August 10, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode, Eric explores the transition of vintage pulp stories and heroes from magazine format to mass market paperbacks in the 1960s and 1970s. He also celebrates GarbAugust by highlighting three of the worst books he’s ever read.
Be sure to follow all of the Paperback Warrior reviews, articles, and links at Paperback Warrior.
Be sure to follow all of the Paperback Warrior reviews, articles, and links at Paperback Warrior.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Good morning, afternoon, and evening to everyone out there in
any time or space. This is Eric and this is
the Paperback Warrior podcast, Episode number one hundred and twenty three.
This show's an offshoot of the Paperbackwarrior dot com blog.
If you're new to the podcast and show, Paperback Warrior
serves the vintage book community through written reviews and articles
(00:41):
on the blog. I think we're just shy of two
thousand posts on the blog since twenty thirteen. The podcast
launched in twenty nineteen and has offered features on the
lives and literary work of some of the finest pulp crime, fiction, mystery,
and science fiction authors of all time, like Edward Does Daniels,
Richard Matheson, Ed mcbah, John d McDonald, Frank Cain, Gosh,
(01:03):
Bruno Fisher, Mickey Spaline. The list goes on and on
and on. Here on the podcast, I also provide details
on new books being released, reviews of old books, and
shopping trips to acquire old books. The YouTube channels out
there capturing all these podcast episodes, plus hundreds and hundreds
of short videos about vintage fiction, some exclusives just to
(01:24):
the YouTube channel, plus their shopping trip videos on YouTube
that are really popular as well. In addition, I post
typically about four to five times per day on social
media about pulp's old comics, vintage books, authors, artists, men's adventure, magazines,
and publishers dedicated to preserving vintage fiction. If you like
(01:46):
what I do and want to donate to my efforts,
you could use the donate link on the blog's main
page the desktop version top right corner, or by PayPal
just to my email of a like Apple B like
Boy eight seven zero six to three gmail dot com
Again AB eight seven zero sixty three at gmail dot com.
If you donate, that's great and I appreciate it. If not,
(02:08):
don't worry about it. Your presence here is a viewer
and listener works for me just fine. Now today's show
is absolutely packed. I've got so much stuff happening. First,
the feature today is all about pulps and how they
were repurposed to fit the paperback format in the nineteen
sixties and nineteen seventies. I'm going to tell you all
about that conversion and highlight some of the most popular
(02:29):
paperback pulp books, like The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Phantom,
It's Gonna be An amazing thing, trust me. Plus, this
month is garb August. That's an event happening this month
that book tubers and book communities celebrate garb August to
honor some of the trashiest fiction of all time. And
I'm gonna do my part to highlight three terrible books
(02:50):
that I'm holding in high regard for this special garb
August event. So I'm doing that here today with you.
But I've got some announcements before we hit all that,
and a few other odds and in to get to.
So later this month, I'm having guested Brian Rains on
the YouTube channel. His channel is Bad Taste Books, and
he reviews young adult vintage books. He reviews old horror novels,
(03:12):
men's action adventure stuff. He reads everything, he really does.
I've had him on before when we did a review
of the Butcher installment Terror Truckers. The two of us
are going to tackle too vintage nineteen nineties young adult
horror paperbacks and I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Also,
later this month, I'll be back on Nick Anderson's book
Graveyard to review another vintage gothic paperback. Last month, I
(03:35):
was on his channel to review Hillary Wall's gothic novel
The Shadow Guest. It was so much fun, and we
want to do another review of a gothic novel off
the airwaves on paper, which is probably where I need
to be. I had the pleasure of writing an article
on fem fatals for the new issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly.
I finished that up last month and it's going to
(03:55):
be in the new issue coming out later this year.
Thanks to Bob Dyce and Bill Cunningham for asking me
to participate in that. It was so much fun writing
that and I think all of you are really gonna
enjoy it. Also, speaking of Bob and Bill, I've been
working hard on a project for them. I'm thrilled to
be writing introductions and overviews for Men's Action Adventure paperback
series titles for their book, The Art of Ron Lesser,
(04:17):
Volume three. It's going to be out later this year
or early next year. I hope to finish all that
writing by the end of this month. I'm really excited
about it. And speaking of Ron Lesser, I'm also buried
in writing a Wikipedia page for the artist. I'm learning
so much about Lesher's career. He painted covers for hundreds
of paperback as well as comic work like The Spider,
(04:37):
The Bionic Woman, Betty Page, Max Allan Collins, Corey, and
theatrical movie promotional materials and posters like High Planes, Drifter,
Joe Kidd, Atomic Blonoming. Just so much stuff. And that's
all my announcements of this episode. But I do want
to tell you about a few new books I received recently.
(04:57):
First up is a book titled Gateway to Annihilation Stories
by author Jarre Keane. This was just released by Wolfpack
Publishing imprint Dark Wolf. It's a searing collection of fourteen short,
twisted tales described as a combination of the Twilight Zone
and Black Mirror. There's themes in these stories like religious terrorism, cryptozoology,
(05:19):
pandemic stress, and the apocalypse. I may work in an
audio narration of one of these stories and post it
right here. We're gonna see if my schedule lightens up
any for that. But you can get Gateways to Annihilation
Stories by Jarrett Keen on Amazon in both digital and
physical editions. I got Caveman Adventure Library number nine, which
is The Deadly Genesis File by Ron Thomas. This is
(05:42):
the first of a trilogy and It stars a guy
named Barrett Kane, revenging his father's death while being mired
in international politics during the Cold War. It's military espionage
and global intrigue by real world strategist Ron Thomas. This
guy served in some precarious positions within the US of
five department. He draws from that experience for this book,
(06:02):
and you can get it an ebook and paperback format.
I received a new twofer from Starkhouse Press. It's two
vintage crime fiction novels by Jack Webb in one book.
The first offering is The Deadly Combo, which was originally
published by Ace in nineteen fifty eight. The other book
is One for My Dame, originally published in hardcover in
(06:23):
nineteen sixty one and then by Avon in nineteen sixty
four as a paperback. Both these books together in one
volume with an introduction by Nicholas Litchfield, and the book's
going to be available in October. Also from Starkhouse Press
is a collection of short stories by Bill Pronzini titled
Tales of the Impossible Now. This features nineteen stories of
(06:45):
mysteries that Pronzini penned in the style of the locked
Room mystery. But there's also bizarre vanishings, ghostly apparitions, weird
murder methods. These stories feature Pronzini's Nameless detective and some
feature Carpenter and Quinn Cannon, which were his Western detectives.
There's also standalone stories too. I also received Lee Goldberg's
(07:07):
Crown VIC two now. This, of course, is the sequel
to his successful Crown Vic novella. The series stars an
ex con named Ray Boyd traveling the open road in
a used Ford Crown Victoria Police interceptor, and he goes
wherever his need for money and sex leads him. He's
a selfish guy. He's looking out for himself and nobody else.
(07:28):
This is roughly forty pages. It's available in both ebook
and paperback from Cutting Edge Books and also from Cutting
Edge Books. I Have Come On Girl by Stuart Friedman.
This was originally a Belmont paperback published in nineteen sixty.
It's out now with the original artwork as an ebook,
and it's back in print for the first time in
over sixty years. The book stars a woman named Rita
(07:50):
who would do anything for kicks, like pick up a
stranger just to ruin his life. This looks terrific. It's
two hundred and seven pages and costs merely four bucks.
We have access to read ebooks, then Cutting Edge Books
makes it easy to read hundreds and hundreds of vintage
paperbacks in e book format. And they also have these
huge omnibus editions that collects ten or twelve ebooks altogether
(08:12):
in one volume. It's great. I love it. A friend
of mine and a contributor to the comments on the
Paperback Warrior Facebook page has been guest. He's on there
always offering his opinion on various books. He's read quite
a bit in his time. He's very knowledgeable about paperbacks.
He was kind enough to send me one of Hillary
Wall's Homicide North installments. Now, these were books that work
(08:33):
as police procedurals, and they were published in the late
nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies. I believe there were three
Homicide North books total, if memory serves me. He sent
me an excellent copy of The Young Prey, which was
the series second installment. It's a Belmont Tower paperback from
nineteen sixty nine and honestly looks like it's never even
(08:54):
been read before. It's in great condition, all right, And
I don't have this book, but I wanted to bring
it up here. The author reached out to me to
let me know that this book was out, and I
think this may appeal to some of you crime fiction lovers.
This is actually a non fiction book titled Little Pussy
and Long Branch Perfect Together. You can get this as
an ebook or paperback. The author is Gregory Michaellino Masolino.
(09:18):
This book's about the gangster riviera, a place called Long Branch,
New Jersey. Now. Michaellino, through six hundred pages, takes you
through the violent history of the town, beginning in the
nineteen sixties when Anthony Little Pussy Russo took control. He
was then challenged by an upstart group of criminals in
the nineteen seventies, sort of the old school gangster versus
(09:39):
the new version pushing drugs. The good citizens of Long
Branch witnessed this brutal gang war that erupted on the
city streets. Again. This book is called Little Pussy and
Long Branch Perfect Together by Gregory Macalino. All right, now
that we're finished with all that, how about we jump
into today's feature. I'm gonna hit the tune you know
(09:59):
and love right now? All right, So today I wanted
to tell you all about pulps in the paperbacks. Now,
this was a big part of paperback publishing in the
nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. As most of you know,
the pulp magazine market came about in the late nineteenth
(10:21):
and early twentieth centuries. The big four or five titles
that cemented these magazines as heavy hitters of publishing was Argasy, Adventure,
Blue Book, Short Stories, and Black Mask. Now, there were
hundreds of pulp magazines that dominated the newsstands through the
nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties. All these talented crime
(10:42):
fiction paperback writers that I talk about right here on
the podcast and that I write about on the blog
typically cut their teeth on the pulp market. You could
look at someone like John D. McDonald as the prime
example of a pulpster who turned the literary career corner
to dive into the paperback original industry that bloomed in
the late night forties. It was just the natural evolution
(11:02):
for the pulps to die in the late nineteen forties
and the paperbacks to take off and dominate the second
half of the twentieth century. There were publishers like Ace, Bantam,
Belmont Dell, Paperback Library, Pocket Signet, Faucet. They all rose
to prominence during this time, and they wanted those pulp
writers pinning mysteries and crime fiction for their brand. Often
(11:24):
they wanted series titles as well, some that even began
as pulps and then continued their page life in paperback format.
The first part of this feature, I wanted to concentrate
on the big pulp heroes that were ripped from the
pulps and deposited in paperback format. Now, as you can imagine,
when we talk about these paperback publishers, they were all
clamoring for new material from writers, but at the same
(11:46):
time they knew what had sold well on the pulp market.
