Walk a city's streets and you never know what you'll find.
We were wandering around town earlier today, and what did we spy outside a sundries shop but a stack of vintage reading material. Wedged between English teaching books and bags of sawdust was a stack of José Mallorquí and Keith Luger paperbacks, and there were even more inside. All of which reminded us that we had posted something from Luger—aka Miguel Oliver Tovar—years ago, which can see at this link. We didn't buy any of today's pile, but we may mosey back round that way another morning and pick up a few. After all, why not? They're cheap as hell. Also, we want to know why people buy bags of sawdust, and we can only find out by going back to the store and asking. The overarching theme, though, is this: it's nice to be living in a city where we can find a bit of pulp style treasure just by taking a stroll. For years that wasn't the case.
The FBI’s ten most wanted. Above, a mix of ten covers of F.B.I. and F.B.I. Selecciones, published by two Spanish companies, Bruguera and Ediciones Rollán, during the 1960s and early 1970s. Art is by Prieto Muriana and others. Also, you may notice that cover three is modeled after a famous portrait of James Dean, and, though we aren't 100% sure, cover ten, just above, looks like it was based on Monica Vitti.
Pulp is where you find it. We’re back from our jaunt to Sevilla, Cordova, and Pamplona, and as promised we looked for and found some pulp. On a 100 Fahrenheit day in Cordova we met an antique dealer on the Plaza de la Corredera who had four crates of vintage cowboy pulps from the Spanish publishing houses Bruguera, Crucero, and Andina. The example below, entitled La Heina de Tulsa, was written by Marcial Lafuente Estefanía in 1983, just a year before his death. Bruguera cover art was often uncredited, however this one is attributed to someone identified as Garcia. We’ll get to uploading more of these later.
Wow this expensive body wash is great. Hope the missus doesn’t catch me using it. We’ve seen a lot of covers for James M. Cain’s classic 1934 pulp The Postman Always Rings, but never one quite as unhinged as this Bruguera Spanish edition. Whereas the art is almost comical, in the fiction Cain’s murderous lovers are anything but. In fact, Postman was considered so provocative for its time that it was banned in Boston. The book is short (possibly that’s why it’s paired here with Cain’s The Embezzler), and its concise story arc made it a natural for adaptation to cinema. Over the years it spawned four official film versions, and its influence is detectable in many other movies. We recommend giving this one a read, and also, take the lesson of the cover to heart and leave your girl’s fancy soaps alone.
In the future we’ll all wear jumpsuits or else. Check out these sweet covers we found. The little-known author Eric Sorenssen—not to be confused with the little-known author Eric Sorensen, with one ‘s’—wrote for the quite well known Heroes of Space series published by Spanish imprint Bruguera. We’ve seen no Sorenssen material in English, although it may be little known enough to have escaped our notice. We also know very little, or actually nothing, about who did the cover art—but it’s great.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.
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