ANTHONY GILBERT – The Woman in Red. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1941. Smith & Durrell, US, hardcover, 1943. Digest-sized paperback: Mercury Mystery #91. Also published as The Mystery of the Woman in Red: Handi-Books #29, paperback, 1944. Film: Columbia, 1945, as My Name Is Julia Ross. Film: MGM, 1987, as Dead of Winter.

MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS. Columbia, 1945. Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready. Based on the novel The Woman in Red, by Anthony Gilbert. Director: Joseph H. Lewis.

   I almost gave up on Anthony Gilbert’s The Woman in Red after the first few pages because it seemed like every other paragraph conveyed some form of Had-she-but-known, often more than once. F’rinstance: She was wondering why she should be so convinced that nothing but harm, of danger even, could come of this venture…her whole being shaken by a protest that was instinctive and illogical In her brain, a voice rang like a chiming bell, “Don’t go,” it pealed, “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!”

   At which point I damnear went. But I stayed with it and I’m glad I did. Woman in Red isn’t completely successful, but when the characters talk, they slip the surly bonds of Gilbert’s prose and come alive, with entertaining results. This was my introduction to series sleuth Anthony Crook, a delightfully irreverent character and light counterbalance to the turgid and often ridiculous story around him.

   Well, maybe not ridiculous; the tale of Julia Ross, a working girl who takes a position as an old dowager’s secretary, only to find herself whisked off to a remote house in the country where everyone calls her by another name and treats her like she’s crazy has some effective moments and even generates a good deal of suspense.

   But it’s hard to take a story seriously when the would-be killer tricks our heroine into wearing a red dress so as to rouse the deadly ire of a passing bull. And when the basis of the plot turns out to be a nest of foreign spies being coincidentally pursued by Julia’s beau…. Well I’m just glad there were enough bright characters and tricky bits of business to make it all worthwhile and even entertaining.

   Woman in Red was turned into a film called My Name Is Julia Ross (Columbia,1945) and it had the artistic fortune to be adapted by Muriel Roy Bolton and directed by Joseph H. Lewis, a filmmaker who brought artistry to just about everything he touched. Shot in 18 days (as delightfully detailed in Mike Nevin’s Joseph H. Lewis [Scarecrow, 1998]) on a budget that wouldn’t buy catering on most “A” pictures, this emerges as a riveting, atmospheric film, and one to look out for.

   Nina Foch is excellent as the imperiled heroine, set neatly against Dame May Whitty as the dotty-looking but sinister master- (or should it be mistress?) -mind. Even better, there’s George Macready as Whitty’s not-quite-right son. Bolton re-structures the basis of the plot, replacing spies with a background story that George married a wealthy heiress for her money, then inconveniently killed her. Now he and Mom need a replacement who can be passed off as the wife and meet a more acceptable end so he can inherit her fortune and avoid the gallows.

   It’s fine work from writer Bolton, who also did an intelligent job on something called The Amazing Mr. X, which I must get around to reviewing someday.

   Director Lewis does an outstanding job with all this. His off-beat angles and compositions are never just showy, but always work to establish character or atmosphere. And he creates a nifty tension between the murderous mother and son, with Whitty always trying to take knives and other sharp objects away, and Macready always on the point of rebelling — a nasty prospect from the look of him, and one he would relish. Macready’s career ran the gamut from the preposterous The Monster and the Ape to the prestigious Paths of Glory, but he was never better than right here, playing off Dame May Whitty like an incestuous Lorre and Greenstreet.

PostScript:   Mike Grost has a lot to say about this film on his website. Check out his long insightful article here. The movie was also reviewed by J. F. Norris on his blog. Here’s the link.

VINCE KOHLER – Rising Dog. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1992. No paperback edition.

   Unlike most of today’s comedy mystery writers, Vince Kohler (1948-2002) understood the key to quality comedic mystery fiction is a good mystery with comedic elements, not how funny the jokes are. The few of us who have read his work still miss his talent for writing solid mysteries with eccentric characters, black humor, and a sense of the rainy coast of Oregon so real you’ll need a raincoat.

