Sunday, December 23, 2018

Bookstore Saturday Escapes (to Next Chapter Books)

A Bookstore Saturday, to refresh those in need, is that most-grand of events, comprised of the following:
  1. It takes place on a Saturday
  2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new books allowed)
  3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing
  4. Store must honor the Used Bookstore Gods in its look, feel and browsing experience
And yes, that is another Kong-reference (fun!) in the title up top. Oh, wait. This particular bookstore-visit didn't actually happen on a Saturday. Hmmm.... Okay, new rule: it still counts. This visit was on a Wednesday and it's going into official Bookstore Saturday canon. Executive decision.

Here's what went down:

I'd found myself with a few pre-airport hours at the end of my last business trip. You know the drill: checkout's at eleven but flight's not till three, you don't want to sit at the airport all day so what do you do with the time. Well if you're anything like me, you grab your smartphone and type in "used bookstores nearby" to see what your options might be. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you find yourself in the midst of a Used Book Desert. (Aieeee!)

As it turned out, Lady Luck was with me on that day: My phone search led to an oh so enjoyable Canoga Park shop called Next Chapter Books. Which is a great name for a used bookshop, it being the next chapter in a book's life, and you being the next person to read it. Okay, technically books don't have lives, but you know what I mean. (Well, they kind of do have lives....)

Anyway, walking through the front door, this place just exuded Genuine Used Bookstore--it had the feel, you know? If you're a used book lover, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There were plenty of books on the shelves--no problem finding the more recent and/or popular stuff here--but the shop also had a really nice selection of older and more unusual books. I'm telling you, I could've spent so many more hours roving around its stacks than I had the time for that day.

Turned out the place is owned and run by a fellow named Boyd, who I'm happy to say offered up just the right amount of assistance before stepping back and allowing the shelf-scouring to begin. And this guy knew books, in general and what was on or not on his shelves, which always makes for a nice bookshop browse.

Speaking of knowing books, I'm always amazed when a shop owner--after hearing my latest ridiculously obscure title request--gazes out over thousands of books and says "Yeah, I have a copy of that." And then leads me straight to it. It's just as amazing when the answer is "no I don't." How does a non-cyborg keep that amount of constantly changing information in their head, anyway? (I'm only assuming Boyd wasn't a cyborg; I don't actually know, do I?)

Anyway, suffice it to say this shop is very much worth your time, should you find yourself in LA with thumbs a-twiddling. Heck, if you're in LA and wildly busy, the place is still worth stopping into.

Enjoy these shots of the place I grabbed from Google Maps, which just happen to include myself as I browsed about the place. In my red sweater. And red pants. Okay, that may or may not actually be me. Could be a clever and high-tech illusion. YOU BE THE JUDGE.


That's the shop; now let's get a look at all the book-spoils I rode away with (by Uber, not horse) that day. As always, feel free to click through images for larger (readable) versions....



I was entirely unable to pass up this copy, when I ran across it, of the very novel that deadmansbrain is named for. Well, technically the blog is named for one of the associated film's taglines, but still....


It's a 1969 Berkley Medallion edition of Curt Siodmak's (pronounced see-ODD-mack, in case you were wondering like I was) novel, which was first published in 1942. Apparently this edition's cover designer was so enamored with that cover art they decided to use it on both sides. That or they ran out of time as the book went to press. Either way, it's a nice looking image. Creepy.

I had thought I'd read this way back in the day, and that may be true, but flipping through this copy today isn't ringing any obvious bells, so we'll see once I actually get into it. I know I read one or both of the sequels, and I don't usually do that without reading the source material first....



This one had me at "50-meter monsters." Sadly, having already given that particular story a read on the airplane-ride home, I can safely say it was pretty underwhelming. Definitely not a "tale of terror" as the book's title would have me believe.


Anyway, the book is a 1976 Archway Paperbacks (Pocket Books) original, targeted at younger readers. That could have something to do with the tepidity of the story I read--tough to go full-on-terror when you're marketing to tweens.

The book's editor, Roger Elwood, seems to have carried a bit of controversy around with him. I know this because the book has an About the Editor page which mentions Mr. Elwood was, at time of publication, "...working on book versions of classic science-fiction and horror films." Now that's not something I'm going to just read past without further research. No joy, though. I couldn't find a thing he'd ever done to fit that bucket.

I did find the guy had garnered a reputation for glutting 1970s sci-fi/horror short-fiction markets with substandard material, making it harder for the higher quality stuff to get published afterward. I don't know one way or the other, but folks out there have written articles both for and against the man. Interesting bit of history....

At any rate, the book's story titles were enough to get me to lay down a fiver for it:
  • "The Spider Ring" by Howard Goldsmith
  • "The Museum" by Matt Christopher
  • "The Most Horriblest Monster" by Arthur Tofte
  • "The 50-Meter Monsters" by Nick Anderson
  • "The Whispering Sea" by Ward Smith
  • "Feeding Time" by Dave Bischoff and Chris Lampton
We'll see how it all pans out.



My wife and I had recently (pre-bookstore visit) been talking about Robert E. Howard and his Conan stories. I'd read a few Conan stories in high school, due to a friend-fan's insistence, but hadn't gotten sucked in enough to continue on my own. "Who knows," I said to my wife, "maybe I'd enjoy them more today...."

And then the very first volume of the collected stories showed up, right in the middle of my next Bookstore Saturday. An omen? A portent? Let you know after I read.


Ah. The book (one of the Lancer/Ace paperback editions, 1966-1977) includes some nicely done line drawings, such as this one:


Interior art in a non-graphic (non-comics content) novel of this type is always a nice touch. I think.



