Book Review: The School on 103rd Street

Celebrating Black History Month 2022

Book Review: 'The School on 103rd Street' by Roland S. Jefferson

4 / 5 Stars

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we celebrate Black History Month by reading a book - fiction or nonfiction - that illuminates the black experience.

For Black History Month 2022, our selection is 'The School on 103rd Street' by Roland S. Jefferson.

Jefferson was born in Washington DC, grew up in Los Angeles, and later returned to DC, and Howard University, to receive his medical degree. In 1974 he arranged with the vanity press publisher Vantage to publish '103rd Street', and his methodical self-promotion of the book led to a sell-through of the first print run. Subsequently the L.A.-based publisher Holloway House released a paperback edition in 1978 (which now, like many Holloway titles of that era, is impossible to find). 

In 1997 '103rd Street' (194 pp.) was released as a trade paperback by W. W. Norton, as part of its Old School Books imprint.

Jefferson has authored several additional novels, many set in a medical milieu; details are available at his website.

'103rd Street' is set in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in August of 1974. As the novel opens the protagonist, Dr. Elwin Carter, a physician at the neighborhood ghetto clinic, is contacted by two teenaged boys from the 'hood, Buddy Giles and Leon Davenport. Their friend Jimmie has been murdered, and while the police report the killing as gang-related, neither Buddy nor Leon believes that story. According to Buddy and Leon, Jimmie found out something that made him very frightened......something having to do with the School on 103rd Street.

Elwin Carter, his girlfriend Sable, and their BadAzz Mofo acquaintance Mathis team up to investigate Jimmie's murder. In so doing, they draw unwanted attention from The Man, who is not happy about black folks poking into his business. 

Can Elwin mobilize the Brothers in response to the provocations of Whitey ? Or will the grim truth about the School on 103rd Street be withheld from the unsuspecting people of Watts......and the black people of the United States.......?  

'The School on 103rd Street' is a solid 4-Star novel and deserves its status as an entry in the Old School pantheon. 

It does have its weaknesses; after the initial chapters and their focus on a disturbing crime and its implications, the narrative digresses into a rather lengthy segment detailing the daily life and times of protagonist Elwin Carter, and only gradually does the author return his attention to the eponymous School and its mysteries. And the closing chapters adopt a frenetic 'Hollywood thriller' scenario that seems out of place considering the more deliberate pacing of the rest of the novel. 

Where '103rd Street' is strongest is in its affectionate, but critical, exploration of the black bourgeoise and their struggle to succeed in a larger society that is hostile to their ambitions. The depiction of Los Angeles during the heyday of Black Power culture retains its authenticity, and Jefferson displays his skill at crafting believable characters and dialogue. All of these features are communicated in less than 200 pages, giving the novel a spare, declarative prose style that makes for an easy read.

Summing up, those with a fondness for the literature of the Old School, and those wanting an engaging look at black America as it was in the mid-1970s, will want to have 'The School on 103rd Street' on their shelves.

Book Review: Playboy's Stories for Swinging Readers

It's Valentine's Day 2022 at the PorPor Books Blog !

Book Review: 'Playboy's Stories for Swinging Readers'

3 / 5 Stars

Here at the PorPor Books Blog we celebrate Valentine's Day by reviewing a book, either fiction or nonfiction, that deals with love and romance. For Valentine's Day 2024, our selection is 'Playboy's Stories for Swinging Readers' ! 

Hubba-hubba !

'Swinging Readers' (217 pp.) was published by the Playboy Press in 1969, and features 18 pieces that first appeared in the magazine during the interval from 1956 to 1966. 

Needless to say, the stories in 'Swinging Readers' are quite tame in terms of explicitness. They do heartily endorse the ethos of the Mad Men era, with protagonists who are randy bachelors looking to 'score' with 'broads' who are coy, and intent on Saving Themselves for Marriage. Needless to say, modern-day feminists (and the men who sympathize with them) will find this collection of stories to be 'transgressive'.

The authors constitute a 'Who's Who' of postwar writers, a reflection of that fact that in its heyday, Playboy was the among the most influential of those 'slick' magazines that showcased a higher brow of modern fiction.

Among the better entries are 'The Darendinger Build-Up' by William F. Nolan (is that broad's 'rack' too good to be true ?), 'The Secret Formula' by Henry Slesar (there's more than one way to trick a broad into giving it up), 'Thank You, Anna' by Bill Safire (the housekeeper isn't what she seems), and 'This One Is On the House' by Pat Frank (a neat twist at the end). 

The only story in the collection that deviates from the formula is Calder Willingham's 'Bus Story', a disturbing tale of a criminal on the prowl. Its inclusion is unexpected, and evidence that some of the short fiction appearing in Playboy could firmly deviate quite firmly and effectively from a celebration of hedonism.