   Vince Kohler wrote four books, Rainy North Woods (1990), Rising Dog (1992), Banjo Boy (1994), and Raven’s Widow (1997). All four featured journalist Eldon Larkin who worked as reporter/photographer for the South Coast Sun, the local newspaper for small town Port Jerome, Oregon. Educated, he reads French classic literature in the original language, but proving how useful his education is, Eldon is a loser when it comes to the important things in life — women, cars, and career. He left Berkeley California and an ex-wife behind, and now dreams of the big story that will get him a job with a big city newspaper.

   The books can be read in any order and all of equal high quality. So I grabbed one off my shelf and was pleased to see Rising Dog.

   Rising Dog features a complex mystery centered on the murder of radical environmentalist John Henspeter, who is trying to stop a land developer from cutting down some trees to put up a condo. But while the mystery will hold your interest, it is the fast pace action, humor, and non-stop weirdness that will keep you entertained from beginning to end.

   Eldon responds to a phone call from Jasper, former drunken tugboat captain turned preacher, who claims to have raised his dog from the dead. Eldon meets with Jasper, the resurrected doggie and the members of Jasper’s church.

   On the way to where the miracle occurred, the group comes across some construction workers dealing with protester Henspeter. Things escalate, and as Eldon takes pictures, the church members and construction workers break out into a fight. It all stops with the arrival of a beautiful, topless mystery woman in her thirties on horseback (we will learn later her name is Enola Gay). All fall silent in awe. As quickly as she appears, she disappears back into the woods. Peace has been restored, until the dog arrives with a human foot. Its page 15 of 274 and the fun has barely begun.

   Kohler had a gift for ratcheting up the tension then easing off with a slight touch of the absurd. Near the end of the book, Eldon and Enola Gay finds themselves caught between gunfire from two sides:

   Anyone who features odd characters is usually compared to Elmore Leonard, but Kohler’s books are better. Kohler’s pace and his ability to balance mystery, action, and humor avoids the dull sections I find in many of Leonard’s books.

   Kohler’s descriptions of locations are among the best in all fiction. He avoids the faults of the popular Weird Florida comedic mystery authors such as Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Moore, Tim Dorsey, etc. While too often the Florida locations out-weird the characters and events, Kohler’s locations play the straight man in his story, something real to anchor the story so the humor never cost the mystery its believability.

   Sadly, all four of his books are out of print and have yet to be rescued by e-books. There is little information on the Internet about Kohler besides his books for sale and two columns by his friend Bob Hicks.

      http://www.artscatter.com/general/sunday-scatter-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-in-the-rainy-north-woods

      http://www.artscatter.com/general/going-native-on-the-oregon-coast-a-hair-raising-tale

   From Rising Dog, “Vince Kohler is a staff writer for the Oregonian in Portland. Kohler has traveled widely and in the course of his career, has filed stories from South America, Europe, the Soviet Union, and China. He is married, has three cats, and considers himself a permanent resident of the Pacific Northwest…”

   My favorite form of fiction is mystery lite, stories the opposite of film noir. Where film noir is soaked in self-pity and doom, mystery lite finds life too absurd to be taken seriously. Writers such as Norbert Davis, Ross Thomas, Gregory Mcdonald, Nat and Ivan Lyons, and Donald Westlake fill their books with the dark tragedies of life then make fun of them. Vince Kohler was one of the best at it. I miss him.

NOTE:   For a list of all of this week’s other “Forgotten Friday” books, check out Patti Abbott’s blog here.

      From mystery researcher John Herrington comes the following inquiry:

Hi Steve,

   I have been looking at this author of one title Headlines (1932) listed in Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV (as by Janette Cooper), and it has turned up an interesting story.

   She was born Rosalea (possibly Rosa or some variant spelling) Mary McCready in Pennsylvania in early 1894. She married Henry Colin Campbell, born 1864, in 1914 in Illinois. Is on 1920 census in Illinois with Henry, and two daughter Dorothy, aged 4, and Virginia, aged 2.