And here's one I'd been looking to find for quite some time. Seems the used bookshops I frequent habitually have Volumes 2 through 13 of this series by James Blish, but not Vol. 1, so you can imagine my glee at pulling this off the shelf.


Come to think of it, I have the same (lack of Vol. 1) problem with this related series by Alan Dean Foster....



Yeah, title alone was enough to add this one to my bag. It's a 1976 Archway Paperback edition of the previous year's Doubleday hardcover by Edward Edelson. Pretty interesting guy, this Edelson.


 I'll give this one a read and maybe check out his Great Monsters of the Movies and Great Movie Spectaculars.... Come to think of it, that monsters book looks awfully familiar. Might've checked that one out of my childhood library a few times.



Ah yes. It was the publication date and sheer number of stories that landed this one in my bag. It's a "Bantam Giant" from 1957 (I'm a sucker for vintage paperbacks), and I figured: "Nineteen tales of terror for four bucks? I'm in." Besides, the book just felt nice in-hand, being all old and crackly and stuff. Had the old paperback smell, too (the good one, not the got-wet-and-moldy-long-ago one).


Unfortunately, I think I should have read the blurbs more closely in-store--turns out the book is full of stories of psychological horror, basically people going mad. Hum. I'm not generally a fan of psychological (versus creature and supernatural) horror, and I'm even less a fan of man-or-woman-goes-mad-and-terrible-things-happen stories. But I'll give it a go to see what happens. At least I have nineteen tries to find something I like.

Although, now that I do a bit of research, the book was edited by Whit and Hallie Burnett, a couple of fairly influential writers themselves, so who knows, I might find more to like here than I'd've first thought.

And the book, being as vintage as it is, does have some nice ads inside it. Check out this Perry Mason deal....




Okay, there you have it. Another Bookstore Saturday is complete. And thanks to Boyd over at Next Chapter Books for helping this one to happen. (And yes, NCB hands out bookmarks and business cards, the way any Genuine Used Bookstore should do....)



Till next time.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957): The head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

(&)

The Setup

So there I was, minding my own business over at Amazon, when a particular little book flies into my cart and orders itself without my having done a thing to encourage it.

It's true the book had been on my Wish List for quite a long time.... Maybe it got to feeling ignored, even a bit panicky, wondering if it  ever would trade that cold, dark Amazon warehouse for my own tender embrace. Could be the novel felt like it had to take matters into its own hands... or pages. You know what I mean.

Of course I was shocked at its behavior: that's just not the way you win friends and influence people. (You say hello, strike up a conversation, maybe see if there are mutual interests. You don't just hurl yourself unannounced into someone's online shopping cart.)

But in the end, the pleading look that wee tome gave me, I couldn't turn it away.

And THAT, my friends, is a somewhat true story.

Well then, what book am I talking about? I'll bet, having seen the post's title as well as that poster up top, you could make an educated guess that I'm talking about a novelization of the 1957 film 20 Million Miles to Earth. (And you'd be right!) Of course one doesn't talk about a film's novelization without also giving the film a little attention, so buckle in, we're gonna be here a minute....

The (Original) Novelization

1957's Amazing Stories original
Now, if you're saying you never even knew there was a novelization of this particular film, until a year or two ago I'd've been right there with you. I didn't know the book existed until after discovering BearManor Media, where horizons were gleefully broadened on this and many another subject. (Seriously, the place is a treasure trove of film, TV and radio-themed books.)

But this novelization first saw light before BearManor was ever a twinkle in anyone's eye--it was Amazing Stories first (and only) foray into standalone novel-length fiction. This was in 1957 (same year as the movie's release), and it was written by a fellow named Henry Slesar. I didn't recognize his name off hand, but apparently the guy was quite prolific, putting out a ton of dark fantasy, detective fiction, science fiction, mysteries and thrillers in various formats--novels, short fiction, TV and radio scripts, even a stage play--over a 40 year timespan. (Go, Henry!)

Now, take a look at that cover, will you? This 1957 edition looks cool as a pool (hip as a chip), and I'd warmly welcome a copy onto my bookshelf for its hep artwork alone. However. A copy of said original currently runs north of a hundred bucks, and that's a bit steep when I have no idea if what lies behind the cover is anywhere near as cool as the cover itself. Which brings us back to BearManor Media, with its much less expensive (ten to fifteen bucks as I write this) reprint edition of the novelization.

The Reprint

2013's BearManor Media reprint
So it seems not too long ago a fellow named Philip J. Riley put a considerable amount of time and effort into getting several out-of-print horror film novelizations put back into print and available through BearManor--including the one for 20 Million Miles to Earth. He called his project "Philip J. Riley's Nightmare Series," and while I was hoping to give you a list of all the novelizations included, figuring that bit out wound up being harder than I'd thought and so... I gave up. (There you have it--an ugly truth laid bare.)

Turns out neither BearManor or Amazon (or anywhere else I could find) have an out and out list of what titles comprised the series, and since Riley wrote and edited a lot of other classic horror-themed books as well, I got all bogged down searching through synopses and cover blurbs trying to figure out which books were actually novelizations/part of the series and which weren't. So no list. I did send out an email or two that will hopefully net me some info on the subject.

Of course I couldn't speak to Mr. Riley himself, as he has left the mortal vale, but assuming I hear back from any of the folks I did reach out to, I'll update with a list at that point.

UPDATE: I heard back from author Richard Eksted, who contributed to the first few books in the Nightmare Series. He says the following is a definitive list of books included:
  • THE BRIDES OF DRACULA by Dean Owen - Book #1
  • REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN by Jimmy Sangster - Book #2
  • THE RAVEN by Eunice Sudak - Book #3
  • THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM by Lee Sheridan - Book #4
  • REPTILICUS by Dean Owen - Book #5
  • 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH by Henry Slesar - Book #6
So there you go. Although, now that I think, I recall seeing one for Gorgo on Amazon as well. And now that I double think, I'm pretty sure there was one for Dr. Cyclops, too. So maybe Mr. Eksted's list isn't definitive after all....

