vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Cover of the National Enquirer published today in 1966, with a feature on Adam West, who was banking serious dollars on television’s campy superhero series Batman. By the way, we often see West referred to as the original Batman, but that isn’t true. This guy is the original Batman.
In Vietnam, American troops kill between 350 and 500 unarmed citizens, all of whom are civilians and a majority of whom are women, children, babies and elderly people. Many victims are sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies are mutilated. The incident doesn’t become public knowledge until 1969, but when it does, the American war effort is dealt one of its worst blows.
American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago.
French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but produced nearly 3,500 covers during his career.
In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.
In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.