   But in 1930 her husband was executed as the “Cranford torch murderer,” and Rosalea seems to disappear from the records.

   There are a couple of things which do not help to clarify what happened to her.

   The Library of Congress copyright of Headlines is given to a Rhoda Cameron of Stamford, Connecticut. Although this lady appears in directories from 1930s, 1940s etc., sometimes with an Horace Cameron, she does not appear on 1930 or 1940 census. She may be the Rhoda Cameron born 3 April 1894 who died in Connecticut in 1978, who is Rhoda M Cameron in her Connecticut state death registration.

   The reports on Campbell’s trial state that he was a bigamist and had married several times without divorcing the previous wife. He is on 1910 census living with Emma Campbell and three children. In the trial report Emma Bullock Campbell says she was never divorced after Campbell left her, apparently to marry Rosalea! And while married to Rosalea, he had married his victim Mildred Mowery.

   I have no idea what Roselea’s status was after the trial and execution. Was any evidence found to say her marriage was definitely bigamous? Whatever, I cannot find her on 1930 census. Even a search for the children failed to find them. Did she change her name to escape the media hunt?

   And what is the connection between Rosalea and the mysterious Rhoda Cameron in the copyright entry. Are they possibly the same person?

   I would appreciate if you can do a bit on this, to see if anyone out there knows anything about Rosalea and what happened to her.

         Regards

               John

Editorial Comment: The description of the book as given on the cover says: “The wife of a man electrocuted for murder tells her own story.”

LYDIA ADAMSON – A Cat in the Manger. Signet, paperback original, 1990.

   A Cat in the Manger is the first in a series about sometime NYC actress and moretimes catsitter Alice Nestleton by the pseudonymous Lydia Adamson. This is a fanciful tale requiring hyperextension of disbelief, with a heroine of little appeal and an ending without the impact it could have had.

   Alice goes to Long Island to cat-sit for Harry and Jo Starobin, as she had done frequently before. This time, however, someone has hung Harry on the back of a door. Another corpse quickly turns up, just as motiveless a killing as the first.

   The police think robbery, but the Starobins were penniless — except for the $381,000 discovered in Harry’s safety-deposit box. And where has Ginger Mauch, who worked for the Starobins, gone off to, and why?

[UPDATE.]   It is now known that Lydia Adamson is the pen name of mystery writer Frank King, who besides 21 books in his/her Alice Nestleton series (see below), also wrote 12 books in a series starring Dr. Deirdre Quinn Nightingale, veterinarian, and three books about birdwatcher and ex-librarian Lucy Wayles, not to mention five works of crime fiction under his own name.

       The Alice Nestleton series —

1. A Cat in the Manger (1990)
2. A Cat of a Different Color (1991)

3. A Cat in Wolf’s Clothing (1991)
4. A Cat in the Wings (1992)
5. A Cat by Any Other Name (1992)
6. A Cat with a Fiddle (1993)

7. A Cat in a Glass House (1993)
8. A Cat with No Regrets (1994)
9. A Cat on the Cutting Edge (1994)
10. A Cat in Fine Style (1995)
11. A Cat on a Winning Streak (1995)
12. A Cat Under the Mistletoe (1996)
13. A Cat in a Chorus Line (1996)

14. A Cat on a Beach Blanket (1997)
15. A Cat on Jingle Bell Rock (1997)
16. A Cat on Stage Left (1998)
17. A Cat of One’s Own (1999)
18. A Cat With the Blues (2000)
19. A Cat With No Clue (2001)
20. A Cat Named Brat (2002)
21. A Cat on the Bus (2002)

   Author Audrey Boyers is included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, for one book under this name, Murder by Proxy (Doubleday Crime Club, 1945), which was actually a collaboration with Bettina Boyers. Some information about the latter has recently come to light: included in Part 37 of the online Addenda to the Revised CFIV, Bettina Boyers was the “pseudonym of Betti Rosa Tagger, 1891-1960. She was also known as Bettina Bruckner, and died the widow of Theodor Tagger, whose pseudonym was Ferdinand Bruckner. Born in Rosnow, Poland; died in New York City.”