At any rate, it's a reprint copy of 20 Million..., and not an original, which had (as noted way up top there) stowed away in my shopping cart. Not nearly as cool a cover as that 1957 original had, but it has some nice extras inside to compensate.

How about we take a look?

The Reading of the Reprint

Being a longtime fan of stop motion animation master Ray Harryhausen (pictured at left, alongside his Ymir puppet), I'd already seen the film version of 20 Million... a time or two, though not in a few years. I was of course down for a re-watch, but once the novelization arrived I decided to give it a go before I revisited the film. (As one knows, one does not read a film novelization without also watching its source film within a reasonable time-frame, be it before or afterwards. This is a Law, and I am a Law Abider.)

Anyway, the reprint starts out with an intro by Randall Larson, which contains quite a bit of cool information, including interview excerpts from Slesar on his experience writing the novelization. (Slesar went on [and on] about the screenplay not offering him much to work with and that he wasn't particularly proud of his finished product.) Along with groovy intro, there are a fair number of lobby card, promo still and film poster reproductions to be had, as well as the original edition's interior illustrations (which are extremely cool).

On the down side, this book looks to have been either superficially proofread or not proofread at all. I mean there are tons of typos--enough to be seriously distracting as you read--and I'm assuming story text was scanned from a 1957 original using OCR and then just... left as-is. (Granted, I write/edit/proofread for a living, and I may be more sensitive to this kind of thing than some, but oy vey this book was rife with typos.)

Intros and illustrations aside, I have to agree with Mr. Slesar and say the novelization itself is none too impressive. And you know, Slesar was so well regarded as an author, it makes me want to read some of his other stuff, 'cause this thing couldn't have been his best work. He did gallantly try to shore things up along his way, expanding out a few side plots not in the movie--personal and political problems for the various characters to deal with, etc. And while usually those bits are the things in a film novelization that really get me going, it was falling flat for me here. It was honestly a bit tough to slog through.

Which I'm quite confident is not a reflection on Slesar's talent or lack. The guy had an impressive track record, and I've read enough novelizations where the same author went from amazing to what-the-hell (cough Hank Searls Jaws 2 → Jaws: The Revenge cough) to know the screenplay someone's given to work with can make or break their end result. And that's gotta be what happened here. So yeah, definitely want to give some of Slesar's other novels and short fiction a go, just to broaden my perspective.

The Illustrations

Oh, right. I'd mentioned the novelization's illustrations: Being originally published in pulp/digest format, this book included some sweet interior artwork. We know the original had sweet cover art (by Luigi Garonzi, I discovered), but check out these interior illustrations (artist unknown [to me]) the book had as well. I couldn't find a complete set of these illustrations on the Web, so I snapped photos directly from my reprint (hence the curvature on most of the images).

Okay, after the buildup maybe this first one is a bit underwhelming: weird looking
Ymir and all. Still.

Gronk! If anybody knows who drew these, back in the day, let me know....

Yeah, that caption doesn't match the artwork. The beast would've been coming
out of shock after the electrical equipment shorted out, and no one was calmly
standing around at that point....

...as we see here.

Yeah, so I'm placing these images in the order they're presented in the reprint
copy--can't say if the 1957 edition also used this order--but in the reprint it's out
of sequence with the story: The Ymir didn't find himself atop the Colosseum till
the very end. (Shrug.)

Nuff said.

The ignominious end of a glorious beast....

Nice, huh? Feel free to click through any of those for a larger image.

The Film

By the way, I keep calling this beast the Ymir, and nowhere in the film or novelization is that title actually used--it's always just "beast," "creature," etc. Word has it that Harryhausen had named his creation Ymir after the mythological Norse giant, and the film's original working title was The Giant Ymir, but apparently he got last-minute-worried audiences could confuse "Ymir" with the Arabic title "Emir" and had references to it removed. Too bad. I like the name and could just see a little scene in-film where the scientist dude muses on what to call it and settles on "Ymir."

At any rate, with novelization underwhelmingly finished (took me awhile to get through, even if it is a tiny tome), I finally sat down for a re-watch of the film. My take away from that?

Well, um... the movie wasn't actually as amazing as I'd remembered, either. Now this genuinely surprised me. I mean, I'd seen the film at least twice before and recalled just loving it. But a bit of reflection had me realizing my previous watchings were very Harryhausen-centric (if that wasn't a term before, it is now). I think with previous viewings I'd been so focused on his amazing creature effects, I hadn't really noticed the film in its entirety. And the film in its entirety is chock-full of awkward dialogue and wooden performances.

And the wooden performances part is especially bummersome, since I'm a big fan of William Hopper from his time on the old Perry Mason TV show. I haven't seen Hopper in a ton of things other than Perry Mason, and I'd just assumed he would be shining as Col. Calder in this film the way he does there. Nope. And it had to be the script, etc. holding him back: His character in Perry Mason was surprisingly varied, and playing him clearly called for some versatility from Hopper. I'm just saying the man was a competent actor, and you might not see it in 20 million Miles....

