The perfect Mystery Book Store

Sorry--this post is a little bit different from the usual. As an exercise in wishful thinking, I have created (with a few suggestions from others) what I believe to be the perfect specialty bookstore environment--this one specializing in mystery & detective fiction.
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Here's the elements that would make up this particular bookstore:
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1. Book are divided by sub-genre (hard-boiled, police procedural, media tie-ins, etc) and then divided by author within those catagories. The selection is comprehensive, with both new and classic books.
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2. A small section of used books that customers can buy/trade for is also available.
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3. DVD section with mystery movies/TV shows
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4. Section for selling CDs of mystery/detective old-time radio shows.
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5. A small cafe.
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6. "The Diogenes Club": An area with comfy chairs/sofas. Also, a copy of the game "Clue" is there free for people to play anytime. There would be selection of classic mystery fiction for people to read for free and a Sherlock Holmes chess set.
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7. Large-screen TV in the Diogenes Club.
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8. For an hour or so each day, at a scheduled time, old-time radio mystery shows will be played over the store speakers.
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9. Three nights a week: Mystery movie night on the large-screen TV. (It's turned off the rest of the time--to allow customers and browsers a properly quiet atmosphere.)
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10. Once a week talk by an author and/or mystery historian.
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11. Once a week book discussion group.
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12. A small magazine section with stuff like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Armchair Detective, etc.
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13. A small games section for genre-specific board games and computer games.
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14. A small graphic novel section for genre-appropriate materials.
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15. Once a month catered mystery dinner whodunit night.
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Of course, to be really, really perfect, someone would have to actually get murdered from time to time. The police would be baffled and I would have to step in and use brilliant deductive reasoning to identify the killer. I've always wanted to do that, but the opportunity never seems to arise. But, to save my customers a knife in the back or poison in their coffee, I suppose I'll have to leave that part out anyways.
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If I ever become a multi-millionaire, I'm gonna open this place. Don't anyone hold their breaths waiting, though. The multi-millionaire part seems a tad unlikely.

History of Marvel Comics--November 1961

The story so far…

In the 1940s, Marvel Comics wasn’t Marvel Comics yet. They were known as Timely Comics. Like most Golden Age comic book publishers, Timely jumped aboard the superhero bandwagon after the phenomenal success of Superman (published by rival DC Comics).

Timely did some fun superhero stuff, with their costumed do-gooders going up against the Nazis even before the U.S. entered World War II. Their most successful characters (both commercially and artistically) were Captain America and Bucky, the Human Torch and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner.

But by the late 1940s, superheroes were on their way out. Comic books themselves, though, remained enormously popular. Through the 1950s, Timely (well, actually, they were now called Atlas Comics) made a go of it with comics featuring Westerns, romance stories, science fiction, detective stories and so on. There was a short-lived attempt to revive Captain America, the Torch and Namor in 1953, but this didn’t catch on.

By the time 1961 rolled around, Atlas Comics’ publisher Martin Goodman noticed that superheroes were coming back into vogue. DC Comics had reintroduced new versions of many of their 1940s heroes—most notably Green Lantern and Flash. All these new heroes, as well as their old stalwarts Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, were being featured in a comic book called The Justice League of America. And kids by the hundreds of thousands were eagerly spending their dimes for copies of the JLA.

Well, by golly, if DC had a successful superhero group, then Atlas (well, actually, they were now called Marvel Comics) should have such a group as well. If I remember the story correctly, Goodman brought up this idea with writer Stan Lee on the golf course. Before you could yell “Fore!” Marvel was putting out its first superhero comic book in nearly a decade. The Fantastic Four were born.

I have no idea whether Stan Lee or anyone else initially intended to tie their new superhero stuff into their 1940s continuity—whether they meant from the start for it all to be part of the same universe. But this would eventually happen—before long, both Captain America and the Sub-Mariner would be reintroduced into the more modern continuity. Those old characters were quite simply too cool to leave behind. By the end of the 1960s, the WWII-era stories would be considered an established part of the new and ever-growing Marvel Universe. Keep that in mind. It’ll be important later on.

FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (November 1961)

First of all, I will state right off that I’m not getting into the debate about who deserves the most credit for the existence of the Fantastic Four—Stan Lee or artist Jack Kirby. I know there was some bitterness in later years about who contributed what to those early comics (and I do believe that Kirby was later treated poorly by Marvel Comics), but I have enormous respect for both Lee and Kirby as storytellers. All I’m gonna do is talk about the end product—the first book in what would represent the birth of a vibrant and entertaining alternate reality.