   Bettina Boyers has one other entry of her own in CFIV, a solo novel entitled The White Mazurka (Doubleday, 1946), also a Crime Club novel.

   Not much information seems to be known about Audrey Boyers, however. One might have guessed that she and Bettina were sisters, and yet apparently they were not. What has caught Al’s eye in recent days, along with that of fellow mystery researcher John Herrington, is the entry for Audrey Boyers Walz (1906-1983) who between 1931 and 1951 wrote eight mystery novels under the pen name of Francis Bonnamy, all of which featured a series character named Peter Shane, a criminologist by trade.

   For more information about the series, check out the author’s GADetection page here: http://gadetection.pbworks.com/w/page/7930094/Bonnamy,%20Francis

   The question posed by Al and John is this: Is Audrey Boyers also Audrey Boyers Walz? It would be a whopper of a coincidence if they are not, but no evidence has so far arisen to say that they are. (And where does “Bettina Boyers” fit in?)

JUNE TRUESDELL – The Morgue the Merrier. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1945.

   When mystery writer John Grover and his new bride, Lee, arrive at the house in Tree-Top Glen, apparently in Los Angeles, where they are to spend their honeymoon, the door is blocked by a body whose hand is the only part that can be seen. Moments later the body vanishes. Then a woman is murdered in one of the bedrooms, stabbed through the heart and with her throat slit.

   Grover and Lee call upon Julius Gilbert, criminologist not detective, who is five feet two inches tall, with two hundred pounds of tummy. (I suspect that Lee, the narrator, is exaggerating.) Muttering oracularly and managing to postpone the consummation of the marriage, Gilbert clears things up in a semi-fair-play novel after only one more murder.

   Those who like frenetic married-couple types should enjoy this one. While the characters are a bit extreme, as is the plot, in spite of these objections I am keeping an eye out for Truesdell’s later pair of novels, according to Hubin not featuring Gilbert or the Grovers, in which she may have exhibited a little more authorial control.

  Bibliography:     [Taken from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

TRUESDELL, JUNE (1918?-1996?)

        The Morgue the Merrier (n.) Dodd Mead, 1945.
        Be Still, My Love (n.) Dodd Mead, 1947. Film: The Accused, 1949.
        Burden of Proof (n.) Boardman, UK, 1951

ANDREA CAMILLERI – The Dance of the Seagull. Originally published in Italian as La danza del gabbiano, 2009. Penguin, US, softcover, 2013.

   This, the 15th and most recently recorded case of Inspector Salvo Montalbano (at least here in the US), begins with the agonized gyrations of a seagull the inspector sadly watches die before his eyes. Little does he know that a connection will soon be made between this event and his very next case, which has as yet not had time to develop.

   This being my first encounter with the inspector and his various adventures, I did not recognize at first the significance of the mysterious disappearance of Fazio, the latter one of his close-knit staff of subordinates. Montalbano is, as are many fictional police inspectors, Italian or otherwise, somewhat of a lone wolf in his approach to tackling crime, but one man cannot do it alone, and the men who work under him are much like family.

   The main thrust of the case, that of drug smuggling (or traffickers), is not particularly interesting, but even without a “Watson” to bounce his ideas off of, Montalbano displays a good sense of the world around him – which is to say that he’s a very good detective. Nor does a good sense of humor on the part of the author hurt in the least. I wouldn’t mind at all if I had the chance to catch up on any of Montalbano’s earlier cases, or his next one, whichever way it works out.

THE VENGEANCE OF FU MANCHU. Anglo-Amalgamated Films, UK, 1967. Christopher Lee (Dr. Fu Manchu), Douglas Wilmer (Nayland Smith), Tsai Chin, Horst Frank, Wolfgang Kieling, Maria Rohm, Howard Marion-Crawford (Dr. Petrie). Based on the characters created by Sax Rohmer. Screenwriter (as Peter Welbeck) and producer: Harry Alan Towers. Director: Jeremy Summers.

