This time I look at a fanzine that just recently ended, The Paperback Fanatic. Produced by Justin Marriott, it focused on, of course, paperback book collecting.
It’s one of several such fanzines he has put out over the years. Starting with issue #37, they are available from Amazon via print-on-demand, so those issues are readily available. Earlier ones were published in the U.K. and, so, are hard to come by now.
All are in full color, so you can enjoy the cover art and photos. As they are fanzines, in addition to the articles, there is often a letter column, reviews, and more. I wonder if Justin has been to PulpFest, since he has been to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention?
The size of the issues changed over time. Numbers 37 through 40 were about 6×9 in size. With #41, they went to a 7-by-10-inch size. With #46, they went with an 8.5-by-12-inch size, and we got a nice logo for The Paperback Fanatic. It was considered almost a relaunch of the title in 2023.
Now I do have to state that I’m not cool with slapping the word “pulp” on paperbacks. While paperbacks, along with digest fiction magazines and men’s adventure magazines, replaced the pulps, they are not pulps. Yes, they reprinted pulp fiction, and yes, some pulp authors made the transition, and yes, many of the genres in pulps continued in paperback books. But the economics and editorial styles of the paperbacks were not the same. So this trend of using the term “pulp paperbacks” for either the sleaze paperbacks of the ’70s or the lower-tier paperback publishers of the ’60s and ’70s just doesn’t work for me.
That said, there is pulp-related material in these issues, and I will be pointing that out. Now, I don’t yet have all the issues from #37 on, hence I don’t comment on the issues I’m missing.
#37 (October 2017) contains two articles. The first is on a pair of French paperback cover artists, Jean-Michel Nicollet and Philippe Caza. Nicollet is the more interesting for me for the several covers for NEO Books of various pulp authors like Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith, among others. The second is “A Visual Guide to Digit Books,” which looks at a U.K. paperback publisher that emerged after WWII.
#40 (September 2018) contains several articles. The most pulp-related is first a reprint of Lin Carter’s book reviews from Castle of Frankenstein magazine from 1965, which included many reprinted from the pulps or pulp-related works. The second takes a look at the many paperback editions and film adaptations of Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, which first appeared in Unknown Worlds in 1943.
#41 (March 2019) has several articles. The most pulp-related is a look at 50 years of Conan paperbacks, with several covers shown by Richard Toogood.
#44 (August 2020) has several articles, but nothing specifically pulp-related. The longest article is on the theme of plagues in paperback books, including in men’s adventure paperback series.
#45 (2022) contains “A Visual Guide to Belmont and Tower Books” by Marriott. This starts with a several-page introduction on these publishers and their output, before going into the visual guide itself, made up of six covers per page, with commentary.
For those not aware, these two publishers had a strange connection to Archie Comics, formerly MLJ Comics, named for the three founders: Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit, and John L. Goldwater. All three were involved with various publishing efforts in the 1930s, including pulps. Tower was formed in 1958, with Silberkleit as a silent partner and longtime Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten as editor. Most probably know them for Tower Comics, which published the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents created by Wally Wood and including other great artists like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane, among others. Tower would later buy out Belmont in 1971, becoming Belmont Tower, but that period is not covered here.
Belmont was founded by all three in 1961, and yes, the name comes from the Belmont horse racing course. Belmont is probably best known for the new Shadow paperbacks they did, first with Walter Gibson, and then continuing with Dennis Lynds, where he was more of an updated, spy-like character. This was due to packager Lyle Kenyon Engle, who tried to repeat the success of the “updated” Nick Carter series, which changed the dime novel and pulp hero detective into the counterspy “Killmaster.” While we don’t get the cover to Gibson’s novel, we do get the rest. We also get the many books by various SF and weird-fiction pulp authors like Frank Belknap Long, Lin Carter, Philip K. Dick, Murray Leinster, and Milton Lesser, among others.
#46 (2023) is a sort of relaunch of the title with a larger format and a new logo. This one has several one- to two-page articles, but several are longer, and it is about 70 pages. Lots of interesting articles, but the ones that are pulp-oriented include Tom Tesarek’s look at weird-menace pulps, in particular, the February 1937 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine. I think this starts off a regular column on “pulp horror.” He also gives us a visual guide to Jove/HBJ books, which included reprints of The Shadow, H.P. Lovecraft, and the New Pulp series Weird Heroes, among others. Another article looks at the Conan pastiches of the time, trying to answer the question of whether they are worth reading.
#47 (July 2023), like the previous issue, has many articles and is more than 70 pages. We get another of Tom Tesarek’s looks at weird-menace pulps, this time the May 1939 issue of Red Circle’s Mystery Tales, which ran nine issues. There is a nice interview with Michael Stradford, who has been doing excellent books on the covers using Steve Holland as the model. Nigel Bate takes a look at the Conan pastiches, again asking whether they are worth reading. Another article looks at the SF of Clifford D. Simak, who started in the pulps.
#48 (April 2024) features Tom Tesarek looking at another weird-menace pulp, this time the May 1936 issue of Ace Mystery. Another article looks at the outstanding covers from the first 100 DAW Books, many of which were reprinted from the pulps.
#49 (November 2024) has Tom Tesarek looking at another weird-menace pulp, this time the May 1936 issue of Popular Publications’ Horror Stories, the first issue. A column on gothic romances looks at the career of Muriel Newhall, who started in the pulps. Nigel Bate returns with more Conan pastiche paperbacks. Another article looks at the several different cover artworks done for the U.K. edition of Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales. And we get a visual guide to the covers of Pyramid Books SF paperbacks, which contain a lot of pulp reprints.
#50 (August 2025) is the final big blowout issue. We get a lot of articles here, most being two to four pages long in a 125-page package. Those of interest include the following: an unauthorized set of paperback Shadow books done in the style of the HBJ ones, utilizing Jim Steranko artwork for the covers. The original series ran to #23. The unauthorized set are marked as being #24–32. We get to see five of the covers. Tom Tesarek continues his look at weird-menace pulp stories with a group connected to carnivals and circuses. Another article looks at the two-volume set of Early Del Rey, reprinting stories by Lester del Rey that appeared in the pulps between 1938 and 1951. The editions of Clark Ashton Smith done by U.K. publisher Panther are the subject of another. The unauthorized Tarzan novels from Gold Star Books are also covered.
This is a great fanzine, and I hope we’ll see more from this publisher. I will also be taking a look at some of his other publications, and if I feel they belong here, will post on them as well. I hope he does reprint material from the earlier non-POD issues, maybe some kind of “best of” collections, but it’s unclear when or if this will happen.
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