error in the message, then, if and when the pledge drive reaches its total, an invoice with a PayPal link which will allow you to pay for your DVD set, or information on how to pay using a check or money order by regular mail.

The pledge for TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS is $40 for 2 double-sided DVDs. This is a very fair and reasonable price for a micro-production which is putting out a small run, but professionally restored and extremely rare serial. You won't find this serial anywhere else because it does not exists anywhere else. This DVD set is being digitally remastered from a 35mm print from the Library of Congress.

Along with the visual restoration the Squadron's Eric Stedman has mixed a new sound track including music that is scene relevant along with sound effects for important points of nuance. This in my opinion really adds a layer of watchability and entertainment value to the whole project. You can see and hear the results in a sample posted at the bottom of this entry.

Please do NOT pledge if you do not intend to follow through with your order. But please do pledge if you want to be able to own a cool if not amazing part of movie history. Head to the Serial Squadron and fill out the form at the bottom. Be sure to click in the yellow box on which pledge choice you want to make.

The Squadron has a few ongoing pledge drives for different serials and as of this writing TRAIL is at 48% of its goal.

Check out the first 15 minutes of the first episode of TRAIL here:

Tonight, My Love

2010-10-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

In 1954 Mickey Spillane wrote and performed a Mike Hammer bit on an extended play 45 RMP record which tells the story of how he first met Velda who would later become his secretary. Velda is played by Betty Ackerman with music written and performed by Stan Purdy. So if you ever wondered what Mickey Spillane sounded like, especially when acting as his quintessential PI, head over to The Pulp Reader facebook page to check it out.

Click for audio at Facebook

Pulp Reference Online

2010-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

The mysterious yet prolific Robert Sampson wrote a lot of reference books about the world of the pulps. Some are limited editions that now sell for astounding amounts of money, if they are findable at all. Certain books may never come to light again such as his seminal work on Norvell Page's SPIDER.

But Popular Press, an imprint of The University of Wisconsin has made available to Google Books several of Sampson's other texts. These are titles which are more readily available on the market, but hey, this is free... if you don't mind reading online. Certain sections of each book seem to be missing, but I'd say 90% of each is present.

Click the book TITLE to go to the books!

DEADLY EXCITEMENTS

History of the American pulp magazine. Includes such titles as The Shadow, Black Mask, Weird Tales, Scientic Detective Monthly and Scarlet Adventuress as well as characters like Doc Savage, Captain Future, The Spider, Phantom Detective, The Whisperer and Senorita Scorpion, quick-trigger blonde from Old Texas.

GLORY FIGURES

The pulp magazines dealt in fiction that was, by reason of the audience and the medium, heightened beyond normal experience. The drama was intense, the colors vivid, and the pace exhausting. The characters moving through these prose dreams were heightened, too. Most were cast in a quasi-heroic mold and moved on elevated planes of accomplishment.

This book and its companion volumes are concerned with the slow shaping of many literary conventions over many decades. This volume begins the study with the dime novels and several early series characters who influenced the direction of pulp fiction at its source.

STRANGE DAYS

The second volume within this series presents more than fifty series characters within pulp fiction, selected to represent four popular story types from the 1907–1939 pulps—scientific detectives, occult and psychic investigators, jungle men, and adventurers in interplanetary romance. Some characters—Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Craig Kennedy, Anthony (Buck) Rogers—became internationally known. Others are now almost forgotten, except by collectors and specialists.

THE SOLVERS

For the fourth volume of this series, Robert Sampson has selected more than fifty magazine series characters to illustrate the development of the character of the detective. Included here are both the amateur and professional detective, female investigators, deducting doctors, brilliant amateurs, and equally brilliant professional police. There are private detectives reflecting Holmes and hard-boiled cops from the parallel traditions of realism and melodramatic fantasy. Characters include Brady and Riordan, Terry Trimble, Glamorous Nan Russell, J. G. Reeder, plus many others.

DANGEROUS HORIZONS

In this fifth volume of the Yesterday’s Faces series, Robert Sampson has selected a host of series characters who adventured throughout the world in the 1903–1930 pulps. Sparkling brightly among these characters are Terence O'Rourke, Captain Blood, and the ferocious Hurricane Williams. More characters include Peter the Brazen, in China, Sanders of the River, in Africa—and much, much more.

The Wrong Block

2010-10-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

More animated Noir, this time it's a feature coming from Montreal:

FOLLOWING THE MYSTERIOUS AND TRAGIC DEATH OF HIS PARTNER, THE CITY'S TOP DETECTIVE, MAX BRADDOCK, RETIRES FROM THE FORCE AND BURIES HIMSELF IN THE BOTTLE.

ELEVEN YEARS LATER, AS HE ATTEMPTS TO PUT THE PIECES OF HIS LIFE BACK TOGETHER HE DISCOVERS THAT THE CHILD HE SWORE TO PROTECT THAT NIGHT, HIS PARTNER'S SON, HAS BECOME THE MOST FEARED CRIMINAL MASTERMIND IN THE CITY. DROWNING IN GUILT, MAX FIGHTS HIS WAY OUT OF PURGATORY AND TAKES IT UPON HIMSELF TO RIGHT THE WRONG HE COMMITTED SO MANY YEARS AGO...WITH THIS ONE LAST CASE.

THE CRUMBLING, URBAN BLIGHT IS THE BATTLEGROUND FOR THIS TWISTED, DARK TALE OF REDEMPTION, COURAGE, AND SACRIFICE.

SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO GO TO WAR TO ESCAPE YOUR PAST...AND MAX BRADDOCK IS LOCKED AND LOADED.

THIS IS THE WRONG BLOCK.

http://www.thewrongblock.com/

Stark and Cooke's The OUTFIT

2010-10-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

Darwyn Cooke has a wonderful retro yet modern style to his art and has written some of the great stories of the last few years including the remarkable Justice League: New Frontier. Also he was the artist at the forefront of rebooting Will Eisner's The SPIRIT which has been running for a few years now.

He has now adapted a bit of hard boiled crime to graphic novel format. Usually I don't think comics and pulp go together that well. But from what I've seen of The OUTFIT this might be a good exception. My suggestion is the head to amazon and check out the "Look Inside" preview there.

There's a great, in depth interview at Comic Book Resources with Cooke talking all about the production of this latest effort. This is the intro which will give you some background and there's a link at the end for the interview.

There is no doubt that Darwyn Cooke and IDW Comics took a bit of a gamble when the decision was made to re-imagine Richard Stark's "Parker" hard-boiled crime thrillers into a series of graphic novels. But man, did that gamble pay off.

Last year, Cooke landed an Eisner for "The Hunter," which he adapted and illustrated, and the 140-page hardcover book also found a home on "The New York Times" bestseller list.

IDW released Parker Book 2: "The Outfit" today and CBR News spoke with the critically acclaimed cartoonist about the title character's latest exploits.

Originally conceived by Donald Westlake, under the pseudonym Richard Stark, Parker made his first appearance in "The Hunter" in 1962. The first novel was adapted into three different movies; "Point Blank" starring Lee Marvin, "Full Contact" with Chow Yun-fat and the Mel Gibson vehicle, "Payback." Parker, an anti-heroic criminal, ultimately appeared in 23 novels, including "The Outfit," which was published in 1963.

Cooke told CBR News that while he made some changes to the original story, every one of those types of choices was a difficult one. But he believed if he stayed true to Parker, a now deceased Westlake would certainly approve. Or at the very least, understand. He also revealed details about the remaining books in the series - "The Score" and "Slayground" - and teased a possible major project for DC Comics. And no, it's not a sequel to "DC: New Frontier."

Interview is continued here...

Lydecker Brothers Review

2010-09-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Since I plugged this book, now that I've read it I feel it only fair and honest to give a review of it.

In short, I have to say that the photos are rare and amazing, and if you are into movie history and behind the scenes stuff, this book is priceless. But unfortunately the text is mostly irrelevent fluff with disturbingly little to actually do with the lives of the Lydeckers.

I recommend it based on the power of the photos and the several recollections from people like George Lydecker.

Here is my full review:

I first heard of the Lydecker brothers in a 1991 issue of American Cinematographer. That article incidentally was written by the author of this book. Since that time I had hoped that one day a definitive look at the work and lives of the Lydeckers would come about. I was very excited to learn about this book.

The photos in the book are astonishing. I have bookshelves full of books on movie making, special effects and classic movies and serials and maybe 90 percent of the photos in this book I have never seen before. In my opinion, if you are into behind the scenes movie photos, this is a must have book.

Unfortunately the text leaves a lot to be desired. From reading an interview with the author I understand he was under the gun to get the book written in 4 months. This obviously was not enough as the first 150 or so pages are 75 percent irrelevant fluff. Most chapters really have nothing to do with either the family, lives or thoughts of the Lydeckers and rarely are their effects techniques discussed. Only a few stand out moments show the promise of what I was hoping the book could have been in total. There are great descriptions of how the Lydeckers did their flying effects for aircraft, Captain Marvel and the Rocket Men. Unfortunately those types of descriptions about working on production special effects are rare. Just describing an "exciting scene where a flaming stage coach goes over a cliff" doesn't tell the reader anything about the Lydeckers. There's no story behind the glib descriptions.

Typically a chapter covers two serials of which Henderson lists several Lydecker gags. Simply listed mind you, as in "there's a exploding barn, a car crash, a model plane" etc and then the text drifts off talking about random snippets of trivia that literally has nothing whatsoever to do with the subjects featured in the title of the book.

Many times there is a sentence which promises to be the beginning of a nice story about some aspect of the brothers life in the business, but it's just one sentence that even though it begs further exploration there is none. The narrative drifts off into nonsense and tangents about things like Tom Neal's fling with Barbara Payton. That was a low point at which I was debating with myself whether I should try to continue reading. I bought a book about the Lydeckers, not a Hollywood gossip clippings collection.

The last couple of chapters hone in on more material that actually is relevant to Howard and Theodore, but it is too little too late. There are a few reminisces which are lovely, and sprinkled throughout there are some interesting revelations. Particularly the story about visiting the volcano set from FAIR WIND TO JAVA which is still standing and even used as housing for visitors to the remote island it was built on over 50 years ago. So there are certainly worthwhile bits in the books, but I am saddened that they are so few and far between.

Also it bears mentioning though there is a list of article sources, there is no filmography and no index.