They came up with a clever marketing idea of repurposing
all these old pulp heroes as new paperback warriors. Publishers
had thousands of pulp stories that they could repurpose. Us
so is all you can Eat buff a. Now. An
important thing to remember is I'm discussing mass market paperbacks
(12:06):
on this feature. I'm not talking about trade paperbacks, just
strictly the vintage mass market paperbacks that's really our wheelhouse here.
The first I wanted to talk about is the Shadow,
one of the most popular pulp characters of all time.
The origins of the character could be found in radio programming.
On July thirty first, nineteen thirty, Street and Smith launched
(12:27):
the first episode of Detective Story Hour on CBS. This
was an adaptation of the publisher's Detective Story Magazine. Scriptwriter
Harry Charlotte made a suggestion that the show have a narrator.
The Shadow was created as that mysterious narrator who promised
the show would deliver tales of mystery and suspense from
the pages of premier Detective Fiction magazine. Now this inclusion
(12:50):
of the Shadow on the programm, it wouldn't last long, though.
Later the Shadow appeared on the Blue Cole Radio Review.
But the Shadows radio appearances were popular and it was
altered in the publisher meeting listener demands for a pulp
magazine to arise, so Street and Smith hired writer Walter B.
Gibson to write stories starring the Shadow under the house
name of Maxwell Grant. Gibson wrote a novel and story
(13:14):
twice a month for two hundred and eighty two issues
of The Shadow magazine, which ran through the early nineteen fifties.
The first issue of the magazine was April first, nineteen
thirty one. The other fortyish issues of the magazine were
authored by Lester Dent, Theodore Tensley, Bruce Elliott, and Richard
Wormser to give Gibson a little break between issues, So again,
(13:36):
that was the Shadow Magazine. As the pulp magazine sales
and popularity decreased, the publisher pulled the chord on the
Shadow Magazine. But before the magazine had ended, The Shadow
landed in paperback format. As early as nineteen forty one,
Bantam published The Shadow and the Voice of Murder by
Walter Gibson, which was originally published in The Shadow Magazine
(13:58):
number one hundred and ninety two as The Voice of Death.
Now in nineteen sixty three, the paperback market had exploded,
Belmont launches a new series of The Shadow in paperback,
beginning with the Walter Gibson novel Return of the Shadow.
There would be nine total paperbacks between nineteen sixty three
(14:18):
through nineteen sixty seven, with Dennis Lyn's writing the whole
series other than Gibson's debut book. In June nineteen sixty nine,
Bantam returned back to the world of the Shadow by
reprinting more stories from the magazine. They published seven total
paperbacks with amazing covers by Sandy Cosson and Frank McCarthy
through nineteen seventy now. Also in nineteen sixty nine, Temp
(14:42):
Books published a paperback reprint of Grove of Doom, which
was originally in The Shadow Magazine's thirty seventh issue. Pyramid Books,
which would later become Jove, reprinted some of the Shadow
Magazine novels into paperbacks. This began in October nineteen seventy
four and it ran through April nineteen seventy eight, for
a total of twenty three paperbacks. However, other than the
(15:03):
first paperback, The Living Shadow, which was the very first
story in the Shadow Magazine, the order is just all
mixed up. The publisher chose not to reprint the Shadow
Magazine stories in order. Instead, these twenty three paperbacks pulled
novels from the first issue of the magazine all the
way up to the ninety first issue, so it's a
big range that they pulled these novels from. The covers
(15:25):
for the paperbacks feature the great artist Jim Storenko, and
I believe George Rozen did one of them as well. Now, obviously,
when it comes to the Shadow, there are thousands of
things to talk about, like the radio programs, the movies,
the pulp stories themselves, character skills, purpose. It's a smorgasbord
of content that will be better presented in a long
(15:45):
feature here on the podcast. Our focus today is just
the paperbacks. I touched on Doc Savage way back on
episode number thirty six of this podcast in twenty twenty.
The original Doc Savage Magazine was a Street and Smith
publication that debut in March nineteen thirty three. It was
created when publishing executive Henry Rosston and Jim Nanovich wanted
(16:07):
to capitalize on the successful The Shadow magazine. Doc Savage
Magazine sold extremely well and developed into one hundred and
eighty one issue series that ended in the summer of
nineteen forty nine. Lester Dent wrote the majority of these stories,
but there was a rotation of writers brought in for
these books like Walter Ryerson, Johnson, Lawrence Donovan, Harold Davis,
(16:28):
and William Bogart, all using the house name of Kenneth Robinson.
But the paperback industry reintroduced Doc Savage to a whole
new generation. Beginning in nineteen sixty four, every Doc Savage
magazine novel was reprinted as a paperback, although the original
publication order was dismissed. The books featured iconic painted covers
(16:49):
by James Bama, although other terrific artists were brought in
as well as Bob Larkin and Boris Valo. They painted
these covers using Steve Holland as the model. This original
run lasted until nineteen ninety. All of these were reprints,
except one book published in nineteen seventy nine called in
Hell Madonna Slash the Red Spider. This was originally submitted
(17:11):
in nineteen forty eight by Lester Dent, but was never
published up until Bantam's release Again. That one was called
in Hell Comma Madonna. In nineteen ninety one, Bantam published
a new Dock Savage paperback titled Escape from Loki, authored
by Philip Jose Farmer. This was a retcon novel explaining
how Doc Savage met his original team. Bantam then began
(17:33):
publishing new Doc Savage novels authored by Will Murray using
notes or ideas from Leicester Dent. There were seven of
these original paperbacks published by Bantam through nineteen ninety three.
Beginning in twenty eleven, Will Murray wrote fifteen trade paperbacks
for Altus Press of brand new Doc Savage novels, some
(17:53):
with the notes or ideas from Lester Dent and Walter
Ryerson Johnson. Listen, we could talk for days and days
about dox Da, just like we could with The Shadow.
But I'm going to leave it right there because I'm
concentrating on all these pulps, the paperbacks, and there's a
lot to get to. And speaking of Doc Savage and
the house name of Kenneth Robinson, Street and Smith used
that same setup for their pulp magazine The Avenger. The
(18:16):
Street and Smith publication ran from September nineteen thirty nine
through September nineteen forty two, for a total of twenty
four issues. These were all written by Paul Ernst. Five
more stories were published in Clues Detective magazine from nineteen
forty two through nineteen forty three, written by Emil C. Tepperman,
and a sixth book. A novella appeared in a nineteen
(18:36):
forty three issue of The Shadow magazine. With the success
of both Doc Savage and The Shadow and paperback, Warner
Paperback Library decided to do the same thing with The Avenger.
The publisher released the original twenty four novels by Paul
Ernste's paperbacks. These featured painted covers by Peter Carrass and
George Gross and you Steve Holland as the model. The
(18:57):
publisher then commissioned Ron Goulard to pay and twelve postiche
novels that were published between June nineteen seventy four through
May nineteen seventy five, making a total of forty two
full length Avenger paperbacks. The Avenger would later appear in
comics radio anthologies Just a ton of stuff that begs
for a podcast feature. Maybe I'll get to it someday.
(19:20):
Sometimes the face of pulp heroes in pop culture is
that of the Spider. This was a tremendously successful hero
created by Harry Steeger's Popular Publications in direct competition with
Street and Smith The Shadow. The Spider was published in
magazine format from October nineteen thirty three through December nineteen
forty three. Every issue included a full length novel. The
(19:43):
first two novels were written by RTM. Scott, and then
every novel thereafter was the house name of Grant Stockridge,
which was really just a revolving dar of writers, mostly
Norville Page, Emil Tepperman, and A. H. Bittner. Berkeley Books
tried to recreate the success Bantam was he with Doc Savage.
Beginning in November nineteen sixty nine, Berkeley Medallion launched a
(20:05):
plan to publish all one hundred and eighteen The Spider
novels as paperbacks, but by the time they got to
the fourth one, the sales were so poor that they
canceled the series. The paperback covers were painted by Peter Carross.
There was even a fifth book plan titled Empire of Doom,
and the artwork for that book is on the Spider
Returns dot com site. It's really good. A few years later,
(20:26):
Pocketbooks tried their hand at the Spider. They published their
first Spider installment titled Death Reign of the Vampire King,
and they hired Robert Maguire to paint the covers, using
Steve Holland as the model. Once again, the series reprints
as paperbacks was a complete failure. After the fourth book,
Pocket stopped production. Part of the reason may have been
that the publisher tried to not only reprint the pulps,
(20:49):
but added them to fit into modern times. Some of
the dialogue, the weapons, the overall feel, it just wasn't
the same as the pulpse. The cover art on these
four paperbacks is stunning, though, with Steve Polland as the model.
In nineteen seventy nine, Python Publishing Group released a new
Spider novel titled Blue Steel. This was actually the never
(21:09):
before published one hundred and nineteenth Spider novel. Originally titled Slaughter, Inc.
The title changed for legal reasons to Blue Steel The
Ultimate Answer, and this is because the character name of
the spider had to be changed to Blue Steel to
avoid lawsuits. The cover was painted by George Gross and
the novel was authored by Donald G. Gormack, using the
(21:31):
name Spider Page, which was a reference to the original author,
Norville Page. Dimedia came along in the nineteen eighties to
try their hand at the Spider. They first published three
Spider pulp novels in large trade editions, but in nineteen
eighty four Dimdia published those same three the Spider novels
as normal sized, mass market paperbacks. They hired Ken Kelly
(21:52):
to paint the covers for the first two paperbacks and
then Frank Kelly Freas did the third one. Then you
had Carolyn Grafkin involved. In nineteen ninety one they published
eight total paperbacks. Each book had two reprints of the
Spider novels, so there were sixteen reprinted novels total, and
they all feature of the original pulp covers painted by
(22:12):
Rafael de Soto. After that, you get the Spider reprints
everywhere in trade paperback format, from the likes of Bold
Venture Press, Baine Books, Double Day Age of Ass, Pulpit
Venture Press, and many more. Now. An early catalyst for
the pulp to paperback boom was a small West Coast
publisher called Corinth Regency. Their efforts were mostly spent on
developing pornographic books. However, they went all in on pulps.
(22:37):
Their first pulp paperbacks were The Phantom Detective. This was
a hero that first appeared in The Phantom Detective magazine
in February nineteen thirty three. It was immensely successful and
ran one hundred and seventy issues through nineteen fifty three.
