vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Martians decide they want to study a thousand Earthlings, including protagonists David and Janice, with the eventual goal of turning the entire human species into love slaves. Sounds easy, but of course unpredictable consequences result. The rear of the novel describes the story as “unbelievable but possible.” We think a better description would be, “Impossible, but you’ll want to believe.” 1960, with cover art from Basil Gogos.
As regular readers of this site know, whenever our friends over at National Road Books get their hands on a particularly pulpish title, they send us scans. Yesterday, they e-mailed over a classic—the 1982 collection Weird Vampire Tales from Gramercy Press. Inside are shorts from some of the writers who helped build the foundation horror literature stands upon today. We’re talking August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Greye La Spina, Frank Belknap Long, Seabury Quinn, and many others. The collection also contains Robert E. Howard’s famous “The Horror from the Mound,” a tale set in the old west about a cowboy’s growing suspicions that a nearby Indian burial mound is something entirely different. In all Gramercy packs thirty stories into this hardback, all of them culled from 1930s pulp magazines, and they even top it all off with an illustration by veteran Weird Tales illustrator Virgil Finlay. Highly recommended.
American actress Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid star in Hollywood during the late 1930s, dies in the crash of TWA Flight 3, on which she was flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after headlining a war bond rally in support of America’s military efforts. She was thirty-three years old.
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.
The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with between 20,000 to 30,000 people in attendance, their purpose being to promote their ideals of personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological preservation, and higher consciousness. The event is considered the beginning of the famed counterculture Summer of Love.
Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison in California, where he records a live album that includes a version of his 1955 hit “Folsom Prison Blues.” Cash had always been interested in performing at a prison, but was unable to until personnel changes at his record company brought in people who were amenable to the idea. The Folsom album was Cash’s biggest commercial success for years, reaching number 1 on the country music charts.
British serial killer Harold Shipman is found dead in his prison cell, after hanging himself with a bedsheet. Shipman, a former doctor who preyed on his patients, was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, with two-hundred and eighteen murders positively attributed to him, and another two-hundred of which he is suspected.