The Fantastic Four consists of brilliant scientist Reed Richards, gruff test-pilot Ben Grimm, Reed’s gal Sue Storm and Sue’s teenage brother Johnny. Reed took his three friends on a test flight of a new rocket, but things go awry when the ship is pelted with “cosmic rays.” They crash-land, then soon discover each of them has gained a unique superpower. Reed can stretch his body like rubber. Sue can turn invisible. Johnny becomes a new version of the Human Torch. Ben Grimm gets the rotten end of the stick—he becomes the super-strong but ugly and rock-like Thing.

It’s an interesting origin, especially when you remember that the FF is created because Reed, smart as he is, screwed up when he ignores Ben’s warnings about the danger of cosmic rays. It’s an important point—because Ben is the one who gets turned into something monstrous-looking as a result. Ben’s bitterness over this is the strongest emotional linchpin of this first issue and, though he and Reed gradually morph into best friends in later issues, Reed’s search for a cure for Ben will be a reoccurring plot-point for years.

In this first issue, the FF doesn’t have costumes—though that will soon change. We learn in the next issue that they don’t have secret identities either--another point deliberately made to get them to stand out from DC’s characters.

The FF’s first mission is taking on the Mole Man, a guy who lives on a remote island called Monster Isle and sends his subterranean creatures around the world to steal nuclear reactors. Our heroes confront the villain, beat up a few cool-looking monsters (Jack Kirby was incapable of designing a monster that didn’t look cool) and foil the Mole Man’s plans to destroy the surface world.

Kirby’s strong artwork and character design carry the plot along quickly and effectively, while the personality conflicts between the characters really did succeed in making the comic stand out from the crowd. It’s an auspicious start for the new comic. Perhaps the only drawback is that poor Sue isn’t given a lot to do. In fact, until Lee and Kirby eventually opt to amp up her powers a few years down the line, this will be a reoccurring problem with the character.

But would the Fantastic Four have to stand alone against supervillains, monsters and invading aliens? Of course not. In fact, concurrent with FF #2, we would also get our first glance of a character who would eventually join the ranks of the superheroes. But that’s a story for our next entry in this series.

[Interesting side fact: In this issue, the FF are based in “Central City,” copying DC habit of creating fictional cities to house their superheroes. By issue #3, though, their hometown morphs in plain ol’ New York City.]

BEST COMIC STRIP EVER!!!!!

Terry and the Pirates was the best comic strip ever. And I'll fight anyone--all at once or one at a time--who dares disagree with me.
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The strip was created in 1934 by Milt Caniff, who continued as writer/artist through 1946. After this, he left the strip and created Steve Canyon. Terry continued on until the early 1970s, but it was never as good as it had been during the Caniff years.

Caniff was a superb storyteller, using both dialogue and visuals to build exciting adventure stories infused with realistic, memorable characters. The main character was a young orphan named Terry Lee, who comes to China with his guardian (Pat Ryan--an aspiring writer who is quick with both his fists and his wits). In their initial adventure, Terry & Pat are looking for a gold mine willed to Terry by his grandfather.

This doesn't work out too well and Terry and Pat spend most of the 1930s bouncing around the Orient, battling bandits, thieves, con artists and invading Japanese soldiers. Reoccuring characters (most notably those of the drop-dead gorgeous female variety) come and go throughout the strip.

Terry aged normally through the years, so he was old enough to enlist after Pearl Harbor. He ended up flying fighter planes, but got himself dropped into the middle of an occassional espionage plot as well. The feel of the strip during the war years is inevitably different than it had been during the free-wheeling 1930s. But the quality of the stories and the artwork remain just as high.

Currently, a company called IDW is in the middle of publishing a 6-volume set containing all the Caniff Terry and the Pirates strips. Volume 4, which includes a very emotional storyline involving the death of a key character, has just become available. The individual volumes are priced a little high, but they are worth it. If you can't afford them--understandable in these times--at least request that your public library acquire them. In any case, Terry and the Pirates is must reading.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

The Shadow #1-4, #6

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When DC got the rights to do a Shadow comic book in 1973, they immediately did four things exactly right.

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First, they did the pulp magazine version of the Shadow rather than the radio version. These were indeed two distinct characters. The radio guy, whose show ran from 1938 to 1954, was wealthy man-about-town Lamont Cranston, who had the hypnotic power to "cloud men's minds so they could not see him." Along with his "friend and companion, the lovely Margo Lane," he investigated crimes, using his invisibility to uncover clues and often psych out the bad guys.