Since he was stuck with just 4 months to write it, I would encourage Mr. Henderson to continue his research in earnest on the Lydeckers and find a publisher that will be a pain in his butt making sure he has the time and resources to dig up information pertinent to the subject, has time to be edited and groomed and matured into a serious and truly definitive work on the Lydeckers. An editor who is a true pain in the butt for all the right reasons can help turn a piece of fluff into a masterpiece.

I've waited nearly 20 years for this book, but strangely and sadly feel I'm still waiting.

The Legendary Lydecker Brothers

2010-09-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

When I was in art school I read a 1991 issue of American Cinematographer which had an article on the Lydecker Brothers. Theodore and Howard Lydecker were special effects geniuses who made their names working on Republic Pictures' cliffhanger serials. Some of the iconic imagery that comes to mind are the flying wing used in Dick Tracy (1937) and later reused in The Fighting Devil Dogs (1938). Using life-sized (and bigger) mannequins on string they made a generation of kids believe Captain Marvel and Commando Cody could fly. They created a lot of miniature sets and blew most of them up.

Building sets outdoors to take advantage of natural lighting and skillfully use forced perspective landscapes and models, they created a lot of truly amazing visual effects. And especially while at Republic, always done on a shoestring budget.

Later in their careers they worked in movies such as Sink the Bismark (1960), Fair Wind to Java (1953) and The Flying Tigers (1942) with John Wayne, which was considered for an Academy Award for best special effects, though the Academy board thought the aerial dogfights the Lydeckers created were purely real, causing some disbelief and uproar.

Eventually they transitioned from film to television productions such as Irwin Allen's Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea.

Well, in this American Cinematographer article on the Lydeckers I got an inkling of what these guys were about. They were hands-on, crafty and tricky artists who created movie magic not on a computer, but out of carpentry. Using wood and nails, chicken wire and paper-maché. But sadly there was scant information beyond this one article about their work. No books, no documentaries and just a passing mention in books about special effects or cliffhanger history. This was something I really lamented because I could so easily visualize the adventure of working on the set with the Lydeckers. I wanted to be able to read more about their moments of triumph and disaster.

Well now it's time to rejoice.

Jan Alan Henderson, who wrote that 1991 article was requested to fill that original piece out into a full fledged book. And it is now out through some mail order venues but primarily through amazon.com for the time being.

As someone who has bookshelves full of eldritch tomes on movie making, special effects, radio, television and cliffhanger histories, I am impressed with the large amount of photos in this book of which 98% I have never seen before. Henderson has a thoughtful and personal angle to the whole narrative and is able to weave a human story into a lot of behind the scenes info.

This book has needed to be made for years and I'm glad that it has finally arrived. You can find THE LEGENDARY LYDECKER BROTHERS at amazon.com.

If you're not sure about the book, check out more online info on the Lydeckers at The Matt Shot blog and at VTTBOTS.com

The Mysteries of Myra

2010-07-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

I love pulps. I also love cliffhanger serials. And maybe more than anything, I love behind the scenes info and history about movie and television production. As my poor suffering wife can attest, my bookshelves are jammed with reference books and guides about pulp characters, old movies, radio dramas and T.V. shows.

Enter Eric Stedman, an entrepreneur who dedicates long hours to the restoration and preservation of many cliffhanger movie serials. At The Serial Squadron you can get a taste of the massive amount of work he has put into the genre through his line of restored movie DVDs along with relevant books and audio.

One of Eric's latest projects (one of many ongoing productions) is the novelization of a lost serial from 1916. THE MYSTERIES OF MYRA is a strange brew of action, intrigue, magic, spiritualism, monsters and zombies. As Eric put it "an X-Files of 1916". Unfortunately quite possibly all prints of MYRA were lost in a warehouse fire. At least at this date it is still considered a lost serial. This is truly unfortunate as from the evidence at hand and eloquently shown in this book, MYRA may be one of the most astoundingly put together serials of the silent and talkie era. From the looks of the stills and behind the scenes photos and info, this was a lavish production with impressive sets and intriguing special effects.

The process of this production was a painstaking one, as Eric explains:

Tracy Burton ... took on the job of interpreting fuzzy microfilm versions of the newspaper serializations of the story -- virtually all of which were incomplete, damaged, or otherwise messed up, which means after her pass through it and interpretations she was able to make, it took two other guys (me and Dr. Daka) hours and hours to fill in the missing words and correct errors. Daka discovered ... that there were about 5 different versions of the text, also, which all appeared in different newspapers, with different illustrations.

Along with reconstructing the various newspaper serializations of the story into a coherent novel, Eric delved deeply into researching the production history of MYRA, which is contained in a lengthy introduction and includes many production photos and biographies of cast and crew.

So here we have it; a novel that any pulp writer would dream to write, which is based on a legendary serial that no longer exists, along with a lot of tasty background info and photos. A perfect storm of entertainment for anyone who is into pulps, serials and movie history bound into one handsome tome.

This is the sales blurb for the book, which concisely explains what it's all about:

BEWARE THE BLACK ORDER! So comes the warning from the spirit of Myra Maynard's father, who reaches out to her from beyond the grave to warn her of danger from the masters of the occult arts that lurk in the shadows and mark her for murder on her eighteenth birthday. Only the world's first psychic detective, Dr. Payson Alden, and his friend Haji the Brahman mystic, can save clairvoyant Myra from the terrors of The Grand Master of the Order, who tries to claim not only her fortune but her life by means of suicide-inducing spells, invasion of her chamber by spirit assassins, and even reanimation of the dead by a fire elemental. Originally a fifteen-episode serial shot in Ithaca, New York (before Hollywood became the center of American movie-making) in 1916, painstakingly reconstructed from the original screenplay, novelization, and existing stills. Includes background information, behind-the-scenes photos and cast biographies.

At $25 it is well worth the price of admission and I urge you to head over to the Serial Squadron and pick up a copy.

The India Rubber Men

2010-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

I occasionally get these ebay email alerts from certain favored sellers. One of them sells older newspaper comics that have been repackaged into books. The pesky thing about the alerts I get on this guy is that sometimes he has really odd items which get my curiosity up in a dander. I've discovered some great graphic artists and obscure comics and just recently discovered the wacky world of English fiction writer Edgar Wallace.

Though the internet is a global community and many of you dear readers may "get this" already, from an American standpoint Wallace is basically non-existent within pop-culture. Even within U. S. pulp circles he is not a common name to run across. About the only thing where his name is seen regularly in the U. S. is as the author of the novelization of the original 1933 movie King Kong. Which he didn't actually write. But that is a completely different story of which if you want to investigate, you can check it out on wikipedia.

Well back to this ebay seller alert. Recently he had an ad for a newspaper strip called "Inspector Wade, by Edgar Wallace". I recognized the author's name from Kong. Intrigued I looked "Inspector Wade" up. A google search turned up an interesting link which led to a whole bizarre world of which I previously had no knowledge. A German subgenre of crime and mystery movies known as "krimi". Apparently within the krimi genre Edgar Wallace reigned King, with 44 movies adapted from Wallace and his son's books and short stories in a 13 year period. Here are a few krimi movie links for your edification: krimi corner, Cinefear, and Kinwelt has a great listing with descriptions of the 44 Wallace Krimis.

Wallace in fact had a lot more media based on his works. For instance in the UK there was the Edgar Wallace Mysteries; theatrical shorts that eventually were turned into television episodes. For a description and list of "episodes" please check out a great article at Mystery*File.

ITV, the trailblazing "indie" UK television network created a series based on Wallaces most enduring detective J. G. Reeder, about a bookish, nerdy Gent who puts the fear of God into the gangsters and criminal underworld of London. I've checked out several episodes of this show and have found it to be highly enjoyable.

Probably one of the few U. S. adaptations of Wallace to film was the silent 1925 cliffhanger serial THE GREEN ARCHER which later got a talkie serial adaptation in 1940.

Along with the checking out the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series and J. G. Reeder series, I had to investigate these German krimis.

Were these good movies? I had to view some for myself and long story short; not completely, of the ones I sampled, it was about a 40 percent success rate. The unsuccessful entries are overlong and overcomplicated with a focus on immaterial stuff that really has nothing to do with the central plots. Maybe it's something that gets lost in translation but they essentially are beautifully shot, moody and gothic looking Noir and even horror type mysteries that suffer from poor scripts. Some are very good though, two of them being the very first in the series THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG (Der Frosch mit der Maske, 1959) and a few films later the closely related THE INN ON THE RIVER (Das Gasthaus an der Themse, 1962).

THE INN ON THE RIVER is based on an Inspector Wade tale (of the above mentioned comics that originally drew my interest) called THE INDIA RUBBER MEN, described as such:

A classic Wallace, stitching together his favourite themes with enough humour and vigour to keep the reader intrigued till the very end. John Wade is the young Scotland Yard inspector, Lila Smith the beautiful orphan with a mysterious past. There is a a criminal mastermind, a long-standing gang of jewel thieves -- the India-Rubber Men, who wear gasmasks and rubber gloves, and carry gas bombs to stave off pursuit -- and a smattering of Chinese bandits and American mobsters. Through it all runs the Thames, and there is even time for a little excursion out of London to its upper reaches in Oxfordshire. The mixture as before,expertly blended. (description quoted from "Jon" at The Golden Age of Detective Fiction)

After reading a review of THE INDIA RUBBER MEN (again at Mystery*File) which did not give a sterling impression of the book, I still felt that maybe it would be worth a read. Or in this case, a listen. So it is our newest entry into the world of the digital pulp reader.

Listen or download from Archive.org! You can stream directly from here

Don't forget you can follow The Pulp reader at Facebook. Click here and hit the LIKE button.

Animated Hard-Boiled Noir

2010-06-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

From the Curious Pictures profile on Osbert Parker:

Three-time British Academy Award nominated director Osbert Parker is perhaps best-known for his signature style of using cut-out animation mixed with live action to create one-of-a-kind imaginary landscapes within commercials and short films.

For the past three years Parker has been experimenting and crafting two short films that are receiving great acclaim on the international film festival circuit. “Film Noir” was nominated for best short animated film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2006 and also was nominated for the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. "Yours Truly," which received the best short animated film award at this year’s British Animation Awards, was also nominated for a BAFTA in 2008 and selected for Sundance. Both films have been screened at the Telluride Film Festival.

He is currently creating the third short in his “Noir” trilogy and developing a mixed-media feature.

