Vintage Pulp

July 3 2022

TERMINATION FOR CAUSE

This is the part of dating I hate. Getting caught by my husband.

Above: a cover for Michael Underwood’s 1961 novel Cause of Death, part of a series starring franchise character Detective-Superintendent Simon Manton. Underwood, who was in reality John Michael Evelyn, wrote more than fifty novels during his literary career, with Det. Manton starring in more than a dozen. This cover was painted by Josh Kirby, an interesting artist we don’t encounter often, but who we’ve managed to highlight three times. You can see those here, here, and here. This one would have fit nicely with our collection of covers featuring couples caught in the act of cheating. Check here for that.

Corgi Books, Michael Underwood, John Michael Evelyn, Josh Kirby, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 2 2020

A RESPECTED NAME IN LITERATURE

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a Master H.E. Bates. Is there anyone here who's Master Bates?

Author of numerous novels, short story collections, essays, and three—count ’em three—autobiographies, H.E. Bates has been described by numerous critics and peers as a master storyteller. Which makes him master Bates. We know—we’re totally juvenile. We blame the booze. Also, he wrote a book called Spella Ho, a tricky grammatical proposition we’ve discussed in the past. There we go being juvenile again. It’s inappropriate, because Bates was an important author who had major literary game and deserves a serious discussion. But not today. It’s Friday. We have cava sangria chilling and the PI girls waiting.

We will tell you, though, that Charlotte’s Row is an early Bates novel, coming in 1931, and that this Panther Books paperback edition appeared in 1958. The story deals with an alcoholic bootmaker and his daughter, who live in poverty on the eponymous street. It’s a detailed chronicle of the soulcrushing conditions in British factory towns around the turn of the last century, which is to say it’s Dickensian rather than pulp, but we shared this anyway because we love the cover by Josh Kirby. We may or may not return to master Bates, but we will definitely see Kirby’s excellent work again. For now, you can have a look at two more great examples of his genius here and here, and an entire gallery at his website here.

Britain, Panther Books, H.E. Bates, Herbert Ernest Bates, Josh Kirby, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 13 2018

SOMEONE TO COUNT ON

… two... and three. Wait. I screwed up again. That would've been on three and. I meant to do it on three.

Here’s something backwards from what we usually share—a novel adapted from a film instead of vice versa. The Camp on Blood Island is a 1958 British-made World War II film written by J.M. White and Val Guest, and when you learn it was produced by schlockmeisters deluxe Hammer Film you could be forgiven for suspecting it was low rent b-cinema, but this is Hammer trying to be highbrow.

Near the end of the Pacific War, a Japanese prison camp commandant decides that if Japan surrenders he’ll execute all his prisoners. So the prisoners decide to prevent news of any prospective surrender from reaching the commandant by sabotaging communications, and they also prepare to rebel when the times comes.

We may check the film out sometime, but we were mainly drawn by the paperback art. Not only did it remind us that prison camp novels are yet another subset of mid-century literature, but we saw the Josh Kirby signature on this one and realized we haven’t featured him near enough. Last time we ran across him was on this excellent piece. We’ll dig around for more. And we may also put together a small collection of prisoner-of-war covers later. They range from true stories to blatant sexploitation, and much of the art is worth seeing.

Malaya, World War II, Panther Books, Hammer Studios, The Camp on Blood Island, J.M. White, Val Guest, Josh Kirby, cover art, literature

Musiquarium, Vintage Pulp

March 3 2017

BLOWING HIS FUTURE

Work hard, play hard, die young, live forever.

Dorothy Baker’s hit 1938 novel Young Man with a Horn tells a story inspired by jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who, along with Louis Armstrong, was one of the most important early jazz soloists, but who drank himself to death in 1931, when he was only twenty-eight. Baker’s protagonist is Rick Martin, who gets to live a couple of years longer than Beiderbecke before she knocks him off. Hope that didn’t give too much away. The book was optioned by Hollywood and became a 1950 movie starring Kirk Douglas, which we talked about last year. The great cover, our primary interest today, was painted by British artist Josh Kirby, a legendary illustrator who during his long career did fronts for westerns, crime thrillers, James Bond novels, and non-fiction books, as well as creating many fronts and interior illustrations for sci-fi magazines. As you can see, he had a bold vision and a very confident hand. We’ll keep an eye out for more of his work. This one is from 1962, for Corgi Books.

Britain, Corgi Books, Young Man with a Horn, Dorothy Baker, Josh Kirby, Bix Beiderbecke, Kirk Douglas, cover art, literature, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 15

1920—League of Nations Holds First Session

The first assembly of the League of Nations, the multi-governmental organization formed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The League begins to fall apart less than fifteen years later when Germany withdraws. By the onset of World War II it is clear that the League has failed completely.

November 15

1959—Clutter Murders Take Place

Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith. The events would be used by author Truman Capote for his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, which is considered a pioneering work of true crime writing. The book is later adapted into a film starring Robert Blake.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.