Paperback Fanatic 9

Man, this is so hot through the letterbox, I haven’t even managed to extract it from the envelope!

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #9 (February 2009)

A quick flick through before i settle down to actually read the thing, and what immediately catches the eye? Plenty! There’s a lengthy feature on The Man From O.R.G.Y. and his fellow international men of mystery as “The Fanatic dives into the world of sexy spies and double-d double agents.’ Curt Purcell of the incomparable Beyond The Groovy Age Of Horror investigates The Twilight World Of Eli Podgram, star of Nel’s six-part ‘Specialist’ series from the early ‘seventies. There’s an interview with and overview of Peter Tremayne’s career as a horror, fantasy and Crime author and John Mains’ interrogates Chris Lowder about his Mills & Boon Blood Of Dracula outing as Jack Hamilton Teed. Bootboys and Bovver girls are as well catered for as man or woman can ever be with Skinhead Revival: Richard Allen and his delinquent spawn unleashed across seven pages, one of which is commandeered by a certain Franklin ‘Suedehead’ Marsh! As you maybe guessed from the cover, the featured classic artist of the issue is Nel/ Mayflower serial offender Richard Clifton-Day and, of course, there is Fanatical Thoughts, the unmissable letters department, and a right old fiends reunited affair it is with loads of names familiar from this board offering their support and encouragement. Fanatical Thoughts is my absolute favourite department of any publication you care to mention.

As you’re no doubt aware, Justin is currently being kept very occupied by baby Sophie (wish you well, little one) so “No chance to update the PF site, but maybe you could mention £5.25 inc postage by paypal to my e-mail address and to pm me if they don’t know it.”

The email address is justinATjustincultprint.free-online.co.uk (replace the AT with @, obviously. Anti-spam precaution)

Thank you Justin!

Paperback Fanatic: The November Relaunch

Justin writes:

Lots of news! Including I will become a dad in February, although I suspect you’re far more interested in news of my other mutant off-spring The Paperback Fanatic!

The new-look Fanatic will be with you in November 2008

All issues bar 7 are now sold out (I’ll get to the web-site and update it ASAP).

The Fanatic will be re-launched in November as a quarterly publication from Sequential Media. There will be some changes to make it feel more like a magazine, but it should still very much feel like 95% of the original Fanatic. The new publishers also wanted me to carry on with the design to preserve the look, but bearing in mind the increased workload I’ve turned that over to them.

I’m currently writing Volume 2, Issue 3, so there are two issues currently being proof-read and designed. Maybe you could post the new dummy cover for people to check out?

Volume 2, issue 1 content includes-

Skinhead Revival!
The Fanatic traces the rise and fall of the most notorious and collectible of 1970s paperbacks- the skinhead pulps from New English Library (I had to write this one for FM!)

Jim Steranko, The Ivy League Vampire
The Fanatic takes its regular look at the classic paperback artists – this time it’s the legendary Jim Steranko under The Fanatic microscope

Confessions of a Paperback Fanatic
The full story behind the mag you hold in your very hands!

Edgar Rice Burroughs in paperback
With a Princess of Mars movie in production, The Fanatic digs out its collection of British ERB paperbacks and takes a trip to Mars, Venus and Pellucidar

A Fistful of Pulps!
The Fanatic chats with Terry Harknett, the man behind the George G Gilman pseudonym and the million selling spaghetti westerns in print- Edge and Steele

Fanatical Thoughts
Fanatics from around the world have their say on the letters page

The Paperback Dungeon
Updates and corrections to previous features, as well as the latest news, reviews and gossip

Men’s Adventure
In this first instalment of a regular feature on Men’s Adventure pulps, The Fanatic looks at the Malko super-spy series

Pulp Horror Has Risen From The Grave!
The concluding part to The Fanatic’s study of the classic horror pulps of the 1970s

So there you go! Can’t wait to see it out there. I think the launch event will be at the ABC Fair in London in November, so nearer the time I’ll be looking to drum up some support from various alcoholic members of Vault to turn up and cause mischief!

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.