The series was published by ned Pine's Thrilling. These first
eleven novels were published under the house name of g
Wayman Jones and written by DL Champion. After the eleventh
(23:01):
the name changed to Robert Wallace and were pinned largely
by Norman A. Daniels, Charles Greenberg, George A. MacDonald, Lawrence
Donovan and a bunch of other pulpsters. Now circling back
to Corinth Regency, they published twenty two of the Phantom
Detective paperbacks from October nineteen sixty five through July nineteen
sixty six. In my opinion, these books are beautiful with
(23:22):
Robert Bonfil's painted art. These are all reprinted novels from
the magazine. Now. Corinth also published eight paperback reprints of
Operator Number five between January nineteen sixty six and August
nineteen sixty six. These are all equally impressive and feature
Robert Bonfil's painted artwork as well. Operator Number five was
originally created by Steger's Popular Publications and debuted in April
(23:46):
nineteen thirty four. It ran all the way through nineteen
thirty nine, with a total of forty eight issues. Now
these issues were written by Frederick C. Davis, then later
Emil C. Tepperman, and then Wayne Rogers. For the last
few books. The house name used was to steal another
Corinth publication was reprints of Doctor Death. Now, the pulp
character Doctor Death has a rather strange history. The first
(24:09):
incarnation was in the pages of All Detective Magazine in
July through October nineteen thirty four, and again in January
nineteen thirty five. In these novels, the nemesis is Nib's Holloway,
but that character actually debuted a year prior in the
pages of Rapid Fire Detective Stories. The nineteen thirty four
nineteen thirty five Doctor Death stories were authored by Edward P. Norris,
(24:33):
although that could have been a pseudonym no one really knows.
After the January nineteen thirty five story, things change for
the character. All Detective Magazine folded with the January nineteen
thirty five issue, and that was the end of that
particular version of Doctor Death. Then February nineteen thirty five
sees the shocking launch of Doctor Death Magazine, with Norris
(24:55):
replaced by prolific writer Harold Ward using a bizarre suit
of Zorro and his nemesis Niv's Holloway is replaced by
detective Jimmy Holme. This new version of Doctor Death debuts
in the novel Twelve Months Die. The Lead for the
first issue, then comes The Gray Creatures for the next issue,
followed by The Shriveling Murders for the very last issue
(25:19):
of the magazine in April. So that's it February March
April nineteen thirty five, three total issues. Thankfully, fans of
the pulp got two additional novels that weren't originally published
in the magazine, Waves of Madness and The Red Mist
of Murder. These appeared in the nineteen eighties and Nemesis
Incorporated and Pulp Vault note that a publisher called Pulp
(25:41):
Classics also reprinted at least one of the Doctor Death
magazine issues back in nineteen seventy nine. In nineteen sixty six,
Corinth Regency reprinted the three Doctor Death magazine novels as paperbacks,
again with amazing artwork by Robert Bonfields. These books were
titled the same as the novels, thankfuy So Avoids Confusion,
Twelve Must Die, The Great Creatures, and The Shrivelling Murders,
(26:04):
but the publisher also threw in a fourth book titled
Stories from Doctor Death and Other Terror Tales, which included
the various shorts that were included in the three issues
of the magazine. Now I've got an ongoing blog article
called Paperback Warrior Primer, and I did one on Doctor Death.
You can find it at Paperbackwarrior dot com. But we
aren't completely finished with Corinth Regency either. The publisher reprinted
(26:28):
seven pulp novels starring Secret Agent X. This was a
pulp magazine published by AA wins Ace Magazines. The magazine
ran forty one issues between February nineteen thirty four and
March nineteen thirty nine. The house name used on these
novels is Brandt House. The writers were Paul Chadwick, G. T. Fleming,
(26:48):
Roberts Amil C. Temperaman, and Wayne Rodgers, and of course
Corinth used Robert Bonfield's on these paperback covers as well,
making them look just amazing. Corinth also dipped into the
aviation pulps. They published five paperback reprints of Dusty Airs
and His battle Birds. This was a pulp that originally
began in December nineteen thirty two and ran through July
(27:09):
nineteen thirty four under the title battle Birds. Then it
was published under the title Dusty Airs and His battle
Birds for twelve more issues that ended in nineteen thirty five.
The series would later begin again in nineteen forty under
the battle Bird's name. Corinth's first four paperbacks of Dusty
Airs and His Battle Birds were reprints of the novels.
(27:30):
The fifth paperback they did was called battle Birds Versus
the Black Invaders and It's a short story collection Now.
Corinth also published some of the short stories from the
pulp magazine Terror Tales. They did two paperbacks featuring these stories.
The titles were The House of Living Death and Other
Terror Tales, published in August nineteen sixty six, and then
(27:52):
a month later, Death's Loving Arms and Other Terror Tales.
The publisher went out of business under pressure from lawsuits
and financial struggles. Go figure. Another pulp that landed in
the paperback market is G eight and His Battle Aces.
This was a pulp magazine produced by Popular Publications that
was first published in October nineteen thirty. For the first
(28:14):
two years, the magazine was titled Battle Aces. Then it
switched names to G eight and His Battle Aces to
make it more of a pulp hero publication. I believe
there were nearly one hundred and forty issues of the
magazine all the way to the final issue in June
nineteen forty four. The series was written by Robert J. Hogan.
With the popularity of pulps being reborn in paperback, Berkeley
(28:36):
gained the rights to print G eight and his Battle
Aces in paperback form beginning in nineteen seventy. Like many
of these publishers, Berkeley chose to reprint them mostly out
of order. They reprinted the first three in order, which
was The Bats Staffle, Purple Aces, and Ace of the
White Death. All three of these paperbacks featured Jim Steranco artwork,
and of course Steve Holland as the cover model. After
(28:58):
the third one, the publisher just shrank the magazine covers
to fit the paperbacks. Kind of lame. There were only
eighty of these paperbacks, all being published in nineteen seventy
and nineteen seventy one. There was one more paperback, I
believe in nineteen eighty five, called Scourge of the Steel
Mask from issue forty of that Pulp magazine, So you
got nine total paperbacks. The Scourge of the Steel Mask
(29:18):
was published by Blazing Publications. The last one I'm going
to include here it kind of sits sideways in our feature.
This is the comic strip The Phantom The publication history
for this title began in February nineteen thirty six as
a black and white daily comic strip written by Lee Falk.
It became a color Sunday strip in May of nineteen
(29:39):
thirty nine, and believe it or not, that comic strip
is still running today. Now Avon, wanting to get into
the heroes and paperback Idea publish fifteen The Phantom paperbacks
from nineteen seventy two through nineteen seventy five. Five of
these were authored by Lee Falk, Basil Cooper wrote two
of them, six were pinned by Ron Goulart using the
(29:59):
name Frank s Sean, Bruce Cassidy wrote one as Carson Bingham,
and Warren Shanahan wrote one as well. There was also
a nineteen ninety six novel adaptation of The Phantom movie
that starred Billy Zane. Now talking about pulp heroes, there
were two larger than life characters that hit paperbacks superstardom.
(30:20):
The first is Robert E. Howard's Conan the Simerian. This
character first appeared in the December nineteen thirty two issue
of Weird Tales in a story titled The Phoenix on
the Sword, which originally featured Call but at his for
made and it was reworked as a Conan story. Conan
would appear in sixteen more issues of Weird Tales through
(30:40):
nineteen thirty six. These stories, along with other Howard Conan stories,
were published in a series of hardcovers from nineteen fifty
three through nineteen fifty five by nom Press, but our
focuses on paperbacks. Howard's Conan novel, which was published as
a serial Weird Tales, was titled Hour of the Dragon
nome Press reach printed in hardcover in nineteen fifty as
(31:02):
Conan the Conqueror. In nineteen fifty three, Ace published Conan
the Conqueror as part of a double d thirty six
with art by Norman saundersh This was a paperback. Aside
from the Ace paperback, Conan went widely uncirculated from nineteen
thirty six all the way through nineteen sixty six. Beginning
in sixty six, a series of events happened between Howard's
(31:23):
literary agent, Glenn Lord, El Sprague de Camp and Lynn
Carter that allowed all of Howard's original Conan stories to
become reprinted in paperback form. These original Howard stories were
packaged with both de Camp and Carter's reworking of Howard's
unfinished manuscripts and even stories he wrote that didn't even
feature Conan. These two authors, which many Conan fans feel
(31:45):
were completely inferior to Howard, included these stories in the
paperback collections. Some Conan fans are okay with it, others
not so much. I can take them or leave them. Honestly,
I like Len Carter's writing for the most part, as
disjointing as it might be, but that's a feature for
another day. All we have here is a series of
twelve total paperbacks published by Lancer and then later Ace,
(32:08):
featuring Codan. However, of the pulp stories that Howard originally wrote,
there's only nine of these twelve books that have his
original stories. The artwork on the paperbacks was created by
Boris Valo, John Duelo, and of course Frank Frazetta Roberty Howard.
Solomon Kine hero was also featured in Weird Tales. The
first story, Read Shadows, was published in the August and
(32:31):
nineteen twenty eight issue. There were six more Solomon Kine
stories published in Weird Tales through nineteen thirty two. Like Conan,
Solomon Kane goes mostly uncirculated for many decades. There were
some hardcover reprints of the Solomonkin stories in nineteen sixty
eight by Donald M. Grant and three books by Centaur
Press from sixty nine through seventy one, but for mass
(32:52):
market paperbacks, the first one was probably Bantam's in nineteen
seventy eight publication Solomon kan Skulls and the Stars, which
reprinted many of Howard Solomon Kaine's stories. Another Bantam paperback
followed titled Solomon Kane The Heels of the Dead in
nineteen seventy nine. Bain Books also did a nice collection
(33:13):
of these reprinted stories in nineteen ninety five as a
mass market paperback edition. Another of Howard's heroes was El Borak.
He was first published in the December nineteen thirty four
issue of Top Notch and continued for two more appearances
in Top Notch in thirty five than one in Complete
Stories and Thrilling Adventures in nineteen thirty six. The character
stories were reprinted in paperbacks by Ace titled Three Bladed
(33:37):
Doom in seventy nine, and that same title by Zebra
earlier in nineteen seventy seven. I'm Not Going to cover
any more Howard heroes on this feature because honestly, there's
a ton but that gives you sort of an idea
of the Howard work, and Howard evolved from pulp to paperback.
But the other major hero I wanted to talk about
other than Conan today was Tarzan, the jungle Hero, authored
(34:00):
by Edgar Rice Burroughs, made his debut in the pulp
magazine The All Story in October nineteen twelve. Tarzan would
later appear in pulp magazines like New Story Magazine, All Story, Cavalier,
All Story Weekly, Blue Book, The Glossy Magazine, Red Book, Argusy, Argusy,
All Story Weekly, and Liberty. Like Codan, Tarzan's first move
(34:22):
from the pulps was to hardcore editions. Like Codan, Tarzan's
first move from pulps was to hardcover editions the paperbacks
that most people remember that reprint Tarzan books as that
of Ace. Now. Ace did a publishing spree and published
a ton of Tarzan novels in the nineteen sixties, thinking
that the character and books had fallen into public domain.
