Episode 120: Lou Cameron

In this episode, Eric explores the life and career of Lou Cameron, a comic book artist who became a prolific paperback writer and pioneer in the adult western genre. He also reviews a Booktuber, showcases his latest used book acquisitions, and discusses the newest issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly.

Be sure to follow Paperback Warrior online for thousands of reviews on vintage fiction including video links for book shopping across America, podcast episodes, and a multitude of exciting original articles about authors and artists. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello again, Welcome to another exciting episode of the Paperback
Warrior podcast. My name's Eric and I'm your host, and
it's my life's work to guide you through the wacky
world of paperback fiction. This podcast connects smoothly to the
Paperbackwarrior dot com blog, where you can find hundreds and
hundreds of reviews of vintage fiction, comics, magazines, pulps, and

(00:43):
countless features and articles about the authors and artists that
created them. You can follow on social media through channels
like Facebook, x, Instagram, and threads. Our YouTube channel boast
over two hundred videos, and you can also access the
past one hundred and nineteen episodes of this very show
right there down to today's business. On this episode, I'm
presenting a feature on author Lou Cameron. He wrote over

(01:07):
three hundred novels and he helped pioneer the adult western
genre by creating the wildly popular long Arm character. Many
don't realize, though, that Cameron was a quality artist that
penciled and inked comics for a decade before breaking into
paperback originals. I'm going to discuss his life and career
in I promise you it's gonna be great. I'm also

(01:28):
reviewing the brand new issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly, which
is out now. All that and much more, but first,
let me tell you about some new books I got.
I mean, these are old smelly books from old smelly
used bookstores, but hey, they're new to me. First up

(01:48):
is a book titled body Count. It's authored by William
Turner Huggett. The front cover blurb says, the most explosive
and honest military novel of time, as powerful as James
Jones and Norman Mahler. It's a Dell paperback published in
nineteen seventy four. The synopsis says, written with total immediacy

(02:13):
and gut honesty by a former combat officer, body Count
is about the Marine Corps as no recruiting poster will
ever picture it. Whether the scene is a bloody battle
against a brilliantly resourceful enemy, or a brother where desperate men,
or a brother oh a brothel or a brothel where
desperate men seek violent pleasures, every page bears the vivid

(02:35):
stamp of one who was there and has the overwhelming
talent to bring it to life the way it really was.
You've never experienced anything quite like it, and you'll never
forget it. So I'm flipping through the book now. I'm
trying to figure this out. Is this a World War
two Korea or Vietnam book? Because the cover it looks
like he's holding an M fourteen. Okay, okay, here I

(02:57):
see it. Okay. Page ten it mentions NVA. So this
is set in America's involvement during the Vietnam War. Man,
this is nearly five hundred pages, and honestly, I'm not
sure when I'm ever gonna get to this, if ever,
but hey, I've got it again. This is titled body Count,
written by William Turner Huggett. And next up is an

(03:21):
ed D book. Anyone ever read an ed D police
procedural book. I haven't. I've never read one, but I've
got this book. It's titled Bronx Angel. It's from nineteen
ninety five Warner Books. Sort of a long synopsis. Let
me see if I can summarize it a bit here.
While New York City digs out from a freak April snowstorm,

(03:42):
a young officer is found dead in the Bronx, his
pants pulled down around his knees and his throat slashed.
Anthony Ryan and his partner Joe Gregory are working out
of police headquarters in the frigid Bronx. The death of
a policeman will bring heavy heat from the brass who
want the case closed quickly and quietly, and from the
street level cops who want revenge again. This is Bronx

(04:05):
Angel by ed D and I didn't get a chance
to look it up, but I wonder if Anthony Ryan
and Joe Gregory are recurring characters in other ed D books.
You guys probably know more than I do, but I'll
leave it out there. The last book I wanted to
bring up is a nineteen eighty Falsic Gold medal paperback

(04:26):
titled The Beast. The authors listed as Walter J. Sheldon.
It's two hundred and eighty eight pages. The front cover
blurb says less than human, larger than life, It's stalked
the north Woods and weighted. Okay, got it? Synopsis on
the back has got Bigfoot lives in caps with an

(04:49):
exclamation mark. All right. Synopsis says there had been sightings before,
but this was proof a giant moler taken from a
huge skeleton decay high in the Northwest wilderness. It wasn't
as much evidence as anthropologist as Zeo Marlow wanted, but
it was enough to get financing for an expedition that
could prove once and for all that Bigfoot did exist.