Anyway, here are some notes I jotted to myself as the picture progressed. Probably won't make a lot of sense unless you're quite familiar with the film (and if you're not, give it a watch--warts or not, this movie is worth multiple viewings just for the creature effects, and my notes will make sense as a bonus)....
  • Hey, in that long shot the boat hook is already in the kid's hand, then in the subsequent close up the dude tells him to get the boat hook out. Hmm.
  • The inside of that space ship has cinder block walls....
  • But the tilted camera to mimic the ship's angle is a nice touch.
  • Even though they loaded two men in, I am convinced there are no additional people in that boat as they row away.
  • I'm not caring much for this actress. Not sure I've seen her in anything else to know if, like Hopper, the script/direction were limiting her performance here....
  • Let's see... 1 USD = 625 Lit. in 1949, rate maintained till early 1970s... that means that half million lire the kid gets in reward money equaled about 800 bucks in 1957. Adjusted for inflation, that's a little over 7,000 USD today. Not a bad haul for an eleven year old kid. (My brain just tends to go down rabbit holes like this.... No help for it.)
  • Ooh, that life-size Ymir hand and arm in the cage escape scene was nice.
  • Okay, in the barn, those chickens we're obviously being thrown onto the set from off-camera.
  • Wait, that beast just broke out of a heavy duty metal cage, but you guys think that old wooden farm cart is gonna hold it?
  • Oh man. That stop motion Ymir/farmer fight, with live action Hopper worked in, is AMAZING.
  • Hey, does that live action elephant have fake tusks? (I'm guessing, after a little research, probably not.)
  • Whoa. That live action elephant looks really big next to it's trainer. What's going on, there? (Turns out, since he planned to use a real elephant for some footage, Harryhausen asked for one that was 15 feet tall, but the tallest they could find was eight feet. So to make the elephant look bigger, they got a 4' 6" actor to play the zookeeper.)
  • How tall was the Ymir at this point? Let's see, elephant's about the Ymir's height.... Largest recorded Asian elephant was twelve feet high, so I'm going with the Ymir at twelve feet as well. Although if Harryhausen wanted a 15 foot elephant, was he assuming his Ymir was 15 feet as well?
  • Huh. I notice the novelization had the Ymir explicitly killing the farm dog, elephant and at least one pedestrian, but the movie makes a point of showing post-battle movement and/or breath in all its victims. I guess the film wanted to garner a bit of sympathy for the beast?
  • Oh. Except for the military. Lot's of Ymir-Military-Killing onscreen. Hollywood military is always fair game as creature bait.
  • Totally unrelated... recently saw An American in Paris on the big screen and noticed an uncredited Noel Neill in a couple of scenes. Joan Taylor in this movie reminds me of her just a bit. In look and style, not acting.
Yep. Those were my movie thoughts. Well, not ALL of them: Per usual, I got a little preoccupied with creature size while watching the film, and got to wondering just how tall the steadily growing Ymir was in its various scenes. Which led to the following....

 The Ymir

Imagine my horror at doing an internet search, assuming I'd find a plethora of information on the Ymir's various sizes throughout the film, only to find NO SUCH THING exists. All my search got me was a series of terrifyingly general estimatations: "fifteen feet," "twenty feet," "ten to twenty feet," "thirty five feet," "the size of a small building," etc. Nothing solid at all. No way I'm letting that status quo continue.

Check out the following images with my quick, dirty and loose height calculations underneath (this is me taking screenshots from the film and mucking about with my on-screen ruler and half-assed math):

Okay, just eyeballing this one, I'm putting that newly (evening) hatched Ymir at 12-18 inches high. Why? Because he's a bit taller than Actor Guy's head is long, and the average male head (says the internet) is about 14 inches crown to chin.

Whoa! Next morning, maybe eight hours later, my (continued) eyeballing has Ymir at maybe three times the height he was the night before. Say, three to three and a half feet? At any rate, Ymir head to toe is the same height as Actor Guy head to knee in this image. Actor Guy was 66" tall (the internet tells me). Take away 24 inches (the average length of a male's leg, knee to toe, the internet also tells me) and that gives us 42 inches, or a 3.5 foot Ymir. See? Half-assed math....

Okay, now it's that evening (another 8 or 10 hours later?), Ymir has escaped his cage and we've got William hopper at six foot three, but his knees are slightly bent. Ymir is not quite as tall as Hopper as it stands straight across from him, so I'm going with, say, five and a half feet for Ymir. Growing like a weed!

On-Screen Ruler time! Next day, it's a fight to the finish and Flame Thrower Man is 1.75 inches in the image, and lets say that equals his actual height of 6 feet (all men are six feet tall in the movies). If 1.75 inches equals 6 feet, .29 inches equals 1 foot. Ymir is 3 inches high in the image, 3 divided by .29 makes him (about) 10.4 feet tall.

Alrighty. A few (?) days later, Ymir is recaptured and down for the count. Zoo Scientist is 2.4 inches in the image, which equals 6 feet in reel life. That gives us .4 inches equaling 1 foot, Ymir is 6 inches head to toe, giving a reel life Ymir height of 6 divided by .4 equaling 15 feet. Big!

Circumstantial evidence: Just after busting free, Ymir is ready to fight an elephant! Harryhausen wanted a fifteen foot live action elephant (fat chance) so we can assume his stop motion elephant was scaled to be fifteen feet high. Here they are together and sure enough, the two beasts are about the same height. (Wasn't this an amazing stop motion sequence in-film?)

More on-screen ruler math: Ymir is still on the rampage minutes later, six foot tall Lamp Man is 3 inches here, so .5 inches is 1 foot, making Ymir (towering at 8.3 inches) 16.6 feet tall.

Okay, Ymir disappears into the river for several hours and then reappears here, still growing. Definitely bigger here than he was with Lamppost Man.... Check out the two details pulled from this image below.

Barely Seen 6 foot Soldier is 1.3 inches tall, which translates
to one foot equaling .216 inches.
Ymir is 6.4 inches here. 6.4 divided by .216 equals
29.6 tall. Yowza!

