A couple of years ago I was on the semi-regular "apes" panel at Armadillocon in Austin. Another panelist was Joe Lansdale, and when the discussion moved to the famous cover of Zeppelin Stories for "Gorilla of the Gasbags," Joe challenged people to write a story based on that cover. As it turned out, I wrote two stories, one of which I sold to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (it hasn't been published yet).The second story was too long (nearly 10,000 words) for most magazines, but it was a lot of fun to write. What I wanted to do was to write a story that could've appeared in a pulp magazine back in the '30s, capturing the spirit of the kind of grand old adventure tales that I like to read now and then.
Looking at the cover, I was reminded of a comment in Othello about "men whose head do grow beneath their shoulders." Maybe you can tell why. So the story grew out of that. I sat on it for a long time, trying to think of a market, but I couldn't come up with anything. So I decided to go the Kindle route, and you can buy it now for a mere 99¢!
Those of you who got the freebie edition now have the collector's cover. I decided to change it and use part of the original.
4 comments:
I'm curious, has ANYBODY actually read Gorilla of the Gasbags? Lots of pulp has been reprinted, this is a famous story (or cover & title at least), but I've never seen a link to the story, or even a review or precis from someone who's read it. The mag itself is so rare, apparently, that the few (how many?) owners wouldn't dare risk opening it up to read it, let alone get a scan.
Art Scott
I don't know anyone who's read it. My story for EQMM is titled "Gorilla of the Gasbags," though. For those who are interested, Joe Lansdale's story is "The Ape Man's Brother," available as an e-book.
I'll bet the original story's a cheat. Just another guy in a gorilla suit.
A.S.
I don't know. That doesn't look like a gorilla suit.
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