Sun 11 Apr 2010
Interview with WALKER MARTIN on Laurie Powers’ blog.
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Interviews , Pulp Fiction[4] Comments
Those of you who are pulp collectors, and maybe even if you aren’t, you might want to take a look at a lengthy interview Laurie Powers did with Walker Martin on her blog, where many of the posts always seem to have something to do with either pulps or pulp collecting.
Walker, of course, is an occasional contributor and a frequent commenter here on the Mystery*File blog, as regular visitors already know. Over on Laurie’s blog, the primary topic of their question and answer conversation is “My Favorite Pulps,” referring to Walker’s collection, but that’s just the starting point.
Unfortunately Walker and I have known each other for 40 years, so I have to admit I knew all the answers he was going to give before he gave them, but it’s still interesting reading. Go, read, but do find your way back!
April 11th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Great interview. I envy Walker that collection — if not the work and dedication put into acquiring it.
I wonder how many of us were turned onto the pulps by Ron Goulart’s HARDBOILED DICKS? It seems to be as seminal in that field as Ellery Queen’s 101 YEARS OF ENTERTAINMENT or Sayers CRIME OMNIBUS.
And I was happy to see ADVENTURE receive the kind of attention it deserves. It really was the Cadillac — if not the Rolls Royce — of the pulps, year in year out consistently brilliant and entertaining, and producing so many names that are still icons today.
Great interview and good to see Walker get some of the recognition he deserves as well.
April 11th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
As soon as the posting went up, I immediately starting having regrets about not including BLACK MASK. In fact Ed Hulse takes me to task for not having an issue included. I also should have had Street & Smith’s DETECTIVE STORY, first issue in 1915. That started the entire detective magazine genre. I ended up picking three of the six choices for mainly sentimental and nostalgic reasons.
David’s right about Goulart’s THE HARDBOILED DICKS. When it was published in the mid-1960’s there was practically nothing available about the pulps in book form. Gruber’s THE PULP JUNGLE came out about the same time and the Street & Smith history was sort of slap dash. That was about it until 1970 when Tony Goodstone’s book came out about the pulps.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Walker
Re THE HARDBOILED DICKS, thinking about it, I have collected every writer in that collection — not always easy — so the impact of that one book on my reading and collecting was huge. I started with the paperback and as soon as I could found the hardcover which sits there now with Shaw’s HARDBOILED and a handful of others on the genre.
Likely the only other anthologies to have a similar impact on me were the Queen and Sayers I mentioned earlier, Hammett’s THE BIG KNOCKOVER and Chandler’s KILLER IN THE RAIN, and Haycraft’s BOY’S BOOK OF DETECTIVE STORIES.
Each of those seemed to come along at just the right time.
You have to hope that there is something out there today that will do the same for the next generation of pulp readers and collectors, but I’m not sure any book could come as the revelation Goulart’s book did.
And as you say, Goodstone did for the art what Goulart did for the stories, though Goodstone reprinted some good stories too over a broader perspective.
But the remarkable thing about Goulart, is that in each case he seemed to find the best example of that writer’s skills and qualities, and close to the best entry in each series he covered. If nothing else I owe him for introducing me to Jo Gar and Lester Leith.
April 12th, 2010 at 5:40 am
Yes, THE HARDBOILED DICKS is a real ground breaking anthology because Goulart just did not take the easy way out and fill up a good part of the collection with easy to get stories by Chandler and Hammett. He reprinted stories from the pulps by obscure and little known writers showing that they were capable of writing excellent stories. Plus he had a nice introduction and comments about each story.
I was in the army when I read it and unfortunately could not contact him but as soon as I was discharged I wrote in care of the publisher and asked Ron if he would be willing to sell the pulps he used for his research. He wrote back and listed all the ones he had at very reasonable prices and I happily bought all of them. This caused me to build up the sets of BLACK MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, and even DETECTIVE STORY.
Over the years we met several times and corresponded. He must have figured I was a pulpish character because he used me as villains in a couple paperback originals. In the AVENGER series Ron used many pulp collectors as characters, including Steve Lewis, Jack Irwin, Jack Deveny, Bob Weinberg, Robert Sampson, and myself. I was Dr. Walker Martin and for many years Jack Deveny and a couple others really thought I was an MD.
I’m sure Ron has forgotten all this, but for young pulp collectors, it was a great time to be a collector and he’s a great guy with a twisted sense of humor.