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Pageant Dec. 1969

Pageant Dec. 1969Excerpt from Tom Brinkmann’s article, “Sharon Tate’s Fate,” from The Digest Enthusiast book six:

The confusing cover blurb read, “Part 2–Behind Sharon Tate’s Tragedy! Stars Who Need Sex Clubs,” which made it sound like two articles, which in a way it kind of was.

. . . Last month the author described the orgies that led up to the horrifying slaying of Sharon and four others. This month he tells of his personal involvement with Sharon and her circle of friends and acquaintances. Also, he gives his reasons for blaming Hollywood itself in large part for the tragedy that took five lives.

Pageant Dec. 1969 back coverThis second and final part of the Pageant Tate feature focused on Jay Sebring, and is almost a mini-bio, with facts and figures, personal anecdotes by Hyams; and, it would be re-used as the Sebring/Tate chapter for his autobiography, which had the same story told slightly differently with some of the details left out and others added.

Tom Brinkmann writes about unusual, off-the-beaten-path magazines, digests, and tabloids. His Bad Mags website was active from June 2004–July 2017. His books, Bad Mags Volume 1 (2008) and Volume 2 (2009) are available from secondary outlets, including amazon.com

Genre vs Mainstream
Interviews

Edd Vick on genre

Arcane Arts
Arcane Arts Anthology (2017) with Edd Vick’s “Prophet Motive” Cover by Lieu Pham

Edd Vick’s comments on genre fiction, an excerpt from the interview conducted by D. Blake Werts, for The Digest Enthusiast book six:

“Mainstream writers start with character. Genre writers start with situation. That’s why people who mostly read genre stories can get bored and think too little is happening in a mainstream novel, just as a mainstream reader gets whiplash and feels there’s too little character development in a genre novel. This is a hugely gross generalization, and of course every writer comes up with their own melding of the two. It’s a continuum.”

AHMM masthead
Interviews

B.K. Stevens’ Iphigenia Woodhouse

AHMM April 2000Ex-cop turned private detective, Iphigenia Woodhouse, premiered in the Mid-Dec 1991 edition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, in a story called “Night Vision.” Her assistant, Harriet Russo, appears on the cover of AHMM April 2000, painted by Tomek Olbinski, for the sixth mystery, “A Wild Justice.”

Author B.K. Stevens shared the series origins in her interview in The Digest Enthusiast book six, excerpted below:

Iphigenia Woodhouse began, in part, as a response to some of the fictional female private detectives who became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. I enjoyed many of the novels and stories about those detectives, but their lives seemed very different from the lives of most of the women I knew. Usually, these detectives had no family obligations: Their parents were dead, their husbands (if any) divorced, their children nonexistent. If they liked, they could choose mentors they found compatible, have sex with men they found attractive, offer guidance to young people they found interesting. All their relationships were voluntary and temporary: They didn’t owe anybody anything and could move on whenever they chose. If they decided to fly to another city to pursue a lead, they didn’t have to coordinate schedules with anyone or arrange for childcare. In those respects, they had more in common with traditional male fictional private detectives than with most women today. That’s fine—it’s probably healthy to fantasize about complete independence from time to time. But I thought it might be interesting to write about a female private detective whose life is both enriched and limited by deep, lasting ties and obligations.

AHMM Mid-Dec. 1991 Woodhouse/Russo #1 “Night Vision” reprinted in Women of Mystery, ed. Cynthia Manson (Carroll & Graf, 1992)
AHMM Dec. 1993 Woodhouse/Russo #2 “Sideshow” reprinted in Women of Mystery II, ed. Cynthia Manson (Carroll & Graf, 1994); reprinted as “Une simple diversion” in Histoires d’homicides a domicile (Livre de Poche, 1995)
AHMM Dec. 1994 Woodhouse/Russo #3 “Death in Small Doses” reprinted in Women of Mystery III, ed. Kathleen Halligan (Carroll & Graf, 1998); reprinted in translation in a collection published by Livre de Poche
AHMM May 1996 Woodhouse/Russo #4 “Butlers in Love”
AHMM Jun. 1998 Woodhouse/Russo #5 “The Devil Hath Power”
AHMM April 2000 Woodhouse/Russo #6 “A Wild Justice”
AHMM May 2003 Woodhouse/Russo #7 “More Deadly to Give”
AHMM May 2008 Woodhouse/Russo #8 “Table for None”
AHMM Jul/Aug 2013 Woodhouse/Russo #9 “Murder Will Speak”

Fawn the Dark-Eyed
Vault

Fawn the Dark-Eyed

Fawn the Dark-Eyed posterIn 1965, Joe Wehrle, Jr. launched Fawn the Dark-Eyed. Inspired by the heyday of newspaper comic strips like Flash Gordon and Modesty Blaise, the publication presented Fawn’s adventures in Sunday-sized comic strip pages. Unfortunately, this early version of Fawn only lasted two issues, with the second edition published in February 1966.

