I have been posting on the fanzine bare*bones, which is devoted to “unearthing vintage, forgotten, and overlooked horror/mystery/sci-fi/western/weird film – paperbacks – comics – pulp fiction – video.” It’s produced by Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri through Cimarron Street Books.
I have reviewed the first 16 issues. Now as there are more issues, so here are the next four issues, moving into their fifth year, which is a pretty good achievement. Five years of quarterly issues, all coming out on a regular basis.
Again, for many, there is probably other material included in this zine that will be of interest, but as this blog is focused on pulp, that is what I will also focus on. There are reviews of movies, books, comics, and more that you may enjoy. Each issue also has an in-depth look at different crime digests, a successor to the pulps, along with a column on the “Field Guide to L.A. Pulp,” though sadly it doesn’t always focus on real pulp.
bare*bones #17 (Winter 2024) We get a couple of articles on early TV series (FBI and Man of the World), and the continuation of a detailed look at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. This issue’s installment of “The Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” takes us to Santa Barbara, but all the sites are connected to post-pulp mystery authors. I did find the article by Randall Larson on his fanzine works (Fandom Unlimited, CineFan, CinemaScore, and others) of interest, even if only tangentially pulp related.
Two articles look at look at some of the novels by Marvin Albert, who also wrote as Albert Conroy and Ian McAlister. One of the articles also looked at the Fargo western paperback series, one of several post-pulp numbered men’s adventure series in the style of the pulps. I also enjoyed the article on the “Bats in Your Belfry” toy from 1964. Maybe someone could recreate this through a crowdsourcing campaign.
bare*bones #18 (Spring 2024) The most pulp-related piece this time was the article on Curt Siodmak, who was involved in several movies in the 1950s and ’60s. This focused on his novel Donovan’s Brain, which was later turned into a movie and which had two sequels. This work actually first appeared in Black Mask before being published in paperback.
This issue’s installment of “The Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” focused on locations from Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction movie, which, in my opinion, has little to do with pulp fiction. The piece on the early TV show Science Fiction Theater was enjoyable, as I had never heard of it. It was a sort-of forerunner to Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. We get the first part of a look at Atlas Comics’ pre-code horror comics, now being reprinted by Fantagraphics. I used to do plastic model kits as a kid, and I think I might have had the Alien model kit featured in the article by John Scoleri.
bare*bones #19 (Summer 2024) This time the most pulp-related article is on Belmont’s The Shadow novels. Belmont was the paperback book arm of Archie Comics, which at the time had the rights to The Shadow. This led to the worst Shadow comic ever. Belmont planned a series of original Shadow novels, to be written by Walter Gibson. But after putting out the first one, they instead offered him so little he refused. So Dennis Lynds did the following ones, casting The Shadow as more of a spy/secret agent fighting against a group called CYPHER.
Other interesting articles look at the many alien invader movies by W. Lee Wilder; the Atlas Comics title Adventures into Weird Worlds; and a continuation of the series on Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine. This issue’s article in the series “Field Guide to American Pulp” again doesn’t focus on pulp but on a trio of post-pulp noir paperbacks. And we get a cover featured research article on Jack the Ripper.
bare*bones #20 (Fall 2024) It’s a larger-than-normal issue, coming in at 150 pages vs. a little over 100 pages. We get a couple of pulp-related articles. From pulp historian Stefan Dziemianowicz, we get a look at a mid-1920’s British book series Not at Night that reprinted a lot of content from Weird Tales. He includes a breakdown of the contents of each book, citing where it came from, along with a paragraph-length synopsis of each story.
The next pulp-related work is on Western author Steve Frazee who started in the pulps before moving on to the post-pulp digests and paperback books by J. Charles Burwell. We get an article on an early lost TV show called The Web. I noticed it was produced by Goodson-Todman, which was going to do a Doc Savage movie (never happened). I do wonder if any of their scripts were based on pulp stories vs. stories from Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock digest mags?
We get a continuation of the series on Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine. This time “Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” looks at another post-pulp author, Robert Edmond Alter. I find it strange that his one sf novel, published posthumously and used as the basis of a 1970s movie, Path to Savagery, has not been reprinted.
Again, this fanzine continues to put out great issues. I do commend them for getting these out on a very regular basis, a problem for some. I know that there will be something in each issue that I will enjoy, and that may be true for others. If you haven’t checked this one out — and why haven’t you? — please do so. I know that the coming issues apparently will be in a larger format size. Whatever they do, I’ll be looking forward to the next issue.
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