Honest Trade

 Walking through Hinderwell we spotted  a series of boxes along a garden wall. They turned out to be old second hand paperbacks and lots of them. Cheap as chips, our few dabloons went into the honesty box.

This is what we got. Any good?

I also bagged this old pair of plastic footy nets and players in a Stokesly charity shop for 50p. Anyone recognize them? 

THE SHIPLEY SHUFFLE

A pearl among the junk, I found this compact stack of Guy N. Smith paperbacks in a charity shop shuffle across Shipley the other day. Bingo! 

A great new haul this, as I collect Guy N. Smith paperbacks as part of my big horror novel collection.

Shelling out just three pounds, the stack included three of the well-known Crabs outbreaks, which Smith made his name with.

Despite the author having been very prolific, these 1980's horror paperbacks are now increasingly hard to find, as many will have been simply read and binned back in the day.

Although my favourite novel by the late great Guy N. Smith has to be the folk-trash, The Sucking Pit, the first one I ever read was Killer Crabs, so I'm really looking forward to a scuffle through its pages again.

Smith died aged 81 in 2020, very unwell and infected with COVID. Sadly gone but not forgotten, his many works live on and no doubt like the unknown Shipley reader who donated these paperbacks, I'm very excited about reading them.

Have you read any Guy N. Smith?

Do you collect books?

Ray Russell's Sardonic Stories

Late last night I caught the monochrome horror Sardonicus, from 1961, on the telly as part of Caroline Munro's delightful Cellar Club.

Sardonicus is the grim tale of a man with a richtus smile, a gothic affliction with a long heritage, as there is a similar but much older silent film called The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt.

Veidt's hideously wide smile went on to inspire the Joker's evil grin in Batman, but having seen Sardonicus I wanted to know its own particular source. 

It was inspired by a novella by American writer Ray Russell, creative in residence at Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Having read up on Russell he appears to have been quite a thing back in the Sixties horror and sci Fi writing world, although it was all new to me this morning, something which is always a thrill.

Russell wrote many stories including his Unholy Trinity of Sardonicus, Sagittarius and Sanguineous, Sardonicus being the most well known.

Keen on collecting horror paperbacks I had a look at the availability of these three Playboy novellas. Individually they are very dear and largely in America.

They do appear in two other anthologies. The Unholy Trinity and Haunted Castles. Neither of these is a Yorkshire bargain and originals are expensive. Modern reprints are around fifteen quid.

Whilst I wait for Santa to take me off the Naughty list I'll have a scout round for Ray Russell's later terror take, Incubus, which I know is lurking in the loft.

Have you seen Sardonicus or read Ray Russell readers?

SIMILAR SYNDIC SYNCHRONICITY

Browsing Pinterest I came across The Syndic by CM Kornbluth on Jim Potter's fab pages. Its a book I know not and have never seen the various book covers before. Have you readers?

The cover that caught my eye first was this red one with these two classy modelling mannequins.

I like how the modeller has given them a sort of Star Trek look.

They are made from wooden mannequins like this one universally available. I made a similar sci-fi figure using one a few years back for Wotan's birthday. I made it to look like a Micronaut.

I can't help thinking there's a similarity between the gold head of the model and this Herbert Lom headed robot from the horror film Asylum! or am I seeing things again!

This next copy of The Syndic rang another bell. I would say that the furious soldier on the cover has been more or less lifted from .....

... Warren's Blazing Combat issue number 1, a Frank Frazetta cover I always loved and stared at for ages when I saw it in the pages of Creepy and Eerie. Alas I never got a copy.

What do you think?

My final Syndic is probably its original publication, as a story on Science Fiction Adventures from 1953.

There's just something Thunderbird 5'ish about that antenna sticking out of a space dome. And that looks like a small red Fireball XL5 zooming out of the exit shaft.

What do you reckon?

Have you read the Syndic?

HAN SOLO AT STARS' END BY BRIAN DALEY

 

Do you remember these old paperbacks readers?

I collected them from car boot sales but never read them. I loved the cover art though!

Sadly all got sold on my old toy stall but I would recognise the books anywhere.

What were the others called? Anyone recall?

SUEDEHEAD ANYONE?

Do you remember a Seventies paperback called Suedehead?

I think it was about a skinhead. A young lad with a crew-cut appeared on the cover wearing a mac and doc martens I think.

No idea who the publisher was. I never owned it but saw it. It might be an interesting read now!

There may have been others in this series about other yoof sub-cultures. Is that right?

THE SILENCE OF THE TIE-INS

I love to buy cheap second-hand thriller and horror paperbacks. I used to buy loads of general movie and TV tie-ins for my vintage toy and memorabilia business in the 90's and noughties.

Like many other TV and movie tie-ins I've read myself I'm really enjoying reading Silence of the Lambs at the mo. 

Besides the story itself, much of the fun for me comes in spotting differences in what is written and what I recall from a film. I particularly like new elements.