(05:14):
But for Joe McBay, whose late buddy had found the
tooth Dick Charterhouse, whose corporation was backing the track, and Zia,
the expedition would prove to be much more revealing for
the beast they saw, not only lived, it thought, and
it had been thinking about a confrontation with man for
a long long time. Again. This is the Beast by

(05:35):
Walter J. Sheldon's got a cool cover, and I love
my frosty horror, so I'm probably gonna read this before
the other two books, honestly. So those are the three
books I got recently. Kind of looking around here, I
don't really have anything else new, but I am looking
forward to a two for this month from Starkhouse Press.

(05:58):
It's called Death in a Lighthouse, and the other book
in the omnibus is called Murder Money. I don't know
if you can call two firs omnibuses, but Death in
a Lighthouse and Murder Money two books by Edward S. Aarons.
I'm assuming that these fell into the public domain, because,
as we've talked about many times on the show here,
his literary state blocks every publisher from putting out the

(06:19):
author's work. I'm assume Starkhouse founded in public domain. This
one is really the only second of Edward s. Aaron's
book that they published. The first one they published was
Gang Rubble. Gang Rumble was published under the Black gat
Book imprint, and I covered that book on the Paperback
Warrior blog. But to my knowledge, that's the only other
Edward s. Errans book that stark House Press has ever published.

(06:41):
I know Armchair Fiction did one, but his stuff is
rarely in the reprint market because it's always blocked. So
definitely looking forward to reading this again. It is Death
in a Lighthouse and Murder Money out this month as
a two for through stark House Press, and I'm kind
of just going down my list here. I'm sort of

(07:01):
freestyling this episode as if you can't tell. Do you
remember me covering a couple of YouTube reviewers a few
episodes ago, I had this little segment I'm calling it
review the Reviewer. My first one was on a YouTube
book nerd named Michael Vaughan. I watched his channel quite often.
The second one I did on another episode was Nick

(07:22):
Anderson's The Book Graveyard, which I watch religiously. I wanted
to throw a third one out there that I really
enjoy watching as well. The guy's name is Jake. He
runs a YouTube channel called Pulp Mortem Man. If you
love vintage science fiction, then this is the channel you
need to subscribe to. This guy tackles some of the

(07:44):
craziest science fiction books and Paulp's like, seriously, if there's
like a giant killer bug sucking people into a giant
space vacuum in the far stretches of space and imagination,
chances are that ja has probably covered it, reviewed it,
made a video montage about it, labeled it. He's probably

(08:05):
blown holes in the plot, the logic, the storytelling, or
there's a very small possibility that he may have deemed
it the greatest thing since I don't know bagel bites.
He does book reviews, book hauls, you name it. He
teams up some other channels like Secret Fire Books, which
is also amazing, and The Book Graveyard to do a

(08:26):
group of book reviews with guests. But the thing I
love about this guy is his in depth presentation of
author biographies. The dude does his homework, he offers some
truth bombs with all of his humorous critiques of these books.
His videos are incredible. Like this dude, there's no way
he has a day job because my video suck and

(08:47):
they take me weeks to make. This guy's like the
George Lucas of book review videos. He's got like everything
going on anyhow. Just check it out. It's called Pulp Mortem,
Pulp mortemm Pulp Mortem. The man's name is Jake Killer Channel.
The dude's got game. What else can I say? All Right,

(09:07):
before I hit you with today's feature, let me do
a quick shout out for some things that are dear
to me. These are quick. First off, I'm involved with
a nonprofit called Sponsored by Grace. They've been active for
about seven years cleaning up one of the most violent
neighborhoods in North Florida. I volunteer over there on Saturday mornings,
and it's a great organization, helping kids with homework, playing
games with them, providing snacks, doing Bible study, helping their