I go back to these clips from YOURS TRULY and FILM NOIR on a regular basis. I think they are rich in texture and depth, being pregnant with many possibilities for story threads.

As an animator who started out in the 70's animating in stop motion, I have a special fondness for the medium and a deep appreciation of artists who utilize it well, such as Mr. Parker does. I do hope that once his third installment is completed that the trilogy will come available on DVD.

Here are the two clips I've probably worn a hole in youtube from over-watching.

YOURS TRULY

FILM NOIR

The Pulp Reader Gets Social

2010-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

You can now subscribe to The Pulp Reader on Facebook. If it works correctly, you can become a "fan" of the page and you will start getting the latest Pulp Reader articles on your FB wall.

Click here and hit the "LIKE" button to subscribe!

Arsene Lupin: 813

2010-06-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's Lupin time again folks. So far LeBlanc's seminal character has appeared twice at The Pulp Reader and is returning again today for the grand novel 813.

What garners this current return is the fact that Black Coat Press has just published a rather amazing book called ARSENE LUPIN VS. COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO. This collects the Cagliostro cycle (the books COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO and COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO'S VENGENCE plus the short story The Queen's Necklace). The first book appeared in English in 1925 and has not been reprinted since, while VENGENCE has not previously been translated to English. Both books are new translations, which may be a good thing as the original THE MEMOIRS OF ARSENE LUPIN translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos was not completely faithful and even changed Lupin's original name of Raoul to the terribly mundane "Ralph".

What does this have to do with 813? Not much, but I have never read this story and so thought it'd be great to give it the Pulp Reader treatment while reading the Cagliostro books at home.

813 has had a few media treatments, first appearing in the 1920 American silent movie "813" starring Wedgwood Nowell as Lupin. A Japanese version was filmed in 1923, and later Japanese animation company Tatsunoko filmed an animated version in 1979 called "Kaitō Lupin - 813 no Nazo". Then finally in 1980 an acclaimed French mini-series called "Lupin joue et perd".

As a small aside, once again I want to give a nod to the 2004 movie ARSENE LUPIN. I found it to be highly entertaining with a plot that is maybe too complex for general movie-going American audiences and too effects laden and full of explosions for French audiences. This landed it in a no-man's land where it has suffered a lack of distribution in Region 1 DVD countries. Probably the only way to see it in the states is by finding the DVD on ebay or other secondary marketplaces like that.

One of my favorite type of reviews is one with a lot of historical insight into the subject at hand. As such I'd like to point to the able folks at mysteryfile.com who reviewed the movie several months ago.

Back to 813. As major as this novel is supposed to be, there is not a lot written about it. Therefore I've put up this chronology from Cool French Comics which gives the best rundown of story. It serves as a great hook to get you interested in this story. There are some SPOILERS so you may not want to read beyond the first paragraph if this concerns you.

1912
April-June - The murder of millionaire Rudolf Kesselbach in Paris begins the prodigious affair of "813", Lupin's greatest epic. Kesselbach's secret may lead to the redrawing of the political map of Europe. Lupin's adversary is the mysterious "L.M.", or L de Malreich, a more-than-human, black-clad, merciless killer, whom Lupin refers to as the "Monster" or the "Vampire." L.M. eventually unmasks Lupin who was hiding behind the guise of Lenormand, and arranges for him to be arrested.

July-December - Lupin is thrown in jail, but continues the fight from his cell. He learns that the Kaiser has called upon Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of "813", but the great detective fails to solve the riddle. In August, the Kaiser arranges for Lupin to be freed. Lupin eventually finds the solution, but is outwitted again by Malreich. (Fairness forces one to acknowledge that Lupin solves the mystery in circumstances that may have given him an edge over Holmes.)

1913
January-April - The "813" saga continues. Back in France, Lupin finally defeats Marcheich. (Or has he?) Devoured by megalomaniacal ambition, he uses his own daughter, Geneviève, to further his plans, against Victoire's wishes. He hopes to marry her to Pierre Leduc, the heir to the Duchy of Deux-Ponts-Valdenz. But Lupin's scheme eventually collapses: instead, Leduc falls in love with Dolores Kesselbach, whom Lupin also loves. Tragedy ensues, resulting in the deaths of both Dolores and Leduc, and the permanent alienation of Genevieve. A thoroughly depressed Lupin fakes his own death and disappears.
Okay, is your appetite whetted? Mine is!

Click for archive.org

Himan Brown, Developer of Radio Dramas, Dies at 99

2010-06-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

By JOSEPH BERGER for The New York Times Published: June 6, 2010 A version of this article appeared in print on June 7, 2010, on page A21 of the New York edition Times Reader 2.0: Daily delivery of The Times - straight to your computer. Subscribe for just $4.62 a week.

Himan Brown, who long before there was television created immensely popular radio dramas like “The Adventures of the Thin Man” and “Dick Tracy,” employing an arsenal of beguiling sound effects that terrified or tickled the shows’ many listeners, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 99.

His granddaughter Melina Brown confirmed the death.

Another of Mr. Brown’s creations was the radio drama “Grand Central Station,” but probably his most memorable was “Inner Sanctum Mysteries,” whose ominous opening of a creaking door and menacing farewell of “pleasant dreams” became signatures not just of the show but also of the heyday of radio itself, when listeners sitting on the family sofa or curled under quilts attached their own fanciful images to the sounds coming out of a box that had no screen.

While radio dramas are now celebrated as wistful nostalgia by people in their 70s and 80s, Mr. Brown never stopped believing in the form. In 1974, when radio drama was all but extinct, he began a nightly series called CBS Radio Mystery Theater that ran until 1982 and even revived the creaking door. He continued to produce radio dramas about influential Americans into his 90s for Brooklyn College’s station.

“I am firmly convinced that nothing visual can touch audio,” Mr. Brown said in a 2003 interview, his eyes sparkling. “I don’t need 200 orchestra players doing the ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ I don’t need car chases. I don’t need mayhem. All I need to do is creak the door open, and visually your head begins to go. The magic word is imagination.”

In his prime, in the 1930s and 1940s, he was a jack-of-all-trades, once estimating that he produced or participated in over 30,000 shows. He wrote and doctored scripts, sold shows to advertisers, and directed actors like Orson Welles, Helen Hayes, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. As a teenager, he was the voice of the first Jake, Molly Goldberg’s husband, in the earliest version of the show about the Goldbergs, a homespun Jewish family in the Tremont section of the Bronx. But he also played the Italian father in another ethnic soap opera called “Little Italy.”

He became an expert in sounds that could instantly epitomize a character or a city. Foghorns and the clang of Big Ben became London. A belly laugh was a fat man.

“Grand Central Station,” an anthology show, was one of Mr. Brown’s first big hits, with its portentous opening declaring that the terminal was “the crossroads of a million private lives, a gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily.”

It was characteristic of his self-confidence that when listeners complained that the chugging sounds of a steam engine were not what you ordinarily heard at the terminal, he would reply: “You have your own Grand Central Station.”

Mr. Brown grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the son of immigrant tailors from the outskirts of Odessa in Ukraine. Yiddish was the dominant sound in his neighborhood, but also important was a violin, which his parents insisted he learn to play well. He was entranced by the idea of catching the next wave to success, and a shop teacher at Boys High School told him, “There’s a new thing now, radio.” He was told that he could hear WLW in Cincinnati with a copper wire wrapped around a Quaker Oats box.

“What a revelation that was right here in Brooklyn,” Mr. Brown said.

Having done some acting at a local synagogue dramatic club, he persuaded the young NBC station WEAF that he could read a newspaper column in a Yiddish dialect. One of his listeners was Gertrude Berg, the resourceful inventor of the Goldbergs. Within a year, and with his help packaging the show, “The Rise of the Goldbergs” started a run that with its conversion to television would last 30 years. But after six months, Mrs. Berg fired him, buying him out for $200, he said.

Mr. Brown continued to work in radio as an independent producer while attending Brooklyn College. At a time when companies financed shows and attached their names to them, he would try to sell a potential sponsor, like the Goodman’s matzo company, on an idea for a radio play and, if successful, put the show together. One result was “Bronx Marriage Bureau,” about a matchmaker.

The degree Mr. Brown received from Brooklyn Law School aided his ascent: it helped him acquire the rights to fictional characters like Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Bulldog Drummond and the Thin Man. “The Thin Man” also had a typical Brown touch: the sound of a pull on a lamp chain as the self-styled detectives Nick and Nora Charles went to bed. “It was as sexy as I could get,” he said.

As he prospered in radio, Mr. Brown became a perceptive art collector. The eight-room Central Park West apartment he shared with his first wife, Mildred Brown, and his second, Shirley Goodman, a force in the growth of the Fashion Institute of Technology, was filled with paintings by Renoir, Degas and Picasso.

Mr. Brown owned a weekend home in Stamford, Conn., where he once rented a studio out to a young writer, J. D. Salinger, who at the time was working on “Catcher in the Rye,” according to his granddaughter.

Both of Mr. Brown’s wives died before him. Besides Melina Brown, he is survived by a son, Barry K. Brown; a daughter, Hilda; another grandchild; and four great-grandchildren.

Mr. Brown did not weather the shift to television. He turned “Inner Sanctum” into a syndicated TV show, but it did not last. Once characters were visible, viewers were no longer enchanted. The creaky door had lost its spell.

The Witch's Tale in Weird Tales

2010-01-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise when I was perusing a few issues of Weird Tales magazine and on the cover of the November 1941 issue is "A WITCH'S TALE Specially Adapted From the Famous Radio Program by ALONZO DEEN COLE". I have talked previously about early horror radio and especially Cole's The Witch's Tale, a couple of years ago. Please check that post out for more background info on the show.

So here's something a little different from the Pulp Reader norm. This is the story as adapted by Cole himself straight from the pages of Weird Tales. Plus you can also read the script of the original radio program as transcribed by Kevin Rimney here. And the two part broadcast can be found here and here.

The Spirits of the Lake
Page 1
Click on images for full-sized readable page.
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6Page 7 - final

McLevy the Edinburgh Detective

2010-01-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! It's been a busy one for me. Isn't it always? I haven't been encoding many books to audio lately and haven't had much to post about, but do have some items of interest that I've been listening to and will pass on to you.

