Byron Preiss appreciation

Byron Preiss Appreciation

Byron Preiss (1953 - 2005) was a major influence in the effort to persuade publishers to pair science fiction and fantasy content with graphic art, back in the 1970s and 1980s.

photo by Travis T. Shuler, from https://www.facebook.com/groups/byronpreiss/

Here's an article by Edo Bosnar about the impact Preiss's books had on genre publishing, back in the days when the sci-fi enterprise just was starting to become the commercial juggernaut it is today. 

Not all of Preiss's efforts were overly memorable; much of the 'Weird Heroes' franchise turned out to be too cheesy to appeal to me neither back in the 1970s, nor when read nowadays. 

But there were more than a few Preiss productions, such as 'The Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination', 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison' and 'Empire', that were real assets to the field of fantastic literature. They ensure Preiss's place as an innovator in genre publishing.

Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Horror

Book Review: 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' edited by Richard Davis

2 / 5 Stars

'The Encyclopedia of Horror' first was published in 1981 by Octopus Books. This large trade paperback edition (192 pp.) was issued by Hamlyn in the UK 1987.

Richard Davis (1945-2005) was a major editor and advocate for horror fiction in the UK, editing the seminal 'Year Best Horror Stories' series in both Britain and the U.S. 

I had high hopes for this book, as usually these UK volumes on pop culture feature high quality illustrations, and tiny-type, informative text written by acknowledged experts in the field. Unfortunately, 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' falls short of its aims.

While some of the illustrations indeed are of high quality, many of the black and white movie stills used in the book have been tinted with pink or red colors. Others have selected features retouched (below). All of this is distracting and gimmicky.

The book is made up of chapters devoted to prominent aspects of horror media, as it stood in 1981. Thus we get Frankenstein; vampires and werewolves; the Devil and Satan; ghosts ('The Supernatural'); and zombies ('The Undead'). A final chapter, 'Travelling Beyond', covers sci-fi.

Inevitably, the contributions to the Encyclopedia suffer from the overly wide scope of the book. There is only so much space that can be devoted to each topic, and thus the contributors are pretty much left to shape their chapters according to their own attitudes about what is noteworthy. Thus, the book is something of a hodgepodge in terms of depth of coverage.

As a result, Tom Hutchinson in his chapter on 'Evil Monsters', which is intended as an overview of the phenomenon of horror, winds up expatiating on the trope of the monster from the era of Western mythology, up to the movie Alien. His overview focuses too much on philosophical and psychological analyses to be effective.

The chapters on Frankenstein, and vampires and werewolves, are a bit more engaging, but their authors (Michel Perry and Basil Copper, respectively) can really do no more than provide a superficial recitation of the vast body of books and films dealing with these subjects.

'The Supernatural', by Michael Ashley, is perhaps the best chapter in the book. Ashley wisely decides to concentrate on something manageable, and that is supernatural fiction from Geoffrey Chaucer all the way up to the late 1970s, and the works of Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell. While there probably isn't much here that will be new to aficionados of the genre, newcomers will find this chapter to be informative. 

Douglas Hills' chapter on horror in science fiction, 'The Beyond', is competent, but like much of the other contributions to the Encyclopedia can't do much more than provide a skimming of the large amount of relevant media.

'The Encyclopedia of Horror' concludes with two appendices. One provides an essay on horror comic books, most of these published in the USA. There is a comic book cover gallery and a listing of titles. The second appendix lists the more prominent horror films issued up to 1980.

Summing up, 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' is one of those volumes that by its very nature arguably was predestined to fail. I can't see it offering enough novelty and insight to be of value to the serious fan of horror in films and print media. I do think it could be of value to those new to the horror genre, albeit with an acknowledgement that its 1981 publication date makes it necessarily dated. Accordingly, I'm fine with assigning the book a Two Star Rating.

Glug by Harlan Ellison

'Glug' by Harlan Ellison
from Adam, July 1967

courtesy of vintage girlie scans

Adam magazine was one of a number of publications that came in the wake of Playboy and, as compared to that magazine, featured somewhat more risque exhibitions of female beauty.

The girls posing in Adam were more down-to-earth, and the advertising a little more louche.....

Adam always had quite a bit of fiction pieces interspersed with its portfolios. Either under a pseudonym, or using their actual name, quite a few high-profile authors were contributors of these pieces.

So it was, that in the July 1967 issue, were have 'Glug', short story from Harlan Ellison. Accompanied by a photograph of a well-endowed young woman !

But....just wait a minute.........

It seems 'Glug' actually is a reprint of a story that Ellison first published in the science fiction digest Imagination in August, 1958 - !

So a story that Adam readers might well consider to be a contemporary tale from one of the hottest writers at work in the US in 1967, was in fact a reprint of a nine year-old story. What a ripoff ! 

But then, no one bought Adam for the stories..........

Sadly, according to the ISFDB, the only way you can access 'Glug' either is from Adam or Imagination. The story didn't make its way into any of the 5 billion Ellison anthologies that have been issued over the decades.