(09:31):
parents obtain high school diplomas, getting them jobs, college courses.
It's a great thing. You can visit at Sponsored by
grace dot org to donate, maybe just a couple bucks
to help out our calls. Second, if you need help
with your Medicare insurance, I'm your dude. I do Medicare.
It's how I pay the bills around here. If you
aren't yet sixty five and you just want to know

(09:53):
what to expect when that time comes, give me a call.
If you're on Medicare and you're tired of all the
swampy ads on TV, give me a call. I can
cut through all the BS and give you the truth.
My number is five four zero three one two seven
zero six two again five four zero three one two
seven zero six two. Let me help you. You can

(10:17):
also message me through any of the Paperback Warrior social
media channels. Now, now, now, now, let's kick it off
in grand style with a feature on an author I'm
really excited to talk about. So let me hit the
tune you know and love, and we'll get the business
right now, all right. Today's feature is on writer Lou Cameron.

(10:44):
He's considered a real paperback journeyman, and he wrote paperback
originals in multiple genres like westerns, crime fiction, war, horror,
gothic romance, and even plantation Gothic. He had a remarkable
career with over three three hundred published novels. At least
he also pioneered the adult Western market. So let's start

(11:06):
at the beginning. Lou was born in San Francisco in
nineteen twenty four. His father was a knockout comedian and
his mother was a singer. Together, the two of them
took Lou along on comedy tours across the country. Lou
himself described his childhood as living out of a vaudeville suitcase.
Throughout his youth, the family toured forty eight states in

(11:27):
Canada before finally settling down in Hollywood. Now. When Lou
was a little older, he took to the road to
work odd jobs. He labored as an orange picker, a
cattle puncher, a movie extra, a private eye, and a
truck driver. After working a variety of jobs, he finally
decided that the arts is where his passion lied. He

(11:47):
enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts. But World
War Two was just heating up. After the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, Lou volunteered to join the US Army's Aviation
Cadet pilot training to enter the war by the end
of the war, Lou was serving in the second Armored Division,
which saw heavy action during the war efforts. This division

(12:08):
was referred to as Hell on wheels. This division took
one hundred and fifty one POWs, liberated twenty two thousand
Allied POWs, and shot down or damaged two hundred and
sixty six enemy aircraft. After the war, Lou took a
year off to rest and recuperate before joining the army again.
He became a platoon sergeant and Infantry school instructor, and

(12:30):
was honorably discharged shortly before the Korean War kicked off.
Sometime during his military service, Lou also became married. After
the military, Lou and his wife moved to New York
City so he could try his hand at being a
paid artist. Oddly enough, Lou got a job painting flowers
on lamps, but it was a short stint because he
found out that there were a lot of shops all

(12:50):
over town looking for comic book artists. Remember this was
the nineteen fifties and business was booming. He went to
work at a shop ran by future Charlton editor Pat Mussouley.
According to the Grand Comics Database, Lou's first comic book
art appeared in Dark Mysteries number one. It was a
horror comic published by Master Comics in June nineteen fifty one.

(13:13):
He penciled and inked the short story The Corps's Embrace
for that issue. That same year, Lou created art for
Pawney Bill number three, which was a Western comic published
by Story Comics. Low's artwork was for the short story
Golden Warrior and The Raiders of Terror Canyon. Throughout the
nineteen fifties, Lou was a working comic book artist for

(13:33):
publishers like Ace Magazines, American Comics, Group, Fiction House, Falsett,
h John Edwards, Saint John d. C. And Marvel Comics.
Included the Hand of Fate, Web of Mystery, Forbidden Worlds,
War Heroes, Classics, Illustrated Weird Horrors, and Journey into Unknown

(13:55):
Worlds Now Lou. He never drew superheroes. It was never
his thing. Even after DC pitched him The Tight Underwear Guys,
Lou was not into. It wasn't his thing. Lou drew romance, mysteries, horror,
science fiction, and westerns. That was his bread and butter.
He earned the Thomas Edison Award for the Best Wholesome

(14:17):
Material in the Popular Arts, and he won the nineteen
fifty six Award for Best Historical Comic Book for his
book The Life of Christopher Columbus. But after the nineteen fifties,
Lou had become disenchanted with the comic industry and what
he referred to as bad scripting. Lou's first published comic
writing was in the late nineteen fifties with publisher Saint John's.