(34:42):
Egar Rice Burrough's estate found out about the Ace publications
and quickly stopped production. I believe Ace got ten paperbacks
out though, beginning in nineteen sixty two. These are probably
the most collectible of the paperbacks because of Frank Frazetta
and Roy Krinkle's amazing cover paintings. Now Valentine got into
it as well. They officially published all of the Tarzan
books with fantastic artwork by the likes of Neo Adams.
(35:06):
But other paperback publishers did Tarzan pulp reprints too, like
Dell Dover Signet a Bantam. In fact, many of Egger
Rice Burroughs's stories and novels were reprinted in paperback from
their original pulp appearances. Series titles like John Carter of
mars Or was referred to as Barsoom was published in paperback.
Same for the Pollukadar series, cast Pack Moon, and Mucker.
(35:28):
These are all stories that were originally in the pulps
that found new life in the paperback market. So far,
what we've talked about are heroes and novels that experienced
extreme popularity as pulps. The paperbacks, for the most part
are sort of a compliment to the literary legacy. But
I wanted to kind of switch it up a little
bit and talk about paperback series titles that could be
(35:49):
more popular as paperbacks than the pulp version. This part
of the feature focuses on paperback series titles that started
out in the pulps, but over time became way more popular, lucrative,
and successful in the paperback format. The first of these
is Frank Kine's Private Detective Johnny Lddell. Before Ladell landed
(36:11):
in paperback heaven in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties,
he was created and starred in the pulp industry. The
first Johnny Lddell novel was Murder at Face Value, which
was published in Crack Detective Stories in January nineteen forty four.
There were several Ladell short stories through the nineteen forties
and Cracked Detective Stories, but by the time the nineteen
fifties rolled around, Frank kin changes his game up. He
(36:34):
starts writing brand new Johnny Lddell novels, but his novels
that appear in not only hardcover but also paperback. He
continues writing novels and short stories for the pulps at
the same time, but the pulps have mostly morphed into
digest magazines like Manhunt, Sat Detective magazine and Mike Shane
Mystery magazine. Frank Kin wrote novels for the paperback market.
(36:55):
He wrote shorts for the pulps and digests. Some of
his novels were pulp and die jests first, then later
were reprinted as paperbacks. He was just so versatile, and
his agent or publisher or whoever had the power of
persuasion that kept him in front of the buying consumer
through a lot of different formats, platforms and contracting. Another
private detective that was able to do the same sort
(37:17):
of thing was that of Mike Shane. Davis Dresser, who
wrote novels as Brett Halliday, wrote his first Mike Shane novel,
Dividend on Death, in nineteen thirty nine, as a hardcover.
He followed in nineteen forty with a sequel, The Private
Practice of Michael Shane. This launched an empire of Mike
Shane books, mostly in paperback, that ran for seventy installments
(37:39):
and ghostwriters once Dresser stepped away from the series. Now
these books were booming, but at the same time Dressers
hitting the pulp market hard by depositing the same character
in those short stories and novels. Mike Shane was in
Detective Fiction, Weekly, Detective Story Magazine, Black Mask, Thrilling, Detective, Master, Detective.
The list goes on and on for four forty five
(38:00):
more years. So he had seventy books, hundreds of short stories.
Davis Dresser knew how to utilize the pulp and paperback
market to his advantage. Still, with all those magazine stories,
I still feel like his books are probably the most
popular and most collectible. A classic in crime fiction and
mystery is The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Many fans, scholars,
(38:25):
and literary purists cite the book as the essential classic
that represents this era of pulp writing, but the book
is probably more popular than its pulp predecessor. The Maltese
Falcon appeared as a serial in Black Mask from September
nineteen twenty nine through January nineteen thirty. It then underwent
edits before being published as a hardcover in nineteen thirty
(38:46):
and then later in the more populated circulated paperback editions.
Hammett's other popular novels, like The Dane Curse and Read Harvest,
began life as serials in Black Masks before becoming widely
circulated in hardcover and paperback editions. Listen. I could probably
talk for a week straight NonStop on pulps that made
it to paperback, everything from Zanggray to Louis Lamore, and
(39:07):
hundreds and hundreds of vintage classics that are found in
the science fiction paperback aisle that started their trajectory as pulps.
I wanted to highlight some of these for you so
you'll know which ones are available in paperback. How you
can still collect mass market paperbacks that preserve the pulps
while the big trade editions and hardcovers are amazing and
are well packaged and presented. I don't know. I still
(39:28):
have a fondness for the old vintage paperbacks, and I
like to remain in that aisle of the bookshop. I
hope you enjoyed this feature on pulps to paperback. My
sources were The Thrilling Detective, The fictionmag Index, Fantasyhandbook dot Com,
Fantastic Fiction, Mystery File dot com, James Reasoner's blog, Erbziin
dot com, Greenleaf, hyphen Classics Hyphenbooks dot com, Pulp Hermit
(39:52):
Blog from a Secret location dot com, Spider Returns dot com,
Glorious Trash Archive dot org, spy Guys Gals, dotsavage dot org,
The pulp dot Net, Adventures in Bronze dot Co, PulpFest
dot Com, Just Nevins dot com, Shadow Sanctum dot net,
and the Living Shadow dot fandom dot com. All right,
(40:14):
my last segment today is dedicated to the BookTube event
known as garb August. This is something that book tuber
criminally came up with to celebrate the very worst in
trash fiction. And there's two sides to it. Really, There's
the celebration of trash that would be perceived as literary
awfulness to the mainstream reading community, but it's in fact
fantastic to you and I. Or there's the trash that
(40:36):
is universally awful means everyone hates it. I'm going with
universally awful. And I chose three books to highlight from
the paperback Warrior Hall of Shame. So my first one
is Conan the Defiant. It was written by Steve Perry, No,
not the former Journey singer, the sci fi and fantasy
Steve Perry. He wrote this Conan paperback and he wrote
(40:58):
a couple other ones as well. This Conan the Defiant
was published by Tour in nineteen eighty seven, and it's
absolutely awful. In the book, Conan goes to the aid
of this priest who's fighting off enemies using only a staff.
Conan becomes intrigued and the two are friends. But when
the two go back to the priest's house to celebrate,
the priest ends up getting killed, and then Conan is
(41:19):
off to revenge his newfound friend. There's this necromancer named
Neg who's got an army of zombies, and this beauty
queen named Tun and a henchman named Skier. Now Neg
is on a quest to get this amulet called the
Source of Light. If he can get it, guess what
he can grow more zombies for his army. Everyone wants that.
(41:39):
Now Tun, she escapes and she finds Conan, and now Conan, Tuan,
and this other woman are a trio. There's this army
of tarantulas that's hunting Skier while Conan's searching for Nag.
But Neg already knows that Conan's after him, so he
sends an army of zombies to follow Conan. It's an
absolute mess where the reader doesn't even know who's chasing who.
(42:00):
It's a mess and absolute mess, and one of the
worst of the Tory conin paperbacks. The Hall of Shame
was built for these types of books. Again. This is
Conan The Defiant by Steve Perry. The second one I
wanted to Highlight or Lowlight is titled Decoy Number one,
The Great Pretender by Jim Dean. This is a Signet
series that was published in nineteen seventy four, not the
(42:23):
other Decoy series that's pretty good and this one. Decoy
is a guy named Nick Mrlatti, known as the Great
Pretender and the Prince of Crime. He specializes in art theft.
As the book begins, he's in prison and the Feds
want to use him because he's got what's considered a
computer brain that allows him to quickly escape conflicts, decipher
(42:43):
the most complex problems, and perform an array of self
defense tactics. He's a former US marine. He's got a
gadgets with sykicknamed Waves. Murlotti's let out of prison to
do a job for the Feds by locating a mobster
named Gianfredo. Here's the way Murlatti does. He goes and
steals a US Coastguard boat. He then goes and steals
(43:06):
heroin intended for Gianfredo. Whatever his name is. He then
returns this heroin filled yacht to Gianfredo and apologizes and
says he thought he was intercepting some other drug dealer's cargo.
This gets Gianfredo's trust. Murlatti then explains he's working for
the FEDS and they got him out of prison to
get Gianfredo. Gianfredo says he already knew about Murlatti and
(43:26):
his mission again, so he hires Merlatti. I don't understand it.
The plot is just awful. It goes nowhere. Plus there
is entire scenes of the book where characters are talking
to each other that aren't even in the same room
with each other based on the lines before it. At
one point, Murlatti's talking to a woman who's already been
described in previous paragraphs as being in a different building
(43:46):
with a different character. It's crazy. This book is terrible,
and it can only encourage you to stay away from
it again. It's Decoy number one, The Great Pretender by
a real guy named Jim Dean. The Last One I
wanted to tell you about is titled a Texan came
writing by Frank o' rourke. It was published in nineteen
fifty eight by signet. In this book, a hard gun
(44:07):
named John arrives in the town of Taos with a
stack of letters. These are all from people swearing that
a land baron named Charles Malcolm cheated and swindled them.
He presents the letters to the town sheriff. Then readers
are introduced to this Malcolm guy and realize he's a wealthy,
stereotypical Western villain. But he's got a witch. This witch
cast spells and condradus curses on all of his enemies.
(44:30):
He's also laid half the women in town, but his
most prized pick is a woman named Rachel, who he
just impregnated. John a sheepherder. Rachel plus the sheriff all
go up against Malcolm and his witch. There's pages and
pages of dialogue between Malcolm and his witch, and it's
just the most boring stuff you can possibly imagine. The
book is only one hundred and twenty eight pages, but
(44:50):
it felt more like seven hundred. The witch stuff was ridiculous.
John is a complete moron. I hated this book and
you will too. And that does it for garb August
and it finishes out this episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
Please please remember to follow a Paperback Warrior on Facebook, x, Instagram, TikTok,
(45:11):
and threads. And you can also check out the YouTube
channel subscribe there you'll find a truck full of videos
to keep you occupied for hours on end. There's also
playlist there, so you can just go to a playlist
and like watch shopping videos NonStop if you want. If
you're going to buy any of the books that I
review on the blog, most reviews have an affiliate link
at the very bottom, just leading you to purchase the
(45:32):
book on either Amazon or abe Books. When you use
that link, I get a few cents. I'll hit the
research trail and write another episode very soon. Thanks for
listening to this one. If you're new here and I
advertise at PulpFest, so maybe you're new from PulpFest and
you got the referral, Hey, welcome aboard. This is a
great show. Subscribe you'll get new episodes constantly, go back
(45:53):
and listen to the old ones. I'll go ahead start
working on the next episode, and I will talk at
you guys next time. Take care, bye for now.