Interestingly, Imagination was published by William Hamling, who during the late 1950s founded an empire of sleaze paperbacks, among the editors / authors of which was none other than Harlan Ellison. Inevitably, Ellison had a confrontation with Hamling, and was expelled from Hamling's enterprise (the whole sordid story is available here; warning, Harlan comes across as a self-centered, nasty little shit). 

Adam went on to be retitled Adam Film World in 1969, and experienced success well into the 1990s.

Book Review: Beyond the Occult

Book Review: 'Beyond the Occult' by Colin Wilson

1 / 5 Stars

'Beyond the Occult' (381 pp.) was published in hardback in 1989 by Carrol and Graf.

In his Introduction, Wilson states that his interest in the occult began in the late 1960s when he was contacted by a publisher eager to capitalize on the success of the book 'The Morning of the Magicians', by Pauwels and Bergier. 'Morning' was a bestseller upon its release in France in 1960 and it went on to do equally well with its English-language translations. Wilson was sufficiently intrigued by the topic of the occult to agree to write a book about it. 

That book was 'The Occult', and upon its publication in 1971, it was very well received, coinciding as it did with the rise in the early 1970s of interest in supernatural phenomena.

advertisement from a 1974 issue of National Lampoon

For Wilson, 'The Occult' was not a catalogue of spells and instructions in magical practices, but a recounting of the 'scientific actualities' that constitute supernatural activities. These 'actualities' confirmed his belief that man possesses 'hidden powers', lumped under the rubric of 'Faculty X', which are otherwise unavailable to the great, unwitting mass of Homo sapiens.  

Wilson saw 'Faculty X' as a component of his philosophy of 'New Existentialism', which he introduced in 1966 in a book titled 'Introduction to the New Existentialism.'

'Beyond the Occult' is simply a recapitulation of the ideology of Faculty X, as it was outlined in 'The Occult', using examples from what is known as the 'paranormal'.

In the first two-thirds of 'Beyond the Occult' Wilson chronicles - primarily using examples from the 19th and 20th centuries - paranormal phenomena such as (among other things) psychometry, clairvoyance, precognition, astral bodies, 'second sight', multiple personalities, possession, and synchronicity. 

The book's closing chapters are a rather labored manifesto for the world to acknowledge the existence of Faculty X, which will, in turn, expedite the movement of the world's peoples into a sort of humanistic Singularity.  

From the opening chapters it will be very apparent to the reader that in his zeal to collect anecdotes about the paranormal to support his thesis of Faculty X, Wilson exaggerates and misleads about all manner of alleged psychic phenomena and practitioners. To give two examples from the many presented in 'Beyond the Occult':

• On page 165, Wilson alludes to the novel 'The Wreck of the Titan, or, Futility', published in 1898 by the American author Morgan Robertson, as an example of 'precognition', in that Robertson's novel deals with the lethal collision of an 'unsinkable' ocean liner, christened the Titan, with an iceberg. Wilson remarks that Robertson claimed to be an 'automatic' writer who composed his novels while in something of a trance-like state. This state, Wilson claims, allowed Robertson to subconsciously open his mind to the 'information universe', which in turn imparted to him knowledge of the sinking of the liner Titanic in 1912. 

However, Wilson does not disclose that throughout his life Robertson strenuously denied that his novel was an example of precognition, insisting that his familiarity with nautical matters gave him insight into the circumstances of a hypothetical disastrous accident at sea.

• On pages 231 and 232, Wilson alludes to the Fox sisters of Hydesville New York, who in March 1848 claimed to a neighbor that a spirit had invaded their house, and was communicating via knocks and raps. The sister claimed the spirit was the ghost of a peddler who had been murdered by the home's previous occupant, and buried in the basement. By late 1849 the sisters and their encounters with the supernatural had triggered a national frenzy of interest in 'mediums' and 'spiritualism'. Wilson references the discovery, made in 1904, of human bones in a secret room in the basement; this discovery was deemed proof of the murder, and interment, of the peddler. 

Wilson fails to mention that in 1888, Margaretta Fox publicly declared that the rappings were fraudulent, the product of the sisters cracking their ankle and foot joints. And a physician who examined the bones in the secret basement room concluded that the bones (which included chicken bones) were nothing more than a prank.

Well before the halfway point of 'Beyond the Occult', Wilson's habit of assigning credulity to these and all manner of paranormal phenomena began to pall. No anecdote or experience was too preposterous for Wilson to endorse in the name of 'Faculty X'. Indeed, in the chapter titled 'Visions', Wilson breathlessly relates the antics of one Stylianos Atteshlis, aka 'Daskalos', a Cypriot 'magus' who, in July 1979, claimed to have telepathically persuaded 'flying saucer entities' to alter the orbit of the Skylab space station so that it crashed into the southern hemisphere rather than the (more populated) northern hemisphere !