(14:38):
Lou also branched out from comics by writing stories in
Men's Action Adventure magazines what we refer to around here
as MAM's. His first story, The Last Gi, was published
in Real War's October nineteen fifty eight issue. He also
had stories published in Sir in July nineteen fifty nine,
All Man in September nineteen fifty nine, Blue Book for

(15:00):
Men in July of nineteen sixty two, and Real Men
in December nineteen sixty two. His story Say No to
Lourie Lee and Wish You Were Dead from All Man
Magazine was reprinted in Men's Adventure Quarterly's first issue. Lou's
last comic book art is the six page mystery story
Stay Away from Air, in the December nineteen fifty eight

(15:23):
issue of DC's House of Secrets, But by the end
of the nineteen fifties, Lou was off to the races
as a full time novelist. Online estimates suggest that Lou
wrote over three hundred books over the course of forty
five years. When asked if he had a list of
them all, he famously was quoted as saying, Lord, no,

(15:44):
how many girls have you kissed? I must have sold
about one hundred scripts or short stories by the time
I published my first novel, Angel's Flight, for Fawcett in
nineteen sixty, and indeed Angel's Flight was Lou's first published novel.
The book was reprinted in twenty seventeen as a blackgat
book by Starkhouse Press. Tom Simon covered the book on

(16:06):
the Paperback Warrior blog. He states that the book covers
a seventeen year time span from nineteen thirty nine through
nineteen fifty six, an era in American history that spans
the Great Depression to the dawn of rock and roll.
The book's narrator is a journeyman jazz artist named Ben Parker.
Parker's foyle is a conniving fellow jazz artist named Johnny Angel.

(16:29):
Tom says the novel doesn't necessarily have a standard story arc. Instead,
it's the ups and downs of this Parker fella through
his remarkable life. Tom adds that Leu's writing is a
real masterpiece of storytelling that holds your attention. He compared
it to watching a Martin Scorsese film again, This is
Angel's Flight. Two years later, in nineteen sixty two, Leu's

(16:52):
second novel, The Empty Quarter, was published by Fawcett. It's
the story of American oil riggers in the parched Arabian Desert.
That same year, Falsett published his third novel, The Skydivers,
about you guessed it Skydiving. Lou's fourth novel arrived in
nineteen sixty five and was a novelization of the Warner
Brothers World War II film None but the Brave that

(17:15):
starred Frank Sinatra. That same year, Lou novelized the film Moratry,
which was a twentieth century Fox World War two film
starring Marlon Brando and Yule Brenner. This early experiment in
writing novelizations would propel Lou to write many more novelizations
of both movies and TV shows, with titles including Hannibal Brooks, California,

(17:36):
Split Skywriters, Kung Fu, The Outsider, and How the West
Was Won. Lou's nineteen sixty seven novel Iron Men with
Wooden Wings is something unique in the world of paperback fiction.
It's a novel about World War One. Now, we often
talk about World War two, Korea, the Vietnam War and

(17:56):
how it dominates paperback fiction, but there aren't that many
World War One books. Lou's Iron Men with Wooden Wings
is described as true adventures of the air aces of
World War One with the explosive excitement of the Blue Max.
I don't own the book, never read it, but man,
it looks awesome. Again. The title is iron Men with

(18:16):
Wooden Wings. I wanted to provide you a few capsule
reviews of Lou Cameron's novels that we've covered here on
Paperback Warrior. Lou's ninth paperback novel was The Good Guy
from nineteen sixty eight. This was published by Lancer and
it's considered a political thriller. Now. Tom Simon read this
one as well, and he didn't really like it. He

(18:37):
had issues with the narrator being an unlikable guy. He
said the book was just devoid of thrills, and that
it was two hundred and twenty four pages of sheer boredom. Again,
the title is the Good Guy. Tom tackled Lou's sixteenth
novel as well. The book is titled File on a
Missing Redhead. It was published by Fawcett in nineteen sixty nine.
The book is narrated by Lieutenant Frank Talbott, a detective

(18:59):
with a Newvada Highway Patrol. Talbot is called to a
Las Vegas auto wrecking yard where the corpse of a
young woman is found stuffed into the forward trunk of
an abandoned Volkswagen Beetle. Talbot must identify the corpse, but
the problem is that the teeth and fingers have all
been removed and her face is smashed to bits. The
only lead is the beautiful red hair that's still intact.

