EDitorial Comments

The Upcoming BLOOD ‘N’ THUNDER

Scheduled for debut at next month’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, the upcoming double issue of Blood ‘n’ Thunder (36/37, Winter/Spring 2013) boasts more contributors than any previous number of the magazine.  The distinguished roster includes old favorites as well as new additions to our Writers Brigade. And the issue itself has everything BnT readers crave — well-researched articles, eye-popping pictorial features, and carefully chosen stories reprinted from rare pulps — in twice the usual quantity.  Here are the highlights, in the order in which they appear:

• Our “Tricks of the Trade” department features a meaty excerpt from H. Bedford-Jones’ 1929 book, This Fiction Business.

• Veteran fan and professional fictioneer James Reasoner reviews vintage pulps in our “Off the Shelf” department.

• This issue’s “Series Spotlight” falls on a long-running Zorro clone, El Coyote, whose career is summarized by Roberto Barriero.

• Will Murray continues to share with BnT the latest results of his detective work on long-forgotten pulp writers, this time uncovering the true identity of the author behind Munsey’s short-lived “Doc Harker” detective series.

• Fred Nadis provides an informative excerpt from his biography of pioneering science-fiction fan and writer Raymond A. Palmer, who assumed editorship of the nearly moribund Amazing Stories in 1938 and turned it into a publishing powerhouse within a few short years.

• A blue-ribbon panel of experts selects the most underrated adventures of Doc Savage.  Among the contributors to this survey are Will Murray, Link Hullar, and Dafydd N. Dyar, who also collaborated on an influential 1980 poll of the top ten Doc novels.

• Eminent film historian Richard W. Bann offers “Nick and Nora: The Beginning,” a fascinating article on the making of The Thin Man. This lengthy piece is accompanied by scenes from the movie, rare behind-the-scenes stills, and the Joseph Franke illustrations used in the Redbook magazine publication of Dashiell Hammett’s classic whodunit.

• As part of BnT‘s celebration of the Fu Manchu centennial, novelist William Patrick Maynard — officially licensed by Sax Rohmer’s estate to continue the series — summarizes the Devil Doctor’s infamous literary career and offers his opinions on outstanding installments of the saga.

• Present-day pinup queen Mala Mastroberte brightens the pages of BnT with a portfolio of her pulp-cover recreations, in which she is not only the model but also the photographer and the graphic designer!

• One of this issue’s “Blood ‘n’ Thunder Reprints” is a seminal story that heretofore has escaped the notice of pulp collectors and historians: “He’s a Good Little Guy at That,” the actual first entry in William Wirt’s long-running series featuring soldier-of-fortune Jimmie Cordie.

There’s more, but the above lineup should give you a pretty good idea just how special this book-length double issue will be.  Watch for it next month!