THE RIPPER by William Dobson (Signet 1981)

One night in London, a girl who sells cigarettes topless in a nightclub gets brutally murdered after work. When the police make little headway on the case, her deeply religious parents turn to a deeply alcoholic private investigator. Similar murders follow, apparently at random, suggesting a serial killer is on the loose, whom the papers of course dub the latest RIPPER!!! When our hero stumbles across a solid trail of clues, the Ripper begins to slash a trail of bloody murder to his doorstep.

This is not quite as sleazy or sensational as the cover would have you believe, but unless you're expecting the literary equivalent of New York Ripper or Giallo a Venezia, you shouldn't be too far disappointed. Anyway, you gotta love that cover--so early-'80s!

HOW THE MOBS TURN STRIPPERS INTO VICE GIRLS

In keeping with the stripper theme, as a follow-up to Peepshow and further prelude to Night Business, here's an article from one of my men's mags:

BLACKEST NIGHT: Blackest Breakfast

Awesome! (via Weekly Crisis) Reminds me of the Brendan Douglas Jones webcomic, Breakfast of the Gods.

Also of BN-related interest, CRwM of And Now the Screaming Starts e-mailed me a link a few days ago to this post, which glances at some DC precursors.

Flickr update

Just added 20 more pics, including the one above. Most went to Horror, a couple to Sleaze. And just in case you missed it, check out the Fumetti. Enjoy!

PEEPSHOW by Leigh Redhead (Outfit 2009)

While I'm waiting for my copies of Benjamin Marra's Night Business (a comic about a stripper-killing slasher) to arrive, I thought a crime novel about a stripper-turned-P.I., written by an ex-stripper and published by an outfit called The Outfit, would be appropriate.

Interestingly, it's set in Melbourne, Australia, and Redhead brings the seedier side of that city to life with a local flavor that refreshingly twists familiar hardboiled trappings. She puts her firsthand acquaintance with the local sex-work scene to vivid, extensive, yet unobtrusive (i.e. no eye-glazing infodumps) use here. She mixes a few other aspects of her own biography into heroine Simone Kirsch, gaining a few extra points for authenticity while impressively avoiding the pitfalls of Mary Sue-ism.

As the novel opens, Kirsch has tried to take steps toward a career in law enforcement, but her past as a stripper has proven too great an obstacle, so instead she finished an "investigative services" course and received a certificate to work as a private investigator. Redhead does a nice job of depicting Kirsch with stripper street-smarts that frustratingly don't translate to gumshoe street-smarts. Kirsch isn't as badass as she hopes she is or needs to be, and we really get the sense of a neophyte trying to apply lessons she's not sure she remembers correctly. The capper comes when she goes back to consult with the instructor about the case she's working on, and he tells her, "Between you and me, the course is bullshit. I can't teach in a couple of months what it took twenty years to learn on the street."

Story-wise, this is Redhead's first novel, and there's room for improvement. When a mobster is murdered, his brother suspects Kirsch's stripper roommate. Kirsch talks the brother into giving her two weeks to find the real killer before he offs the roommate. He agrees because . . . that's the best plot device Redhead could come up with. There's an interesting twist or two at the end, almost ruined by a clunkily delivered Summation. In the meantime, though, it does flow pretty well. It's sexy and suspenseful, and there's some truly decent action.

I wouldn't recommend this quite as highly as James Reasoner does, but I enjoyed it well enough. The strengths certainly outweigh the weaknesses, and they're interesting enough to make this worth a look if it sounds at all appealing to you (you can actually sample it at Google books).

More on Flickr

I can't find this in the FAQ over there--is there any way to increase the number of images shown per page in the detailed view of a set? There's a real awe-factor to seeing a whole bunch of images on a page, even if you have to scroll down through them. Unlike scrolling, having to click through pages really does diminish the awe-factor, and blunts the impact of a large set. Whereas scrolling somewhat mimics the continuous movement of the eye in tracing something too huge to be taken in at a glance, clicking from one page to the next mechanically presents you with another page just like the one you left, which can become tedious.

