Black Museum: "The Canvas Bag" 1952
A woman makes an unwise decision regarding what man she runs off with.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, June 26, 2026
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Short Story Genre Survey, Part 6
cover artist unidentified
Today, we ride out to the Wild West.
Adventure
Crime
Horror
Elmore Leonard's sparse, powerful prose made just about every short story he wrote a fascinating and engrossing read. He dived right into a story, pulling the reader in with him and not letting that reader go until the story ended,
For example, there's "Apache Medicine" (originally titled "Medicine"). Published in the May 1952 issue of Dime Western Magazine, it starts with an army scout named Kleecan meeting a drunken Indian while out on the trail.
The Indian is Juan Pony, the beloved son of Pondichay. Pondichay is a skilled warrior and leader who has only recently been brought back to the reservation at the cost of 41 dead soldiers and civilians, so getting him mad again would not be a good idea.
But Juan is drunk and feeling bloodthirsty. Kleecan, defending himself, has no choice but to kill him.
He buries the body, but knows it's likely that Pondichay will eventually find the grave and want vengeance. Kleecan, though, doesn't have that much time to worry about it before he's taken hostage by four outlaws who force him to be their guide.
This, though, might be a good thing. Kleecan has two problems--Pondichay and the outlaws. But, if can work things correctly, he might be able to use the latter problem to solve the former.
It's a short story--only 10 pages as reprinted in The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard. But it doesn't feel rushed or abrupt. Leonard was a master of picking the exact right words to tell a story without picking too many words. In these ten pages, he tells a story that properly introduces the characters and gives us a proper beginning, middle, and very satisfying ending.
You can read the story yourself HERE.
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Blowing up Yet Another Super Weapon!
cover art by Walt Simonson
Remember where we were? Luke, Leia, the droids and Chewie are aboard the Tarkin, the Empire's new superweapon. They want to destroy it. Darth Vader is also aboard and, sensing Luke's presence, is setting a trap. A cadre of Imperial officers, tired of their comrades regularly getting force-choked by Vader, are planning to assassinate him.
In this issue, we learn that Lando, who had not been assigned to the mission, stowed away on the Millennium Faclon to prove he is indeed now a loyal member of the Rebellion.
This latter plot twist is a happy one, as Lando manages to run a con on some stormtroopers to keep them from confiscating the ship.
Aboard the Tarkin, the Rebel party splits up. Chewie and the droids are to take out the power source for the tractor beam, which Chewie does in a magnificent manner--he throws a stormtrooper into the generator.
Leia is to secure an escape pod for leaving the ship. She doesn't have as much luck. Though she kills a number of stormtroopers, she has to run for it.
Luke is taking an explosive to the reactor room that powers the superweapon. Vader is waiting for him, but one of those dissatisfied officers opens an airlock in an attempt to blow Vader into space. Both he and Luke manage to claw their way to safety, but Luke has lost his chance to sabotage the weapon.
With some help from R2, who plugs into the ship's computer and uses a deluge of fire-fighting foam to help Luke escape from stormtroopers, everyone rejoins near the hangar deck.
They steal a transport and escape the Tarkin. Lando, in the Falcon, saves them from some TIE fighters and takes them aboard. Vader comes after them with his personal fighter, but Luke improvises a tactic that leaves Vader's ship damaged.
The Tarkin attempts to destroy the Falcon with the superweapon, but it turns out that Leia, while running from the escape pods, had taken an opportunity to rewire the weapon. It essentially backfires and blows up the Tarkin.
As I mentioned last week, Star Wars Expanded Universe stories revisited the "Empire has a new superweapon" idea too often, but individual examples of this were often great stories in and of themselves. THIS is a great story. The action aboard the Tarkin is fast-paced, exciting and allows eash of the protagonists to show off his or her skills. Lando's surprise inclusion fits into the tale perfectly. The idea of Imperial officers wanting to kill Vader because he's always killing them is an excellent idea. Simonson's art continues to bring this version of the Star Wars universe to vivid life.
And Chewie destroying the tractor beam by throwing a stormtrooper into it is the best thing ever.
Next week, we'll return to Earth and visit Basil the Royal Cat.
Monday, June 22, 2026
Cover Cavalcade
JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!
Friday, June 19, 2026
Friday's Favorite OTR
Dragnet: "The Big Press" 6/15/50
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Short Story Genre Survey, Part 5
Adventure
Crime
Horror
Western
I've added a category. Today, we'll be looking at a mystery that is a traditional whodunit. I realized that we also need a category for hard-boiled crime stories. Some of them do have a whodunit element, but its not a necessary component and I think you can consider traditional mysteries and noirish crime tales to be separate genres.
Anyway, as I said, we'll be looking at a traditional whodunit--this one by the Queen of Whodunits, Agatha Christie. Gee whiz, the woman was brilliant. Her mysteries are fair-play. The clues are always there for us to see. But they are so casually dropped into the story that we easily miss them.
"A Christmas Tragedy" (originally titled "The Hat and the Alibi") was published in the January 1930 issue of The Story-Teller. It's part of a series of stories in which the clever Miss Marple is at a gathering with friends. In each story, a friend tells of an experience that includes a mystery. Miss Marple, of course, inevitably figures out the mystery part of it.
This time, it's Miss Marple's turn to tell a tale. And it's a good one. She tells about a time that she realized a husband was planning to murder his wife and make it look like an accident. But she has no proof and knows the wife won't believe her.
Then the wife was murdered. But it's not an accident. It's obviously a murder. She was bashed over the head in her hotel room.
But the husband has a solid alibi. He couldn't have done it. It was, the police conclude, a burglar she caught in the room.
This doesn't sit well with Miss Marple. But she concedes that the husband does indeed have an alibi for the time his wife was murdered.
