Happy Hallowe'en from iPulp Fiction & Black Mask

Happy Halloween!

To celebrate the start of our partnership with Black Mask Magazine, we have just published a FREE HORROR STORY for you to read and share with your friends.

CLICK HERE to start reading right now.

This story is a preview of our new Black Mask Pulp Story Reader series that begins on iPulpFiction.com on November 6th. Black Mask Pulp Story Reader features a wide range of genre stories from 10 classic pulp magazines. Each story is personally selected by Black Mask's publisher, Keith Alan Deutsch, who also writes fact-filled jacket notes for each issue.

AN EXTRA BONUS: Stories include stunning original art by some of the most famous pulp artists of their time.

Our featured, free Halloween story is a vampire tale from the June 1950 issue ofFamous Fantastic Mysteries.

New Story at BEAT to a PULP

BEAT to a PULP :: Outback Gothic :: Chap O'Keefe

Mickey Spillane, Movie Star

From my hometown paper, October 6, 1954.

What Prisoners are Reading

Memoir reveals prisoners' book preferences | Books | guardian.co.uk: "The memoir of a former Boston prison librarian has revealed some of the literary preferences of American inmates. And according to Avi Steinberg, aka 'Bookie' to the inmates of Suffolk County House of Correction, popular requests are The Diary of Anne Frank, Robert Greene's Machiavellian self-help manual The 48 Laws of Power, and anything by Sylvia Plath."

Creepy and Eerie Magazine Covers

Retrospace: Vintage Reads #16: Creepy and Eerie Magazine Covers

Me and Orson Welles

Here's a terrific little movie with no explosions, gunfights, or car chases. I liked it a lot anyway. Zac Efron plays a high-school kid named Richard (Zac Efron), who gets a small part in the Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar in 1937. I could relate easily enough because when I was in school, this production was still being talked about and mentioned in textbooks. (I don't know if that's the case today.) Orson Welles was still a presence in movies and on TV, and I heard and read quite a bit about him. The movie presents him as an arrogant, egotistical, maybe unknowable man, an artist but a despicable person, but one who has a spark of genius.

Why Christopher McKay didn't win an Oscar® for his remarkable performance as Welles is a mystery to me. Efron and Claire Danes are good enough, but McKay is amazing. Oddly, though, that's a problem for the movie because Welles isn't the main character. Richard is, and his coming of age is what the movie's all about. Don't let that bother you, though. This one's a lot of fun and well worth seeing.

PaperBack

Peter Leslie, The Finger in the Sky Affair: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. #23), Ace, 1966.

A Hallowe'en Classic

Okay, maybe not a classic, but every year about this time I like to link to my zombie story over at Revolution SF. If you've never read it, now's your chance. And if you want to read it again (as who wouldn't), just click right here.

Lisa Blount, R. I. P.

Lisa Blount, who starred in An Officer and A Gentleman, dies, aged 53 | Mail Online: "Lisa Blount, an actress and Oscar-winning producer who starred in An Officer and a Gentleman, has died at the age of 53."

As the Table Turns

Panasonic to Stop Making Iconic Technics Turntables - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic: "Fans of analog music were dealt another blow when consumer electronics company Panasonic announced earlier this month that it would be discontinuing the audio products within its Technics brand, most notably the legendary line of analog turntables."

Today's Western Movie Poster

Daoma Winston

On her blog the other day, Christa Faust mentioned that she'd picked up a copy of The Woman he Wanted at Kayo Books while in San Francisco at Bouchercon. I was reminded that the author of that book, Daoma Winston, was at the first Bouchercon I attended in Washington, D. C., back in 1980. By that time Winston had become fairly well known as a writer of gothics and other novels of romantic suspense, and she wasn't too pleased when I brought out my copy of The Woman he Wanted and asked her to sign it. However, after she recovered from her surprise at seeing the book, she did sign it. I may be the only person in the country who has a signed copy, not that very many people would even want to have one. Winston wrote at least two books for Beacon, though neither is included in her bibliography at the FantasticFiction site. Maybe Winston would have preferred that they be forgotten.

The Little Professor's List of Nineteenth-Century (and a few Edwardian) Haunted House Tales

The Little Professor: The 2010 Halloween House of Horrific Haunted Happenings

The Groundstar Conspiracy

An Edtion I Didn't Know About

PaperBack

Jack McReady (Talmadge Powell), The Raper, Monarch, 1961.

Growing up Heroes

Photos of people in Hallowe'en costumes, 1960 - 2000. You can submit your own if you have 'em. Here's the link: Growing up Heroes

Via Neatorama.

American Bandstand, 1957

A year or so ago, I posted this comment about a tape of American Bandstand I'd bought. The other day I got this e-mail: "Go to this website http://archives.museum.tv/login?from=archive. Create a login and then go to the tv archive, input bandstand and you'll find a good copy (320 x 240) that you can watch."

Sure enough, it's there. The episode is said to be the second national episode, but that's bound to be incorrect. Great stuff nevertheless if you're geezer like me. Also if you're a whippersnapper who'd like to see what things were like back in the Olden Days.

Could be just my computer, but about 1/3 of the picture seems to be missing. Still recommended, though.

Today's Western Movie Poster

A Seasonal Cover Mosaic

Scroll down at Retrospace: Occult #7: Wicked Reads