First off, there's my love hate relationship with Wormwood, and excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.

http://wormwoodshow.com/ Doctor Xander Crowe was a formidable psychologist until a terrible tragedy sent him spiraling down the dark pathways of the occult. Now, a strange vision leads Doctor Crowe to the hidden town of Wormwood, where shadows lurk in every corner and evil stains the souls of the inhabitants. Welcome to Wormwood.

Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles. http://www.decoderringtheatre.com/

And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800's Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There's some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy's memoirs.

I was fascinated by stumbling across the exsistance of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.

Brood of the Witch Queen

2009-05-21T14:22:00.001-07:00

"I know you now," she said; "I know you, son of an evil woman, for you wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring with blood, as she stained it—with the blood of those who loved and trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed—I could name you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now."

Today's fable comes to us from Sax Rohmer, the creator of one of the most famous villains to cross the pulps, Fu Manchu. But rather than one of the entries in the Fu Manchu mythos I felt it would be interesting to delve into some of his earlier and more pure horror-oriented works.

Brood of the Witch Queen was originally serialized in the British magazine Premier for nine issues. It was later published under the title "The Witch's Son" in Mystery Magazine and finally novelized in 1918.

Brood promises to be a lot of fun, using the serialized nature to pass along several adventures leading into the tombs of Egypt. Though "ancient Egyptian evils" are old hat nowadays, in 1914-1918 it was a fairly new concept for the pulp world. I don't really have much more to say about it than that, so let's get going!

Pick it up at archive.org

Secret Agent X

2009-04-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

From nowhere hurtled that black death car. And from nowhere came its grisly occupants. They were not of the earth, for their human flesh was immune to bullets. They were not of the grave, for they manned the wheel and a blasting machine gun... Secret Agent "X" made a desperate maneuver to block their invasion of the land of the living. And in that weird terror trap, he came face to face with a man he knew - a man he knew had died five years ago.

Reading Paul Chadwick's weird detective series WADE HAMMOND has got me on a Chadwick kick. He has a clean style of writing that gets to the point by not being too florid, using terse and short sentence structure that keeps things moving, but still holds a lot of descriptive elements that makes this a very visually-inspiring prose.

His story telling goes down easy and can have a good pay off.

Some of his earlier short stories can have a nice setup but tend to peter out at the climax, but others are tight and brisk all the way through.

I've been reading reviews of the Secret Agent X pulps and have decided to give them a try. If you would like a good look at select reviews of the series I highly suggest heading over to Pulpfan and as always over at Doc Herme's place. I've ordered the first volume of the Altus Press collection which I believe is attempting to reprint the entire series in 9 volumes. The first volume includes Chadwick's The Torture Trust, The Spectral Strangler, The Death-Torch Terror and Ambassador of Doom.

Right now I'm reading one of Emile C. Tepperman's contributions to the series, The Murder Monsters. From what I've read so far, Secret Agent X seems to be an ex spy who after WWI is now financed by a star chamber of benovolent secret benefactors who want to stem the tide of a post war crime wave. The criminals that "X" fights are cut from the cloth of Norvell Page's THE SPIDER, being a rogues gallery of rampaging psychopaths using robots, monsters and costumed henchmen to wreck havoc across the country. The difference is that "X" usually has a protective layer of anonymity to shield him from crooks and cops alike using a broad assortment of expert makeups to disguise himself. Also the prose of "X" doesn't get quite as fever-dream and desperately hopeless like The Spider does, but keeps and even keel on the overall emotional structure of the stories.

This may make "X" a bit less intense than The Spider, but then there's not many bodies of texts that gets a gonzo as The Spider. Nevertheless this series looks like fun and I'm diving in. In fact while I'm reading it at home I'm going to listen in the car as well...

Today's experiment is a later tale in the series written by Chadwick called Legion of the Living Dead. This has great reviews from both Doc Hermes and Pulpfan. This is in print from Wildside Press so if you want a reading copy you might want to order it from them.

So let's give it a spin at Archive.org!
Download the zip here!

Dial P for Pulp podcast

2009-04-09T14:30:00.001-07:00

This goes under the "why didn't I know about this before" heading. Dial P for Pulp is a website that has brought news and reviews and some audiobook readings to its listeners since mid-2007. There's a good mix of stuff in each podcast and there's 10 episodes so far, so you might want to check it out.
http://www.dialpforpulp.com/
A detailed guide to each episode along with its download can be found here
http://dpfp.libsyn.com/index.php?post_category=podcasts

What are you waiting for? Go download and listen!

Doctor Zero

2009-03-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Wade Hammond rises again!

There is a long and hallowed line of pulp detective adventurers who have come up against what was known as "Weird Menace". These were detective stories placed in the realm of either the occult, science fiction or horror. But usually they tended to have what I would call a "Scooby Doo" ending, where the supernatural elements are explained away as skulduggery created by some criminal element looking to scare a rich couple out of their mansion, take over a nice yacht or protect a nice pot of gold in an old house. Once in a while the culprits turned out to be bone fide monsters, ghosts and aliens.

Modern occult detectives seem more likely to come across real supernatural circumstances, such as TV's newspaper reporter Kolchak the Night Stalker and the book and TV series The Dresden Files. Dresden is actually a wizard who consults with the police and detectives on cases that have supernatural or unexplainable occurances involved.

But back to ye Olden Dayes of Pulp...

There are quite a few of these Victorian monster smashers out there; Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin, William Hope Hodgson's Carnaki, Algernon Blackwood's John Silence, Manly Wade Wellman's John Thunstone and so on. To a certain extent Tom Swift hit upon Weird Menace stories and even Nick Carter came across the occasional ghost caper.

Probably one of the longer running but lesser known of these detectives is gentleman adverturer Wade Hammond. He worked closely with the police on solving various weird menace capers through 40 short stories printed in two different magazines; Detective-Dragnet and Ten Detective Aces. Probably the reason Wade Hammond drifted off into obscurity is because he never got his stories anthologised back in the day, so the reprint and rememeber factor was slim. Also creator and author Paul Chadwick went on to overshadow Hammond with a much more popular character who got his own book series, Secret Agent X.

For the past couple of years Chadwick's Wade Hammond has started getting the omnibus treatment in a series of four collections called The Weird Detective Adventures of Wade Hammond being put out by Off-Trail Publications. Off-Trail is also reprinting the subject of my previous post - Arthur O. Friel's Pedro and Lourenco stories in Amazon Adventures.

I've ordered the first Wade Hammond collection and while I wait for it to arrive, wanted to get a taste of what these stories will be like. I thought I would share and if you enjoy this, please be encouraged to order the Off-Trail collections. They are available at all the online book outlets such as amazon.com and ebay, etc.

Goto Archive.org to listen now
listen to the m3u stream
Or download the zip file

The Pathless Trail

2009-02-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

In Arthur O. Friel's jungle wilds, everything is out to get you. And he should know as he was a true life explorer and adventurer.

Much like H. Rider Haggard and Talbot Mundy, Friel knew what he was writing about as he "lived the adventure" tracking through the forests of the Amazon and Orinoco. This gives his writing a sense of groundedness that is hard to top outside of the likes of Mundy's African tribes, Haggard's Ivory Trails and William Hope Hodgson's sea tales. Hodgson rode the seas throughout his teen years, giving him a wealth of background to work into his frightening tales.

Friel's writing comes from the same type of pedigree. In fact Friel wrote many articles on his explorations and the book "The River of Seven Stars: Searching for the White Indians on the Orinoco" which is in a new print version coming out sometime later this year. From the product description you can easily see where he got the inspiration for his heroic pulps:

Arthur Friel, relentlessly curious, funded his own mission to find the white Indians of Venezuela. Along the way, he dealt with the severe tropical heat and humidity, diseases like yellow fever and beri-beri, and assorted vicious and deadly creatures packed so densely that they just about trip over each other--giant anacondas, jaguars, leaping spiders, fire ants, snakes of every description, and poisonous centipedes. Then, also, there were the Mayorunas, cannibals and headhunters who occasionally poison the streams because of "real or imaginary enemies." Friel found the white Indians, but they were not what he expected. He made it home and became one of the most popular writers for Adventure magazine during the 1920s and 1930s.

Of course he has inbued much pulpy goodness to his fictional adventures, pitting stalwart explorer heroes against jungle and river vampires, demons and sorcerers. Most of which appeared in the pulp magazine simply known as "Adventure".

About The Pathless Trail

Our experiment today is the first in a series of adventures featuring the soldiers of fortune trio Roderick McKay, Tim Ryan and Meredith Knowlton. They are on the hunt for a missing millionaire "lost" in the Amazonian jungles of South America. Along the way they meet up with Arthur Friel's popular and long running characters Pedro and Lourenco, along with headhunting Mayorunas and the even more frightening Red Bones tribe.

Use megaupload to download the 26 chapter .rar file.
Click here to stream from Archive.org

Further Listening....
Bill Hollweg in his podcast OTR Swagcast brought to my attention a show I'd come across many times but had never really paid attention to. I LOVE A MYSTERY written and produced by Carlton E. Morse. In particular the serial Bill's highlighting, TEMPLE OF VAMPIRES, is very similar to Friel's Amazonian stories. ILAM is a series featuring three soldiers of fortune turned detectives who globe trot around the world looking for adventure. TEMPLE OF VAMPIRES along with other ILAM serials and even other Carlton E. Morse series such as Adventures By Morse many times feature South American adventures such as LAND OF THE LIVING DEAD and STAIRWAY TO THE SUN .

ILAM can be found at Archive.org. Most of the series is missing and only a few complete serials are believed to exist. For TEMPLE OF VAMPIRES I'd wait and listen to the restored episodes Bill is pushing out every Thursday.

Along with ILAM, other Morse series can be found as well such as the sequel to ILAM, I LOVE ADVENTURE which is the further adventures of the same characters, but with the stories told in total in a single episode form. It is also at Archive.org.

And lastly, Adventures By Morse which contains the South American adventure serial LAND OF THE LIVING DEAD, which is based off of the premise of the original ILAM drama STAIRWAY TO THE SUN. Also at Archive.org

The Continental Op in THE DAIN CURSE

2008-09-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting into the hardboiled detective genre which is something I've never tried before. I was on a Arsene Lupin kick for a while which in a round about way led to an interest in Nick Carter. I mean the real Nick Carter, the detective, not the so called "Killmaster". The thing is, it's really hard to find any original Nick Carter. There's like two stories on the net and the rest are expensive buys from collectors. I'm surprized those original stories haven't ever been reprinted.