My recommendation ? While I can't designate 'Playboy's Stories for Swinging Readers' as a must-have, if you have a fondness for the short fiction of the postwar era, and have not been traumatized by the revelations of the Me Too movement, then if you see a copy of the book on a bookstore shelf, it's worth picking up.

Killerbowl now is PoD

'Killerbowl' now is PoD

With the Super Bowl being played this upcoming weekend, I thought it appropriate to mention that Gary K. Wolfe's 1975 long-out-of-print novel about futuristic football, Killerbowl, now is available as a Print on Demand (PoD) trade paperback title from amazon for just $10.

I gave this book a 5 Star review, and the 'Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations' blog gave it 4.75 / 5, so it's well worth acquiring if you are a fan of Rollerball and other dystopian sports tales.

More Devil's Kisses, Corgi Books, the National Lampoon, and Scotland Yard

More Devil's Kisses, Corgi Books, the National Lampoon, and Scotland Yard

This is one of those multi-thread pop culture sagas that could only have happened in the 1970s.

In 1976, Corgi books released a paperback anthology of 'erotic' horror stories titled 'The Devil's Kisses'. Edited by Michael Parry, under the pseudonym 'Linda Lovecraft', the book was popular enough to prompt Corgi to published a sequel, titled 'More Devil's Kisses', in 1977.

The publication of 'More Devil's Kisses' caused controversy. According to a comprehensive account at the 'Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein' blog by Bobbie Derie, and an article in the 2006 zine 'Pulpmania' by Justin Marriott, an entry in 'More Devil's Kisses' by Chris Miller, titled 'Magic Show', caused Scotland Yard to warn Corgi that they could be prosecuted, apparently for obscenity. So almost immediately after the book was distributed to retail outlets, it was withdrawn and destroyed. 

Needless to say, existing copies of either 'Devil's Kisses' title that come up for sale are very rare and quite expensive.

Intrigued by this tale, I went and spent quite a bit of money to get the July, 1975 issue of National Lampoon, where Miller's story first appeared.

In the mid-70s the Lampoon was one of the most successful 'slick' magazines in the U.S., with yearly circulation approaching, if not topping, one million. The magazine's readership of men age 20 - 55, a highly coveted demographic, meant that it was filled with advertisements for high-end stereo receivers, speakers, turntables, and headphones. So for all its stoner humor and T & A, it was no grubby counterculture tabloid......

L-R: Doug Kenney, John Belushi, and Chris Miller on the set of Animal House, Eugene, Oregon, 1977. From If You Don't Buy this Book, We'll Kill this Dog by Matty Simmons, Barricade Books, 1994

As for 'Chris Miller's Magic Show', well, Miller, who was a staff writer for the Lampoon, really does deliver a transgressive story. I laughed until I cried while reading it. 

And I can't present it here in its entirety, either. 

The premise of 'Magic Show' is that Ira Levine, a nice Jewish boy, is hosting his seventh birthday party at his house in suburbia. While the adults are out on the patio getting sloshed on martinis, Ira and the other 19 kids are enjoying the magic show put on by Dr. Fun and Mr. Frog.

Here's one of the more presentable passages from 'Magic Show':

Things just go downhill...rapidly downhill......... from there.......

If you do decide to purchase the July, 1975 issue in order to read 'Magic Show' to completion, you may want to pick up a pair of cheap red-and-blue '3-D' eyeglasses from amazon for just $10 (photo below). 

Many of the graphics in the magazine were printed in 3-D, and are unintelligible without glasses (the cheap cardboard pair originally included in the magazine are not all that great). 

[ The glasses also will come in handy if you happen to own a copy of 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison' (1978). ]

So there you have it......a controversial 1975 story from the National Lampoon that is so transgressive it can't be publicly distributed, and a paperback horror anthology issued in the UK in 1977. Odd bedfellows, indeed.

Book Review: Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave !

Book Review: 

'Be Pure ! 

Be Vigilant ! 

Behave !' 
2000 AD and Judge Dredd: The Secret History

by Pat Mills

3 / 5 Stars

One super-fan would come into IPC HQ at Kings Reach Tower, and patiently explain to me at great length where I was going wrong, why I needed the benefit of his expert advice and why 2000 AD should be more like Heavy Metal or Metal Hurlant. I’m so glad I didn’t take his advice because I understand he ended his days sleeping under a railway viaduct.

‘Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave ! 2000 AD and Judge Dredd: A Secret History (255 pp.) was published by Millsverse Books in 2017.

Pat Mills (b. 1949) is of course one of the most well-known representatives of the comic book business in the UK and one of its more iconoclastic figures. As the above quotation shows, excessive modesty and humility are not in particularly abundant supply in the pages of ‘Be Pure !’, which chronicles Mills’s career in comics from the early 1970s up to 2017, the 40th anniversary of the first issue of 2000 AD.