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In the pulps, which were published in the 1930s and 1940s, Cranston was only one of several identities used by the Shadow. He couldn't literally turn invisible, but was very good at lurking in the shadows. Dressed in a slouch hat and dark cloak, he employed a network of agents to help him collect information and confronted villainy with a pair of blazing .45 automatics.

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Both versions of the Shadow are excellent, but the pulp character had more visual appeal. The covers of the original Shadow Magazines, usually done by artist George Rozen, were consistently superb and provided numerous examples of just how cool the pulp Shadow looked.

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So--given the choice between a vivid, dramatic image of the Shadow, cape bellowing in the wind as he blasts away with his pistols, or the image of a guy you, um, well, can't see--then the pulps are definitely the way to go.

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The second thing they did right was to get Denny O'Neil, veteran Batman writer, to script the book. The Shadow was one of the major influences for the creation of Batman, so it was safe to say that O'Neil was just the right man for the job.

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O'Neil had done many single issue stories starring Batman that had effectively mixed the detective story genre with comic book action. He did the same thing with the Shadow. A crime (or series of crimes) would be committed. The Shadow and his agents would investigate, following up clues in a logical manner or employing deductive reasoning to solve the crime. Along the way--and at the finale--there'd be several exciting, well-choreographed action sequences. It was an effective and entertaining storytelling method that worked as well for the Shadow as it did for Batman.

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The third thing DC did right was to keep the Shadow in the 1930s, where he clearly belongs. Some characters, like Batman, can survive updating, but the Shadow was a product of his era. Take him out of that time, as artist/writer Howard Chaykyn tried to do later on in an awful 1980s series, and he just isn't the Shadow anymore. Robin Hood belongs in medieval Sherwood Forest; the Lone Ranger belongs in the Old West; and the Shadow belongs in Depression-era New York.

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Finally, DC got Mike Kaluta to do the art work. Kaluta was perfect for the job--his visuals dripped with authenticity, suspense, menace and violence. He caught the look of the times and the look of the Shadow perfectly.

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Sadly, the Shadow only ran a dozen issues and Kaluta only did the art for five of those issues. But those five stories are wonderful. In addition to the reasons stated above, O'Neil and Kaluta also managed to give each story a unique setting for its grand finale. In the first issue, the Shadow confronts a gang of thugs attempting to blow up the George Washington Bridge. In the next issue, he and Margo Lane join a carnival to catch the bad guy, then battle him aboard a moving train. Future issues feature encounters in a grave yard, the death house of a prison, and the narrow streets and dark alleys of Chinatown. The stories never fell into a rut, either in terms of plot or in terms of visuals. It's sad that the book didn't run longer.

Tommy guns, bootleggers and G-Men

I don't deal with TV that often on this blog, but if you jump back far enough, you can find shows worth talking about.

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One such show was The Untouchables, which ran on ABC from 1959 to 1963. The original pilot was very loosely based on the real-life activities of Treasury agent Eliot Ness, who battled Capone's illegal booze operations in Chicago in the early 1930s. Ness put together a small team of agents who were known to be honest--hence their collective nick-name.

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In later episodes, the TV show largely ignored reality, sending the Untouchables against both historical and fictional criminals in a series of violent, melodramtic stories. With good writing, beautiful black-and-white photography and a succession of skilled character actors guest-starring as the various gangsters, witnesses and victims, The Untouchables earned its status as a classic TV series.

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The series jumped almost hapharzardly back and forth through time, without paying attention to internal continuity. For instance, the character of reoccuring villain Frank Nitti (played by Bruce Gordon) was killed off near the end of the first season. But Gordon was back playing Nitti in the second season, through the simple method of having particular episodes set earlier in the 1930s.

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This caused some minor continuity glitches on occasion--a newer member of the Untouchables, for instance, might inexplicably appear in an episode set before he had actually joined the team. But for the most part, the lack of internal continuity was a strength rather than a weakness. It allowed the producers and writers to craft single-episode stories that can each stand on its own.

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And, of course, aside from good writing and characterizations, there were those really cool gun battles. I think I mentioned this a few months ago when talking about the Cagney movie G-Men, but it's worth saying again. There are few things more entertaining to watch than black-and-white movies or TV shows featuring 1930s-era tough guys blasting away at each other with tommy guns and revolvers.