(19:20):
Tom said the book was fantastic and that it was
a great police procedural packed with many interesting factoids. The
book once again is titled File on a Missing Redhead.
Last month, I read and reviewed Low's twenty second paperback novel,
Before It's Too Late. It was published by Falset Gold
Medal in nineteen seventy As I said in my review,
this could be the dirtiest Fawcet paperback I've ever read

(19:43):
in terms of graphic sex and some of the vulgar dialogue.
It was surprising to me. The book didn't do much
for me though. It's about a guy named Warren, a
former MP that served in the Vietnam War. He's returned
to a small hometown to get a job and get
back on his feet. He takes a job at a
collection agent and he gets involved in multiple murders as
an innocent suspect. The book's got a disjointed plot with

(20:06):
too many loose ends for its own good. I really
didn't like it. The book, once again is called Before
It's Too Late. Low's thirty eighth paperback novel was Drop
into Hell. It was published by Falset Gold Medal in
nineteen seventy six, and the front cover blurb says a
smashing World War II thriller and the breathtaking tradition of
Alistair McLain. Tom said. The book is set in nineteen

(20:28):
forty four and stars a paratrooper named Captain David Evans.
The plot is that Hitler has developed a new supertank
and a fighter jet that could cause problems for the
Allied forces. The plan is for Evans to parachute in
and blow up the German fuel refineries, leaving these new
war machines empty of fuel. Evans leads a team of
commandos into accomplish the mission. Tom said the narrative is

(20:51):
a very smooth and easy to read action paperback. Again,
the book is Drop into Hell. The last capsule review
is for Lew's fortieth paperback novel, Code seven. It was
published by Berkeley in nineteen seventy seven, and Tom reviewed
it on the blog. The book's narrator is Sean Costello,
a chief of police in a fictional city called Flamingo

(21:12):
Beach in Florida. Tom described it as a book with
a lot of small subplots that basically just chronicle Costello's
day to day operations keeping his small beach community safe.
He said Lou's writing was predictably good and the subplots
were rather interesting. Again, the book's title is Code seven,
so just the recap thus far. Lou was a comic

(21:33):
book artist throughout the nineteen fifties. He found fault with
the storytelling he jumped in the paperback original novels in
the early nineteen sixties, and he wrote his Tale Off,
but he mostly stayed in the crime fiction and wore
paperback area throughout most of the nineteen sixties. By nineteen
seventy he starts to get the itch to write Western paperbacks.
One of his earliest Western paperbacks is the nineteen seventy

(21:55):
one Dell book Spurhead. He follows with a few more,
like nineteen seventy five's In Norse to Cheyenne in nineteen
seventy six's Guns of Durango, but he catches some critical
acclaim with his Western The Spirit Horses. The book was
published as a hardcover in nineteen seventy six, and it's
a unique Western about a US cavalry patrol using camels

(22:15):
to fight with the Nadine Apache raiders. This was based
on a real event. The book earned Lou the coveted
Golden spur Award from the Western Writers of America. His
novelization of the TV mini series How the West Was
Won in nineteen seventy seven seemed to spur the writer
into writing more and more Western fiction. This was a

(22:36):
big deal and it changed the author's career trajectory. Lou
would continue writing westerns under his own name through the
nineteen seventies, eighties, and into the early nineteen nineties, but
by the mid nineteen seventies, Lou was thinking of building
a paperback series starring a recurring protagonist. His first attempt
at a paperback hero was that of Doc Travis. The

(22:57):
character first appeared in the nineteen seventy five Dell paperback
Doc Travis. In the book, Travis is wanted by the
Yankees for desertion, the Rebels for treason, the Mexicans for revenge,
and the Comanches for scalping, but he's in a valley
where he works as a doctor, saving lives. Doc Travis
returned in the nineteen seventy six Dell paperback Guns of Durango,

