Attention Bruce Pennington Fans!

From the maker of Paperback Fanatic: coming soon!

PENNINGTON – a portrait of a master fantasy artist

Legendary for his paperback covers for H P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Herbert, Edgar Rice Burroughs and more, Bruce Pennington gets the Fanatic treatment
If you’re not familiar with his work, check out the attached covers for a taste!
Two volumes, totalling 140 pages with 125 full colour reproductions of some of his most striking covers
Including an overview of his early career, an auto-biographical essay and a full checklist of his art.

Strictly limited edition based on orders received by 31st August
UK price for both volumes including postage £12.50
AIr-mail is £15.00
Order at the on-line shop now!

A Visual Guide To New English Library

Justin Marriott (ed.) – A Visual Guide To New English Library: Volume One (Nov. 2010) 

Blurb:
British Publisher New English Library are a legend amongst vintage paperback fans and collectors throughout the world.

Their cult output is celebrated in the first of an ongoing series of visual guides from the producers of The Paperback Fanatic magazine.

Volume one is crammed with full colour reproductions of rare covers. The glorious visuals are accompanied by insightful commentary and full bibliographical detail, including previously unrecorded information on pseudonyms.

more details on Vault Of Evil Forum:

Justin Marriott – Paperback Fanatic #16

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #16 (September 2010)

Justin Marriott – Fanatical Thoughts
Fanatical Mail (contributors include Guy N. Smith, Michel Parry, Andy Boot, Rob Matthews, Warren Murphy, Andreas Decker …)
Sennit Sez – Stephen Sennett on Karl E. Wagner and his notorious Three By Thirteen
Commander Amanda & Corporal Punishment – The Amanda Nightingale, Sexy Allied Spy Series.
Justin Marriott – Action, Romance & Mutants – Post Apocalyptic SF Mens Adventure: Ryder Stacy’s Doomsday Warrior.
Andy Boot – Strange Temptation: The tragic life of Hank Janson creator Stephen Frances
Justin Marriott – From Acme Publishing: Robert A. W. Lowndres magnificent Magazine Of Horror!
Martin Jones – The Devil Riders: Of Dracula & Buchenwald. Alex Stuart’s occult-tinged biker novels.

Out today – and bloody excellent it is too!You’ll need to contact Fanatic HQ if you want a copy – unless you live near TYPE in Bethnal Green which is now stocking single issues (while they last!)

See also Paperback Fanatic #16 thread on Vault forum.

Paperback Fanatic #12

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #12 (Nov. 2009)

Beyond the Silver Sky- an overview of Ken Bulmer’s work from Ace Doubles to Dray Prescott
The House of Bulmer- Andreas Decker looks at the enduring popularity Ken enjoyed in Germany
Masero Lives! Johnny Mains interviews the classic cover artist
Death Merchant- Andreas Decker gives the inside story on the outrageous men’s adventure series
The Four Gringos- saddles up with blood-thirsty western series Breed, Herne and Crow
Weird Tales at Panther- a much expanded and heavily illustrated 8-page reworking of The Paperback Dungeon checklist
When the Vile Take Over- at last we cover NEL’s Hells Angels poster mags

Just been unleashed! The usual eclectic, wildly entertaining celebration of  beautifully ugly and just plain hideous paperbacks from the ‘sixties and seventies.  Anthology fans will particularly enjoy the overview of Panther’s Weird Tales heavy output. Details  from Paperback Fanatic, and anti-review of sorts on the Vault forum.

Peter Haining – An Illustrated History Of Witchcraft

Peter Haining – An Illustrated History Of Witchcraft (New English Library, 1975: Pyramid, 1976)

Cover of the 1976 Pyramid paperback

The Witchcraft Tradition
The Wicca Gods
The Sabbat
The Power of Witches
The Inquisition
The Witch Hunters
Witchcraft Persecution in France
Witch Mania in Germany
The Spanish Terror
Witch Hysteria in Britain
The Witches of Salem
Cunning Men and Wise Women
Modern Witchcraft
The Rites of Wicca
Witchcraft Around the World

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for supplying the scan and contents list

Paperback Fanatic #10

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #10 (June, 2009)

Cover: John Holmes

Just crawled through the letterbox so without preamble, here’s what you get in #10

Stephen Sennitt on serious occultist turned top pulp author Gerald Suster.

Andreas Decker on the German editions of Donald Glut‘s ace New Adventures Of Frankenstein.

Justin Marriott on New English Library’s “Sex Manuals” of the ‘sixties & seventies.

John Mains interviews cover artist John “The Fontana Horror ‘Melting Heads’ man” Holmes.

Justin Marriott again on Barry Sadler, the man responsible for not only the Casca the Mercenary pulps but also the rabid pro-‘Nam US smash hit single The Ballad Of The Green Beret (!!!)

Roy Bayfield on Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy books’.

Justin (“I’m leaving to everyone else this issue”) Marriott on versatile and ludicrously prolific pulpster John Harvey whose credits include the Herne The Hunter series and a collaboration with Laurence James on the elusive snuff exploitation job Cut.

Four pages of Fanatical Thoughts

A tribute to Richard Gordon

Order your copy  via the Paperback Fanatic site!

Your Daily NEL

Robert Lory's 'Dracula Returns': a New English Library classic.