Now I've got that song stuck in my head!!!!

But at least it's a great song. Give it a listen and hear for yourself.

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In the summer of 1951, Jack Webb produced and starred in a radio show called Pete Kelly's Blues. Webb played Kelly--the head of a small Prohibition-era jazz band that worked in a Kansas City speakeasy. Filled with snappy, hard-boiled dialogue (something Webb excelled at on radio) and superb jazz music, it's one of the highlights of old-time radio.

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In 1955, Webb got a chance to direct and star in a movie version. And it is a fun movie--involving Pete Kelly's efforts deal with a gangster who "encourages" the band to sign him up as an agent. Before long, Kelly's drummer gets caught in a blast of tommy gun fire and things get really dangerous for everyone else.

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As with the radio show, the movie is overflowing with snappy dialogue and addictive jazz music. Both Ella Fitzgerald (as a singer in a small booze-joint) and Peggy Lee (as the alcoholic girlfriend of the gangster) belt out some great songs.

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The movie just recently came out on DVD and it's worth watching. Just expect to have to deal with at least one of the songs getting stuck in your head for days afterwards.

Yet another classic comic book cover.

Here's a typically eye-catching and atmospheric Batman cover by Neil Adams.

The story inside is equally cool. Published in 1971, it featured the first important appearance of the villain Two-Face in a number of years. Typical of many of the issues written by Denny O'Neil during this time, it was a well-constructed mystery in which Batman gets to show off his detective skills, his fighting skills, his escape artist abilities and his understanding of the psychology of his opponents. O'Neil was particularly good at jamming a lot of plot elements into a single issue and still create a smoothly flowing narrative.

Team-ups, temporary alliances and unlikely partnerships

The 1970s were the golden age of team-up books. DC had already been showcasing Batman in The Brave and the Bold, teaming up with various other heroes, for some years. In 1978, they added DC Comics Presents, featuring team ups with Superman. Over at Marvel, Marvel Team-up, almost always with Spider Man, started in 1972. Marvel Two-in-One with Ben Grimm (the Thing from the Fantastic Four) started a year or so later.

Why use these specific characters to headline the team-up books? Well, at DC, the decision was obviously based on popularity. Superman and Batman were their hottest properties, so books featuring them would sell well. And it was fairly believable that they would team up often with other heroes. Superman was so powerful you would often wonder why he needed help, but his Boy Scout personality meant he could work smoothly with most DC good guys. Batman in the late Silver Age was scary to the bad guys, but perfectly capable of making friends—or at least allies—with other heroes.

At Marvel, popularity was probably the determining factor as well. But Spider Man and Ben Grimm both also have qualities that make them ideal for starring in team-up stories. Both have strong personalities and senses of humor. Both characters “play well” with others and aren’t overshadowed by more physically powerful allies.

Another strength of the team-up books was that their storylines were always separate from the regular Superman/Batman/Spidey/FF books. Nothing in them violated continuity, but you could read any of these books independent of the main titles and still get a complete story. Regardless of what multi-part epics might be taking place in Detective, Action or Amazing Spider Man, the team-up books would remain a world of their own. Since most of the plots were wrapped up in a single issue, they gave you a nice little superhero fix whenever you needed it.

Marvel Two-and-One #24, for instance, opens with the Thing at Stark Industries West Coast facility, helping scientist Bill (Black Goliath) Foster test some new equipment. (Ben, of course, is the guinea pig—tossed into a pressure chamber to see how well a new space suit design works). When a thief floods the facility with knock out gas in order to loot valuable technology, Ben and Goliath work together to thwart him. They end up fighting the villain’s deadly “crime tank.”

The story, written by Bill Mantlo and Jim Shooter and drawn by Sal Buscema, isn’t groundbreaking in any way. But it tells the story well and gives Ben some nifty one-liners. It’s fun to read, which is all that is expected of it.

The same can be said for Marvel Team-up #13. Spider Man stumbles across Captain America fighting a horde of AIM agents. Spidey jumps in to help, but as soon as the battle ends, the two heroes are teleported up to the SHIELD helicarrier. Bringing up Spidey along with Cap was an accident and a rookie SHIELD agent tries to arrest the webslinger. Nick Fury puts a stop to that, allowing Spider Man and Cap to work together in stopping the Grey Gargoyle from sabotaging a guided missile test at Cape Kennedy.