Anyway, I decided "Paperbacks" would be too large a set, so I'm breaking it up. The original set, I renamed Sleaze. The stuff I added for October I moved into its own set, Horror. Of course I'll keep adding to those--especially Horror, all through October. I'll also do one for Hardboiled/Noir. And who knows what else? I don't think I'll break up the Fumetti set--if I had more extensive runs of big series like Zora or Kriminal, sure, separating them out would make sense, but since this is all I got, I think it's fine as is.

In other news, I'm not anti-social, just social-media-challenged. I thought Flickr was just a place for hosting images, and was surprised to get deluged with e-mails about Contacts. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to those, but I just went through and reciprocated all of them. I have no idea what that means, but I figure it can't hurt, and at least I'm not snubbing anyone, inadvertently or not.

One thing that surprised me as I was hunting through the Flickr forums looking for answers to some questions is that there appears to be a whole Flickr culture (maybe more than one) of people who sound like they just cruise around looking at everything--and some of them have real hard-ons for flagging anything they consider inappropriate. What a bunch of fucking douchebags. It's because of assholes like that, that sites like Flickr have to have Community Guidelines about nudity and such in the first place, so I guess it's no wonder they'd deputize themselves as a volunteer enforcement posse. Jesus, why can't morans like that just fuck off and die in a fire, already?

Anyway, I hope you're digging the Flickr stuff so far. I know a lot of long-time Groovy Agers are fans primarily of the kinds of images I'm posting there, and this is sort of my way of making up to them the fact that I've drifted away at times from posting such material here on the blog.

More to come. Stay tuned, and stay groovy!

Fumetti Cover Gallery Flickr Set

All right, Groovy Agers, here it is: hi-res cover scans of all the fumetti in my collection (Flickr login required). It might not be the mother-lode, but it's my mother-lode.

151 in one day--oh, my aching scanner.

Thanks again to David Wahl for making it possible for me to post all of these!

All My Fumetti Are Belong To You

Or at least I'm working on it!

Here's my Flickr set gallery of fumetti cover scans.

As I mentioned, I'm not trying to get banned from Flickr, so I'm playing by the rules and putting these pics behind a content advisory, which I'm afraid requires signing in to a Flickr account--and if you don't have one, they're free and easy to set up. I daresay you'll find it worth the hassle, getting a nice eyeful of all those lurid covers in hi-res.

So far, I've got all my Terrors, Zoras, Sukias, Frankensteins, Hallucinations: Frankensteins, and Jaculas up. I'll update throughout the day as I add more runs to the set (I'm hoping to be done by tonight, if my scanner doesn't catch on fire).

Many, many thanks again to David Wahl, who answered my call for help almost immediately, and made all this possible by gifting me with an upgrade to a Pro account. Why not drop by his sites, Monkey Goggles and Mostly Forbidden Zone, and maybe let him know how much we appreciate it. Enjoy the galleries (here's the paperback one, in case you missed it), Groovy Agers, and stay tuned, because there's plenty more to come!

UPDATE: Okay, I have since added--Kriminal, Satanik, Hostess, Oltretomba, and Cappuccetto Rosso. Currently scanning Maghella . . .

UPDATE 2: So Maghella and Biancaneve are in the can. A couple issues of Wallestein, and then it's on to the grand finale . . . Lucifera!!!

Possible access hassles

If you haven't checked out Bosnuk's outstanding blog Wrong Side of the Art, just go do that right now. It's jam-packed with eye-popping vintage genre movie posters. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Okay, back?

Well, you may have noticed that some of the posters are kind of racy--to the point, apparently, that Picasa, which used to host them, terminated his paid account for terms of service violation (over Schulmädchen-Report posters). He's concerned that my new Flickr Pro account could go the same way as soon as I load it up with fumetti covers and such.