(23:19):
but Lou was wanting a character that could last a
bit longer. Lou was looking at the big picture of
having his very own main character star in a long
running publication. In nineteen seventy eight, Lou helped create the
character of Custus Long, a US Deputy marshal based in Denver,
Colorado in the eighteen eighties. The character's nickname is long Arm,

(23:40):
which plays on the idea of him being The long
Arm of the Wall. Now. Long Arm is not the
first adult Western paperback or paperback series, but it's arguably
the most iconic of all the adult Western series titles.
Long Arm was published two years before John Messman's The
Trailsman series, which is the other corner post of Western
adult fiction. In case you aren't familiar with the term

(24:03):
adult Western, these are westerns that typically have about two
to three graphic X rated sex scenes in them. These
are typically uniform commitments made by the author to oblige
their publishing contract. The idea is that the authors can
place these Western characters in any type of action adventure plot,
but it's got to include the aforementioned sex scenes. There
are over five hundred Long Arm Western paperbacks, and again

(24:27):
Lou Cameron helped create this character. Jove Books, a subsidiary
of Berkeley publish Long Arm, and all the books are
listed under the house name of Taber Evans. Lou author
of the series first book, and he ended up writing
about fifty of the series installments from nineteen seventy eight
through the early two thousands. Other authors that contributed to
the series include James Reasoner, Harry Whittington, Peter Brandvold, will Not,

(24:52):
and Check Cunningham, just to name a few. Long Arm
was a retail blockbuster for mass market paperback publishing. And
it's really Lou Cameron's claim to fame in my opinion again,
it's the long Arm series. Shortly after he created the
long Armed character in title, Lou was back of the
typewriter with another mattress romping Western hero, that of Captain Gringo.

(25:15):
He placed this character in the book A Renegade, which
was published in nineteen seventy nine by Warner Books. The
book takes place in the early eighteen nineties in Arizona Territory.
Captain Gringo at this point, going by his real name
of Lieutenant Richard Walker, is about to be hanged after
a court martial he took pitio Mexican revolutionaries who were
caught on the American side of the border. Thankfully, Walker

(25:36):
escapes the noose and gets into Mexico, where he's captured
again and faces execution. Thankfully, he escapes again and then
takes on a leadership role for revolutionaries. He's promoted to
captain and goes by the name of Captain Gringo. The
series is one adventure after another set in tropical climates.
It's more of an adventure series than a Western, but
I sort of lump it into the adult western category.

(25:59):
There's the obligatory sex scenes throughout each installment and again.
The series is called Renegade and their thirty six novels
published between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty six. They're
all written by Lou. These books are also available in
e book through Piccadilly Publishing. Now you've got to be
careful if you're buying the original paperbacks. The author on

(26:19):
those covers is going to be listed as Ramsey Thorn,
but the e books have Cameron's actual name on them.
In terms of other adult Western fiction, Lou wasn't just
finished with just Long Arm or Renegade. He also created
the sexy series Stringer for Ace in nineteen eighty seven.
Over a two year period, Lou wrote fifteen Stringer novels.

(26:39):
In this series, the main character is Stringer McHale, a
newspaper reporter that goes around the country investigating crimes. He
gets in broad in the action and typically beds down
two to three women in each book. It's very similar
to Long Arm in the way the book's unfold now.
Lou also helped create another Western series titled Easy Company.
He wrote the debut Easy Company in The Suicide Boys

(27:01):
in nineteen eighty one. There would end up being thirty
one Easy Company books published between nineteen eighty one and
nineteen eighty three, although Lou only wrote the first one.
These books are written under the house name John Wesley Howard.
I wanted to touch on just a few other books
that Lou wrote. He authored the romantic western This Fever
in My Blood in nineteen eighty for Dell as Mary

(27:23):
Louise Manning. He wrote Chains in nineteen seventy seven for
Dell under the name Justin Adams. This is a Plantation
Gothic novel. He wrote two horror novels using the name
Julie Cameron in nineteen seventy five. Both were published by Berkeley.
The first one was titled The Darklings and Concerns of Poltergeist.
The other is a Gothic suspense titled Devil in the Pines.