And things go a little nuts, size-wise, here at the end as Ymir prepares to meet his demise atop the Colosseum. See that car back there next to the Colosseum? We're calling it five feet high at the roof line. It's half an inch high in the image, which means .5 inches equals five feet, or 1 inch equals 10 feet....

Now here's our scaly friend standing next to the Colosseum. His head is about even with the bottom of that railing there. Ground to that railing is 3.75 inches in the image, which translates to 37.5 feet (1 inch equaling 10 feet). So that gives us a 35 to 40 foot high Ymir right there! GrrrAnimals!!!

And this concludes our demonstration. My math is highly suspect and I do not stand by it except in fair weather. At least we now have something on the internet with reasonable size estimates....

Braaaiiiins!

Brain Counts? Ooh, that's a tough one. The novelization featured a barely readable story and plenty of typos to boot. That's circling One Brain territory right there, but its extras were cool and of course it gets points just for existing at all.... The original edition would score higher as it accesses Vintage Points, but I didn't get the original. Hmm... I'm saying the BearManor edition specifically is gonna land with...

TWO NOT QUITE ORIGINAL BRAINS

The movie? I was surprised at how little of it held my interest when stop motion creatures weren't on screen. As a film, sans creature effects, this would also be circling One, maybe Two Brain territory.... But the creature effects are Five Brain material and worth regular revisits on their own, so for the film I'm going with...

FOUR TINY VENUSIAN PUPPET BRAINS

Quint-style

And there you have it: 20 Million Miles to Earth--the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

You know, I kept refering to the Ymir as a "he" throughout this post, but who knows? The film and novelization never say one way or the other. Could be a "she." Could be something else entirely; it is Venusian you know. Heck, the Norse giant Harryhausen took its name from was hermaphroditic....

Till next time.

Sunday, September 30, 2018

Doc Savage Covered (1938)


(1933) (1934) (1935) (1936) (1937) (1938) (1939) (1940) (1941) (1942) (1943) (1944) (1945) (1946) (1947) (1948) (1949)


To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious figure of glistening bronze skin and golden eyes. To his amazing co-adventurers--the five greatest brains ever assembled in one group--he is a man of superhuman strength and protean genius, whose life is dedicated to the destruction of evil-doers. To his fans he is the greatest adventure hero of all time, whose fantastic exploits are unequaled for hair-raising thrills, breathtaking escapes and blood-curdling excitement.




More Doc Savage today. (Woo!)

From previous posts, you already know:
  • I'm going through all 181 Street & Smith pulps (by year of pulp publication) and their corresponding Bantam reprints. (The pulps were originally published between 1933 and 1949, and the reprints between 1964 and 1990.)
  • Emery Clarke and Walter Baumhofer painted the lion's share of pulp covers, and James Bama and Bob Larkin did most of the paperback artwork. (And of course, Lester Dent did most of the writing.)
  • Book blurbs you see are from the reprints--the pulps only had three or four-word cover descriptions--along with slightly longer ones inside under the story's title--but nothing remotely as blurb-tastic as the reprints came up with later.
  • As far as commentary goes, I'm not doing a ton of it for each cover, but whenever something catches my fancy, I (usually can't help but) mention it.
  • You can click through most covers to see larger versions, using your browser's back button or keyboard shortcut to get yourself back to the full post.
Okay then: "1938 awaits!" (Spoken with deep, eerie and echoey voice--natch.)



The Living Fire Menace (January 1938 and June 1971) by Harold A. Davis & Lester Dent

Nations arming for international conflict engage in a behind-the-scenes mineral war that threatens to disrupt the natural balance of the universe. The Man of Bronze rises to the titanic peak of his strength and wit to uncover the secret of the cavern with the living fire!

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

Well, that blurb starts out pretty run-of-the-mill: international conflict, mineral war--could be talking about any number of paperbacks there on the rack. Then we hit "...disrupt the natural balance of the universe..." and we're like "oh, must be a Doc Savage adventure."

And there have been mornings, after an especially late night, when I've had to rise to the titanic peak of my strength and wit to roll out of bed in a timely manner. I'm just saying I've been there, and that "titanic strength and wit" are things Doc and I have in common.

(Now on to these two covers, he wrote titanically!)

Hmm. Covers. You know I'm a fan of Bama's Doc in general--his sheer size and musculature are so impressive to me. But BamaDoc abstractly floating over a field of orange fire next to a big blue bubble? ... Meh.

On the other hand, Clarke's Doc amounts to a really nice figure study--obviously not sporting larger-than-life musculature like Bama's, but it's one extremely well-rendered figure by any standard you care to hold up. I'm sayin' it speaks (loudly, so it's kind of shouting) to the artist in me. I also like that firelight reflecting off Doc's skin. And I like that, dressed in nothing but his little red skivvies, Doc's remembered to bring his utility belt along.

And--hello--skeletons! Skeletons ALWAYS garner big points on a pulp or paperback cover, amiright? I mean, double points for LIVING SKELETONS, and these bones are clearly just lying there, but still: 800 Skeleton Points. Yeah, clear winner here.

In fact, just for fun, I'm throwing in an image of Clarke's original painting. Go ahead and click through to take a gander at his work, all up close and personal. Nice, nice stuff.




The Mountain Monster (February 1938 and September 1976) by Harold A. Davis & Lester Dent

The monster came without warning. It came as Indian legend had said it would come, in the night and while a storm raged. It brought terror and horror to peaceful Arcadia Valley. It transformed an Alaskan paradise into a panic-stricken, fear-blanched hell. Only one man could stop it — the Man of Bronze.