Anyway that search left me wondering about other pulpy detective types. I'd never read any Chandler or Hammett and decided to pick up some short stories of each. I started with Hammett and read several Continental Op stories. This is the detective that Hammett created before Sam Spade. These are gritty and nihlistic, sometimes hitting the psychotic tone of Norvel Page's THE SPIDER yarns. I was impressed.

Then I read some of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe shorts and found it quite entertaining but maybe not as edgy as Hammett. I'll keep reading some of both authors for a while. The short stories go down easy.

I decided to put a longer Hammett piece up to listen to during the commute. THE DAIN CURSE which is comprised of 4 short stories published in BLACK MASK Magazine from 1928 - 1929. Since this blog tends to deal with the outre I felt this was a pretty good example of the detective genre crossing into the weird tale. As it may sound from the title, this deals with magic, curses, drugs and human sacrifice amongst the normal twists and turns you might find in the hardboiled detective genre.

While Philip Marlowe has had quite a movie presence, the Continental Op has only had a few excursions to Hollywood. The first was a TV miniseries in 1978 that very faithfully adapted THE DAIN CURSE. In 1995 the HBO series FALLEN ANGELS adapted "Fly Paper" and in 2002 "The House In Turk Street" (AKA THE GOOD DEED) was made into a movie with Samuel L. Jackson.

Download from Archive.org
or stream the M3U playlist.

Lupin vs. Holmes in THE BLONDE LADY

2008-08-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

A while back I mentioned Maurice LeBlanc's series of books about the Gentleman Burglar Arsene Lupin. In a few of the Lupin stories he came up against Sherlock Holmes, though his name was originally altered to prevent legal action by Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. The first major work featuring the two together was a book called THE HOLLOW NEEDLE which is a very good story but actually doesn't have that much of Holmes in the tale at all.

But a follow up story known variously as THE BLONDE PHANTOM, THE BLONDE LADY or THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN BLONDE, has Holmes more steadfastly entrenched in the goings ons. This version, THE BLONDE LADY is translated from French to English by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS in 1910. This book is actually made up of a novelette and a short story, combined to make this whole narrative. The main body of the book is the main titled THE BLONDE LADY with a short story at the end called THE JEWISH LAMP.

A further report on this novel can be found in this review of the BlackCoat Press book ARSENE LUPIN VS SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE BLONDE PHANTOM, from this pdf issue of the Holmsian magazine DISTRICT MESSENGER.

"Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes: The Blonde Phantom by Maurice Leblanc, adapted into English by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier completes the account begun in Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes: The Hollow Needle. Here we have the two novellas, 'The Blonde Phantom' and 'The Jewish Lamp' (originally published together in English as The Arrest of Arsène Lupin,The Blonde Lady or The Fair-haired Lady, depending on the publisher) along with two short stories by the translators, which neatly fill gaps in the saga. The Lupin-Holmes tales appeal to me for several reasons. The protagonists are remarkably evenly matched; unlike Chief Inspector Ganimard, Holmes really gives Lupin a run for his money, though of course Lupin comes out on top. The narrator (named as Leblanc himself) admires the detective but is firmly on the burglar’s side, and the portrayal of Holmes and Watson is refreshingly different from that given in the Canon, as Anthony Boucher pointed out long ago. Moreover, the plotting is ingenious, and there’s that touch of the outrageous that British writers didn’t seem to master fully until the television age (when it flowered gorgeously in The Avengers). There’s nothing actually impossible in the exploits of Arsène Lupin, but there’s a great deal that’s improbable, and the better for it. Maurice Leblanc was not allowed to use the name of Sherlock Holmes in the original publications; he resorted to Herlock Sholmès, which a British publisher cleverly transformed into Holmlock Shears. But how nice to encounter Holmes under his real name in this extraordinary continuing duel."

So whether you listen to this audio or not, if you are a fan of Lupin and Holmes I'd suggest tracking down the book talked about in the above review as it adds a couple of stories to fill in LeBlanc spots.

Download from Archive.org
or stream the M3U playlist.

The Curse of Capistrano

2008-06-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ah ha! I bet you thought I was dead! Well I'm not. Just very horribly busy. I mean I'm usually pretty busy, but this spring and summer I'm super mega busy.

Anyway, at the yahoo forum for Dr. Syn, The Scarecrow we've been rejoicing in the fact that the Disney TV miniseries The Scarecrow is finally coming out on DVD. The subject of Disney's Zorro came up and I thought the original serialized story of Zorro written by Johnston McCulley for the magazine All-Story Weekly would be interesting to listen to.

There's lots of information on this story and its history at ZorroLegend.

So here we go! Click on the Archive logo to get the whole series (39 chapters!).

Or Stream episodes through Media player M3U.

Lovecraft, Davros and DIY Audio Dramas

2008-01-11T09:25:00.001-08:00

In the past couple of weeks I've been listening to several different things that have made me very happy.

First, it was "The Scarifyers" which is a horror comedy starring Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier General Lethbridge- Stewart of Doctor Who) as Holmesian/Challengerian special agent and Detective Lionheart of "MI-13", and Terry Molloy (Dalek creator Davros in the 1980s Doctor Who) as Professor Edward Dunning who writes what seems to be very purple horror pulp. Together they are the Scarifyers, who solve occult mysteries and fight Lovecraftian demons. The two tales in the series so far have played on BBC7 but are also available on CD at the Cosmic Hobo website.

Next up I discovered that long time radio play organization the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company has started a podcast which highlights some of their more recent works. A highlight for me was their live performance at DragonCon of The Shadow Over Innsmouth which included Harlan Ellison in a couple of roles. This adaptation was so straight across from the original story that it was almost more like an audiobook with each character read dramatically by different actors.

Last year I talked about the group known simply as "Doctor Who Audio Drama" or DWAD for short, and the squadron of grouplets that make up Darker Projects. These are folks who take it upon themselves to write and produce audio dramas on their own. Well there really seems to be a lot of this type of creativity going on and a lot of it is really well written and well produced. Like any artistic endeavor some are more uneven than others in quality or acting or sound effects/musical skills, but at least they are putting stuff out there and MOST of it is good and ALL of it will be entertaining to someone, depending on their personal preferences. For there is a vast range of subject matter and interests that get reflected in these homegrown audio dramas.

This brings me to AUDIO DRAMA TALK which is a new forum that looks to be a nice central nexus for these diverse groups to come together to talk about resources and production issues or advertise their own works. If anything, you should stop by just to check out the links, I've already found a ton of really interesting things on there to dive in to.

Tom Swift's Electrio-Gizmo Xmas Tree

2007-12-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the holidays, I'd like to put you in contact with the greatest "Grampa" in the world (of audiobooks at the very least). Roy Trumbull is at the website The Story Spieler. I first ran across him while looking for audiobooks of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. He had a few on archive.org and felt that this guy is the perfect storm of children's storytelling. He's got the great wizened Grampa voice along with being able to read without stumbling, a strong presence and a broad yet always interesting choice of materials to pull from.

Through Roy I discovered Tom Swift. "Whatchew talkin' bout Willis?" you may ask since Tom Swift has been around for almost a hundred years now. Quite frankly it's just never been a frame of reference for me. I always thought of Tom Swift in the most abstract of terms, thinking it just some moralistic part of American folklore, like Jack Sprat or something. I had no idea there were several series of books and that they are scifi adventures like you might see in Jonny Quest or the pages of the pulps. Great big "duh" on me. Ah well, it's great to learn new things about old stuff.

Roy has put up a story called TOM SWIFT AND THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X which piqued my interest. A folksy abstract idea meeting a Planet Xian? HUH? OK so I obviously had to research Mr Swift some. I looked him up on wikipedia and stole the above image from a nice site with info on a lot of the books.

Download or listen to TOM SWIFT AND THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X at archive.org

I would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season. Take it easy, be happy with your friends and family and think about how cool it would be to have world peace.

The Xmas tree from Planet X.

Gimme that Old Time Horror!

2007-09-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

THE WITCH'S TALE

Time goes by so fast, especially when you are really, really busy from sun up to sun down. It's been so busy that I haven't had time to enter anything here lately much less encode any books to audio format.

But I do want to touch base and just let people know what I've been listening to in my ever lengthening commute.

A few posts back I talked about the website for Quiet, Please, and since then I've kept up with some studies on the history of horror on old time radio. What is generally considered to be the first major horror OTR program was The Witch's Tale, written and produced by Alonzo Dean Cole. This started in 1931 and ran through 1938. Old Nancy the witch-host of the show was originally 75 year old Adelaide Fitz-Allen. When she passed away 5 years later she was replaced by a then 13 year old Miriam Wolfe.

This is one of my favorite radio series since it keeps pretty straight forward into the occult horror genre and rarely strays into standard detective-type pot boilers. Here we find werewolves, ghosts, giant insects and revenge from beyond the grave!

You can find 60+ episodes at archive.org click here to go straight to the streaming and download page.

LIGHTS OUT, Everybody...

Probably one of the most enduring radio shows, up there with Inner Sanctum and The Shadow, is LIGHTS OUT. Started by Wyllis Cooper of QUIET, PLEASE fame, it was taken over by an extraordinary entrepreneur by the name of Arch Oboler. This was a horror and weird fiction anthology that would not die. Starting in 1934 it took a break because of WWII for a couple of years but resumed from 1942 until 1947. There is a distinct patriotic edge to the 1942 - 47 run but it isn't obnoxious. Oboler would run a series called "Arch Oboler's Plays" which were aimed directly at the war effort. Those stories ranged in quality but really did show the breadth of what Oboler was capable of writing.

In the early 1970's Oboler would revisit the LIGHTS OUT oeuvre with THE DEVIL AND MR. O. Oboler tended to stay more on the weird tales, horror and detective noir with a twist ending type tales and a lot of become true classics. The primary one everyone sites is CHICKEN HEART which Bill Cosby did a skit on in the 70's, about a living chicken heart that grows exponentially until it threatens the existence of the entire Earth. Another personal favorite is also a mad science out of control yarn called OXYCHLORIDE X. You can find episodes in many entries on archive.org, but here is one of the biggest deposits of episodes.

I've been reading a few books on this stuff lately and here are two:
Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Behind the Creaking Door. Kearney, NE. Morris Publishing. 2002 by Martin Grams
Terror on the Air! Horror Radio in America, 1931- 1952. Jefferson, NC. McFarland & Company, Inc. 2006. by Richard J. Hand.