   Christopher Lee spent half his career playing Fu Manchu, a role he was born to play, or does it only seem that way? This is the third of a series of five that came out in quick succession in the 60s, the others being:

   I don’t know why I started watching this list of movies in the middle, but I did. And after watching this one, I really don’t know if I’ll watch the other four. It’s really that bad. Not bad in any sense that’s interesting, but just bad.

   I suppose I ought to explain myself. When I watch a movie, I really would prefer that it make sense. I really kind of resent it when there are a lot of scenes that have no connection with the rest of the story, scenes that are there only to lengthen the running time of the movie and no other reason, and when a movie has a non-existent plot that also has holes in it, you really know you have one dud of a movie.

   Christopher Lee really ought to have been ashamed to have taken money for this one. His only role in the film is to step out of the interior of his palace, squint into the light a few times, with an engagingly enigmatic expression on his face, and let his daughter (played by Tsai Chin with suitably impressive imperiousness, not to mention an equally suitable innate wickedness) have all of the fun. (Tsai Chin is still active in making films today.)

   There is torture in this film, a beheading, lots of really phoney-looking sword and spear play, but not one hint of sex. What’s up with that? There is one very funny subplot of the movie, which is where the vengeance comes in, in which Fu Manchu manages to replace Nayland Smith by a surgically altered and waxen-faced lookalike who then commits a murder “Smith” is hanged for. Ha, ha!

   That the British judicial system would fall for such nonsense is a pure comedy delight, one that I can almost recommend that you see for yourself, but I can’t, for if I did, you’d never believe another review I ever wrote again. And we can’t have that, can we?

JON L. BREEN – Listen for the Click. Walker & Co., hardcover, 1983. No paperback edition.

   There is a kind of detective novel set in a world of quiet gentility, a magical place without pain or grief or terror, a place where corpses don’t bleed and the emotions of the living are always under iron control. During the lulls in the plot a Nice Young Man and Nice Young Woman get together, and in the final chapter, preferably at a ritual gathering of the suspects, the Brilliant Detective effortlessly exposes the murderer.

   The current generic name for a book of this sort is the English Cozy, because there’s a myth that it’s always been the exclusive property of British writers. In fact, however, a number of well-known Americans too have specialized in it, and Earl Derr Biggers’ half dozen Charlie Chan novels (1925-1932) are models of the form.

   Jon L. Breen, an award-winning mystery reviewer, short-story writer, and Biggers devotee, has set his first detective novel on this turf . Amid an unobtrusive but knowingly sketched background of Southern California’s racing community, a jockey who had given many people potential murder motives is shot out of the saddle of a bronze horse statue on the lawn of a wealthy racing enthusiast’s widow.

   The nephew of this dotty and whodunit-fixated old lady is racetrack announcer Jerry Brogan, whom Breen casts in the dual role of Nice Young Man and Clever Amateur Sleuth: if he wasn’t sleeping with his Chicana girlfriend without benefit of a marriage license, he might have stepped straight out of a Biggers novel of the 1920s.

   Meanwhile, a suave con man and a shady private eye with literary ambitions launch a scheme to make Jerry’s aunt believe that they’re the Holmes and Watson of the west coast. In due course, after the underdog horse wins the big race, a Gathering of Suspects is arranged in the purest Charlie Chan movie tradition — “The murderer is in this room,” one of the small army of detective figures in the book intones solemnly — and all the clues are put in order.

   Breen combines quiet charm, gentle digs at several types of crime fiction, and a puzzle complete with such original touches as an over-obvious Big Secret that mutates into a huge joke and a clue hidden in the book’s title. It’s no Secretariat, but lovers of the soft-spoken whodunit will have a fine canter around the track with this thoroughbred.

      The Jerry Brogan series —

   Listen for the Click (n.) Walker, 1983.
   Triple Crown (n.) Walker, 1986.
   Loose Lips (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1990.
   Hot Air (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1991.
   Jerry Brogan and the Kilkenny Cats (ss) Murder Most Irish, ed. Ed Gorman, Larry Segriff & Martin H. Greenberg, Barnes & Noble 1996.