To be fair there isn't a lot of contrast between the book and the film of the Lambs. Hannibal Lector is as equally captivating in both and Dr. Chilton is just as obnoxious. I'm not done though yet, a third still to go. I'll just get some chianti and some fava beans!

Have  you read the Silence of the Lambs or any other movie tie-in novel?

SIGNS OF CHRISTMAS

Well its my last day off work and I'm sorting through stuff lying around after Christmas, signs that it really did happen!

I thought I'd share a few of the things I got over the festive season. Some were gifts and some were purchased on days out.

I love books and in this new Xmas bundle are: Stephen King's Pet Semetary, The Twelve Fingered Boy, Titus Groan - the first in the Gormenghast trilogy - and a new reference book called Paperbacks from Hell, a US look at collecting horror novels. Now that's my kind of book!

I was also fortunate to receive this wonderful gift from Tony K [thanks very much!]. Its a Space vintage Action Astronaut like the one I had as a kid! These figures came in triangular window boxes with a side-header.

I'll blog more about this figure when I take him out of the box the next time.

If you have any figures like this I'll blog them too if you want.

More Xmas gifts to follow soon.

COLLECTING HORROR AT CHRISTMAS

Well, our good friend has gone home today after visiting for a week of pre-festive fun. She'll be nearly home now. The Missus took her to the airport early doors.

Our friend's departure coincides with the third Sunday of the month, the third Sunday of Advent and marks the start of the final full week before the Big Day itself on the 25th.

I still haven't written any Christmas cards but I hope to do that today now we're at a loose end. We have trimmed up though and Blue and me are currently staring at that most magical of all Yuletide symbols, the decorated tree.

In the past around this time I would have bought myself something online, usually to do with Project SWORD, to be opened after Christmas when the season's lustre had waned. 

The one remaining SWORD toy I need is too expensive for me to buy now so I have treated myself to something much more modest, a book about collecting horror novels called Paperbacks from Hell.

Do you treat yourself at Christmas like this? Is it normal?

Anyway I've been collecting horror novels for years and have loads of them in the attic. There are many variations of the classics like Dracula and Frankenstein and also some very unusual paperbacks like the two Famous Monsters of Filmland books. One of my personal favourites is a first edition hardback copy of Hell House, the story which inspired the 70's horror movie The Legend of Hell House starring Galen himself, Roddy McDowell.

Another favourite is the rather startling cover on More Tales of Unease depicting a young girl carrying a teddy and wearing a hideous witch mask.

I haven't been able to find that mask on any Don Post mask reference guides or any other masks online so maybe it was custom made? Anyone know any more about the mask or the cover?

here's close-up of the mask.

It will be fun to see if this and my other horror novels are included in Paperbacks from Hell but they may well not be as so many different books have been published over the decades. I shall find out after Christmas when the mince pies are mere crumbs and the kids have gone home.

In the meantime I'm looking forward to any decent creepy plays on the radio and ghost stories on the telly over the festive season. I'll get a Radio Times to see what's on. I also love the small woodcut drawings that the magazine uses as fillers at Christmas if you know what I mean. I hope they still do them.

I listened to a radio fantasy this week as I drove home from work. I enjoyed it a great deal and has whetted my appetite for more. It was Radio 4's two-part afternoon play The Winter Queen.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001hjy

I also caught the fag end of Inside No.9's latest TV offering, The Devil of Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086zcd6 . It features Krampus no less, that European ogre in charge of the Naughty List and an ancient continental myth seemingly on the rise in the English-speaking world as well. 

The team behind Inside No.9 are real fans of classic horror and this shines through all of their stuff going right back to A League of Gentlemen. I've always enjoyed spotting the many homages and film references spattered throughout their programmes, so I was chuffed spotting one at the end of The Devil of Christmas, a reference to one of my favourite classic horror anthologies, The House That Dripped Blood no less. More specifically it was from the first segment, about a novelist's possession, starring Denholm Elliott, a segment called A Method for Murder.

Towards its climax the villain of the story utters its unsettling punchline: "Richard? I don't know anybody called Richard. My name is Dominick". 

Here's Dominick, the handsome devil.

This line is echoed at the Snuff-like and rather gruesome end of the Inside No.9 show and I plan to watch the whole Christmas episode on catch-up when I get chance.

Christmas is also a time for more subtle fayre like ghost stories and the BBC once had a fine tradition of airing one for the season. These Ghost Stories for Christmas became classics of the genre and are loved by creepy fans like me everywhere. Maybe you like them too readers?

Perhaps its most famous story was Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad, which was aired in 1967 starring the irreplaceable Michael Horden as the doomed Professor.

So taken was I with this TV play when I saw it for the first time many many years later that it sparked in me a real love of folk horror, which prevails to this day. So when I got the chance to visit the locations used in the play this summer I jumped at the chance. They whistled you might say.

What I found will be the subject of another post.

Collecting Baskervilles

Its funny how odd references can form a notion.