Here's the thing--Flickr actually permits that kind of content, as long as it's behind a filter. Here's the Help page where they explain all that. I've experimented with the settings, and basically viewing anything above "Safe" requires you to sign in to Flickr, which adds the hassle of having to create a (free) account for the purpose of signing in if you don't have one already. Once that's done, you still have to click through a warning page and/or take the default "Safe" filter off your view/search settings--all that just to view an image designated "Moderate."

Worst of all:

If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service (this means you won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off). If your Yahoo! ID is based in Germany you are not able to view restricted content due to your local Terms of Service.

WTF?!? You're shitting me? Hong Kong can only view Safe, and Germany can't view Restricted?!? That's counter-intuitive and pretty fucked up.

Since the purpose of posting images is to share them, it's frustrating then to have to make access to them less convenient, but I know too many people who have gotten dinged (including me--youtube slapped me for one video I uploaded, which is why I switched to vimeo, and issuu removed my Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist and warned me against any further violations) to take chances. I apologize in advance for any hassles!

Lil Help?

UPDATE: Wow, that was FAST!!! All right, Groovy Agers, let's hear it for the patron (in the fine classical sense) who's equipped me to open the vaults of my paperback and fumetti collections to you in a bigger way than I ever have before: David Wahl of Monkey Goggles and Mostly Forbidden Zone! It's 12:20 AM on Monday at the time of this writing--I'll see if I can't get my WHOLE FUMETTI COLLECTION up on Flickr in humongous-res by midnight tonight, with more paperbacks to come in short order! Thanks so much, David!

**********

Okay, Groovy Agers, here's the situation--my free Flickr account turns out to be a lot more limited and limiting than I expected, and I'd really like to upgrade to a Pro account, which would basically take away all those limits. If I were making any sort of income off this blog, I'd just see that expense as the price of doing business, and pony it right up myself, but I'm not, and my day-job income is pretty minuscule, and most of what's disposable goes to acquiring the stuff I cover here, so I'm throwing this out there, asking not for money but for something a little money can buy.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone could make a gift to me of a Flickr Pro account. Here's how to do it. It's 24.95 for one year, which is all I'm asking, and what that buys me is nothing more or less than the satisfaction of sharing hi-res cover scans of every goddamn vintage paperback (horror, sleaze, hardboiled, nurse, Nazi, stewardess, sexy spy, etc., etc.) and fumetti in my collection, as fast as I can scan and upload them--which, believe me, I will attack with all due diligence.

If you're inclined to be so generous, please call it first in the comments to this post, and check to make sure nobody's beat you to it. Please e-mail the activation code to curtpurcellAThotmailDOTcom. Thanks!

October Programming

Benjamin Marra's rundown of the inspirations for his Night Business comics proved irresistible to me, so I went ahead and ordered them from his website. In the meantime, I'm going to cover a few more sleaze paperbacks, to keep the mood right.

Then I'm going to transition into horror, with a mix of groovy vintage paperbacks and newer novels that I hope you'll enjoy.

There are a couple of movies I'd like to review, but I'm finding it frustrating. Getting exactly the screenshots I want is proving to be extremely tedious, difficult, and sometimes impossible (if something important in-frame is blurry from motion at the instant I'm trying to capture). I'm also experimenting with making a video review to post on vimeo, but so far I'm not having much luck--yikes, I just look and sound totally stupid and amateurish on camera. Maybe I'm just too self-conscious and need to get over it?

As I've mentioned, since Blackest Night releases seem especially weighted toward the end of the month this time, I'll probably just do one big post after that last Wednesday.

Last and most important (to me, anyway), I'd love to post the next chapter of Night Falls on a Fairy Tale soon. This is the one where my werewolf enters the picture; from here on out, all monsters are present and accounted for, and it's all monsters all the time.

I hope everyone's weekend is off to a great start. Stay tuned, and stay groovy!

What's Groovy

Kimberly Lindbergs of Cinebeats has begun a groovy new blog about mid-[20th-]century houses and interior design.