Another I haven't gotten to yet is The Witch's Tale -- Stories of Gothic Horror from the Golden Age of Radio. Yorktown Heights, NY. Dunwhich Press. 1998. by David Siegel.

Also I'd like to point out the website Radio Horror Hosts, which is a great nexus of horror related OTR. Here you can find info on almost all of the horror shows that appeared on U.S. radio since the 1930s, along with articles ranging from violence and censorship on the radio to its influence on TV and comics.

Calling Captain Future!

2007-06-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've covered horror, fantasy and crime so far, but haven't really hit on scifi yet. So thought it would be appropriate to bring in Edmond Hamilton's CAPTAIN FUTURE, who had his own magazine for around 17 issues and then later was run in STARTLING STORIES for another several issues. Hamilton was in the pulp business from early on and started with a space opera before Captain Future called THE INTERSTELLAR PATROL which ran in WEIRD TALES. This series has been collected into two books (CRASHING SUNS and OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE) that are both easily available at most online used book stores.

There are of course many scifi pulps out there, and most considered more adult and "respectable" than the CAPTAIN FUTURE series, but I like my pulp to be... pulpy and not so high-falootin'. So this stuff is a lot of fun as it reminds me of a cross between Doc Savage and Flash Gordon. It's more Space Fantasy than Science Fiction I suppose, but whatever it is, it's pretty fun to read.

For this experiment I've picked CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE which is the second book in the series. Though I've read several stories so far, this one really hits all of the great genre hotspots: a Sargasso sea of space with a conglomerate of standed ancient space ships, some of which are inhabited by tentacled, blood-thirsty aliens, a romp on Pluto's frozen surface and moons, chased around by hairy dinosaurs, wacky aliens, mad scientists, and a "Legion of Doom"!

SOLOMON KANE: THE MOON OF SKULLS

2007-03-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

For some reason I was just never a big fan of Two-Gun Bob's peplumy fantasy worlds. They are well written, there's no doubting REH is a master wordsmith of action packed and or horrifying adventure tales, but Conan, Kull, Red Sonja and friends are just not really my thing.

I do find Solomon Kane to be very interesting though as it mixes a little Sword & Sorcery with a little Talbot Mundy or Arthur Friel "exotic adventuring". In fact I believe REH has said that he was a big fan of Friel, so it comes as no surprize that the types of bloody adventure found in Friel and Howard are a pretty close match.

Along with today's experiment I want to point out a couple of things going on in the world of Kane. For one, there is an indie movie now being produced. There's not a ton of info on it but the writer/director is putting out a video blog about the project.

Also there was a fan-made short recently, adapting one of the Kane poems, "The Return of Sir Richard Grenville". It's pretty cool especially for a short, fan-made film. You can check it out by hitting the arrow below.

ALSO it looks like the DARK HORSE Comics' REH line will be putting out a series based on Kane in 2008.

If you are interested in buying the book there is a definitive edition collecting all the stories, poems and fragments, with excellent illustrations by Gary Gianni. From the same publisher are three poems you can download from here.

So on with the experiment. Today we have one of the longer stories in the Kane series, THE MOON OF SKULLS. Click to run in your browser or right-click and "save as" to download.

Lupin the Third's Grandpappy

2007-02-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

I always knew that the very long running manga series by Monkey Punch and still running Japanese animation Lupin III was based on a series of French, turn of the century novels by Maurice Leblanc. But had no idea until recently that there are a lot of media incarnations outside of the Japanese anime TV series and movies.

What piqued my curiosity about this fact was that I ran across a trailer for a French made movie called simply ARSENE LUPIN that came out in 2004. It's based on the original 1924 novel THE COUNTESS OF CAGLIOSTRO. Though taking place in the proper time period, it looks to have a bit of that BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF look to it, being filmed in a very "modern" style and using a lot of martial arts that seem to me to be anachronistic of the time. Ah well, it still looks pretty moody and fun. I have it but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

So this got me wondering about other versions, and upon searching around it looks like there's quite a few. Of live action, there seems to be about 20-something movies from several different countries, starting from 1907 to a new one that is an adaptation of the anime slated to come out in 2008. There was an earlier adaptation from the anime from 1974 called "Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy" which is currently available on R1.

Also in the 1930s was an American made movie that starred John Barrymore as Lupin and his brother Lionel as the Inspector. Two more American made Lupin movies came after the Barrymore one but I guess didn't do so well.

There's two (maybe more) live action series from France circa 1960-70. And a Canadian made cartoon called "Night Hood". The first episode of which, Lupin is confronted and bested by Sherlock Holmes.

"Whaaat?" you might wonder. Well, as it happens in the original line of books by Leblanc, Lupin did indeed come up against Sherlock Holmes on several occasions. Though for copywrite reasons he is called "Herlock Sholmes" or "Hemlock Shears".

In this experiment we are going to take a listen to "The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar" which is a collection of Maurice Leblanc's first Lupin stories which were first serialized in the French magazine "Je Sais Tout" in 1905. The stories are witty and a lot of fun and it's easy to see where the charm of all the different media incarnations get their genesis.

Click here to take a listen.

QUIET, PLEASE

2006-11-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

Being a fan of audiobooks and Old Time Radio or just audiodrama in general, it always makes me happy to see informational websites that really put a lot of detail into their subject matter.

QUIET, PLEASE is exactly one of those types of sites. The main page gives an overview of the shows history and it's creators Wyllis Cooper and Ernest Chappell, who "starred" or narrated the episodes. Chappell BTW sounds remarkably a lot like KGO AM radio personality and cranky blowhard Dr Bill Wattenburg.

What really makes the Quiet, Please website shine is the fact that many episodes, over 100 I believe, are offered online along with one to several paragraphs of info or synopsis about each radioplay.

Another really great resource for tracking radio dramas, especially in the sci-fi, horror, fantasy realm is the OTR Radio Plotspot. This is almost like a graphical wiki of 25-30 different series, with plot synopsis and reviews, some of which are submitted by readers. I find this to be a great resource when wading through the massive pile of OTR mp3s and wanting to find a certain or particular type of show. The plotspot also has a great index of known authors whose work has been adapted to radio drama.

Hugh B. Cave's The Prophecy

2006-10-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

A Little about Hugh Cave.

I don't remember when I first heard of Hugh B. Cave but it was probably in the mid 1990s with the publication of Fedogan & Bremer's hardbacks THE DOOR BELOW and DEATH STALKS THE NIGHT. I bought both of them and started reading one of the stories in THE DOOR BELOW. I don't remember a lot of the details or even which story it is now (I'll have to go back through and check at some time), but I do remember it being so lurid and intense that I had to put it down. It was just too intense for me at the time. I, who live and breathe horror, had to stop reading because it was just too overwhelming to deal with.

It was a while before I tried Cave again with some different stories and have come to appreciate his overheated, feverish and even psychotic tales of everyday life gone really horribly wrong. There's something about how he can craft a story that might start out as a mundane, relaxing evening with friends having a nice dinner and conversation and turns into a bloodbath full of screaming and wretching horror by the end that is just fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

And that is what our experiment for today is about. The mundane gone wrong in horrible and terrifying ways. The Prophecy was originally printed in Black Book Detective Magazine, October 1934.

If you find this piquing your interest in Cave's writing I would suggest the two books mentioned above and also a larger book of collected horrors called MURGUNSTRUMM AND OTHERS which was originally a very rare hardback by Carcosa Press but is now out in a broadly available soft cover (and also HB version) from Wildside Press.

Further reading on Hugh B. Cave:
bio on wikipedia
listing of his short stories, which numbers over 1000
CAVE interview by Tim Dill
CAVE interview by Tracey Hessler

Ok, and now on with today's experiment
CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE PROPHECY
(RIGHT CLICK AND "SAVE AS" TO DOWNLOAD)

The Festival by H. P. Lovecraft

2006-10-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

So Halloween is almost upon us and I've spent most of October not posting anything because I've been trying to assure that this blog is showing up in google. It's not very enticing to think that I put this together for you folks but ya wind up not even knowing it exist because it's not on any search engines. It is now so we'll continue on with the experiment.

What we have for today is one of the first Lovecraft stories that I ever read. What first drew me to HPL was the stark and scary covers by Michael Whelan. I picked up The Tomb and Other Tales just randomly based on the Whelan cover and the weird-sounding name "Lovecraft". It had "Love" in it but together with "craft" made it somehow itself a creepy and might I say Eldritch sounding name.

After reading more classical horror staples such as Poe and Shelley, running into Lovecraft was quite a revelation. This was like truly classic gothic horror, but with gloppy, disgusting monsters of some type of alien origin in it. I had no idea what was hidden behind the cloaks of the revelers in The Festival. I was blown away and immediately started drawing those horrors that I read about. That stuff was really stimulating, and sometimes even now, a quarter of a century later it can still fire my imagination.

So on that demented, mad-piping note, I present The Festival. This entry in the experiment includes some ambient music just to weirdly spice things up.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN OR RIGHT CLICK AND "SAVE AS" DOWNLOAD

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 17 - 19

2006-10-03T14:06:00.000-07:00

Time to wrap this one up! In the last three chapters we'll see voodoo rituals, daring escapes, dead heroes, bad jokes from Battle the butler and much much more!

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 15 - 16

2006-09-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Other auditory entertainments online.

ON and off for the past 25 years or so I have been a Doctor Who fan. In the 80s and 90s there was a growing base of fans creating their own Doctor Who dramas. The cheapest way to do that was to produce radio play-like audiodramas. I have listened to some of the audiodramas created by the now professional troupe called BIG FINISH. They've banged out almost 90 different dramas in the Whovian realm, with many of them using the voices of the original TV show stars. They are pretty fun, though somewhat expensive on CD. Also there are groups like MAGIC BULLET which is now producing the Dr Who spinoff series of FACTION PARADOX.

The neat thing is that the FANS themselves are also still out there making these. And now with digital sound creation and mixing technologies, and with the creators getting older and wiser, the fan audios are virtually on par, if not in some instances doing better productions than the pros.

The word "fan" might lead you to believe that these would be clumsy pastiche attempts at remaking ideas from the original shows but with poor recording, bad writing and amature acting. But that is certainly not the case for at least a couple of these groups.