This has been on the back burner for a while. I was gonna wait until i’d posted a hundred items, tarted it up some but … nah, don’t get any momentum going that way. So, New English Library (and it’s ‘sixties forerunner Four Square). It’s the 1960’s/ 1970’s Peter Haining era NEL’s were most concerned with here, though i’m sure the occasional eighties or ‘nineties effort will make the cut from time to time.

Hope you get something out of it!

Love, gloomy

Justin Marriott – Paperback Fanatic 8

It’s out!

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #8 (December, 2008)

• Fanatical Thoughts
• Eaten Alive! The Fanatic continues it’s study of New English Library’s pulp horrors of the 1970’s
• The Ivy League Vampire. Paperback covers produced by the legendary comics creator Jim Steranko
• Men’s Adventure starring Sas Malko
• Terry Harknett: A Fistful of Pulps
• Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Paperbacks Time Forgot
• Fanatical Mail

I’ve just been handed this by an ashen-faced postman so you’ll not be getting a word of sense out of me for at least the rest of the day and possibly never again! Here’s the cover and contents for the time being. You’ll find all the ordering details at Paperback Fanatic.

Jeremy Novick & Mick Middles – Wham Bam Thank You Glam

Not a recent publication by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve taken a shine to Aurum, this book is so Vault and there can never be enough glampunk in the world – let’s give ’em a plug!

Jeremy Novick & Mick Middles – Wham Bam Thank You Glam: A Celebration of The ’70’s (Aurum, 1998).

blurb

Come On, Come On, Come
On, Come On, Come On,
Come On, Come On…
I SAID!

From A-line flares to Zebedee. from David Cassidy to the Austin Princess Vanden Plas. Wham Bam Thank You Glam is the first, the last, the everything you’ll ever need to remember those halcyon days of the 70s when men wore cheesecloth and women teetered on six-inch platforms.
This is more than just a celebration of Glam music (although there’s lots of that in here). this is a celebration of the whole glorious shebang – the clothes! the telly! the cars! the football! the sweeties: All recalled in fantastic dayglo shades of poptastic colour by some the real heroes of Glam.

All that Glitters is not gold – it could be Bacofoil – but it is exciting. The years between 1969 and 1976 (Punk year zero) were a riot of colour, humour, funny clothes, flash cars, weird sweeties and bizarre telly. People really did wear sea-green forty-inch flares and silver six-inch platforms while swigging a lime Crests and sitting in a bright yellow Ford Capri Mk I – and they weren’t all members of Mud or Paper Lace. The Glam years were strangely naive, yet widely debauched, the music was a brash over-played version of rock’n’roll with big drums and daft lyrics, the fashion tried to make bricklayers built like out­houses look like Quentin Crisp. Yes, it was a lot of fun, as our guides to the Glam years will testify within these pages.

– in the immortal words of that cool white bear:
‘It’s frothy, man!’

“Glam Music can be broken up into three distinct groups. The Chinnichap merchants, the Teenyboppers and the Geezers who just happened to be there …” – oversimplifying matters, perhaps – what about Bowie, Roxy, Marc, Mael bro’s, Iggy, Lou, Dolls and all the other space invaders from planet art? – but not a million miles wide of the truth.

This book is like the Bible or something. For example, there’s a top interview with the much-missed Brian Connolly of the Sweet in which he answers all the big ones. Which bands did the glam rockers’ really look up to? How did Sweet get on with their rivals? Who were the biggest copycats? What did Bri think of the Damned covering Teenage Rampage and punk in general? Ex-Man City bruiser Mike Summerbee is a revelation with his look at Football, Beer And Lots Of Girls: George Best And The Roots Of Glam. Dee Dee Wilde recalls her years in the lingerie catalogue come to life that was Pans People – “For a young girl it was the best job in the world”. The Glam Telly featured includes Jason King, The Sweeney, On The Buses (!!!!!!!?) and Man About The House while a ‘What’s on at the movies’ feature wisely concentrates on good old fashioned Brit smut like Come Play With Me, the Confessions … and the racier Carry On‘s. In the A-Z of Glam who should we find under ‘R’ but Richard Allen (the cover of whose Glam is also given some prominence in the literary dept though, understandably, not as much as Pop Swap).

It’s not perfect. For example, I’ve not found any mention of Dana Gillespie as yet, and she was just about the glammest person going in 1974 as the gratuitous use of above pic ably demonstrates, although on the plus side, Kenny’s risible Do The Bump doesn’t trouble the all-time Glam Top 20 chart so you’re laughing really.

For more glampunk, see the Vault of Evil forum’s ghastly rock & roll section.

Paperback Fanatic 7

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #7 (June, 2008)

New English Library Horror Pulps! Witches, warlocks, demons and virgin sacrifices feature in the first part of this study of the lurid and shocking horror pulps from the UK’s stalwart pulp publishers of the 1970s!

Laurence James- huge overview of the legendary editor and author of The Angels from Hell biker quartet, the Confessions books, the Witches as James Darke, Deathlands and so much more.

Jeff Jones- checklist and critical assessment of the highly collected fantasy cover artist.

Fred Nolan- a behind the scenes look at the British publishing industry with the larger than life Fred Nolan.

Just arrived this morning and needed to share it before i’ve even thought of hacking out one of my risible non-reviews.

Ordering details and much, much more from Paperback Fanatic. Justin’s magazine has made the nominations for best magazine in the 2008 British Fantasy Awards and, no disrespect to the other candidates, many of whose publications I’ve yet to investigate, but I’d so love to see a Fanatic win!