(27:45):
Using the name Dagmar just simply Dagma R. He wrote
The Spy in the Blue Kazoo and The Spy Who
Came In from the Copa. Both were published by Lancer
in nineteen sixty seven. I also wanted to read you
just a few quotes I found online on the mystery
file dot com blog. Great Western writer James Reasoner had

(28:07):
this to say about Lou. It's safe to say that
I would be a lot poor, both as a reader
and a writer if not for Lou Cameron. In Long Arm.
He created a great character that I enjoyed as a
reader for more than ten years before I ever started
writing them, and for the past nineteen years as one
of the writers. I thoroughly enjoyed chronicling some of the
adventures of Deputy US Marshal Coustus. Long years before that, though,

(28:29):
I picked up Cameron's tie in novel for the short
lived Private Eye series The Outsider, read it and knew
that I'd found another good author. I read many a
Lou Cameron novel after that and enjoyed them all. My
favorites of his Western novels are Doc Travis and Guns
of Durango, both about the same character. Now, Lou's son
in law, Dick Cameron, said this, I'm married to Leu's daughter,

(28:51):
artist Laura Cameron. She's recounted some childhood memories of sitting
on her dad's knee while he scribbled off drawings of
knights and cowboys and horses on a stack of paper
he kept on the table. Oddly, he wasn't particularly proud
of his pre code comic work, saying he needed to
defeat his family and that's it. Of course, writing and
drawing comics in those days was acting to being a
creepy trench coat wearing PERV. We have a binder of

(29:13):
illustration work Lou put together back then in an attempt
to get legit work planned drawings of houses for the
real estate business, and one thing that actually made him
some cash, a two drawing set of Elvis and James Dean.
Lou also wrote pulp and did illustrations for a couple
of pre Playboy gentlemen's magazines called Long and Thin I
think one was High and another called Top Hat. Very

(29:35):
funny stuff see through Baby Don Nighties with titles like
the Fanciful Frauleine. He also had a couple of syndicated
funny pages in the comic strips, one called The Good
Life I think Classic Husband, Wife, Kids and Dog Humor.
He had some success in England with a few early
novels but felt he had made it as a serious
writer when Blockbusters made the New York Times Bestsellers list.

(29:58):
Dick Cameron goes on to say Lou also wrote two
romance novels on a challenge from a female romance writer friend.
He often claimed romance was harder to write than anything
else he put his hand to, because you had to
be way over the top and stay believable. Plus, romance
novels had a language all their own, and the fans
are brutal, a tough sell in his words, Of all
the Westerns, the Big Lonely is my favorite and a

(30:20):
downright chilling tale of the early Sidebusters, I've always admired
the amount of research Lou did to get the flavor
and details right. On James Reasoner's blog, Western author Peter
Brandwaldt said this about Lou Cameron had a very distinctive
cinematic style that I love. Lou Cameron passed away in
New York City on November twenty fifth, twenty ten. I

(30:41):
hope you enjoyed this feature about his life and work.
My references include The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics, Number
twenty three, Piccadilly Publishing Dot Org, James Reasoner's Rough Edges Blog,
Mystery File archive dot org, and the Fiction mag Index.
All right, my last segment of this episode is my review.

(31:03):
I chose to review the brand new issue of Men's
Adventure Quarterly. This is the twelfth issue that just published
late last month. It's available now. This is the quarterly
magazine edited by both Robert Dice and Bill Cunningham. Guest
contributors in this issue are James Reasoner, David Avaloni, John Harrison,
David Spencer, and Paul Bishop. Every Man Quarterly has a theme.

(31:25):
Prior issues were dedicated to themes like juvenile delinquents, spy vigilanti,
the Vietnam War, and Westerns. This one is right up
my alley. It's the Private Eye issue. At one hundred
and sixty pages, this thing is stuff with content. I'm
just going to hit the surface just to kind of
give you an idea of what you get with this
amazing issue. In the opening pages, Bob Dice gives us

(31:47):
a thoughtful and mournful farewell to his friend and man
inspiration artist Mort Kunstler. The famed artist passed away in
February way back in twenty nineteen. Bob, alongside his editing
partner Wyatt Doyle, they put together a fantastic book about
Constler and his career. Bob's message here is endearing and
one that solidifies the enormous legacy Counsor leies behind. He

(32:09):
was a talent like no other, and he's going to
be sorely missed. Bob also rolls into the issue's first
short story with an introduction about a real life private
eye named Raymond C. Schindler. Bob delves into the Sluice
life and his appearance in a short story titled The
Case of the Murdering Detective, penned by writer Alan Hin
and originally published in Cavalier in September nineteen fifty six.

