AVENGER’S ENDGAME

There's no plan B. There's only payback.

Above you see a cover for The Avenger, written by Matthew Blood and published in 1952. It’s a detective novel that reads like a parody. It was the first of two starring hard-boiled private dick Morgan Wayne, and it’s immediately clear why the character lasted only two outings. In many hard-boiled detective books the hero is unrealistically tough and the women unbelieveably pliant, but here that’s taken to a ridiculous extreme, only with poor writing that makes clear that this is not a parody, but a serious attempt at urban crime drama in the Spillane mold. At one point the anti-hero Wayne bites the head off a crook’s prized goldfish then shoots him. This is all in pursuit of the person who killed Wayne’s new secretary Lois, who he’d been looking forward to laying:

He concentrated fiercely on visualizing her as she must be waiting for him now. That was the only drawback to this affair. There hadn’t been enough build-up. Not enough expectation. Nothing at all of the slow and delicious burning that gradually takes complete possession of a man during the period of delightful dalliance that generally precedes the consummation of a civilized love affair.

So much wrong with that paragraph. Delightful dalliance that precedes consummation? But we’ll let it pass:

She must be waiting for him in her apartment now, damn it. Soaking up the warmth of a hot bath while she waited for him and anticipated his coming. He savagely cursed the circumstances that were keeping them apart, and unconsciously trod the accelerator closer and closer to the floor boards…

That’s pretty bad too. Anyway, Wayne arrives at Lois’s apartment to find her dead and mutilated, and along the road to solving the crime he’s pursued sexually by a sixteen-year-old, her mother, and various other cock-starved characters, before climbing the ladder to the person who ordered the murder and taking care of business. It’s all written in the same graceless fashion as the above examples. The amazing part is that Matthew Blood was a pseudonym for W. Ryerson Johnson and David Dresser. There’s no excuse for two brains producing a half-witted book. We do like the cover art, though, and no wonder—it’s Barye Phillips again.

Fawcett Publications, Gold Medal Books, Matthew Blood, W. Ryerson Johnson, David Dresser, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

December 3 2014

HOT FOR EACH OTHER

They got on like a hayloft afire—until the barn burned down.

In pulp, people are careless with cigarettes, as we’ve pointed out before, and above is another example. Originally published in 1937 as Too Smart for Love, Rainbow Books came out with this digest paperback in 1951. The set-up here is simple—bad girl Janet Stang pursues men for their money. Author Kathryn Culver was in reality the prolific Davis Dresser, who also wrote as Brett Halliday, Don Davis, Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, et.al. The art here is by Howell Dodd and it’s top quality work, in our opinion. Dodd had a thing about redheads and made them a staple of his work, so we’re going to gather up a collection of these women and show you more later.

Rainbow Books, Kathryn Culver, David Dresser, Brett Halliday, Don Davis, Asa Baker, Matthew Blood, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Howell Dodd, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 14

1911—Team Reaches South Pole

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, along with his team Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first person to reach the South Pole. After a celebrated career, Amundsen eventually disappears in 1928 while returning from a search and rescue flight at the North Pole. His body is never found.

December 13

1944—Velez Commits Suicide

Mexican actress Lupe Velez, who was considered one of the great beauties of her day, commits suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. In her note, Velez says she did it to avoid bringing shame on her unborn child by giving birth to him out of wedlock, but many Hollywood historians believe bipolar disorder was the actual cause. The event inspired a 1965 Andy Warhol film entitled Lupe.

December 13

1958—Gordo the Monkey Lost After Space Flight

After a fifteen minute flight into space on a Jupiter AM-13 rocket, a monkey named Gordo splashes down in the South Pacific but is lost after his capsule sinks. The incident sparks angry protests from the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but NASA says animals are needed for such tests.

December 12

1968—Tallulah Bankhead Dies

American actress, talk show host, and party girl Tallulah Bankhead, who was fond of turning cartwheels in a dress without underwear and once made an entrance to a party without a stitch of clothing on, dies in St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia complicated by emphysema.

December 11

1962—Canada Has Last Execution

The last executions in Canada occur when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin, both of whom are Americans who had been extradited north after committing separate murders in Canada, are hanged at Don Jail in Toronto. When Turpin is told that he and Lucas will probably be the last people hanged in Canada, he replies, â€œSome consolation.â€

December 11

1964—Guevara Speaks at U.N.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, representing the nation of Cuba, speaks at the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. His speech calls for wholesale changes in policies between rich nations and poor ones, as well as five demands of the United States, none of which are met.

December 11

2008—Legendary Pin-Up Bettie Page Dies

After suffering a heart attack several days before, erotic model Bettie Page, who in the 1950s became known as the Queen of Pin-ups, dies when she is removed from life support machinery. Thanks to the unique style she displayed in thousands of photos and film loops, Page is considered one of the most influential beauties who ever lived.