This one was written by Len Wein and featured the always wonderful art of Gil Kane. Once again, there’s nothing particularly special about the issue other than it was just plain entertaining. The bit where the overeager SHIELD guy tries to arrest Spidey is priceless, as is a scene a few pages later where Nick Fury lays a patriotic guilt trip on Spidey to get him to agree to help. The action is well-handled and it’s all perfectly satisfying.

Over at DC, Batman and Green Lantern work both against each other and together in The Brave and the Bold #155. An earthquake rocks Gotham City and Batman soon deduces an alien criminal is responsible. Meanwhile, Green Lantern is assigned by the Guardians to capture the same crook for trial before the Guardians. This puts the two heroes at odds—Batman wants the villain to face Earth justice, while GL is determined to bring him to Oa. There’s some detective work that takes them both to another planet and it all leads up to a nice twist at the end involving the crook’s possible innocence.

Written by Bob Haney and with Jim Aparo’s dynamic artwork, this is once again a story that is simply fun to read.

Finally, we come to a story written by Cary Bates and drawn by Joe Stanton. In DC Comic Presents #10, Superman is thrown back in time by an enormous explosion while saving Paris from a terrorist threat. He ends up in World War II. Suffering from amnesia and unaware he has superpowers, Superman hooks up with Sgt. Rock and Easy Company. At first, Rock and the others suspect he might be a Nazi infiltrator, but he eventually regains his memory in time to secretly use his powers to save his new friends. Then, after faking his death to explain his sudden disappearance, he returns to the present.

The plot here is a little contrived—it’s hard to do an “amnesia” plot without obvious contrivance. But tossing Superman and Sgt. Rock together is a nifty enough idea to cause us to forgive this. Once again—at the risk of sounding like a broken record—it’s a just plain fun issue.

So that’s the simple truth—the various team-up books of that decade were not ground-breaking. They didn’t introduce innovative storytelling techniques. They didn’t change the face of the industry. They just used the established characters and backgrounds of their respective universes to tell enjoyable stories. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

Let's go hunt us some Jackalope!!!

On a forum I frequent, someone reminded me of this excellent collection of short stories by Alan Dean Foster.

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The protagonist is a burly mountain man named Amos Malone, who learned something about magic and monsters during his lifetime and now puts that knowledge to good use while wandering around the Old West. Riding on his mount--a disguised unicorn named Worthless--Amos inevitably stumbles into one odd adventure after another.

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Foster's prose strikes a nice balance between straight adventure and tongue-in-cheek humor. In one story, Amos takes a skeptical British noble out to hunt jackalope, but the two men spend a wild night encountering a series of even weirder and more menacing creatures. Ghosts, dragons and ill-tempered shamans pop up in other stories.

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Mad Amos is an entertaining trip into a fantasy Old West, where legends and myth take flesh-and-blood form. I don't believe it's currently in print, but it's worth tracking down through an online used book dealer.

Why doesn't anyone ever tell me these things????

Here's a fairly new and potentially really fun book--the existence of which I only stumbled upon by accident:

Here's the deal with it: Roundabout 1939, special effects master Willis O'Brien (the stop-motion pioneer responsible for the original versions of The Lost World & King Kong) was planning on making another "lost world" type film. This one would involve an aviator who crashes in an isolated valley. In addition to the requisite dinosaurs, there would be a tribe of Vikings who ride giant eagles.

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It would have almost undoubtably been a fun movie and a visual delight. But real life in the form of World War II got in the way and production on the film was shelved. Somewhere along the way, whatever pre-production drawings and sketches "O'Bie" had were lost.

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Ray Harryhausen later had had hopes of bringing War Eagles to life. In fact, according to Mr. Harryhausen's web site, there is apparently still some hope of this happening. But whether we ever get to see the movie, at least we now have a novelization of the story.

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The author, Carl Macek, has worked mostly in animation as a writer, editor and producer. According to the Amazon.com customer reviews, he seems to have done a pretty good job in prose as well, penning an old-fashioned pulp-style adventure.

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I've sent away for the book, so I can judge for myself soon. None of the reviews specifically mention dinosaurs, though--so I'm a little worried they've been left out of this version. On the other hand, the story has been extended to include the protagonist using the War Eagles to battle a Nazi secret weapon, which is a cool idea. I really hope, though, that the dinosaurs are still there. No lost valley should ever be without dinosaurs.

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Gee whiz, why don't people TELL me about these things? A book about Vikings on giant eagles fighting Nazis (and dinosaurs?) and I almost missed it.