Last night I caught the film Enemy of the State on the box. Twenty years old and starring Will Smith it was one of those flicks about state surveillance of the public and a lost dodgy file. You know, The Pelican Brief and the Net were more of the same.

But it was seeing a young Ian Hart that surprised me. I'd seen the film before but never noticed him in what is admittedly a junior tech role.

Why my interest in Ian Hart? Well, one of my all-time favourite horror-mystery novels is The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've collected many different versions of the book like this one

 ... and seen various adaptations on the TV. 

For a long time my number one film version was Hammer's classic starring the masterful Peter Cushing as Holmes. I have to say that a more modern film has taken the top spot of late, the 2002 TV film starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and yes, Ian Hart as Dr. Watson.

He plays the sleuth's companion brilliantly, cutting a dashing, diminutive figure on the moors in his tweed suit, stubbed revolver always to hand. 

There is something fascinating about the moustached Victorian gentleman-agent like Watson and for me Hart's gritty modern performance is superb.

Born in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, Hart went on to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself and reprised Dr. Watson once more too. He also played fellow scouser John Lennon and Prof. Quirrel in Harry Potter.

I've not seen any of these flicks nor his role as William Harrison in Longitude, an acclaimed TV series about John Harrison, genius clock maker 

By pure coincidence the birthplace of John Harrison, is down the road from Moonbase in the Yorkshire hamlet of Foulby! [my own Lancashire ancestor's were clock and barometer makers but possibly not geniuses!]

Richard Roxburgh is equally excellent as the debonair Sherlock Holmes in the 2002 movie. Is he the best one yet or are you a Rathbone or Cushing fan?

But it was only this week that my brother Steve reminded me that he'd played Dracula in Van Helsing too! How do you think he ranks as the Count?

Who'd have thought that the Baskerville Hound could be so much fun. Could there be any toys I wonder?

Which is your favourite film version? Maybe a radio series?

Have you got the book?

hive decided

With A  L  I  E  N Covenant oozing its way into UK cinemas on May 12th I thought I would get into the xnomorphic vibe early  and read an Alien novel before I see it.

Fortunately I still have some old Alien paperbacks around before launching them into the Moonbase waste chute.

Looking at the old pile I realised I was confused with the titles and how they fitted into the overall Alien story arc. Female Wars? Rogue?

Familiarity is my friend when it comes to film tie-ins.

So I've made a decision. I am going to go back to the very beginning and read 

A L I E N by Alan Dean Foster.

Which would you choose readers?

moonbase clutter alert

Part of my problem as an old collector was hoarding.

I used to buy in all sorts of stuff like these cheap vintage paperbacks and annuals.

Left over from my toy fair stall days stuff like has begun to form piles of clutter in the house, loft and shed.

Loads have now gone to charity shops, which is where some will have been bought!

These are bagged up and ready to roll too.

We're drowning in clutter at Moonbase and its got to change! 

Turns out all this dusty stuff is seriously bad for my health!

Are you a hoarder too readers?

THE SYMMETRY OF SPACE

Sometimes I see similarities where there aren't any I'm sure. 

I seem to want patterns!

Take these illustrations. For some reason the spacemen remind me of each other.

I think it's the space walking and weapons and tools like those in this by Kelly Freas.

.

But it's something about the style, a more chunky cartoony style like this Kelly Freas X - Plus soldier.

In my book of Board Games by Desi Scarpone there is a vintage game called Space Angel with a similar cartoony space stye. 

Space Angel is not something that I know but I have a feeling it was an animated series. Does anyone know it?

ONCE UPON A TIME

I've always liked to collect original paperback novels of my favourite TV series, and, remarkably, have managed to retain quite a few. And so continuing my week of Prisoner-themed trivia, here's some pulp stuff related to that series.

I picked up these three Prisoner paperbacks at a stationary store in Southport in 1981. It was around that time I first visited the Village in Portmeirion (In fact, 'A Day In The Life' still has a village postcard of The Green Dome I slotted in between it's covers. It was the first time I was able to read some official authorised original fiction based on the series.

These three books were previously published by Ace books in the USA  in 1969/70, while my UK versions appeared in 1980/81. While they are entertaining, stand alone novels dealing with the themes in The Prisoner, they do offer very little insight into questions posed in the series. However, 'Who Is Nunber Two? does begin with the line , " Drake woke. Automatically, naturally, without  an alarm, he came to conciousness." perpetuating the notion that I'm happy to agree with that, The Prisoner is , indeed Dangerman,  John Drake

This second item of original Prisoner fiction is the four-part graphic novel, The Prisoner: Shattered Visage.  published by DC in 1989, and written by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith, Artwork is by Dean Motter.

This intriguing read takes place twenty years after the original series' events. A young girl is shipwrecked off an uncharted beach. She finds an abandoned Village, and it's one last remaining inhabitant!

I must admit I find the artwork an acquired taste, but I have to say the authors' really know, and like their subject.

"Wir sehen uns!"