Intl. Notebook

February 22 2023

PINK JOURNALISM

Police Gazette was a different shade of tabloid.

Above: scans from an issue of The National Police Gazette published this month in 1942. Back then the magazine averaged sixteen pages, which means you just saw everything except a few pages of advertisements. Gazette would later greatly increase its page count, lose its pink shade, and take on the outward appearance of a standard tabloid, but it always stood apart from Confidential, Whisper and other top scandal sheets because it was less focused on Hollywood. Instead, it saved space for boxing, baseball, horse racing, and burlesque. It was one of the longest lived magazines in the U.S., and you can track its evolution through more than seventy-five issues at our tabloid index at this link. Just click and scroll down to “Police Gazette.”

Police Gazette, Eleanor Sheridan, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 7

1941—Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor

The Imperial Japanese Navy sends aircraft to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its defending air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While the U.S. lost battleships and other vessels, its aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor and survived intact, robbing the Japanese of the total destruction of the Pacific Fleet they had hoped to achieve.

December 6

1989—Anti-Feminist Gunman Kills 14

In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.

December 5

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

December 5

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

December 4

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

December 4

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.

PARIS BLEUS

The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.

RAISE EM UP

Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.