The book consists of brief chapters, arranged in a loose chronological order. Things start in 1971, when Mills and fellow talent John Wagner were living and working in Scotland for D. C. Thompson and its lineup of romance and humor titles. The narrative then moves to London, where Mills was involved with Battle Picture Weekly and Action before being asked by IPC in 1976 to launch a science-fiction title, one capable of exploiting the anticipated boom in the genre associated with the release of an American film called Star Wars.

That sci-fi comic was of course 2000 AD and, as they say, the rest is history.

Mills rightly devotes considerable space to his work developing 2000 AD and his collaborations with other artists and writers to create the memorable characters that made the comic so successful when it launched in February 1977. These are the book's most interesting chapters.

Subsequent chapters describe Mills’s freelance career writing for additional 2000 AD comics, such as Crisis, for which he created ‘Third World War’. Mills also offers vignettes about working for American publishers Marvel and DC; his involvement with the indie comic Toxic in the early 1990s; and his partnership with the French artist Olivier Ledroit on the title 'Requiem: Vampire Knight'.

Throughout ‘Be Pure !’ Mills, as one might expect, freely expresses his opinions about the comic book industry in the UK and its faults (which, as Mills sees them, are myriad). Mills regards anyone who interfered with his creative vision as a cretin, and thus, former 2000 AD editors Steve McManus, Alan MacKenzie, John Tomlinson, and David Bishop (among many others) all are the targets of his animadversions.

Mills’s ongoing antipathy (which has reached pathological levels, in my opinion) for the De La Salle Order and its former faculty at his grammar school, St. Joseph’s College in Ipswich, also comes in for treatment in the pages of ‘Be Pure !’. It seems that the De La Salle Order members Brother James and Brother Solomon, as Mills refers to them, were the inspirations both for Dredd, and 'Torquemada' from 'Nemesis the Warlock'. 

Mills, who is a Marxist (a de rigueur stance for almost all of those members of the British intelligentsia who do comics, science fiction, and other pop culture media), also takes pains in the book to present himself as a friend and champion of the Oppressed Proletariat. Make no mistake, dear reader: Mills is a man who diligently has used the comic book medium to advocate for the rejection of the status quo, the repudiation of Fascism, and the emancipation of the downtrodden. 

This virtue signaling gets a bit tedious at times............

So, who will want a copy of 'Be Pure ! Be Vigilant ! Behave !' ? Well, fans of the early years of 2000 AD certainly will find much to be of interest, as will those who desire an insider's point of view of the British comics scene since the 1970s. I do recommend that Mills's book be read in conjunction with viewing the 2017 documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD in order to obtain a more ...........rounded, shall we say, overview of the franchise.

The Marriage of Irina Valienko

The Marriage of Irina Valienko

by Sicomoro

from Heavy Metal magazine, July 1996

First of all, I want to alert readers to fred's HM fan blog. It provides frequent reviews of recently issued Heavy Metal magazines, and as of early February, was profiling issue No. 311. 

The reviews thoroughly cover each issue, giving sufficient detail to understand what each comic or feature is about, but not disclosing spoilers. Given that contemporary issues of Heavy Metal now cost $14 (yeep !) consulting fred's blog prior to purchase is recommended.

Anyways, turning back to 1996, it's true that while focusing intently on T & A, the Kevin Eastman incarnation of Heavy Metal occasionally did have some content that harkened back to the early days of the magazine.

'The Marriage of Irina Valienk', by the Italian artist Eugenio Sicomoro (b. 1952), which appeared in the July 1996 issue, has a bleak quality that, combined with excellent art, calls to mind vintage Heavy Metal comics such as Chantal Montellier's 1996. For a myriad of reasons, when they decided to get grim and nihilistic in their material, those European artists could do it very well, indeed. 

And the denunciation of the Soviet-era Communist / Socialist system is effective in an understated manner that, in my opinion, contemporary comic book writers and artists intent on delivering political criticism could benefit from emulating. (One artist who certainly does so is 'Lazy Square', aka Alex S.).

Pimp, Holloway House, 1967

Celebrating Black History Month 2022

Advertisement in the April 1968 issue of Adam Film Quarterly for the Iceberg Slim paperback novel 'Pimp', published by Holloway House in 1967. 

Copies of this 1967 edition of 'Pimp' have starting bids of $450 on eBay.

Jim Osborne: The Black Prince of the Underground

Jim Osborne
The Black Prince of the Underground

Fantagraphics, 2018

'Jim Osborne: The Black Prince of the Underground' (131 pp) was published by Fantagraphics in 2018. The editor, Patrick Rosenkranz, is a well-known historian of the comix enterprise and well-qualified to write this book, particularly as (save for his ex-wife Margaret) most of Osborne's family and friends now are deceased.