Good morning, afternoon, and evening to everyone out there in
any time or space. This is Eric and this is
the Paperback Warrior podcast, Episode number one hundred and twenty three.
This show's an offshoot of the Paperbackwarrior dot com blog.
If you're new to the podcast and show, Paperback Warrior
serves the vintage book community through written reviews and articles
(00:41):
on the blog. I think we're just shy of two
thousand posts on the blog since twenty thirteen. The podcast
launched in twenty nineteen and has offered features on the
lives and literary work of some of the finest pulp crime, fiction, mystery,
and science fiction authors of all time, like Edward Does Daniels,
Richard Matheson, Ed mcbah, John d McDonald, Frank Cain, Gosh,
(01:03):
Bruno Fisher, Mickey Spaline. The list goes on and on
and on. Here on the podcast, I also provide details
on new books being released, reviews of old books, and
shopping trips to acquire old books. The YouTube channels out
there capturing all these podcast episodes, plus hundreds and hundreds
of short videos about vintage fiction, some exclusives just to
(01:24):
the YouTube channel, plus their shopping trip videos on YouTube
that are really popular as well. In addition, I post
typically about four to five times per day on social
media about pulp's old comics, vintage books, authors, artists, men's adventure, magazines,
and publishers dedicated to preserving vintage fiction. If you like
(01:46):
what I do and want to donate to my efforts,
you could use the donate link on the blog's main
page the desktop version top right corner, or by PayPal
just to my email of a like Apple B like
Boy eight seven zero six to three gmail dot com
Again AB eight seven zero sixty three at gmail dot com.
If you donate, that's great and I appreciate it. If not,
(02:08):
don't worry about it. Your presence here is a viewer
and listener works for me just fine. Now today's show
is absolutely packed. I've got so much stuff happening. First,
the feature today is all about pulps and how they
were repurposed to fit the paperback format in the nineteen
sixties and nineteen seventies. I'm going to tell you all
about that conversion and highlight some of the most popular
(02:29):
paperback pulp books, like The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Phantom,
It's Gonna be An amazing thing, trust me. Plus, this
month is garb August. That's an event happening this month
that book tubers and book communities celebrate garb August to
honor some of the trashiest fiction of all time. And
I'm gonna do my part to highlight three terrible books
(02:50):
that I'm holding in high regard for this special garb
August event. So I'm doing that here today with you.
But I've got some announcements before we hit all that,
and a few other odds and in to get to.
So later this month, I'm having guested Brian Rains on
the YouTube channel. His channel is Bad Taste Books, and
he reviews young adult vintage books. He reviews old horror novels,
(03:12):
men's action adventure stuff. He reads everything, he really does.
I've had him on before when we did a review
of the Butcher installment Terror Truckers. The two of us
are going to tackle too vintage nineteen nineties young adult
horror paperbacks and I'm sure it's going to be awesome. Also,
later this month, I'll be back on Nick Anderson's book
Graveyard to review another vintage gothic paperback. Last month, I
(03:35):
was on his channel to review Hillary Wall's gothic novel
The Shadow Guest. It was so much fun, and we
want to do another review of a gothic novel off
the airwaves on paper, which is probably where I need
to be. I had the pleasure of writing an article
on fem fatals for the new issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly.
I finished that up last month and it's going to
(03:55):
be in the new issue coming out later this year.
Thanks to Bob Dyce and Bill Cunningham for asking me
to participate in that. It was so much fun writing
that and I think all of you are really gonna
enjoy it. Also, speaking of Bob and Bill, I've been
working hard on a project for them. I'm thrilled to
be writing introductions and overviews for Men's Action Adventure paperback
series titles for their book, The Art of Ron Lesser,
(04:17):
Volume three. It's going to be out later this year
or early next year. I hope to finish all that
writing by the end of this month. I'm really excited
about it. And speaking of Ron Lesser, I'm also buried
in writing a Wikipedia page for the artist. I'm learning
so much about Lesher's career. He painted covers for hundreds
of paperback as well as comic work like The Spider,
(04:37):
The Bionic Woman, Betty Page, Max Allan Collins, Corey, and
theatrical movie promotional materials and posters like High Planes, Drifter,
Joe Kidd, Atomic Blonoming. Just so much stuff. And that's
all my announcements of this episode. But I do want
to tell you about a few new books I received recently.
(04:57):
First up is a book titled Gateway to Annihilation Stories
by author Jarre Keane. This was just released by Wolfpack
Publishing imprint Dark Wolf. It's a searing collection of fourteen short,
twisted tales described as a combination of the Twilight Zone
and Black Mirror. There's themes in these stories like religious terrorism, cryptozoology,
(05:19):
pandemic stress, and the apocalypse. I may work in an
audio narration of one of these stories and post it
right here. We're gonna see if my schedule lightens up
any for that. But you can get Gateways to Annihilation
Stories by Jarrett Keen on Amazon in both digital and
physical editions. I got Caveman Adventure Library number nine, which
is The Deadly Genesis File by Ron Thomas. This is
(05:42):
the first of a trilogy and It stars a guy
named Barrett Kane, revenging his father's death while being mired
in international politics during the Cold War. It's military espionage
and global intrigue by real world strategist Ron Thomas. This
guy served in some precarious positions within the US of
five department. He draws from that experience for this book,
(06:02):
and you can get it an ebook and paperback format.
I received a new twofer from Starkhouse Press. It's two
vintage crime fiction novels by Jack Webb in one book.
The first offering is The Deadly Combo, which was originally
published by Ace in nineteen fifty eight. The other book
is One for My Dame, originally published in hardcover in
(06:23):
nineteen sixty one and then by Avon in nineteen sixty
four as a paperback. Both these books together in one
volume with an introduction by Nicholas Litchfield, and the book's
going to be available in October. Also from Starkhouse Press
is a collection of short stories by Bill Pronzini titled
Tales of the Impossible Now. This features nineteen stories of
(06:45):
mysteries that Pronzini penned in the style of the locked
Room mystery. But there's also bizarre vanishings, ghostly apparitions, weird
murder methods. These stories feature Pronzini's Nameless detective and some
feature Carpenter and Quinn Cannon, which were his Western detectives.
There's also standalone stories too. I also received Lee Goldberg's
(07:07):
Crown VIC two now. This, of course, is the sequel
to his successful Crown Vic novella. The series stars an
ex con named Ray Boyd traveling the open road in
a used Ford Crown Victoria Police interceptor, and he goes
wherever his need for money and sex leads him. He's
a selfish guy. He's looking out for himself and nobody else.
(07:28):
This is roughly forty pages. It's available in both ebook
and paperback from Cutting Edge Books and also from Cutting
Edge Books. I Have Come On Girl by Stuart Friedman.
This was originally a Belmont paperback published in nineteen sixty.
It's out now with the original artwork as an ebook,
and it's back in print for the first time in
over sixty years. The book stars a woman named Rita
(07:50):
who would do anything for kicks, like pick up a
stranger just to ruin his life. This looks terrific. It's
two hundred and seven pages and costs merely four bucks.
We have access to read ebooks, then Cutting Edge Books
makes it easy to read hundreds and hundreds of vintage
paperbacks in e book format. And they also have these
huge omnibus editions that collects ten or twelve ebooks altogether
(08:12):
in one volume. It's great. I love it. A friend
of mine and a contributor to the comments on the
Paperback Warrior Facebook page has been guest. He's on there
always offering his opinion on various books. He's read quite
a bit in his time. He's very knowledgeable about paperbacks.
He was kind enough to send me one of Hillary
Wall's Homicide North installments. Now, these were books that work
(08:33):
as police procedurals, and they were published in the late
nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies. I believe there were three
Homicide North books total, if memory serves me. He sent
me an excellent copy of The Young Prey, which was
the series second installment. It's a Belmont Tower paperback from
nineteen sixty nine and honestly looks like it's never even
(08:54):
been read before. It's in great condition, all right, And
I don't have this book, but I wanted to bring
it up here. The author reached out to me to
let me know that this book was out, and I
think this may appeal to some of you crime fiction lovers.
This is actually a non fiction book titled Little Pussy
and Long Branch Perfect Together. You can get this as
an ebook or paperback. The author is Gregory Michaellino Masolino.
(09:18):
This book's about the gangster riviera, a place called Long Branch,
New Jersey. Now. Michaellino, through six hundred pages, takes you
through the violent history of the town, beginning in the
nineteen sixties when Anthony Little Pussy Russo took control. He
was then challenged by an upstart group of criminals in
the nineteen seventies, sort of the old school gangster versus
(09:39):
the new version pushing drugs. The good citizens of Long
Branch witnessed this brutal gang war that erupted on the
city streets. Again. This book is called Little Pussy and
Long Branch Perfect Together by Gregory Macalino. All right, now
that we're finished with all that, how about we jump
into today's feature. I'm gonna hit the tune you know
(09:59):
and love right now? All right, So today I wanted
to tell you all about pulps in the paperbacks. Now,
this was a big part of paperback publishing in the
nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. As most of you know,
the pulp magazine market came about in the late nineteenth
(10:21):
and early twentieth centuries. The big four or five titles
that cemented these magazines as heavy hitters of publishing was Argasy, Adventure,
Blue Book, Short Stories, and Black Mask. Now, there were
hundreds of pulp magazines that dominated the newsstands through the
nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties. All these talented crime
(10:42):
fiction paperback writers that I talk about right here on
the podcast and that I write about on the blog
typically cut their teeth on the pulp market. You could
look at someone like John D. McDonald as the prime
example of a pulpster who turned the literary career corner
to dive into the paperback original industry that bloomed in
the late night forties. It was just the natural evolution
(11:02):
for the pulps to die in the late nineteen forties
and the paperbacks to take off and dominate the second
half of the twentieth century. There were publishers like Ace, Bantam,
Belmont Dell, Paperback Library, Pocket Signet, Faucet. They all rose
to prominence during this time, and they wanted those pulp
writers pinning mysteries and crime fiction for their brand. Often
(11:24):
they wanted series titles as well, some that even began
as pulps and then continued their page life in paperback format.
The first part of this feature, I wanted to concentrate
on the big pulp heroes that were ripped from the
pulps and deposited in paperback format. Now, as you can imagine,
when we talk about these paperback publishers, they were all
clamoring for new material from writers, but at the same
(11:46):
time they knew what had sold well on the pulp market.
