Vintage Pulp

November 14 2016

SHAGGY DOG STORY

After the apocalypse man's best friend is more important than ever.

This is a pretty unassuming poster considering A Boy and His Dog is one of the top cult films of the 1970s. It was painted by Robert Tanenbaum, a major talent in the realm of American cinema illustration. Based on a novella by Harlan Ellison, and starring a young Don Johnson as well as early Pulp Intl. femme fatale Susanne Benton (who you can see in all her glory here), A Boy and His Dog is a post-apocalyptic tale of desperate survivors wandering radioactive wastelands scratching out a hard fought existence. Mutations have done a number on living creatures, which is why Johnson’s co-star is a shaggy telepathic dog named Blood. Man and dog have a symbiosis, with Johnson offering protection, the dog sniffing out food and women, and both profiting companionship.

Sounds goofy, we know, but the telepathic dog bit really works. Blood is irascible, but funny, smart, and warm, while Johnson is a slave to his id and libido. Ultimately, circumstances offer a choice between a dangerous and unpredictable freedom on the wastelands, or a secure but tedious existence in an underground sanctuary. The final question becomes whether conventionality diminishes a man. Playing like a bizarro prequel to The Road Warrior, and ultimately revealing itself to be a barroom joke stretched out to feature length, this is a film we recommend, however be forewarned that Harlan Ellison’s post-apocalypse is a tough place for women. A Boy and His Dog premiered in the U.S. today in 1975.

A Boy and His Dog, Don Johnson, Susanne Benton, Harlan Ellison, L.Q. Jones, Robert Tanenbaum, poster art, cinema, sci-fi, movie review

Modern Pulp

June 12 2012

DELINQUENT ACCOUNTS

Harlan Ellison collection of early street fiction hits bookstore shelves.

Good news for pulp fans. Norton Records, through its publishing arm Kick Books, is releasing a collection of post-pulp author Harlan Ellison’s early juvenile delinquent fiction. Ellison, many of you already know, made his rep writing some of the most out there sci-fi of the 1960s and 1970s, including 1969’s classic novella “A Boy and His Dog,” 1974’s award winner “The Deathbird,” and 1978’s collection Strange Wine. The new Kick Books collection, entitled Pulling a Train, brings together Ellison’s juvenile delinquent fiction, which he wrote during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

For those unfamiliar with his work, we could cite chapter and verse some of the astounding prose he’s set to paper (“Croatoan,” “All the Birds Come Home To Roost,” “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”), but instead just consider this: one of his favorite activities over the years has been to sit in a bookstore window beginning at opening time, and by the end of the day have written a complete short story. On a typewriter. And to make the feat more challenging, the premise or first sentence of the story would be supplied to him by a stranger. Yet, at least one of these tales went on to win awards. You can learn a bit more about the unique Ellison and his new collection at the Norton Records/Kick Books website.

Norton Records, Kick Books, A Boy and His Dog, Harlan Ellison, cover art, literature

Femmes Fatales

December 12 2008

BENTON PLEASURE

The girl with the sweet plump knees.

Above: a thrilling shot of American actress Susanne Benton, who appeared in numerous films during the late 1960s and into the 1970s, but is a cult favorite because of her turn as Quilla June Holmes in the post-apocalyptic classic A Boy and His Dog. She’s seen here in 1970. The “sweet plump knees” subhead, by the way, comes from a well-known Thomas Dewey pulp novel.

A Boy and His Dog, Susanne Benton, cinema, nudity

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

July 16

1941—DiMaggio Hit Streak Reaches 56

New York Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his fifty-sixth consecutive game. The streak would end the next game, against the Cleveland Indians, but the mark DiMaggio set still stands, and in fact has never been seriously threatened. It is generally thought to be one of the few truly unbreakable baseball records.

July 15

1939—Adams Completes Around-the-World Air Journey

American Clara Adams becomes the first woman passenger to complete an around the world air journey. Her voyage began and ended in New York City, with stops in Lisbon, Marseilles, Leipzig, Athens, Basra, Jodhpur, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Honolulu, and San Francisco.

July 15

1955—Nobel Prize Winners Unite Against Nukes

Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, which reads in part: We think it is a delusion if governments believe that they can avoid war for a long time through the fear of [nuclear] weapons. Fear and tension have often engendered wars. Similarly it seems to us a delusion to believe that small conflicts could in the future always be decided by traditional weapons. In extreme danger no nation will deny itself the use of any weapon that scientific technology can produce.

July 14

1921—Sacco & Vanzetti Convicted

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts of killing their shoe company’s paymaster. Even at the time there are serious questions about their guilt, and whether they are being railroaded because of their Italian ethnicity and anarchist political beliefs.

July 13

1933—Eugenics Becomes Official German Policy

Adolf Hitler signs the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, and Germany begins sterilizing those they believe carry hereditary illnesses, and those they consider impure. By the end of WWII more than 400,000 are sterilized, including criminals, alcoholics, the mentally ill, Jews, and people of mixed German-African heritage.

July 13

1955—Ruth Ellis Executed

Former model Ruth Ellis is hanged at Holloway Prison in London for the murder of her lover, British race car driver David Blakely. She is the last woman executed in the United Kingdom.

July 13

1966—Richard Speck Rampage

Richard Speck breaks into a Chicago townhouse where he systematically rapes and kills eight student nurses. The only survivor hides under a bed the entire night.

DON’T RIDE THE WHITE HORSE

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.

BARN GIRLS

Two Spanish language digest novels from Argentine publishers Malinca Debora and Malinca Nueva Pandora.

Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.

LOVES OF A BLONDE