The group that primarily comes to mind is DOCTOR WHO AUDIO DRAMA or DWAD for short. They have been creating Who based serials since the early 1980s, which is before some of my co-workers were born. They have gone through 4 Doctors, now on their 5th, and many companions, and along the way have built a healthy fan base for their work. Their scripts are clean and smart, the voice acting tends to be very professional and the technical side, the music and sounds effects are perfectly generated and put together to create dynamic, original and entertaining serials.

Another group is DARKER PROJECTS who create audios based on multiple subjects ranging from Star Trek, to Lord Byron to the good Doctor as well. The neat thing about groups like this, DWAD and others is that when possible, they release their materials online for free. And FREE is a really good deal when it comes to getting a quality product, which these are.

Go visit them. Download some shows and visit their forums. They are really open and nice folks.

G-8, L-11 and K-3!

It looks like G-8 might've overstretched himself dogfighting with the Zombie Nazis as he and his Battle Aces have found themselves out of fuel and ammo on the wrong side of the enemy lines. It seems they might really be done for this time, but G-8 might have some very special friends just around the corner. Let's find out about L-11 and K-3!

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 11 - 12

2006-09-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything new to report, SO I'll just say "let's keep going with the story!"

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 11 - 12

2006-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

At the end of chapter 10 we found G-8, Nippy and Bull in a jam:

G-8 suddenly noticed something he hadn’t seen before. The Germans were tearing in from the south, cutting them off from their home lines. They couldn’t run for home now if they wanted to.

He swung his flight in a climbing turn. He must get up to the level of the Germans before the fight started. And while he kicked over in that maneuver, his thumb came down on the trigger button to warm his guns.

Tac! tac!

He jerked upright in alarm. Instantly the full horror of the situation flooded over him. They had been short of ammunition, he remembered the sergeant saying so. He had taken the faulty ammunition out their belts and had put in what there was of the good. They had used many rounds in trying to sever the wires that held the corpse to the Zeppelin.

Now their belts were empty. His gasoline tank was nearly so. Nippy and Bull were most probably in the same fix.

G-8 groaned.

So you want to find out what happens next, don't you?

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 9 - 10

2006-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

The G-8 Website

If you are interested in further information on G-8 and his buddies, I suggest you checking out Chris Kalb's website. Chris also has created websites based on Doc Savage and The Spider.

All of his websites are well executed and beautifully rendered, and a bonus on his G-8 site is a flash-generated computer game.

Very cool stuff!

And now on with the story. Looks like the guys are in the middle of a Voodoo pickle here. You better keep up so you know what's going on!

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 7 - 8

2006-09-20T12:01:00.001-07:00

WWI era aviation movies that I would recommend:

I'm just spewing this out since FLYBOYS is looming closer and closer and since we're listening to WWI master spy and SPAD fighter G-8 and his Battle Aces.  I'm not doing any research here, just naming off the top of my head several movies I've seen and appreciated in this genre.

First is Howard Hughes' THE HELLS ANGELS, which had hours of flying footage shot for it. Most of the edited out footage wound up as stock footage for other aviation movies.  Great story of two brothers who are in France when the Germans start invading and enlist in the air corps. This movie did the kamikaze plane into the Zeppelin long before FLYBOYS.

Next is DAWN PATROL with Errol Flynn.  This is a great movie about the pressure of being the commander of a fighter squadron that has high casulties (as they all did back then).  Wonderful Erol Flynn type heroics are transfered successfully into the skies.

THE BLUE MAX with an interesting view from the German side.  A more modern movie (relatively speaking, in 1966) with much more complicated characters who you are not sure you can or should root for. Not because of which side of the war they are on, but because the characters are so kniving, backstabbing and vainglorious.

And then there are some serials such as  ACE DRUMMOND and TAILSPIN TOMMY which even though not taking place during the Great War is around that time and uses nifty bi-planes. TAILSPIN TOMMY is more kid's adventures oriented (makes sense, since it's based on a newpaper comic strip) and ACE DRUMMOND is a more exotic affair, taking place in China.

G-8 would have made a GREAT serial.

Well let's see what he's up to. It seems the Scooby Doo effect that is usually the case in G-8 maybe actually turn out to be real Voodoo! We'll have to listen and find out!

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 5 - 6

2006-09-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

In the NEWS:

From now until Sept 21st, you can watch live video feed of a robot that is exploring the sunken dirigible USS Macon. The Macon carried five F9C Sparrowhawk biplanes which were launched and landed through a hang-down trapeze system. This floating aircraft carrier went down in a storm off of the California coast and was the last dirigible of the US Navy. Now what do you suppose would happen if that robot was poking around, and in that underwater debris they happened on zombies? Or in the case of a G-8 scenerio, underwater, Nazi zombies? Well I don't think it THAT far fetched. We've seen it happen before!

That was one heck of a segue wasn't it? And on that note, let's see what sort of undead trouble G-8 has to put up with today...

"We, the dead pilots Munz, von Bach, von Klingen, Wolffson, beg to announce that we have been brought back from the dead by Croloi, the master of white and black magic.

And by our resurrection, four of your best flyers are about to die, to take our places in the grave."

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 3 - 4

2006-09-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

FLYBOYEEEZ!  Ok, so there's this movie coming out called "Flyboys". It looks kinda "Hollywood" and glitzy for my taste.  It's supposed to be based on the true story of the Lafayette Escadrille, of which there is an earlier movie notably starring David Jassen and Clint Eastwood. To me a lot of the visual and dramatic queues seem to be straight out of Howard Hughes' THE HELL'S ANGELS (not the motocycle club) and THE BLUE MAX.  I don't know if it will be any good or not, but since we're listening to a WWI story right now, I thought it would be appropriate to mention it here because FLYBOYS opens in theatres this week.  Also since the Lafayette Escadrille was a French-based squadron it looks like they flew Nieuports and SPADS, just like G-8 and his buddies. In the FLYBOYS trailers I've only noticed the Nieuports.

On to other business... A NOTE OF WARNING: I just want to take a second to inform the uninitiated that pulps in general and especially war-related pulps such as G-8 can and usually do contain a lot of very un-PC racial slurs.  If you are offended by hearing racial slurs then you may not want to listen to, or read, the G-8 stories since they are filled with German epithets.

Ever wonder what the Lafayette Escadrille would do if they encountered German Aces coming back as reanimated corpses? Well, me neither, but it is definately the realm of G-8 and his Aces, Nippy and Bull.   No one seemed to know what to do in the little circle that was ever increasing as artillerymen came running up, only to stop and gasp.
  
With an effort G-8 stepped forward, his gun held ready. He confronted the weird spectacle of unhumanity. When he spoke his voice came dry and rasping.
  
“You are Oberteutnant von Griel ?” he asked.
  
Then cold sweat burst out on his body, lor the eyes didn’t even look at him, although he felt that the man could see him.
  
The lips didn’t move. Nothing about that stiff, standing figure except its head. And that nodded once, in a jerky motion. Down, forward and back.
  
The forward movement was a snapping drop almost to the chest, as though the strength in the neck had suddenly given out. Then a backward motion, as though the owner were lifting his head by a slow, weary effort.

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.
Squadron of Corpses
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

G-8 and his Battle Aces

2006-09-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Time for a new full length book!
Another Popular Publications original (now Argosy Communications)is
G-8 and his Battle Aces.

G-8 was an heroic aviator and spy during World War I in pulp fiction. He started in his own title G-8 and His Battle Aces, published by Popular Publications. All stories were written by Robert J Hogan, under his own name. The title lasted 110 issues, from October, 1933 to June, 1944. Several of the novels have been reprinted by several publishers. There have also been a couple of comic books published with him.

While not as dramatic a character as Doc Savage or the Shadow, his stories were often outlandish, with many supernatural or science fiction elements. G-8's true identity was never revealed. His man servant was named Battle. His wing-men were Nippy Weston and Bull Martin. His adventures entailed fighting against the lethal super technology that was constantly created by the Kaiser's mad scientists.

Our story for this session is SQUADRON OF CORPSES. "They had been buried months ago -- yet now they flew war skies, corpses that could not be killed! And for every resurrected Boche, a Yank died-- mysteriously, terribly. Who were these ghastly aces? How could G-8 and his buddies hope to fight a staffel recruited from the dead!"

We'll be doing two chapters at a time since the chapters are so short (about 10 -15 minutes a piece).

Click to listen or right click and "save target as" to download.

Squadron of Corpses
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO

G-8 is (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

(A Buzzing Imitation of Human Speech)

2006-09-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

I have gotten to the point to where I can comfortably listen to TTS audio and get enjoyment from hearing a story in this manner. But I do understand that it is not for all people. Thus I found this to be a great headline for today's story, THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS by H. P. Lovecraft.

This is one of my favorite Lovecraft tales. It has all of the hooks that you expect in his storytelling; Isolation, remoteness, fear of the unknown, hidden alien forces whose history is intertwined with Earth's own history going back to prehistoric times, paranoia, the pantheon of Cthulhu, a library of blasphemous books and the quick, down and dirty shock ending. The horror is clearly born from science fiction and not the occult, which to me is where most of Lovecraft's writing is at its greatest power.

So here we go,
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS
(right click and "save target as" to download)

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - FINAL CHAPTER!

2006-09-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have a busy week keeping me from writing or posting much. (yaaay! you say!)

So without further ado, here is the final chapter of The SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING.

CLICK TO LISTEN to Chapter ELEVEN; Death's Harvest
(right click and "save target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

Also, if you would like to download the entire audiobook at once, click here for a zip of all the mp3s.

Special thanks to Pocketfiction.com for the etext of this classic pulp!

Next up... H. P. Lovecraft's The WHISPERER IN DARKNESS!

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter TEN

2006-09-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

What I like about the Pulps.

I guess I have a short attention span, or maybe it's because I read slowly. But I tend to prefer short stories to novel-length books. That was, I did until I started reading the pulps. What makes them different? I supposed it has to do with the fat to lean meat content. I like a story that keeps a good quick pace and doesn't get bogged down in too much character self-reflection or tangential, non-necessary literary masturbation. Character devlopement is essential, but keep it to the stories' focus and don't try to flesh out the characters so much with non-relative back story that it becomes hopelessly boring.

Eh... maybe that means I'm low-brow. But I know what I like, and it isn't reading literary lard. Even some of the pulps suffer from it. Like with The Shadow, there can wind up being so much emphasis on atmosphere or unnecessary plot tangents as to bog down the storyline itself.