Artist: Harold Winfield ScottArtist: Boris Vallejo

Oh how I wanted that giant spider to be real when I first read this one as a kid. First encounter I had with the story was through the Bantam reprint, and man, what a cover! I mean, if Doc can end up in a lost valley filled with honest-to-god dinosaurs, he should be able to meet up with a real live giant spider as well, right? But no, this monster is (yet another) Scooby-Doo contraption built by bad guys to scare off the honest folk. Sigh.

And it is the spider that brings all the joy, on that Bantam cover. I don't remember if I've mentioned (it's taking me so long to get through these year-at-a-time posts), but being quite a fan of Boris Vallejo's work otherwise, I'm not so overcome by his Doc-renditions. (Shrug.)

But hey! A new artist has popped up on the pulp side of things! Click through the link on Mr. Scott's name (just underneath his pulp cover) for a little background info on the man. Apparently this is his one and only Doc cover, and I like it. I mean, clearly I can't place it above anything with a giant spider on it, but this is an interesting, engaging cover in its own right. Well done, Mr. One and Only.

GIANT SPIDER! Mmmmm....



Devil on the Moon (March 1938 and July 1970) by Lester Dent

A fiery red flash bursts through the silence of the night … a dying green man insists he’s been held captive on the moon .. a small blue capsule conceals an unearthly medallion. Can the invincible Man of Bronze piece together this weird puzzle in time to save the world from the devilish merchants of international war?

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

I honestly don't remember if this story actually involves someone masquerading as a devil, but it does involve a group of evil-doers tricking folks into thinking they're being held captive on the moon. At any rate, looks like Bama just took the book title and painted it. A little fanciful for me (says the guy who raved about a cover's giant spider just one book back), but okay.

Gotta say I prefer Clarke's cover this time around--nothing overly exciting about it, to be sure--it's just that I prefer Doc and Pat dosing up a Bad Gal with (I assume) truth serum, to Looming Red Devil Guy. Nice to see both Doc and Pat on a cover together. I wonder how many times that happened? (Nope, I'm not going to go back and count.)

But you know? I like this story's title. It's a tiny bit outside the usual formula used for the series. You know, The _____ Mystery, or The _____ Ghost, etc. Mysteries and ghosts were very popular at the Doc Savage Titling Office.

Yeah, I like it.



The Pirate's Ghost (April 1938 and July 1971) by Lester Dent

At his supersensational best, the Man of Bronze finesses an international band of modern day pirates in possession of the master invention by the Mad Genius of Death Valley!

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

And speaking of ghostly titles, there was one published the very next month! (Insert mysterious melodic trilling sound here.)

Okay, I like that this blurb uses the word "supersensational" and I pulp-honor it for that, but overall it's gotta be the lamest Bantam blurb so far (alas, another thing I'm not gonna go back and actually check on). I'm not wrong though, am I? The blurb's a snoozer.

And again, nice Doc on that Bama cover, but Big 70s TV Movie Pirate Guy is doing me no favors. None at all. I feel like he could start selling me cereal at any moment. Blech.

Clarke's cover is doing me a few favors, though. It's not changing my life, but there are small-to-medium-sized favors happening. I like the image overall, nice lines and composition. Wee fishes on the bottom right are a nice touch. Kind of an "X" going on visually, with Doc's body making one half and the anchor chain and fishes the other. I like the knife between the teeth too--kind of a cliche, but where else would you hold your knife if you needed both arms to swim?

It's just a more interesting cover for me, over all.

Nuff said.



The Motion Menace (May 1938 and September 1971) by W. Ryerson Johnson & Lester Dent

The Man of Bronze and his cousin Pat face an inordinate challenge: a machine that makes all modern weapons worthless. A gang of international thieves in control of the invention are shooting high: World Control.

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

World control?! Those bastards!

Okay, Bantam covers haven't been faring well this time around, but I'll come right out and say I prefer this Bama cover to Clarke's. I'll also say it's the dirigible we're seeing in the background that put's the cover ahead in my book. (Heh. Get it? We're talking about books and I said "in my book." Heh.) Anyway, dirigibles are extremely cool, plus they have a name that is incredibly fun to say out loud, and I just like them, and that's why the Bantam cover wins here.

As for Clarke's cover, no real complaints, there's just not a lot going on in it to keep me interested. Is that a parachute that Doc is sitting on? Were those a thing, back in the day--you sat on your parachute? Hmm. You know, I'm reasonably sure that's a dirigible way down in the cover's bottom right. Are we looking up into the sky at Doc having just jumped out of an exploding dirigible?

I don't know, and maybe that's part of the problem with this one for me. I don't generally want to have to puzzle out what's going on in a pulp's cover--just pull it out and hit me over the head with it, already.



The Submarine Mystery (June 1938 and August 1971) by Lester Dent

It might be a hoax, and it might not be. Blood has been spilled! People are dead! The Man of Bronze ably confronts a dangerous crackpot scheme that has a baffled world wondering what will happen next.

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

Well, if blood has been spilled and people are dead, I'm guessing it's not a hoax....

As for these two covers, I am seriously enamored with Bama's. Why? Take one look at his bursting-to-the-surface submarine and you'll know why. Submarines are right up there with dirigibles, as far as pulp-paperback-cover-coolness goes. (Pulp-paperback-cover-coolness is a technical publishing term--very big in the publishing world.)

Now if the corresponding pulp also had a submarine on its cover... we might have a closer contest. I guess Doc and damsel might be inside a submarine on Clarke's cover there, but sub-insides are not in the same league as sub-outsides, cool factor-wise.

So yeah, sub breaching at the surface wins hands down.

Hmm. Awfully shallow water BamaDoc is standing in. Must be a nice, deep ocean trench just behind him. Otherwise how would he be standing thigh-deep with that big old sub coming up hard enough to pop its prow (do subs have prows?) like that?