   Once again the usual gang of veteran collectors rented a 12-seat van for the long trip to Chicago. I’m talking about our annual pilgrimage to the Windy City Pulp Convention which was held over the weekend of April 12-14, 2013. But three days were not enough for us so we left the morning of April 10 and arrived 14 hours later.

   We were to stay a total of five days eating meals together, some of us rooming together, competing against each other for books, magazines, artwork, and generally bumping heads, fighting, and insulting each other. You might wonder how five collectors could survive such an intense trip. I wonder about this also but somehow we managed to get through the ordeal of roaming through a gigantic room of 150 tables, most of them piled high with stacks of books, pulps, digests, slicks, pulp reprints, and artwork.

   I always sleep poorly at the pulp conventions and I guess I averaged 4 or 5 hours sleep each night. The rooms at the Westin Hotel are nice and the convention rate is really low each night, only $109 plus taxes. I would have stayed longer but everyone else had packed up their books and pulps and left. The first day we arose early and continued our practice of eating breakfast each morning at the Egg Harbor Cafe. We devour everything in sight and thus do not have to leave the dealer’s room for lunch and waste valuable time when we could be buying and selling books.

   Thursday we again visited The Doug Ellis and Deb Fulton Pulp Art Exhibit. They also happen to live in this art museum. We have visited the museum for three years in a row and this year we saw the new expansion. However, we got lost driving back to the hotel and spent a couple hours blaming each other for such stupidity, so this may be the end of the visits to the Art Exhibit.

   Friday was the official beginning of the festivities. Dealers were allowed in at 8:30 but since I had an “early bird” badge, I started to harass and bother the dealers at 9:30, thus beating the poor souls who had to wait until 11:00. Since I no longer need many pulps, I’m mainly interested in pulp art and cover paintings. I made my first buy at Bob Weinberg’s table. I’ve known Bob since the late 1960’s when we both lived in NJ and used to meet at the NYC SF conventions. Despite the news that he was having some health problems, he was at this table each day and walked around the dealer’s room.

   While I was talking to Bob, I noticed a cover painting by Brian Lewis for NEW WORLDS #84 (June 1959). I quickly snapped it up because I’ve recently been reading through my sets of NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY because of the recent publication of three excellent books on these two British magazines edited by John Carnell. Written by John Boston and Damien Broderick the books are titled BUILDING NEW WORLDS and STRANGE HIGHWAYS. Both deal issue by issue with the stories, authors, and artwork.

   I then spent the rest of the convention buying original art. I’ve always wanted a GALAXY cover painting from the period when I started to read the magazine. I bought the cover for March 1955 by Mel Hunter. I also found a nice preliminary cover by Kelly Freas for ANALOG. Moving to other tables I manage to buy two Norman Saunders illustrations for the men’s adventure magazines. Unfortunately they do not depict such crazy scenes as Nazis partying with girls but then again I would not be able to afford such great art.

   Art dealer Fred Taraba had many interesting paintings but I managed to control my greed and addiction and limited myself to a nice painting showing a woman screaming in a library. Sort of reminds me of the typical reaction from the non-collecting spouse when they realize they have married a Book Collector! This painting is by Maurice Thomas and was used as the cover on a 10 cent Dell paperback, DEATH WALKS THE MARBLE HALLS by Lawrence Blochman. It also was reprinted in the NEW YORKER for August 19, 1996.

   I also found a nice illustration by Edd Cartier titled “Framed For Murder.” Somehow I’ve managed to accumulate five of these Cartier drawings over the years. One of biggest finds was a set of 20 illustrations by Lynd Ward, who was an early graphic novelist. My first greedy thought was to buy all 20 but since they were priced at $500 each, I started to hesitate and before I knew it paperback collector, Tom Lesser had clutched two of them. Then I decided to buy only five of them at a discounted price of $450 each. All 20 are from one of the greatest ghost story collections ever, THE HAUNTED OMNIBUS edited by Alexander Laing.

