{"id":18274,"date":"2025-03-12T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T14:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=18274"},"modified":"2025-01-30T12:02:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T17:02:30","slug":"barebones-17-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2025\/03\/12\/barebones-17-20\/","title":{"rendered":"‘bare*bones’ #17-20"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been posting on the fanzine bare*bones<\/a><\/em>, 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<\/a><\/strong> and John Scoleri<\/a><\/strong> through Cimarron Street Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"bare-bones<\/a>I have reviewed the first 16 issues<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

bare*bones<\/em> #17 (Winter 2024)<\/strong> We get a couple of articles on early TV series (FBI<\/em> and Man of the World<\/em>), and the continuation of a detailed look at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine<\/a><\/em>. 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<\/strong> on his fanzine works (Fandom Unlimited<\/em>, CineFan<\/em>, CinemaScore<\/em>, and others) of interest, even if only tangentially pulp related.<\/p>\n

Two articles look at look at some of the novels by Marvin Albert<\/strong>, who also wrote as Albert Conroy<\/strong> and Ian McAlister<\/strong>. One of the articles also looked at the Fargo<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

\"bare-bones<\/a>bare*bones<\/em> #18 (Spring 2024)<\/strong> The most pulp-related piece this time was the article on Curt Siodmak<\/a><\/strong>, who was involved in several movies in the 1950s and ’60s. This focused on his novel Donovan’s Brain<\/em>, which was later turned into a movie and which had two sequels. This work actually first appeared in Black Mask<\/a><\/em> before being published in paperback.<\/p>\n

This issue’s installment of “The Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” focused on locations from Quentin Tarantino<\/strong>‘s Pulp Fiction<\/em> movie, which, in my opinion, has little to do with pulp fiction. The piece on the early TV show Science Fiction Theater<\/em> was enjoyable, as I had never heard of it. It was a sort-of forerunner to Twilight Zone<\/em> and Outer Limits<\/em>. We get the first part of a look at Atlas Comics’ pre-code horror comics, now being reprinted by Fantagraphics<\/a>. I used to do plastic model kits as a kid, and I think I might have had the Alien<\/em> model kit featured in the article by John Scoleri<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"bare-bones<\/a>bare*bones<\/em> #19 (Summer 2024)<\/strong> This time the most pulp-related article is on Belmont’s The Shadow<\/a><\/strong> novels. Belmont was the paperback book arm of Archie Comics, which at the time had the rights to The Shadow<\/a>. This led to the worst Shadow comic ever. Belmont planned a series of original Shadow novels, to be written by Walter Gibson<\/a><\/strong>. But after putting out the first one, they instead offered him so little he refused. So Dennis Lynds<\/a><\/strong> did the following ones, casting The Shadow as more of a spy\/secret agent fighting against a group called CYPHER.<\/p>\n

Other interesting articles look at the many alien invader movies by W. Lee Wilder<\/strong>; the Atlas Comics title Adventures into Weird Worlds<\/em>; and a continuation of the series on Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine<\/em>. 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<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

bare*bones<\/em> #20 (Fall 2024)<\/strong> 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<\/a><\/strong>, we get a look at a mid-1920’s British book series Not at Night<\/em> that reprinted a lot of content from Weird Tales<\/em>. He includes a breakdown of the contents of each book, citing where it came from, along with a paragraph-length synopsis of each story.<\/p>\n

\"bare-bones<\/a>The next pulp-related work is on Western author Steve Frazee<\/strong> who started in the pulps before moving on to the post-pulp digests and paperback books by J. Charles Burwell<\/strong>. We get an article on an early lost TV show called The Web<\/em>. I noticed it was produced by Goodson-Todman, which was going to do a Doc Savage<\/a><\/strong> movie (never happened). I do wonder if any of their scripts were based on pulp stories vs. stories from Ellery Queen<\/a><\/em> and Alfred Hitchcock<\/em> digest mags?<\/p>\n

We get a continuation of the series on Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine<\/em>. This time “Field Guide to L.A. Pulp” looks at another post-pulp author, Robert Edmond Alter<\/strong>. I find it strange that his one sf novel, published posthumously and used as the basis of a 1970s movie, Path to Savagery<\/em>, has not been reprinted.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 and why haven’t you? \u2014 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'bare*bones' #17-20.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[56,39,1,14],"tags":[425,815,1429,545,2135,2136,2137,110,1331,2138,1900,1897,1899,1201,109,412,304],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-18274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fanzines","category-non-fiction","category-pulps","category-review","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-barebones","tag-belmont-books","tag-black-mask","tag-cimarron-street-books","tag-curt-siodmak","tag-dennis-lynds","tag-doc-savage","tag-ellery-queens-mystery-magazine","tag-fantagraphics","tag-john-scoleri","tag-mike-shayne-mystery-magazine","tag-peter-enfantino","tag-stefan-dziemianowicz","tag-the-shadow","tag-walter-b-gibson","tag-weird-tales"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2025\/12\/bare-bones-18-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-4KK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18274"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19458,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18274\/revisions\/19458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18274"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=18274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}