They came up with a clever marketing idea of repurposing
all these old pulp heroes as new paperback warriors. Publishers
had thousands of pulp stories that they could repurpose. Us
so is all you can Eat buff a. Now. An
important thing to remember is I'm discussing mass market paperbacks
(12:06):
on this feature. I'm not talking about trade paperbacks, just
strictly the vintage mass market paperbacks that's really our wheelhouse here.
The first I wanted to talk about is the Shadow,
one of the most popular pulp characters of all time.
The origins of the character could be found in radio programming.
On July thirty first, nineteen thirty, Street and Smith launched
(12:27):
the first episode of Detective Story Hour on CBS. This
was an adaptation of the publisher's Detective Story Magazine. Scriptwriter
Harry Charlotte made a suggestion that the show have a narrator.
The Shadow was created as that mysterious narrator who promised
the show would deliver tales of mystery and suspense from
the pages of premier Detective Fiction magazine. Now this inclusion
(12:50):
of the Shadow on the programm, it wouldn't last long, though.
Later the Shadow appeared on the Blue Cole Radio Review.
But the Shadows radio appearances were popular and it was
altered in the publisher meeting listener demands for a pulp
magazine to arise, so Street and Smith hired writer Walter B.
Gibson to write stories starring the Shadow under the house
name of Maxwell Grant. Gibson wrote a novel and story
(13:14):
twice a month for two hundred and eighty two issues
of The Shadow magazine, which ran through the early nineteen fifties.
The first issue of the magazine was April first, nineteen
thirty one. The other fortyish issues of the magazine were
authored by Lester Dent, Theodore Tensley, Bruce Elliott, and Richard
Wormser to give Gibson a little break between issues, So again,
(13:36):
that was the Shadow Magazine. As the pulp magazine sales
and popularity decreased, the publisher pulled the chord on the
Shadow Magazine. But before the magazine had ended, The Shadow
landed in paperback format. As early as nineteen forty one,
Bantam published The Shadow and the Voice of Murder by
Walter Gibson, which was originally published in The Shadow Magazine
(13:58):
number one hundred and ninety two as The Voice of Death.
Now in nineteen sixty three, the paperback market had exploded,
Belmont launches a new series of The Shadow in paperback,
beginning with the Walter Gibson novel Return of the Shadow.
There would be nine total paperbacks between nineteen sixty three
(14:18):
through nineteen sixty seven, with Dennis Lyn's writing the whole
series other than Gibson's debut book. In June nineteen sixty nine,
Bantam returned back to the world of the Shadow by
reprinting more stories from the magazine. They published seven total
paperbacks with amazing covers by Sandy Cosson and Frank McCarthy
through nineteen seventy now. Also in nineteen sixty nine, Temp
(14:42):
Books published a paperback reprint of Grove of Doom, which
was originally in The Shadow Magazine's thirty seventh issue. Pyramid Books,
which would later become Jove, reprinted some of the Shadow
Magazine novels into paperbacks. This began in October nineteen seventy
four and it ran through April nineteen seventy eight, for
a total of twenty three paperbacks. However, other than the
(15:03):
first paperback, The Living Shadow, which was the very first
story in the Shadow Magazine, the order is just all
mixed up. The publisher chose not to reprint the Shadow
Magazine stories in order. Instead, these twenty three paperbacks pulled
novels from the first issue of the magazine all the
way up to the ninety first issue, so it's a
big range that they pulled these novels from. The covers
(15:25):
for the paperbacks feature the great artist Jim Storenko, and
I believe George Rozen did one of them as well. Now, obviously,
when it comes to the Shadow, there are thousands of
things to talk about, like the radio programs, the movies,
the pulp stories themselves, character skills, purpose. It's a smorgasbord
of content that will be better presented in a long
(15:45):
feature here on the podcast. Our focus today is just
the paperbacks. I touched on Doc Savage way back on
episode number thirty six of this podcast in twenty twenty.
The original Doc Savage Magazine was a Street and Smith
publication that debut in March nineteen thirty three. It was
created when publishing executive Henry Rosston and Jim Nanovich wanted
(16:07):
to capitalize on the successful The Shadow magazine. Doc Savage
Magazine sold extremely well and developed into one hundred and
eighty one issue series that ended in the summer of
nineteen forty nine. Lester Dent wrote the majority of these stories,
but there was a rotation of writers brought in for
these books like Walter Ryerson, Johnson, Lawrence Donovan, Harold Davis,
(16:28):
and William Bogart, all using the house name of Kenneth Robinson.
But the paperback industry reintroduced Doc Savage to a whole
new generation. Beginning in nineteen sixty four, every Doc Savage
magazine novel was reprinted as a paperback, although the original
publication order was dismissed. The books featured iconic painted covers
(16:49):
by James Bama, although other terrific artists were brought in
as well as Bob Larkin and Boris Valo. They painted
these covers using Steve Holland as the model. This original
run lasted until nineteen ninety. All of these were reprints,
except one book published in nineteen seventy nine called in
Hell Madonna Slash the Red Spider. This was originally submitted
(17:11):
in nineteen forty eight by Lester Dent, but was never
published up until Bantam's release Again. That one was called
in Hell Comma Madonna. In nineteen ninety one, Bantam published
a new Dock Savage paperback titled Escape from Loki, authored
by Philip Jose Farmer. This was a retcon novel explaining
how Doc Savage met his original team. Bantam then began
(17:33):
publishing new Doc Savage novels authored by Will Murray using
notes or ideas from Leicester Dent. There were seven of
these original paperbacks published by Bantam through nineteen ninety three.
Beginning in twenty eleven, Will Murray wrote fifteen trade paperbacks
for Altus Press of brand new Doc Savage novels, some
(17:53):
with the notes or ideas from Lester Dent and Walter
Ryerson Johnson. Listen, we could talk for days and days
about dox Da, just like we could with The Shadow.
But I'm going to leave it right there because I'm
concentrating on all these pulps, the paperbacks, and there's a
lot to get to. And speaking of Doc Savage and
the house name of Kenneth Robinson, Street and Smith used
that same setup for their pulp magazine The Avenger. The
(18:16):
Street and Smith publication ran from September nineteen thirty nine
through September nineteen forty two, for a total of twenty
four issues. These were all written by Paul Ernst. Five
more stories were published in Clues Detective magazine from nineteen
forty two through nineteen forty three, written by Emil C. Tepperman,
and a sixth book. A novella appeared in a nineteen
(18:36):
forty three issue of The Shadow magazine. With the success
of both Doc Savage and The Shadow and paperback, Warner
Paperback Library decided to do the same thing with The Avenger.
The publisher released the original twenty four novels by Paul
Ernste's paperbacks. These featured painted covers by Peter Carrass and
George Gross and you Steve Holland as the model. The
(18:57):
publisher then commissioned Ron Goulard to pay and twelve postiche
novels that were published between June nineteen seventy four through
May nineteen seventy five, making a total of forty two
full length Avenger paperbacks. The Avenger would later appear in
comics radio anthologies Just a ton of stuff that begs
for a podcast feature. Maybe I'll get to it someday.
(19:20):
Sometimes the face of pulp heroes in pop culture is
that of the Spider. This was a tremendously successful hero
created by Harry Steeger's Popular Publications in direct competition with
Street and Smith The Shadow. The Spider was published in
magazine format from October nineteen thirty three through December nineteen
forty three. Every issue included a full length novel. The
(19:43):
first two novels were written by RTM. Scott, and then
every novel thereafter was the house name of Grant Stockridge,
which was really just a revolving dar of writers, mostly
Norville Page, Emil Tepperman, and A. H. Bittner. Berkeley Books
tried to recreate the success Bantam was he with Doc Savage.
Beginning in November nineteen sixty nine, Berkeley Medallion launched a
(20:05):
plan to publish all one hundred and eighteen The Spider
novels as paperbacks, but by the time they got to
the fourth one, the sales were so poor that they
canceled the series. The paperback covers were painted by Peter Carross.
There was even a fifth book plan titled Empire of Doom,
and the artwork for that book is on the Spider
Returns dot com site. It's really good. A few years later,
(20:26):
Pocketbooks tried their hand at the Spider. They published their
first Spider installment titled Death Reign of the Vampire King,
and they hired Robert Maguire to paint the covers, using
Steve Holland as the model. Once again, the series reprints
as paperbacks was a complete failure. After the fourth book,
Pocket stopped production. Part of the reason may have been
that the publisher tried to not only reprint the pulps,
(20:49):
but added them to fit into modern times. Some of
the dialogue, the weapons, the overall feel, it just wasn't
the same as the pulpse. The cover art on these
four paperbacks is stunning, though, with Steve Polland as the model.
In nineteen seventy nine, Python Publishing Group released a new
Spider novel titled Blue Steel. This was actually the never
(21:09):
before published one hundred and nineteenth Spider novel. Originally titled Slaughter, Inc.
The title changed for legal reasons to Blue Steel The
Ultimate Answer, and this is because the character name of
the spider had to be changed to Blue Steel to
avoid lawsuits. The cover was painted by George Gross and
the novel was authored by Donald G. Gormack, using the
(21:31):
name Spider Page, which was a reference to the original author,
Norville Page. Dimedia came along in the nineteen eighties to
try their hand at the Spider. They first published three
Spider pulp novels in large trade editions, but in nineteen
eighty four Dimdia published those same three the Spider novels
as normal sized, mass market paperbacks. They hired Ken Kelly
(21:52):
to paint the covers for the first two paperbacks and
then Frank Kelly Freas did the third one. Then you
had Carolyn Grafkin involved. In nineteen ninety one they published
eight total paperbacks. Each book had two reprints of the
Spider novels, so there were sixteen reprinted novels total, and
they all feature of the original pulp covers painted by
(22:12):
Rafael de Soto. After that, you get the Spider reprints
everywhere in trade paperback format, from the likes of Bold
Venture Press, Baine Books, Double Day Age of Ass, Pulpit
Venture Press, and many more. Now. An early catalyst for
the pulp to paperback boom was a small West Coast
publisher called Corinth Regency. Their efforts were mostly spent on
developing pornographic books. However, they went all in on pulps.
(22:37):
Their first pulp paperbacks were The Phantom Detective. This was
a hero that first appeared in The Phantom Detective magazine
in February nineteen thirty three. It was immensely successful and
ran one hundred and seventy issues through nineteen fifty three.