   But my biggest discovery was a large piece of art by Howard Wandrei. The brother of Donald Wandrei, Howard is known in pulp circles for his short stories written for such magazines as DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, SPICY DETECTIVE, WEIRD TALES, UNKNOWN, etc. However his real claim to fame may very well turn out to be his strange, unusual, and bizarre outsider art. I’ve been thinking about buying this piece, which is impossible to describe, for two years, ever since I first saw it at the 2011 Windy City.

   In addition to the fabulous dealer’s room, there also was a large art exhibit, mainly taken from the collections of Doug Ellis, Deb Fulton, and Bob Weinberg. There were a couple of panels discussing Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu and Science Fiction and Bookselling. Unfortunately I was so busy partying, drinking and having a fine old time with my collector pals, that I missed the panels. As I’ve said before, one of the great things about Windy City and PulpFest are the friends and contacts that lead to long friendships and future deals.

   The film programming was handled by film expert, Ed Hulse and was of great interest. The serial DRUMS OF FU MANCHU was shown as well as several episodes from the great Boris Karloff THRILLER TV show. Ed also had the new issue of BLOOD N THUNDER magazine, which is a must buy for all magazine and film collectors. Check out his Murania Press website for news of upcoming publications.

   Actually I did find a major pulp want now that I think of it. I recently obtained the February 1933 BLACK MASK cover painting and was pleased to find the magazine in the dealer’s room. The auction this year was one of the best ever held by Windy City. Friday night saw over 200 lots sold from the estate of Jerry Weist. I just added up the amounts paid for the lots and the total was over $43,000 for Friday. The Saturday auction also was of interest. A complete set of PLANET STORIES in very nice shape was auctioned off in several lots. But the main magazine title was the many issues of ALL STORY(1905-1920). These issues brought the highest prices and many had Edgar Rice Burroughs stories.

   I’m closing in on a complete set of ALL STORY and need only 4 issues. Since many issues of this magazine are now over 100 years old, it is getting hard to find copies. But the auction had one of the four I needed, the July 7, 1917 issue. But I had to drop out when the bidding hit $950. Artwork is more interesting at that price and it’s difficult to justify paying hundreds for magazines. A friend of mine paid $900 for a pulp at the Frank Robinson auction and read it in about an hour. $900 for an hour’s reading? And I firmly believe these magazines should be read. I simply do not understand collectors who do not read but pay such high prices for issues.

   Jack Cullers provided me with some nostalgia. He found Rusty Hevelin’s copy of the June 12, 1972 St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In an article about the first Pulpcon, titled “Pulp magazine may fade, but never the memories” there is a photo of Edward Kessell, Rusy Hevelin, and Mrs Walker Martin, all looking at a Graves Gladney painting for THE SHADOW magazine. 41 years ago and I’m still at it!

   Doug Ellis told me Sunday afternoon that the attendance had reached a new high level of 488. Almost 500 attendees and a new record that the old Pulpcon never came near. In this day of electronic gadgets and e-books, that is quite an achievement. So there is hope for the collectors of books and magazines afterall.

   Monday morning the 5 of us, now known as The Publisher, The Collector, The Dealer, The Reader, and The Loser, piled into the van with hundreds of books, magazines, and artwork. Somehow we made it back to NJ despite one of us almost being arrested by a state trooper. It’s too strange a tale to tell.

   Next up? PulpFest in three months! Details at pulpfest.com. See you there…

[UPDATE] 04-19-13.   Thanks to pulp collector/dealer Dave Kurzman, some photos of the proceedings:

1. Long time pulp collector Digges La Touche sifting for nuggets while sitting on the floor.

2. Ed Hulse and Walker Martin keeping a close eye on the traffic across the way:

   For Ed’s own comprehensive commentary on the weekend’s activities, go here.

[UPDATE] 06-20-13. Here is a link that shows two pages of photos from Windy City. Mainly about the art but interesting just the same:

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=144236