Femmes Fatales

January 4 2015

TIMELESS IN TUNISIA

Anna Karina gives an ancient place a touch of contemporary beauty.

Anna Karina, née Hanne Karin Bayer, is a famed model, novelist, singer, and award-winning actress, who was a muse of French director Jean-Luc Godard, and star of such films as Alphaville, A Woman Is a Woman, and Chinese Roulette. She has also directed two movies, with the latest appearing in 2008. All very amazing, considering she was homeless and unable to speak French when she was discovered by an advertising exec in a Paris café at age seventeen. The above photo was made in Tunisia (standing in for Egypt) for her 1969 film Justine.

Denmark, France, Tunisia, Paris, Alphaville, A Woman Is a Woman, Chinese Roulette, Justine, Anna Karina, Hanne Karine Bayer, Jean-Luc Godard, cinema

Modern Pulp

January 3 2009

VALENTINA DAY

Thrift market digging disgorges buried treasure.

So there we were in Madrid, digging for pulp gems at the outdoor market on the Prado, when we spotted Valentina au Débotté by the immortal comic artist Guido Crepax. Since this was a French translation, rather than an original Italian edition, we figured to score it for a song. After some expert negotiations that served to lower the asking price exactly 0.0 percent, we paid fifteen euros. But at least we got the book, and what a book it is.

Crepax began the Valentina series in 1965, and nurtured it into an international sensation that ran until 1995. Basically, it was erotica, but delicately drawn and infused with a 60s insouciance and dreaminess that somehow made it both titillating and highbrow. Crepax published other famous series, and drew adaptations of Emmanuelle, The Story of O, Justine and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but the Valentina series was his crowning achievement.

Reading any of the Valentina stories is like stepping through Lewis Carroll’s looking glass, but Valentina au Débotté is Crepax at his psychedelic best, deftly immersing his heroine in typically bizarre adventures, including riding a broomstick and having sex with an octopus. Crepax died in 2003, but not before amassing many awards and seeing his work translated into multiple languages. The book we found would have lasted at most another ten minutes at the busy Prado market, but we had gotten there early, which means we’re the lucky ones who now own this treasure. We found some scans online from the same book and posted several below for your enjoyment.

Italy, Spain, Prado, Valentina au Débotté, Emmanuelle, The Story of O, Justine, Guido Crepax, Lewis Carroll, Mary Shelley, comic art

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 6

1935—Parker Brothers Buys Monopoly

The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.

November 6

1991—Gene Tierney Passes Away

American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.

November 5

1937—Hitler Reveals His Plans for Lebensraum

Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting with Nazi officials and states his intention to acquire “lebensraum,” or living space for Germany. An old German concept that dated from 1901, Hitler had written of it in Mein Kampf, and now possessed the power to implement it. Basically the idea, as Hitler saw it, was for the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations to the east, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate those lands with a Germanic upper class.

November 5

1991—Fred MacMurray Dies

American actor Fred MacMurray dies of pneumonia related to leukemia. While most remember him as a television actor, earlier in his career he starred in 1944’s Double Indemnity, one of the greatest films noir ever made.

November 4

1955—Cy Young Dies

American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.

November 4

1970—Feral Child Found in Los Angeles

A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.