The series was published by ned Pine's Thrilling. These first
eleven novels were published under the house name of g
Wayman Jones and written by DL Champion. After the eleventh
(23:01):
the name changed to Robert Wallace and were pinned largely
by Norman A. Daniels, Charles Greenberg, George A. MacDonald, Lawrence
Donovan and a bunch of other pulpsters. Now circling back
to Corinth Regency, they published twenty two of the Phantom
Detective paperbacks from October nineteen sixty five through July nineteen
sixty six. In my opinion, these books are beautiful with
(23:22):
Robert Bonfil's painted art. These are all reprinted novels from
the magazine. Now. Corinth also published eight paperback reprints of
Operator Number five between January nineteen sixty six and August
nineteen sixty six. These are all equally impressive and feature
Robert Bonfil's painted artwork as well. Operator Number five was
originally created by Steger's Popular Publications and debuted in April
(23:46):
nineteen thirty four. It ran all the way through nineteen
thirty nine, with a total of forty eight issues. Now
these issues were written by Frederick C. Davis, then later
Emil C. Tepperman, and then Wayne Rogers. For the last
few books. The house name used was to steal another
Corinth publication was reprints of Doctor Death. Now, the pulp
character Doctor Death has a rather strange history. The first
(24:09):
incarnation was in the pages of All Detective Magazine in
July through October nineteen thirty four, and again in January
nineteen thirty five. In these novels, the nemesis is Nib's Holloway,
but that character actually debuted a year prior in the
pages of Rapid Fire Detective Stories. The nineteen thirty four
nineteen thirty five Doctor Death stories were authored by Edward P. Norris,
(24:33):
although that could have been a pseudonym no one really knows.
After the January nineteen thirty five story, things change for
the character. All Detective Magazine folded with the January nineteen
thirty five issue, and that was the end of that
particular version of Doctor Death. Then February nineteen thirty five
sees the shocking launch of Doctor Death Magazine, with Norris
(24:55):
replaced by prolific writer Harold Ward using a bizarre suit
of Zorro and his nemesis Niv's Holloway is replaced by
detective Jimmy Holme. This new version of Doctor Death debuts
in the novel Twelve Months Die. The Lead for the
first issue, then comes The Gray Creatures for the next issue,
followed by The Shriveling Murders for the very last issue
(25:19):
of the magazine in April. So that's it February March
April nineteen thirty five, three total issues. Thankfully, fans of
the pulp got two additional novels that weren't originally published
in the magazine, Waves of Madness and The Red Mist
of Murder. These appeared in the nineteen eighties and Nemesis
Incorporated and Pulp Vault note that a publisher called Pulp
(25:41):
Classics also reprinted at least one of the Doctor Death
magazine issues back in nineteen seventy nine. In nineteen sixty six,
Corinth Regency reprinted the three Doctor Death magazine novels as paperbacks,
again with amazing artwork by Robert Bonfields. These books were
titled the same as the novels, thankfuy So Avoids Confusion,
Twelve Must Die, The Great Creatures, and The Shrivelling Murders,
(26:04):
but the publisher also threw in a fourth book titled
Stories from Doctor Death and Other Terror Tales, which included
the various shorts that were included in the three issues
of the magazine. Now I've got an ongoing blog article
called Paperback Warrior Primer, and I did one on Doctor Death.
You can find it at Paperbackwarrior dot com. But we
aren't completely finished with Corinth Regency either. The publisher reprinted
(26:28):
seven pulp novels starring Secret Agent X. This was a
pulp magazine published by AA wins Ace Magazines. The magazine
ran forty one issues between February nineteen thirty four and
March nineteen thirty nine. The house name used on these
novels is Brandt House. The writers were Paul Chadwick, G. T. Fleming,
(26:48):
Roberts Amil C. Temperaman, and Wayne Rodgers, and of course
Corinth used Robert Bonfield's on these paperback covers as well,
making them look just amazing. Corinth also dipped into the
aviation pulps. They published five paperback reprints of Dusty Airs
and His battle Birds. This was a pulp that originally
began in December nineteen thirty two and ran through July
(27:09):
nineteen thirty four under the title battle Birds. Then it
was published under the title Dusty Airs and His battle
Birds for twelve more issues that ended in nineteen thirty five.
The series would later begin again in nineteen forty under
the battle Bird's name. Corinth's first four paperbacks of Dusty
Airs and His Battle Birds were reprints of the novels.
(27:30):
The fifth paperback they did was called battle Birds Versus
the Black Invaders and It's a short story collection Now.
Corinth also published some of the short stories from the
pulp magazine Terror Tales. They did two paperbacks featuring these stories.
The titles were The House of Living Death and Other
Terror Tales, published in August nineteen sixty six, and then
(27:52):
a month later, Death's Loving Arms and Other Terror Tales.
The publisher went out of business under pressure from lawsuits
and financial struggles. Go figure. Another pulp that landed in
the paperback market is G eight and His Battle Aces.
This was a pulp magazine produced by Popular Publications that
was first published in October nineteen thirty. For the first
(28:14):
two years, the magazine was titled Battle Aces. Then it
switched names to G eight and His Battle Aces to
make it more of a pulp hero publication. I believe
there were nearly one hundred and forty issues of the
magazine all the way to the final issue in June
nineteen forty four. The series was written by Robert J. Hogan.
With the popularity of pulps being reborn in paperback, Berkeley
(28:36):
gained the rights to print G eight and his Battle
Aces in paperback form beginning in nineteen seventy. Like many
of these publishers, Berkeley chose to reprint them mostly out
of order. They reprinted the first three in order, which
was The Bats Staffle, Purple Aces, and Ace of the
White Death. All three of these paperbacks featured Jim Steranco artwork,
and of course Steve Holland as the cover model. After
(28:58):
the third one, the publisher just shrank the magazine covers
to fit the paperbacks. Kind of lame. There were only
eighty of these paperbacks, all being published in nineteen seventy
and nineteen seventy one. There was one more paperback, I
believe in nineteen eighty five, called Scourge of the Steel
Mask from issue forty of that Pulp magazine, So you
got nine total paperbacks. The Scourge of the Steel Mask
(29:18):
was published by Blazing Publications. The last one I'm going
to include here it kind of sits sideways in our feature.
This is the comic strip The Phantom The publication history
for this title began in February nineteen thirty six as
a black and white daily comic strip written by Lee Falk.
It became a color Sunday strip in May of nineteen
(29:39):
thirty nine, and believe it or not, that comic strip
is still running today. Now Avon, wanting to get into
the heroes and paperback Idea publish fifteen The Phantom paperbacks
from nineteen seventy two through nineteen seventy five. Five of
these were authored by Lee Falk, Basil Cooper wrote two
of them, six were pinned by Ron Goulart using the
(29:59):
name Frank s Sean, Bruce Cassidy wrote one as Carson Bingham,
and Warren Shanahan wrote one as well. There was also
a nineteen ninety six novel adaptation of The Phantom movie
that starred Billy Zane. Now talking about pulp heroes, there
were two larger than life characters that hit paperbacks superstardom.
(30:20):
The first is Robert E. Howard's Conan the Simerian. This
character first appeared in the December nineteen thirty two issue
of Weird Tales in a story titled The Phoenix on
the Sword, which originally featured Call but at his for
made and it was reworked as a Conan story. Conan
would appear in sixteen more issues of Weird Tales through
(30:40):
nineteen thirty six. These stories, along with other Howard Conan stories,
were published in a series of hardcovers from nineteen fifty
three through nineteen fifty five by nom Press, but our
focuses on paperbacks. Howard's Conan novel, which was published as
a serial Weird Tales, was titled Hour of the Dragon
nome Press reach printed in hardcover in nineteen fifty as
(31:02):
Conan the Conqueror. In nineteen fifty three, Ace published Conan
the Conqueror as part of a double d thirty six
with art by Norman saundersh This was a paperback. Aside
from the Ace paperback, Conan went widely uncirculated from nineteen
thirty six all the way through nineteen sixty six. Beginning
in sixty six, a series of events happened between Howard's
(31:23):
literary agent, Glenn Lord, El Sprague de Camp and Lynn
Carter that allowed all of Howard's original Conan stories to
become reprinted in paperback form. These original Howard stories were
packaged with both de Camp and Carter's reworking of Howard's
unfinished manuscripts and even stories he wrote that didn't even
feature Conan. These two authors, which many Conan fans feel
(31:45):
were completely inferior to Howard, included these stories in the
paperback collections. Some Conan fans are okay with it, others
not so much. I can take them or leave them. Honestly,
I like Len Carter's writing for the most part, as
disjointing as it might be, but that's a feature for
another day. All we have here is a series of
twelve total paperbacks published by Lancer and then later Ace,
(32:08):
featuring Codan. However, of the pulp stories that Howard originally wrote,
there's only nine of these twelve books that have his
original stories. The artwork on the paperbacks was created by
Boris Valo, John Duelo, and of course Frank Frazetta Roberty Howard.
Solomon Kine hero was also featured in Weird Tales. The
first story, Read Shadows, was published in the August and
(32:31):
nineteen twenty eight issue. There were six more Solomon Kine
stories published in Weird Tales through nineteen thirty two. Like Conan,
Solomon Kane goes mostly uncirculated for many decades. There were
some hardcover reprints of the Solomonkin stories in nineteen sixty
eight by Donald M. Grant and three books by Centaur
Press from sixty nine through seventy one, but for mass
(32:52):
market paperbacks, the first one was probably Bantam's in nineteen
seventy eight publication Solomon kan Skulls and the Stars, which
reprinted many of Howard Solomon Kaine's stories. Another Bantam paperback
followed titled Solomon Kane The Heels of the Dead in
nineteen seventy nine. Bain Books also did a nice collection
(33:13):
of these reprinted stories in nineteen ninety five as a
mass market paperback edition. Another of Howard's heroes was El Borak.
He was first published in the December nineteen thirty four
issue of Top Notch and continued for two more appearances
in Top Notch in thirty five than one in Complete
Stories and Thrilling Adventures in nineteen thirty six. The character
stories were reprinted in paperbacks by Ace titled Three Bladed
(33:37):
Doom in seventy nine, and that same title by Zebra
earlier in nineteen seventy seven. I'm Not Going to cover
any more Howard heroes on this feature because honestly, there's
a ton but that gives you sort of an idea
of the Howard work, and Howard evolved from pulp to paperback.
But the other major hero I wanted to talk about
other than Conan today was Tarzan, the jungle Hero, authored
(34:00):
by Edgar Rice Burroughs, made his debut in the pulp
magazine The All Story in October nineteen twelve. Tarzan would
later appear in pulp magazines like New Story Magazine, All Story, Cavalier,
All Story Weekly, Blue Book, The Glossy Magazine, Red Book, Argusy, Argusy,
All Story Weekly, and Liberty. Like Codan, Tarzan's first move
(34:22):
from the pulps was to hardcore editions. Like Codan, Tarzan's
first move from pulps was to hardcover editions the paperbacks
that most people remember that reprint Tarzan books as that
of Ace. Now. Ace did a publishing spree and published
a ton of Tarzan novels in the nineteen sixties, thinking
that the character and books had fallen into public domain.