Or so it seems...
It's a story I can't summarzie any further without spoilers. The clues are there and the solution is clever and satsifying. This is the sort of puzzle that Christie did better than anyone else. I'm afraid I don't have a link to take you directly to the story this time, but its worth searching out. It's available in the anthologies The Thirteen Problems and The Complete Short Stories of Agatha Christie.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Yet Another Imperial Super Weapon!
cover art by Walt Simonson
After the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Marvel's Star Wars comic was in an interesting place. The writers would have no idea how the cliffhanger of Han being captured and frozen would play out. They had no idea what position either the Rebels or the Empire would be in when the next movie eventually came out. So the comic had to come up with good stories that didn't upset the overall continuity too much. Sadly, they had to also avoid using Han Solo.
It's notable that they still succeeded in telling some good Star Wars stories. In Star Wars #51 (September 1981), writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson give us the first half of a pretty nifty two-parter.
An X-Wing with a dead pilot reaches its base ship. The pilot had been on a spy mission and set the X-Wing's course before he died, knowing the information canister he had was vitally needed by the Rebellion.
What's in that canister? It's a minor irony of the comic that we find out the Empire isn't building a second Death Star (though we learn in the next movie that they were), but are taking the Death Star's planet-destroying laser and strapping engines and defensive systems to it. Same idea, but more compact and defensible. The new weapon is called the Tarkin. Though why you would name it after the ol' Grand Moff after the Death Star was destroyed on his watch is an open question.
If I might digress for a moment, the expanded Star Wars universe really did overdo the notion of the Empire continually building superweapons. The idea is revisited in a number of novels. If the sequel trilogy produced in the 2010s really existed (and we all know now that these films were a collective nightmare that DON'T REALLY EXIST), then we'd have to add the sun-destroying whatever-it-was from The Force Awakens to the list. But many of these stories were individually good, such as the one we are reviewing here.
It also gives Simonson a chance to draw a fantastic full-page panel image of the Tarkin. Simonson was the perfect artist for Star Wars. Or, for that matter, just about any science fiction comic. His imagination and artistry brings SF worlds to vivid life.
Lando is left behind, with a scene that tells us not everyone trusts him after his betrayal of Han on Bespin. The others travel to a spaceport from which workers are being transported to the Tarkin. They mug a couple of workers for uniforms and Luke uses the Force to convince a Stormtrooper they are all on the passenger manifest so they can board the next shuttle to the Tarkin.
But Vader is aboard the Tarkin as well and he senses Luke's presence. And, to add to the complexity of the situation, the issue ends with a panel that tells us a bunch of Imperial officers, sick of Vader's habit of killing anyone who makes a mistake, plan to assassinate the Sith Lord.
It's a good story with a great setup for the next issue. Simonson's art is perfect. The mini-adventures might have existed because the page count would have been short otherwise, but they are fun in and of themselves. They also give each of the protagonists a chance to shine. Besides, in Star Wars, a hero really can't go anywhere without getting into some sort of adventure. It's that sort of galaxy.
It's a story set when the original SW heroes were still heroes, not grumpy, cynical old men. It's a story written during a time when Star Wars was still fun.
We'll look at Part 2 next week.
Monday, June 15, 2026
Cover Cavalcade
JUNE IS AVENGERS vs JLA MONTH!!!
From February 1974. The JLA cover is by Nick Cardy; the Avengers by Jim Starlin.
Friday, June 12, 2026
Friday's Favorite OTR
Suspense: "A Week Ago Wednesday" 11/29/45
A woman comes home to discover she's lost a week of her life--and according to the newspaper, she's been murdered by her husband.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Short Story Genre Survey, Part 4
This week, we look at a war story.
Adventure
Mystery
Horror
Western
It is shameful that William Chamberlain's fiction (war-themed and Westerns) are out of print. The guy was good. A career military officer who retired as a general in 1946, he often wrote what he knew. Much of his military fiction is told from the point-of-view of an officer--usually a commanding officer--and dealt with matters of leadership and responsibility. At the same time, he didn't forget about the grunts, making sure he humanized the noncoms and privates as well.
"Hard-Luck Regiment" is a solid example of how good he is. Originally published in the September 22, 1951 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, it was later reprinted in the 1964's More Combat Stories of World War II and Korea, the second of two anthologies collecting Chamberlain's short fiction. This book was reprinted as a paperback in 1969 under the title The Zone of Sudden Death.
It's January 1945 and American troops are advancing into the Huertgen Forest, a real-life campaign that turned into a bloodbath. Maj. Clay Daggett--new to combat--has just become the executive officer of a battalion in the 26th Regiment, which has a reputation for hard luck.
The reputation seems to be well-earned. The regiment captures a couple of towns, but takes heavy losses and one of the towns is retaken. The regiment's commander, Dan Sharkey, wants to counterattack, figuring that this unexpected move and the morning fog will mean the Germans will be caught with their pants down.
Daggett, who now commands a battalion because the original C.O. was killed, thinks this plan is nuts. When orders arrive ordering the regiment to retreat and promoting Sharkey to general, Daggett is relieved. No suicide attack now.
But Sharkey has been with the regiment since the Great War. He knows what they can do. He knows the hard-luck reputation comes from the regiment getting hard missions--but also accomplishing those missions. Daggett thinks he's making a horrible decision, but he doesn't know the regiment like Sharkey.
It's a strong story, setting up the premise effectively, giving us supporting characters among the enlisted men so we never forget what's at stake, and introducing themes about inspirational leadership into the tale. The combat sequence is short, but effective. Not everyone we've met will be alive at the end and the success of the mission is very uncertain for a time, but we learn a thing or two about leading men from the front.
"Hard-Luck Regiment" is typical of the quality of Chamberlain's work. He really does need to be brought back into print.
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