Yeah, gotta be a trench back there. That sub was probably running from a megalodon. (amiright, Steve Alten fans?) Sigh. And now, having brought a completely unrelated idea up, I'm compelled to include this megalodon size chart, totally out of the blue and courtesy of Fossil Guy. (Click through the image to ginormicise so you can fully appreciate it. Fossil Guy did nice work.)


Damn, that megalodon would SO dominate our oceans today. But I digress. On to Doc's next novel.



The Giggling Ghosts (July 1938 and January 1971) by Lester Dent

Fears of ghosts and a deadly giggling gas become a terrifying reality to millions of people threatened by the S.R.G.V. The Man of Bronze faces a supreme test as he pits might against the forces of evil.

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

Okay, I am flat out enjoying PulpDoc in that sweater vest. Never mind he's keeping it cool while hanging from a skyscraper, unconscious woman in-hand--he's doing it all while rocking his late-thirties-business-casual to boot.

BamaDoc, on the other hand, is all locked, loaded and ready to kick ass in yet another ruined shirt. He looks supremely ready to take on every last one of those Shadowy Bad Guys lurking about in his cover's background. And, there will be NO GIGGLING INVOLVED should any ass-kicking take place--that mask Doc is wearing ensures he will be well defended during any "deadly giggling gas" attacks.

Yeah, it's a decent Bantam cover, but PulpDoc and his sweater vest take the deadmansprize here. (Now you're wondering what a deadmansprize is and if you can get one.)

Does this story involve laughing gas, as in the actual dentist-thing? (What's it called, CO2?) Ah, Google tells me it's C2O, and since it was around well before the 1930s it could be a factor in-story. Can't honestly say I remember a darn thing about this book's plot-line, and... a quick look at my own collection says I don't have this one available to thumb through, so we are just out of luck on that count.



The Munitions Master  (August 1938 and March 1971) by Harold A. Davis

Screaming trunks of soldiers seared by white-hot fire … a small, twisted man carrying long loaves of bread … a thin liquid with a peculiar sickening smell … Branded the worst traitor in history, the Man of Bronze fights through the flames of revolution to uncover the master of a world of the Living Dead!

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

Wow, that is quite a cover blurb we've got going here.

I'm not even sure what a screaming trunk of soldiers refers to. A large container full of screaming enlisted men? Or is the container itself screaming? Or are we talking multiple enlisted men sans arms and legs, all tossed into a big box? I truly have no idea. (I had to go to a couple different sources on that blurb to make sure I wasn't looking at a typo. I wasn't. "Screaming trunk of soldiers" is the real deal.) Anyway, add small twisted men, long bread loaves and the living dead into the mix... that's gotta be quite a story.

As an aside, Harold Davis was apparently known for putting together some of the more outlandish of Doc's adventures, and while I've read them all at least once it was before I'd looked into things such as who wrote what, so I'm not the man to ask on that score. But I'll say that THIS is a Harold Davis story, and it sounds fairly over the top to me, so the Harold Davis theory is not disproved here.

As for these two covers, BamaDoc encased in ice is the winner for me. It's just a cool (*NPI) image. The pulp cover is decent too, but not over-inspiring. (Is it even possible to be overly inspired? That's like being too beautiful, or having too much peanut butter. Not sure you can really do that.)

*No Pun Intended

Regardless, the Evil Guard on Clarke's cover is surely about to get what's due him. We know he's evil because he's wearing red and has a goatee. Plus, he's cowering in the face of Righteous Courage. Wait, maybe he's only cowering 'cause he's about to get clocked by an angry bronze giant. Or maybe it's both.



The Red Terrors (September 1938 and July 1976) by Harold A. Davis

The Red Terrors — they came out of the depths to seize an unsuspected ship and transport its precious human cargo to their watery domain. There, in a lost sunken world under the sea, they lived securely. Until they sank the wrong ship … and the Man of Bronze came to call.

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist Boris Vallejo

Hmm. Well, that Vallejo cover does nothing at all for me. His Red Terror looks like the Vulture, of whom I have never been a fan. (I thought Micheal Keaton did a nice job with that latest re-imagining, though.)

Clarke's cover definitely wins out for me this round. Nothing epic about it, to be sure, but it's at least delivering the goods as far as pulp action is concerned--being trapped in a room rapidly filling with water is not to be sneezed at. (...shudders...) What a way to go.



Fortress of Solitude (October 1938 and April 1968) by Harold A. Davis

The deep mysteries of Doc Savage are finally revealed! John Sunlight, poetic genius of evil, gruesome master of a thousand elements of screaming terror, discovers the innermost secrets of The Man of Bronze. Doc Savage finds himself enmeshed in a diabolical web of dark horror as he valiantly battles the appalling machines of destruction he himself has invented!

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

You know, I think it's time I gave this one a second read-through. Pretty sure I only read it the one time, when I was going through all 181 stories.

Have I mentioned yet how I managed to do that? It was back in the day of PalmPilots. I was working nights, with a lot of nothing-to-do-but-must-stay-awake-at-all-costs time on my hands, and I'd come across a website with all 181 of Doc's adventures in .pdb format. On to my Palm they went and I got through all of 'em in about six months as I recall.

Of course my Palm and its files are long gone now, but that's how I got through all the adventures without actually having books-in-hand. These days, copyright holder Conde Nast is pretty quick to quash any electronic Doc Savage files they find lurking about the web, so I'd be surprised if you could get a hold of anything similar now. Too bad.

Anyway, as it turns out I do own a physical copy of this particular story, and so I gave it an airplane-read on the business trip that happened between that first paragraph up there and this one (life happens between paragraphs). The biggest standouts for me in the book were 1) how evil this book's villain was portrayed as being--he was a truly horrifying figure--frighteningly so, and 2) all the references to Doc as a very human character.