That reminds me a little of Keith Milford's great old vintagey blogs about malls and motels. Sadly, he's discontinued the former and apparently deleted the latter. He also seems to have deleted Old Haunts, which was an amazing Halloween blog, but he wanted it to run year round and got discouraged when traffic inevitably nosedived after the holiday. Well, I'm missing it now.

For all your Halloween blog reading, just check out the Horror blogroll in my sidebar (Final Girl hits some coming highlights). One blog I'd single out is Sexy Witch, a longtime favorite that switched off of blogger after getting ridiculously flagged by someone who apparently just couldn't mind their own goddamn business. As we wind down Banned Books Week, why not send some traffic to a fine blog that someone did as much as was in their power to ban.

Another I'll mention is Monster Rally, the dedicated horror linkblog I've long hoped for.

CRwM is running a contest this weekend for some Solomon Kane comics. Go get 'em!

Last but not least, there's a nice review of Austin Williams's novel Crimson Orgy (which I've favorably reviewed) over at Exploitation Retrospect. Speaking of ER, blogger Dan Taylor got a whole box of Batman comics from David Zuzelo of Tomb It May Concern a while back, and mentioned that he'll be posting reviews of them over there soon. Can't wait!

Have a good Friday, Groovy Agers!

FLASHFORWARD

I'm tuning in again tonight. Maybe I'll update with some thoughts afterward. Go ahead and tell me what you think in the comments!

First commercial break update: HAHA--that whole bathroom thing was hilarious. Also, I totally agree with Harold (of & Kumar--that's how I'm still thinking of him at this point) about the bracelet thing. If there's something maybe in the future you don't want to happen, why keep doing stuff that will fulfill the visions?

Second commercial break update: Well, that was interesting. Looked like quite a setup before the bang. Also--so that's why she didn't see anything about her future, and no doubt that's how Harold sees it.

Third commercial break update: Prediction--someone who was in a vision is going to die or seem to die before then. There may be other apparently disconfirming developments, but I'm predicting someone alive in someone's vision dies or seems to.

Show's over: So far, so good. Quite a development, that phone call Harold received about his death. The "flashforward" to next week looks like it will bring some meaty developments, too. I'm digging it!

HYPNO-SIN by J. X. Williams (Ember 1967)

This has been something of a grail for me ever since I got an eyeful of it over at Bruce Benner's inspiring (awe- and otherwise) Vintage Paperbacks site. Robert Bonfils is simply an illustration god. From the stunning design to the detail of the red veins (to say nothing of that beautiful nude), this cover blows me away.

So how about the novel within? Well, it's sleaze. A psychoanalyst becomes embroiled in the love triangle between a frigid wife, a domineering husband, and the nympho mistress. And by "embroiled," I mean he has sex with the wife and the mistress. There's a ton of sixties-era psychobabble overlaying all the action. It ends up with experimentation, free love, and open marriage, but the scenes of hypno-"therapy" leading up to that are kind of disturbing, because they involve each participant regressing to some sexual trauma--rapes for the women, humiliations for the men (yes, the analyst self-induces a trance, while the wife talks him through his experience).

I've read better, and I've read worse. The "problem" with Bonfils covers is that they tend to be remarkably accurate about the content of the novel, but they also display and therefore seem to promise a level of inventiveness and artistry that the writing never lives up to.

So enjoy the art, but from a reader's perspective, unless you're a collector, you can probably live without shelling out the exorbitant sum this book commands.

Paperback Cover Gallery Flickr Set Update!

Whew--I just added 45 new cover scans, all horror for October! A nice mix of Jeff Jones, Gray Morrow, Victor Kalin, and vintage photo covers. And that brings me back up to my limit until November. As before, I'll mention that I've reviewed most of these already, so if you're curious about the novels behind those covers, you can probably find my thoughts about them in my blog archives. Happy Halloween-month, Groovy Agers!