“The Doors of Vast Airlocks Opened”
“The doors of vast airlocks opened.” Some nice 1930s pulp illustrations with the swell captions of the day. Art by Elliot Dold here and here. Art by M. Marchioni here and here.
Fred Saberhagen, RIP
City on Fire and Days of Atonement author Walter Jon Williams has a eulogy up at his blog for Fred Saberhagen, who died a little over a week ago. Williams writes about Saberhagen’s unacknowledged influence on fantasy, science fiction and horror. And he tells a couple of nice […]
Superheros on a Slant
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! brings back fond memories of the passionate works of maniacal genius I’ve occasionally scored at book fairs and zine shows—tracts with titles like “Thousands of Degrees Hot!” and minicomics like “Linda Saves Detroit” or “The Brain Parasites.” Fletcher Hanks’ comics are […]
Tired of Saving You
There’s a panel in Secret Agent X-9 that fascinates me. In it, X-9 tells a woman and her father, “I’m tired of saving your lives.” The panel appears in the second half of Dashiell Hammett’s first Secret Agent X-9 storyline, “You’re the Top!” That’s right—Dashiell Hammett scripted a […]
In the Sewer with the Alligators
I’m tired of the two-camera, hour-long drama. I’m tired of the Oscar-oriented mainstream film. I’m tired of “literary fiction,” you know, respectable middlebrow art. I don’t enjoy everyday reality heightened with swelling strings. I’m tired of realism’s conventions; so I’ve been turning to comics, pulp fiction, cartoons and […]
The Dead Body Politic
The adage has it that truth is stranger than fiction. I swear that’s true in Mexico. One of my favourite writers, hardboiled crime novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II, has to struggle to keep up with the absurd plot of his beloved nation. Although Taibo is a fine writer, […]
The Cultural Gutter 