What I mean by that second point is this. Doc (especially earlier on in the series) is invariably painted as being very close to superhuman, physically and psychologically. He's always in control of himself and the situation. He never voices concern for his own safety, or really expresses any emotion at all. But in this story, instances of Doc's humanity are called out several times. Here are a few of 'em:
  • "Doc Savage was a normal fellow who... was rather unusual but still human enough. He had missed the play-life of normal children, and so he was probably more subdued, conscious that he hadn't gotten everything out of life. Talk... attributed all kinds of fantastic doings and powers to Doc Savage. But it was only talk."
  • The bronze man's powers of observation had been trained from childhood.... He had to notice little things... if he wanted to go on living.
  • "How did you figure that out?" Ham demanded. (Doc's aides were generally quite subservient, almost seeming to hold Savage in awe. Hard to imagine one of them "demanding" anything of him.)
  • [Doc's] face--they had never seen quite such an expression on his face before. It was something stark. Queer. They could not, at first, tell what it was; then they knew that the bronze man was feeling an utter horror.
  • Doc Savage had spun, and flung [himself] into the library. The bronze man snapped the library door shut behind him, then did nothing more exciting than stride to one of the great windows and stand stiffly, staring into the hazy northern sky. Doc's sinew-cabled arms were down, as rigid as bars, at his sides, and his powerful hands worked slowly, clenching and unclenching. He was doing something that none of his men had ever seen him do before. He was taking time out to get control of himself.
  • [Doc] never criticized his crew for errors or shortcomings. The bronze man made mistakes himself. Mistakes - his metallic face settled into the grimmest of lines. Mistake! This whole thing was the result of a mistake he had made. A horrible error. He had not told them that as yet, but the fact had taken shape in his own mind, and was there whenever his thoughts relaxed, to torment him like a spike-tailed devil.
Got some nice Ken Barr
cover art going on here.
So yeah. A horrified, out-of-control, tormented Doc is not the norm for this series. I do remember that Philip Jose Farmer, in his (excellent) book Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, talked about Doc losing some of his superhuman self-control as the series progressed. He called out The Lost Giant and several other books as examples, but I don't think he mentioned this one.

Oh, wow. We're 13 paragraphs in on these two covers, and I haven't weighed in on the artwork yet. Oops. Well, fun as the actual story was, neither one of these covers does a lot for me. Nothing wrong with either of them, they're just not getting my heart rate up at all. I guess if I had to go with one, it'd be... um....

Huh. I guess it's a tie. Weird. How often does that happen? (Not very often, if memory serves....)



The Green Death (November 1938 and November 1971) by Harold A. Davis

From Matto Grosso — in the deadly heart of the Green Hell — comes an organic mystery that paralyzes even the Man of Bronze: an oozing horror that wipes out the line between life and death!

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: James Bama

Eew. Oozing horror sounds too much like oozing sore and that's just gross. Let's see, we're almost to the end of 1938--this and one more month to go. So what's up for me with these two covers? Anything? Hmm. I'll say neither one stuns me.

Bama, as usual, has some nice dark-and-creepy going on in his cover. Nice image of Doc there, too. It looks familiar--I wonder if Doc was taken from an earlier cover and pasted into this cover's foreground. (Yet again, not something I'm going to research out.) I guess it's a pretty standard Bama-esque pose, though. Maybe that's all I'm seeing.

Anyway, I'm going with Clarke's cover this time. I'm liking the whole Doc tied to an alter thing going on there. Heck, you could swap Doc out for a certain member of the Greystoke clan and you'd have a Tarzan cover staring you in the face. Anyway, the more I look at the cover, the more I like it overall. Pretty iconic, priestess with raised dagger and the whole bit. Well done. Reminds me it'd be fun to do a Tarzan Covered post sometime....

Wow, is it me or does Doc have a particularly prominent nipple on display in Clarke's cover. (I'm not judging; I'm just asking.) 

On to this year's LAST COVERS.



The Devil Ghengis (December 1938 and December 1974) by Lester Dent

A fantastic horror has come out of the polar regions — a menace so bizarre it causes men to go insane! The Man of Bronze and his courageous crew penetrate the rugged Asian interior on a perilous mission: to find out the source of this mystery and smash the evil genius who controls it.

Artist: Emery ClarkeArtist: Fred Pfeiffer

That's gotta be Johnny, Renny and Ham staring down at a coffined Doc in that pulp cover, right? Cool to see so many of the main characters on a cover. I'll have to give this one a read as well (it IS the sequel to Fortress of Solitude, after all--villain John Sunlight was the only baddie to show up twice across all 181 stories. Anyway, if I give it a read I'll know exactly who's who on that cover.

I like the Clarke cover due to its being well-peopled--can't say there's a lot of action going on (there never is when the centerpiece is a coffin amiright?). But that Pfeiffer cover is really nice to look at, too. I mean visually it's a striking cover. Hmm. You probably know by now I'm not a fan of Giant Floating Head covers in general, but this one is a nice composition--maybe having Gengis' wrist and hand in there as well makes it less Floaty Heady.

Goin' with the old pulp though, on account of it having so many of the gang featured. (And if I read the story and find out I'm mistaken on who's who I may or may not remember to come back and update....)



And that's it! We are through with Nineteen Thirty Eight, in all its glory. 1939 is next (obviously), and it'll be the LAST 1930s cover set. Wow. I'll be curious to see how the pulp covers change (if they do) as we move through a new decade. I mean, certainly art in general, and commercial art in particular, has tended to reflect what was going on in the world at the time, right? So we'll see....

Till next time.