A third issue was planned, and Joe published a poster of Fawn in 1967 to bridge the gap between issues. All three items are relatively hard to find, but the poster is likely the most uncommon. Fortunately, a small stock of the original print run has been uncovered and is now available via eBay.

The second iteration of Fawn appeared in 1972, as a blonde, in the four-page comic adaptation of Joe’s short story “The Bandemar” in Sense of Wonder No. 12. The story and comic are slated to appear in The Digest Enthusiast book nine in Jan. 2019.

Fawn’s longest run appeared in 1974, in a second series of Sunday-sized comic strips in the Menomonee Falls Gazette No. 142–161, 163–171, 173–176, 178, 179, 181, 183 and 188.

Story Title
Opening Lines

Opening Lines

Story illustration by Michael Neno“Kiefer dropped down the rabbit hole. Deep inside his head he knew the descent into empty darkness was just another shot at teasing Death, an opportunity to rub shoulders with the Reaper. He sucked in a breath, filling his lungs with foul air as he swung from the edge of the trapdoor, arms and fingers straining with the effort.”

Opening paragraph from “Down the Rabbit Hole” by Lesann Berry, episode two of the Alternate History Archive, from The Digest Enthusiast book six, June 2017. Illustrated by Michael Neno.

Galaxy masthead
Interviews

Edd Vick on digests

Galaxy Oct. 1968Below are Edd Vick’s comments on digest magazines, from the interview conducted by D. Blake Werts, for The Digest Enthusiast book six:

When I was in high school I read all the digests I could lay my hands on, preferring one that’s no longer around named Galaxy. Where Analog tended to have more tech-oriented stories, and Fantasy & Science Fiction was usually more literary, Galaxy hit a sweet spot of SF focusing on characters and the soft sciences. I have a complete collection still, barring a couple of later magazine-sized issues from when it was being passed from one publisher to another.

The magazine nowadays that’s inherited that mantle is Asimov’s, where I’m very happy to have sold several stories. They’re a little more adventure-oriented, but that’s not an issue where I’m concerned.

F&SF July 1961 masthead
Reviews

Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse No. 3

F&SF July 1961The second part of Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse saga appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction (July 1961).

Contents
Kingsley Amis “Something Strange”
Will Worthington “Package Deal”
Nicholas Breckenridge “The Cat Lover”
Grendel Briarton “Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot: XLI”
Otis Kidwell Burger “The Zookeeper”
Kris Neville “Closing Time”
Poul Anderson “Night Piece”
Isaac Asimov: Science: Recipe for a Planet
Brian W. Aldiss “Undergrowth” (Hothouse No. 3)

Cover by Ed Emshwiller

Contents from Galactic Central

An excerpt from Joe Wehrle, Jr.’s review of the Hothouse series, from The Digest Enthusiast book six:

“In “Undergrowth” (July 1961), we find that the morel has bisected itself to access the minds of both Poyly and Gren. Under its direction, they capture a girl named Yattmur in order to learn the whereabouts of her tribe. If mankind, like H.G. Wells’ Eloi, has lost its initiative through the passage of time, the morel acts as a prod, driving his hosts to achieve its own ambitious aims.”

BK Stevens quote
Interviews

B.K. Stevens on process

AHMM July 1991
AHMM July 1991 with B.K. Stevens’ “Final Jeopardy” Cover by Val Lakey Lindahn

An excerpt from B.K. Stevens’ interview from The Digest Enthusiast book six. Here she discusses her process, working out a plot, and weaving a list of suspects together.

It probably won’t come as a big surprise when I say my writing process varies significantly from story to story. Once in a while—and I wish it happened more often—I’ll get an idea for a story, devote only a little time to planning, plunge into the story, and write it straight through. Usually, the process isn’t nearly that simple and delightful. Usually, when I get an idea for a story—and it’s sometimes only a title, sometimes a murder method or a character or a plot twist—I write it down in a computer file titled “Notebook.” Ideas often languish there for years or decades—dozens still languish and will doubtlessly never go further. But sometimes I eventually think of a way to make the idea work, or I look through the notebook for inspiration, run across an idea I’d forgotten about, and see new potential in it.

When I decide I definitely want to try to turn an idea into a story, I sit down at the computer and start taking notes about it, using a method I called “focused freewriting” when I taught English: I stay focused on the story but write down virtually anything that comes to mind about it, from plot possibilities to bits of description to thoughts about theme. Sometimes, I’ll put together a list of major incidents in the plot; occasionally, I’ve used a variation on the “beat sheet” Blake Snyder recommends in Save the Cat; often, I don’t come up with anything that formal or orderly. For one recent story, I took a page and a half of notes; for another, I took forty- seven pages of single-spaced notes before finding the key to making the story work. (The second story was a whodunit—I have to take far more notes for whodunits than for other sorts of mysteries.) When I feel I have a clear idea of the story’s direction, I start writing the first scene.