I think maybe when my time was more free to read leisurly this wasn't such an issue and I could take in the value of all the extrainious description and random lines of thought. But nowadays I work 55-60 hours a week as a standard, and even more when it's crunch time. So I've gotten to where the stories I read need to cut to the chase or I wind up getting frustrated.

So I've lurked in the domain of short stories for the past 14 years or so. Now that I'm reading pulps for the past year, I've come to the realization I just typed out above. That it isn't really the length, it's the strength of the narrative throughput. The signal to noise ratio.

Why am I telling you this? I suppose because I just realized this in the past week.

The SPIDER has no time for tangents or plot branches, he's too busy ventilating bad guys.

So let's see what happens next in THE CHOLERA KING, Chapter TEN; Nita's Choice
CLICK TO LISTEN to Chapter TEN
(right click and "save target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter NINE

2006-09-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different...

If you happen to have shockwave and flash, then below you will see this box with an arrow in it. Press the arrow to watch the HPLHS trailer for The Call of Cthulhu, which I talked about two posts back. I promise you it is quite nice!

And now back to our regularly scheduled program: Creating chapters for an audiobook using dspeech. Dspeech is a homegrown TTS engine that has a variety of interesting applications and abilities, including speech recognition. So you could concievably have a conversation with this program if you have enough context sensitive responses plugged in. But I have no need for that. The nifty thing in this program is being able to create chaptered audio files.

Huh? Well, that means that it will take one big block of text and depending on how you want to break it up, it will encode the wav or mp3 into several files. You can have a preset time of 5, 10, 20 and 30 minute segments or have a custom TAG that will create the segments based on exactly where you want.

For instance you paste an entire book of text into dspeech. The text has chapter headings. At each chapter heading (except for the first chapter, because it doesn't need to be told when to start when it's at the beginning of a book) you do something like this:

#BREAK

Chapter 2

And then go here and select "fully custom":
Options/audio book creation/split wav and mp3 files/fully custom (use BREAK keyword only)

This tells dspeech to start a new audio file at #BREAK. When you save, it will generate a new directory and put all of the new files in it with each numbered appropriately. Also the TTS will say the name of the file at the beginning of each audio.

So that is how you automatically make your chaptered audios.

Well, The SPIDER is too busy to play with computers, but I bet he's #BREAKING peoples' heads and taking names...

He ordered the fire truck on which he rode sent swiftly forward. His mind was made up. He would leave Mallory, "Colonel" Mallory, in charge and go back to New York City. Somewhere there, the Master of the Plague still ruled, and the Spider's task would not be done until he affixed his small crimson seal to the butcher's forehead! The Spider's lips were smiling as he shot forward. Tomorrow, he would be able to join in a decisive battle against the Plague Master!

So let's see what happens next in THE CHOLERA KING, Chapter NINE; Death for the Spider!
CLICK TO LISTEN to Chapter NINE
(right click and "save target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter EIGHT

2006-09-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

For those who came in late...

I read quite a bit. In fact I have at any given time at least 3 books on my nightstand that I alternate between. Usually a fiction book (right now the Carroll and Graf THE SPIDER book 4), maybe a comic (right now, CRIME CLASSICS) and a non-fiction book (right now Don Hutchinson's THE GREAT PULP HEROES). But that doesn't mean that I don't need some help in getting through the massive backlog of stuff to read. So many books, so little time.

We don't want to wind up like poor Henry Bemis and be all frustrated with all the reading you just can't catch up on.

So that's why this blog is here. To help you, who might be in a similar situation, get through your backlog with some alternate means. For me that's making these audiobooks and listening to them in the car. If you cruise back to the first several posts you'll see what my process has been for creating these audios.

I bet Henry Bemis could read The SPIDER if his glasses weren't broken. Well, if he had an MP3 player he wouldn't have a problem 'cause he could just listen to what our hardboiled vigilante is up to:

There was no other way. He moved his shoulders heavily, constantly aware of the thousands who, gazed upon him, who looked to him for leadership and for life. He flung an arm to the sky, turned, thrust his whole pointing body northward. "Forward!" he shouted, and all along the street, to east and to west and to southward as far as the eye could see and the ear could hear, the cry was picked up and repeated. "Forward! " A city was marching out to death, or perhaps to life.

And now for THE CHOLERA KING, Chapter EIGHT; The Exodus
CLICK TO LISTEN to Chapter EIGHT
(right click and "save target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter SEVEN

2006-09-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

What's next?

We're more than halfway through THE CHOLERA KING and I'm already working on what the next experiment will be. I'm thinking of encoding a single short story before we start the next book. Since Fall is coming and it's getting close to Halloween season, and since the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Societie's next film is going to be THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS I thought that might be a good short for the Fall season kickoff.

If you do not know about the HPLHS movie productions and you are into Lovecraft, I would fully and heartily suggest heading over to their website and buying the DVD of their first major movie release, THE CALL OF CTHULHU. This silent, black and white, indie film is in my opinion the best Lovecraft adaptation that has been done. Ever. Period.

So what's up with The SPIDER? Well, the last time we heard from him, he was dealing out his own cold brand of justice:

The window sill slammed the back of his knees and with a wild cry, he pitched backward into space. Wentworth half-sprang to the sill to catch him, then stopped, turning away with a twisted smile. Justice had been done. The man he had shot had ceased to scream. His breath whistled hoarsely in his throat and, even as the Spider's cold gaze returned to him, he shivered convulsively, once, twice, and was dead. Twice more the Spider's seal was imprinted and he paused a moment, downstairs, beside the pitiful remains of what had been a young girl. His face was wrenched awry. God give him the privilege of finding many more of these beasts tonight!

And now we continue THE CHOLERA KING, Chapter SEVEN; "Save Me, Spider!"
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to Chapter SEVEN
(Right click and "save target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter SIX

2006-09-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

Listening in your car.

So pretty much the only place I listen to these audios is in my car. I have a nice 20 mile drive in the countryside between home and work. OK, sometimes it's not so nice because it can take from 25 to 75 minutes to get from point A to B, depending on the traffic. It definately makes it nice to be listening to something you really like when your stuck in stop n go traffic for stupid amounts of time.

Everyone has their own method for doing things, right? Well yeah, duh. Well I'm going to tell you my method of listening to mp3's in the car.

I don't have a CD player in the car. Much less one that plays mp3s. And if I did, I wouldn't want to burn through an endless run of discs to listen to ever changing mp3s (unless you have good CDRWs, in which case, maybe that's not an issue, but it is with me because, like I said, there's no CD player in the car). So I researched FM Transmitters, which are devices with a mini-jack audio-in, a mini FM transmitter and powered through the cigarette lighter plug. You plug that into your car and plug your MP3 player into the transmitter, tune it to a station that isn't being used locally and tada, you are sending a FM radio transmission to yourself.

The one I bought is here. I got it at Radio Shack. In fact I bought another one for my wife's car. We're very happy with them. I haven't used it much in a big city like San Francisco and when I have the sound has tended to be a little defused with static at times, but especially near really big metal structures like the Golden Gate Bridge. But out in the coutryside with the cows and chickens it works absolutely wonderfully.

I bet the SPIDER had some type of proto FM transmitter. Let's see how he's doing in the latest epidsode of THE CHOLERA KING...
CLICK HERE FOR EPISODE SIX; The Man in Scarlet!
(Right click and "save link target as" to download)
The SPIDER IS (C) 2006 Argosy Communications, Inc

The Pulp Reader

McLevy The Edinburgh Detective Series 8

A Pulp Holiday Gift Guide

Tang Dynasty's Judge Dread

Arsene Lupin in: The Crystal Stopper

The Phantom Ace

Of Charm and Violence

Lurking Shadows

The HUSH

Comics - Audio - Film!

Audio Adventures of Doc Savage, The Spider & Secret Agent X!

Radio Archives will start producing audiobooks based on pulp historian Will Murray's 7 Doc Savage novels, and from there record The Spider and Secret Agent X. From Radio Archives' press release:

More info and listening samples at RA.NPR covers the new rise of old pulpsNPR takes a look at several selections of pulps that are currently being reprinted. From their article:

Check out their rundown here.THE HUSH Screening and Event

If you are in the SF Bay Area and are into supernatural detective fiction and film noir, you might want to try and check out this new indie feature. From the writer, director and editors' blog we get this info:

Today: FANTOMAS!

Studies in Cornell Woolrich

The Mysteries of London

McLevy Season 7

100 Years of FANTOMAS Event

The Nameless Detective and Pulp Audios

The Green Hornet's Great Uncle

DEVIL DOG and the SHADOW KNIGHTS

The Lone Ranger's Cave of Terror

La Pantera Negra (2009)

A pledge for The Trail of the Octopus

Tonight, My Love

Pulp Reference Online

The Wrong Block

Stark and Cooke's The OUTFIT

Lydecker Brothers Review

The Legendary Lydecker Brothers

The Mysteries of Myra

The India Rubber Men

Animated Hard-Boiled Noir

The Pulp Reader Gets Social

Arsene Lupin: 813

Himan Brown, Developer of Radio Dramas, Dies at 99

The Witch's Tale in Weird Tales

McLevy the Edinburgh Detective

Brood of the Witch Queen

Secret Agent X

Dial P for Pulp podcast

Doctor Zero

The Pathless Trail

The Continental Op in THE DAIN CURSE

Lupin vs. Holmes in THE BLONDE LADY

The Curse of Capistrano

Lovecraft, Davros and DIY Audio Dramas

Tom Swift's Electrio-Gizmo Xmas Tree

Gimme that Old Time Horror!

Calling Captain Future!

SOLOMON KANE: THE MOON OF SKULLS

Lupin the Third's Grandpappy

QUIET, PLEASE

Hugh B. Cave's The Prophecy

The Festival by H. P. Lovecraft

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 17 - 19

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 15 - 16

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 11 - 12

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 11 - 12

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 9 - 10

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 7 - 8

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 5 - 6

G-8 : Squadron of Corpses Chpt 3 - 4

G-8 and his Battle Aces

(A Buzzing Imitation of Human Speech)

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - FINAL CHAPTER!

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter TEN

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter NINE

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter EIGHT

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter SEVEN

THE SPIDER - THE CHOLERA KING - Chapter SIX

More info and listening samples at RA.

NPR covers the new rise of old pulps
NPR takes a look at several selections of pulps that are currently being reprinted. From their article:

Check out their rundown here.

THE HUSH Screening and Event