I finished the book more out of a sense of duty, than enthusiasm. In my opinion, only the most fervent of Wilson aficionados will enjoy 'Beyond the Occult'. For everyone else, it has some slight value as a compendium of observations of some of the most 'woo-woo' entries in the global catalogue of paranormal phenomena. 

Paul Neary R.I.P.

The U.K. artist Paul Neary passed away on February 10, at the age of 74, after a long illness.

Neary was a well-regarded penciller and inker in the U.S. and U.K. comics enterprises. In the early 1970s he illustrated the 'Hunter' series in Eerie magazine. Neary's artwork was imaginative and carefully crafted, and represents some of the best black-and-white art to appear in a comic format.

As Mike Richardson of Dark Horse comics states in his Forward to the 2012 volume 'Eerie Presents: Hunter', 

The strip was made memorable by the striking artwork of Paul Neary. Combining pen-and-ink with heavy doses of Zip-A-Tone, Neary made sensational use of the black-and-white format, creating a unique look that separated Hunter not only from the magazine's other features, but also from the competing comics of the day.

Neary did additional, memorable work for Eerie, Vampirella, and Creepy.

Sadly, 'Eerie Presents: Hunter' is long out of print and those copies that are available have high prices, but there is a Kindle version available. Anyone with an appreciation for graphic art will want to take a look at Neary's work for the Warren magazines.

Joys of Fantasy

 Celebrating Valentine's Day 2024 !

Joys of Fantasy: The Book for Loving Couples

by Siv Cedering Fox

Stein and Day, 1977

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we like to celebrate Valentine's Day by showcasing a book (fiction or nonfiction) that deals with love. For Valentine's Day 2024, we're looking at a quintessential work of 1970s 'erotica'.

In the Summer of 1976, film producer and editor Ed Rothkowitz and photographer Joseph Del Valle arranged for some of New York City's best-known porno actors and actresses to pose for a series of photographs, taken in the studio of 'adult film' film director Toby Ross.

Rothkowitz combined the photos, which epitomized the soft-focus 'erotica' of the 70s, with various 'sensual' poems and prose pieces, most of which were authored by a woman named Civ Cedering Fox. 

Cedering Fox (1939 - 2007) was born in Sweden and later moved to San Francisco, where she grew up. She gained notice as a poet, novelist, children's book author, artist, and songwriter during the 1970s and 1980s.

The photo and poem combination, titled Joys of Fantasy to channel the runaway success of The Joy of Sex, was published by Stein and Day in 1977 in both hardcover and softcover editions.

There are products of the 70s that are so cheesy and kitschy, or so sublime and transcendent, at the same time and point in space that any attempt to analyze them is futile; so it is with Joys of Fantasy. I'll simply present selected, carefully cropped photos from the book and let readers come to their own conclusions.

Of note is the fact that one of the male models used in the portfolio is none other than Dennis Posa, aka 'Dennis Parker', whose 1979 LP 'Like An Eagle' is one of the touchstone records of the disco era ! Can you get any more Seventies than that ?!

Although it's long out of print, copies of the paperback edition of Joys of Fantasy can be had for affordable prices. I recommend perusing it accompanied by a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, incense, an Emerson Lake and Palmer record, and shag carpeting........in an Earth Tone.

National Lampoon February 1975

National Lampoon

February 1975

February, 1975. On the Billboard Hot 100, the top-selling single in the USA as of February 15 is 'You're No Good' by Linda Ronstadt.

Let's open up the latest issue of the National Lampoon, which has a 'Love and Romance' theme. This is one of the better mid-70s issues of the magazine.

The letters column offends with faux missives from bigoted rednecks, and serial killer Juan Corona (!).

The advertising in this issue includes Earth Shoes (very 70s), and a new Yes album, which is accompanied by bad poetry. 

Other album advertisements include an LP from Kenny Rankin (a YouTube video of Silver Morning is here). I can't say Rankin's album is all that impressive - rather tame 70s singer-songwriter stuff (folies should not scat-sing, and what folkie didn't, at some point in his / her career, do a cover of Paul McCartney's 'Blackbird' ?!). 

There's also an album from George Carlin, whose brand of comedy was thriving in the mid-70s. I can't say that the Carlin catalogue has aged well, but then, not much from the mid-70s really has, when you think about it...........

An ad for something called the 'Great American Song Festival' features the late, great, Suzanne Somers, adorned with some strategically placed sheet music !

The color comic in this issue is a satire of romance comics, featuring.....Nazis ?! Yep, this sort of thing probably would not be allowed nowadays..........

One of the funniest features in this February issue is a parody of Modern Bride magazine. 

This 'Lake Innuendo' spoof of the advertisements for the Poconos honeymoon suites (like the Birchwood) that were common in the 70s, is spot-on:

The comics section has the usual strips. Because this section of the magazine was printed on newsprint rather than 'slick' paper, even at 300 dpi, the scans are not crisp and require much fiddling in order to be legible.

And there you go with Lampoon humor, as it was early in '75............