Music I Like 07/25/09

And Now, an Open Letter from Anthony Tollin

I have enjoyed the reprints from Mr. Tollin for some years now. I am honestly shocked by the things that Nostalgia Ventures is doing. Also there is a sick feeling in my gut because I bought some of these "Sale pulps" that Nostalgia Ventures was printing. Admittedly, I had no idea of their duplicity, but it still makes me sick to know, that in some small way, I was a part of their criminal actions.

Before we get to the letter, I want to applaud Conde Nast for honoring their verbal agreement with Walter Gibson in that the Gibson family would be given a share of all future profits derived from The Shadow. It is truly a rare thing to see decency like that in today's business world

Now to Mr. Tollin.

James B.

An open letter to the pulp community:

For those taking advantage of the discounted SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE volumes at Half-Price Books, please be aware
that Nostalgia Ventures began remaindering these books last summer in direct violation of its sub-contract with
me. Also, as of today (July 22, 2009), Nostalgia Ventures has still not paid royalties to either Condé Nast or me for any books it has sold since July 1st, 2008. (A semi-annual royalty payment was due back in February, and
another six months of royalties are coming due in August.) There is a very good reason why Nostalgia Ventures/Nostalgiatown is no longer co-publishing these books, and it involves a continuing series of contract violations.

And for anyone who may not be sympathetic because Condé Nast is a huge corporation, please be aware that Condé
Nast has chosen to continue the oral agreement it had for decades with Walter Gibson, and is splitting its royalties for the SHADOW reprints with Walter's family. This is an extremely rare and decent act that is quite unusual in the publishing world.

I think my SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE double-novel trade paperbacks are a great value at the $12.95 cover price.
Obviously, the books are an even better value at discounted prices. However, please be aware that purchasing these books from either Half-Price Books or Nostalgiatown does nothing to encourage the continuation of these series. And since Nostalgia Ventures still hasn't paid its contract-required royalties for any of the books it has sold during the past 12 1/2 months, the money from Nostalgia Ventures' and Half-Price Books' sales also hasn't been continuing on to Walter Gibson's family.

It's not necessary to purchase THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE directly from Sanctum Books to support the ongoing
publishing operation and encourage the continuation of these reprints. Bud Plant Comic Art, Adventure House, Mike Chomko, Vintage Library, Girasol, Edge Books, The Mysterious Bookshop and any comic specialty shop that orders its books from Diamond Comic Distributors all get their books either directly or indirectly through Sanctum Books (which continues to make its regular royalty payments to Condé Nast and would like to continue publishing these reprints for many more years).

Please feel free to forward this message on to other pulp-oriented email groups.

--Anthony Tollin
Sanctum Books

House of the Wolf Man

Enough Said.

James B.

New Crossover Found in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

"While eating oysters in a Cheapside inn, the cards, dealt by a red-faced, fat middle-aged lady, told him to get hired as a valet for a Lord Windermere." The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer. (Page 48)[Bold is mine.]

Lord and Lady Windermere are from the Oscar Wilde play "Lady Windermere's Fan". I will check this out more fully tomorrow, and see if I can find Passepartout in the play.

Here's a link to the online text if you can't wait. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lady_Windermere%27s_Fan

James B.

The Ghostbusters vs. Cthulhu

I suspect everyone has seen this already. But its a fun episode, so sue me.







James B.

Oh, how the Diogenes Club has fallen

Once they were the foremost of Intelligence agencies (and investigators of the unexplained) in the world. They employed hundreds of agents all over the world. The chief of the organization, Mycroft Homles, saved England from unknown horrors too many times to count. What does this one mighty group do now, you may ask?

Now they produce techno-trash tunes for the night club market.


Red Sky (The Diogenes Club Remix)


Actually, it a pretty catchy tune.

Sledge Hammer in the WNU

This is a cleaned-up and expanded final version of the post I did a long time back.
Enjoy!



THE PILOT (UNDER THE GUN)

At 1:42 you see John Vernon as the mayor of San Francisco. He also played the mayor of San Francisco in DIRTY HARRY. Plus, as far as my memory goes, he acts the same in both the movie and here.
At 5:40 to 5:52 in the backround you can see two men intended to be Crockett and Tubbs. (I never would have cought this one without the commetary)
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=kVWpH-yHMa8
(You can fine the rest of the episodes by the links on the right hand side)

COMRADE HAMMER

At 1:43 a man intended to be Alfred Hitchcock walks by the screen with his theme playing. Since Hitchcock cameos in all of his films, can we say all hitchcock films are in the WNU by this crossover?

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=APAOp41UNro
(You can find the rest of the episode by the links on the right hand side)




PLAY IT AGAIN SLEDGE
Due to the large ammount of crossovers here I'll be doing this one in parts.

Part 1
At 3:10 a man who looks a lot like Humphrey Bogart shows up. Who he is, and why he matters to us, is explaned at the end of part three.
At 6:08 the man mentions Richard Diamond, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe as if they were real people.
At 6:49 in the backround are a pair I'm quite sure We've seen before. As to how they can still be alive...I'll leave to someone else.
At 7:30 (with a much clearer shot at 7:52) the Maltese Falcon can be seen. Now, since when we last saw the real one it was in a shark's mouth, how does it get into Sledge's office? While we could call it one of the fake ones from the novel, what would be the fun in that?

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=em0OanhRwP0

Part 2
At 4:00 Sledge Mentions "That limey jerk" and seems very personal about it. As if Sledge and Bond met in the past and that meeting didn't go too well...

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=JvmRvrPXtR4& feature=related

Part 3
At 3:54 the man mentions Diamond, Spade and Marlowe again. This time with the added statement that he is not any of the three detectives. (or he is all of them, which clearly cannot work in the WNU.)

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=mdNB_mpxAts& feature=related

I'm sure there are many more crossovers in Sledge Hammer. But I think this is enough to get him into the Universe.

James B.