(32:30):
Bob and Bill published that entire story in this issue,
complete with the amazing original artwork by Norm Saunders. I
was thrilled to see that Bob included yours truly in
an article about popular crime fiction author Frank Kin, Bob
gives a nod to Tom and I in our podcast
episode about Keane's iconic private eye, Johnny Ledell. Bob gives

(32:51):
a little backstory on Cain and the character, and even
digs into an old man hunt story featuring the character
titled Party Girl. That story, appearing in Manhunt's August nineteen
fifty four issue, was reprinted in Kin for Men in
May nineteen fifty seven. Thankfully, Bob turns the favor and
reprints the entire story in this issue as well. Of course,

(33:11):
it's accompanied by amazing artwork by Rudy Nappy featuring Men's
Adventure supermodel Evil Lynde. Bob has an article about a
rare two issue Men's Adventure magazine titled Private Eye. Bob
writes about the magazine and features a story from it
titled sing a Song of Sex Mail by an unknown author.
What I consider the main event of this issue is

(33:32):
a book bonus of Michael Avaloni's The Tall Dolores. This
book bonus is titled Makeout Mob Girl. The story's introduced
by David Spencer and features an excerpt from Spencer's nonfiction
work about paperback novelizations, aptly titled The Novelizers. The gatefold
artwork for the story is by Frank Sultis, accompanying the
story as an article by Michael Avaloni's own son, David,

(33:55):
titled A Little Something about My Father. If you're a
fan of the Honey West franchise. Then this issue's Matt
Gallery is a must. There's tons of paperback cover art
from books like Dig a Dead Doll Girl on the Prow.
There's art from TV Guy. There's an episode guide from
the show. There's even a short story included titled The
Red Herring, which was originally published in the June nineteen

(34:17):
sixty five issue of Mike Shane Mystery Magazine, and the
art for this one is by Leo Morey. Now James
Reasoner has an article titled the Top ten Western Detectives,
and it looks at characters created by the likes of
Lauren Esselman, Steve Hackinsmith, John Reese, Craig Johnson, and A. G.
Guthrie Jr. Just to name a few. Paul Bishop has
a detailed article titled Sherlockian The Game is Still Afoot

(34:40):
and It's all about you guessed it, Sherlock Holmes. Paul
writes about the Sherlock Holmes short story collection Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes. He writes about the big book of Sherlock
Holmes stories, The Fight Card Sherlock Holmes Omnibus, and his
own editor book, which is out now titled fifty two
weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes novels. Jan Harrison's article looks

(35:01):
at specific examples of futuristic Private Eyes, so that adds
a little something unique and different to round out this issue.
As always with these issues of Men's Adventure Quarterly, high
quality is the absolute goal, and every single issue delivers
it in spades. I don't know how they do it,
but Bob and Bill are a terrific duo that put
in a ton of hard work to get this to

(35:21):
print four times a year. I'm impressed. Again. This is
Men's Adventure Quarterly number twelve, and it's out now, and
it's highly recommended. And guess what I'm out now. That's
all I've got. I worked on this podcast episode for
seven straight hours, researching and writing, not counting the recording
and editing time and the hours spent on artwork for

(35:41):
the episode, which I still gotta do. If you enjoyed
this episode, hop on paperback warrior dot COM's desktop site.
Click on the top right hand corner for donations. If
you donate, that's great. If you don't, that's okay too.
Making sure you enjoy the episode is payment enough for me.
Keep an eye out for a new episode in a
few weeks. Stay on Facebook x Instagram daily to see

(36:03):
new video shorts, podcast episodes, shopping videos, and of course,
written reviews and articles about vintage fiction. Have a great
rest of the day and enjoy whatever it is you're doing.
Take care and I'll see you next time.