(34:42):
Egar Rice Burrough's estate found out about the Ace publications
and quickly stopped production. I believe Ace got ten paperbacks
out though, beginning in nineteen sixty two. These are probably
the most collectible of the paperbacks because of Frank Frazetta
and Roy Krinkle's amazing cover paintings. Now Valentine got into
it as well. They officially published all of the Tarzan
books with fantastic artwork by the likes of Neo Adams.
(35:06):
But other paperback publishers did Tarzan pulp reprints too, like
Dell Dover Signet a Bantam. In fact, many of Egger
Rice Burroughs's stories and novels were reprinted in paperback from
their original pulp appearances. Series titles like John Carter of
mars Or was referred to as Barsoom was published in paperback.
Same for the Pollukadar series, cast Pack Moon, and Mucker.
(35:28):
These are all stories that were originally in the pulps
that found new life in the paperback market. So far,
what we've talked about are heroes and novels that experienced
extreme popularity as pulps. The paperbacks, for the most part
are sort of a compliment to the literary legacy. But
I wanted to kind of switch it up a little
bit and talk about paperback series titles that could be
(35:49):
more popular as paperbacks than the pulp version. This part
of the feature focuses on paperback series titles that started
out in the pulps, but over time became way more popular, lucrative,
and successful in the paperback format. The first of these
is Frank Kine's Private Detective Johnny Lddell. Before Ladell landed
(36:11):
in paperback heaven in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties,
he was created and starred in the pulp industry. The
first Johnny Lddell novel was Murder at Face Value, which
was published in Crack Detective Stories in January nineteen forty four.
There were several Ladell short stories through the nineteen forties
and Cracked Detective Stories, but by the time the nineteen
fifties rolled around, Frank kin changes his game up. He
(36:34):
starts writing brand new Johnny Lddell novels, but his novels
that appear in not only hardcover but also paperback. He
continues writing novels and short stories for the pulps at
the same time, but the pulps have mostly morphed into
digest magazines like Manhunt, Sat Detective magazine and Mike Shane
Mystery magazine. Frank Kin wrote novels for the paperback market.
(36:55):
He wrote shorts for the pulps and digests. Some of
his novels were pulp and die jests first, then later
were reprinted as paperbacks. He was just so versatile, and
his agent or publisher or whoever had the power of
persuasion that kept him in front of the buying consumer
through a lot of different formats, platforms and contracting. Another
private detective that was able to do the same sort
(37:17):
of thing was that of Mike Shane. Davis Dresser, who
wrote novels as Brett Halliday, wrote his first Mike Shane novel,
Dividend on Death, in nineteen thirty nine, as a hardcover.
He followed in nineteen forty with a sequel, The Private
Practice of Michael Shane. This launched an empire of Mike
Shane books, mostly in paperback, that ran for seventy installments
(37:39):
and ghostwriters once Dresser stepped away from the series. Now
these books were booming, but at the same time Dressers
hitting the pulp market hard by depositing the same character
in those short stories and novels. Mike Shane was in
Detective Fiction, Weekly, Detective Story Magazine, Black Mask, Thrilling, Detective, Master, Detective.
The list goes on and on for four forty five
(38:00):
more years. So he had seventy books, hundreds of short stories.
Davis Dresser knew how to utilize the pulp and paperback
market to his advantage. Still, with all those magazine stories,
I still feel like his books are probably the most
popular and most collectible. A classic in crime fiction and
mystery is The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Many fans, scholars,
(38:25):
and literary purists cite the book as the essential classic
that represents this era of pulp writing, but the book
is probably more popular than its pulp predecessor. The Maltese
Falcon appeared as a serial in Black Mask from September
nineteen twenty nine through January nineteen thirty. It then underwent
edits before being published as a hardcover in nineteen thirty
(38:46):
and then later in the more populated circulated paperback editions.
Hammett's other popular novels, like The Dane Curse and Read Harvest,
began life as serials in Black Masks before becoming widely
circulated in hardcover and paperback editions. Listen. I could probably
talk for a week straight NonStop on pulps that made
it to paperback, everything from Zanggray to Louis Lamore, and
(39:07):
hundreds and hundreds of vintage classics that are found in
the science fiction paperback aisle that started their trajectory as pulps.
I wanted to highlight some of these for you so
you'll know which ones are available in paperback. How you
can still collect mass market paperbacks that preserve the pulps
while the big trade editions and hardcovers are amazing and
are well packaged and presented. I don't know. I still
(39:28):
have a fondness for the old vintage paperbacks, and I
like to remain in that aisle of the bookshop. I
hope you enjoyed this feature on pulps to paperback. My
sources were The Thrilling Detective, The fictionmag Index, Fantasyhandbook dot Com,
Fantastic Fiction, Mystery File dot com, James Reasoner's blog, Erbziin
dot com, Greenleaf, hyphen Classics Hyphenbooks dot com, Pulp Hermit
(39:52):
Blog from a Secret location dot com, Spider Returns dot com,
Glorious Trash Archive dot org, spy Guys Gals, dotsavage dot org,
The pulp dot Net, Adventures in Bronze dot Co, PulpFest
dot Com, Just Nevins dot com, Shadow Sanctum dot net,
and the Living Shadow dot fandom dot com. All right,
(40:14):
my last segment today is dedicated to the BookTube event
known as garb August. This is something that book tuber
criminally came up with to celebrate the very worst in
trash fiction. And there's two sides to it. Really, There's
the celebration of trash that would be perceived as literary
awfulness to the mainstream reading community, but it's in fact
fantastic to you and I. Or there's the trash that
(40:36):
is universally awful means everyone hates it. I'm going with
universally awful. And I chose three books to highlight from
the paperback Warrior Hall of Shame. So my first one
is Conan the Defiant. It was written by Steve Perry, No,
not the former Journey singer, the sci fi and fantasy
Steve Perry. He wrote this Conan paperback and he wrote
(40:58):
a couple other ones as well. This Conan the Defiant
was published by Tour in nineteen eighty seven, and it's
absolutely awful. In the book, Conan goes to the aid
of this priest who's fighting off enemies using only a staff.
Conan becomes intrigued and the two are friends. But when
the two go back to the priest's house to celebrate,
the priest ends up getting killed, and then Conan is
(41:19):
off to revenge his newfound friend. There's this necromancer named
Neg who's got an army of zombies, and this beauty
queen named Tun and a henchman named Skier. Now Neg
is on a quest to get this amulet called the
Source of Light. If he can get it, guess what
he can grow more zombies for his army. Everyone wants that.
(41:39):
Now Tun, she escapes and she finds Conan, and now Conan, Tuan,
and this other woman are a trio. There's this army
of tarantulas that's hunting Skier while Conan's searching for Nag.
But Neg already knows that Conan's after him, so he
sends an army of zombies to follow Conan. It's an
absolute mess where the reader doesn't even know who's chasing who.
(42:00):
It's a mess and absolute mess, and one of the
worst of the Tory conin paperbacks. The Hall of Shame
was built for these types of books. Again. This is
Conan The Defiant by Steve Perry. The second one I
wanted to Highlight or Lowlight is titled Decoy Number one,
The Great Pretender by Jim Dean. This is a Signet
series that was published in nineteen seventy four, not the
(42:23):
other Decoy series that's pretty good and this one. Decoy
is a guy named Nick Mrlatti, known as the Great
Pretender and the Prince of Crime. He specializes in art theft.
As the book begins, he's in prison and the Feds
want to use him because he's got what's considered a
computer brain that allows him to quickly escape conflicts, decipher
(42:43):
the most complex problems, and perform an array of self
defense tactics. He's a former US marine. He's got a
gadgets with sykicknamed Waves. Murlotti's let out of prison to
do a job for the Feds by locating a mobster
named Gianfredo. Here's the way Murlatti does. He goes and
steals a US Coastguard boat. He then goes and steals
(43:06):
heroin intended for Gianfredo. Whatever his name is. He then
returns this heroin filled yacht to Gianfredo and apologizes and
says he thought he was intercepting some other drug dealer's cargo.
This gets Gianfredo's trust. Murlatti then explains he's working for
the FEDS and they got him out of prison to
get Gianfredo. Gianfredo says he already knew about Murlatti and
(43:26):
his mission again, so he hires Merlatti. I don't understand it.
The plot is just awful. It goes nowhere. Plus there
is entire scenes of the book where characters are talking
to each other that aren't even in the same room
with each other based on the lines before it. At
one point, Murlatti's talking to a woman who's already been
described in previous paragraphs as being in a different building
(43:46):
with a different character. It's crazy. This book is terrible,
and it can only encourage you to stay away from
it again. It's Decoy number one, The Great Pretender by
a real guy named Jim Dean. The Last One I
wanted to tell you about is titled a Texan came
writing by Frank o' rourke. It was published in nineteen
fifty eight by signet. In this book, a hard gun
(44:07):
named John arrives in the town of Taos with a
stack of letters. These are all from people swearing that
a land baron named Charles Malcolm cheated and swindled them.
He presents the letters to the town sheriff. Then readers
are introduced to this Malcolm guy and realize he's a wealthy,
stereotypical Western villain. But he's got a witch. This witch
cast spells and condradus curses on all of his enemies.
(44:30):
He's also laid half the women in town, but his
most prized pick is a woman named Rachel, who he
just impregnated. John a sheepherder. Rachel plus the sheriff all
go up against Malcolm and his witch. There's pages and
pages of dialogue between Malcolm and his witch, and it's
just the most boring stuff you can possibly imagine. The
book is only one hundred and twenty eight pages, but
(44:50):
it felt more like seven hundred. The witch stuff was ridiculous.
John is a complete moron. I hated this book and
you will too. And that does it for garb August
and it finishes out this episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
Please please remember to follow a Paperback Warrior on Facebook, x, Instagram, TikTok,
(45:11):
and threads. And you can also check out the YouTube
channel subscribe there you'll find a truck full of videos
to keep you occupied for hours on end. There's also
playlist there, so you can just go to a playlist
and like watch shopping videos NonStop if you want. If
you're going to buy any of the books that I
review on the blog, most reviews have an affiliate link
at the very bottom, just leading you to purchase the
(45:32):
book on either Amazon or abe Books. When you use
that link, I get a few cents. I'll hit the
research trail and write another episode very soon. Thanks for
listening to this one. If you're new here and I
advertise at PulpFest, so maybe you're new from PulpFest and
you got the referral, Hey, welcome aboard. This is a
great show. Subscribe you'll get new episodes constantly, go back
(45:53):
and listen to the old ones. I'll go ahead start
working on the next episode, and I will talk at
you guys next time. Take care, bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.