Jim Osborne was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1943 and grew up in Texas. After a stint in the U.S. Army from 1963 – 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1968, where he embraced the counterculture and began to submit comics to the local underground newspapers. He soon became a well-known figure in the city’s burgeoning comix scene. 

By the late 70s Osborne began to lose interest in contributing to comix, and his problems with substance abuse were only made worse by the death of his brother Dan from a drug overdose in 1991. Osborne did only a few art pieces during the 1990s, and died in 2001 due to chronic alcoholism.

‘Jim Osborne: The Black Prince of the Underground’ compiles all of Osborne’s comix and graphic art (these all were done in black-and-white). It also includes a biographical sketch of Osborne, with anecdotes and reminiscences from family and friends and other comix artists. And it’s physically smaller than the usual dimensions of the comics-related books published by Fantagraphics (such as multi-volume set of books dealing with 'Spain' Rodriguez), but it had the same high production values one would expect from Fantagraphics.

It should be emphasized that Osborne was second to none – including S. Clay Wilson – when it came to using comix as a vehicle to depict all manner of explicit, disturbing horrors and depravities, so I’m not sure who, exactly, will be interested in picking up the book. I had to search very carefully for excerpts from the book that I could scan to use in this review. 

Perverts, murderers, demons, and drug addicts all populate the comix and art of Jim Osborne, where their iniquities often are accompanied by notes of black humor.

Aside from the dwindling cohort of people that remember Osborne’s comics from the 60s and 70s, I’m guessing that the Gorehounds who devour modern-day, full- color comics from Avatar like Crossed and Uber, likely will find delight in Osborne’s gruesome portrayals of libertines, cannibals, serial killers, demons, and other degenerates.

One thing that really comes across well in the pages of ‘Jim Osborne’ is the intricate nature of his artwork, which originally was printed on newsprint-grade paper by obsolete presses manned by comix publishers in condemned warehouses in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, 'Jim Osborne' is now out of print, and finding a copy for sale for a price anywhere close to its cover price of $25 is difficult, if not impossible. I don't know if Fantagraphics decided on a limited print run for the book because they thought it was a niche item, or because they were nervous about obscenity charges, but until they decide to launch another printing, or issue an eBook, 'Jim Osborne' is among the rarest of the rare. If you see a copy for an affordable price, grab it !

I Believe by Chilliwack

I Believe

by Chilliwack

January 1982

As January 1982 segues into February, the single 'I Believe' from the Canadian group Chilliwack is at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song, a track off the 1981 album Wanna Be A Star, would eventually peak at No. 63 the first week of February. It peaked at Number 13 on the Canadian singles chart.

Chilliwack was an underrated band, better known in their native Canada than in the U.S. 'I Believe' is a rock ballad that displays the band's musicianship and the vocal capabilities of lead singer Bill Henderson (there was no such thing as Auto-Tune back in '82...............)

Book Review: The Sword of Morning Star

Book Review: 'The Sword of Morning Star' by Richard Meade

5 / 5 Stars

In the aftermath of the publication of 'Conan the Adventurer' by Lancer Books in 1966, the market for sword-and-sorcery paperbacks burgeoned, and soon all manner of titles were competing for space on the racks. 

Wishing to take advantage of this sales phenomenon, Signet Books released two novels by Richard Meade: 'The Sword of Morning Star' and 'Exile's Quest', these constituting the so-called 'Gray Lands' series. 

'Richard Meade' was one of several pseudonyms used by the North Carolina-born writer Ben Haas (1926 - 1977). According to a post at Lynn Munroe Books, during the 60s and 70s Haas was a prolific author of paperbacks in a variety of genres, including westerns, where he wrote 20 of the 23 novels in the 'Fargo' series. 

Haas's posthumous autobiography, titled 'A Hack's Notebook', is available at amazon.

'The Sword of Morning Star' (144 pp., January, 1969) features cover art by Jeff Jones.

The novel is set in the mythical medieval Kingdom of Boorn, where Helmut, the illegitimate twelve year-old son of the recently deceased King Sigrieth, becomes a pawn in a scheme by the odious Lord Regent Albrecht to usurp the throne. A series of treacheries instigated by Albrecht sees our hero bereft of his right hand, and left to fend for himself in the vast swamplands.

Fortunately for Helmut he is rescued by the wizard Sandivar, a staunch supporter of the late Sigrieth and a firm opponent of Albrecht. While Helmut yearns for revenge on the Lord Regent, he realizes there are limitations to mounting an insurgency when one is a twelve year-old boy. Accordingly, Sandivar proposes to use thaumaturgical means to advance Helmut to manhood, after which Helmut will possess sufficient physical and mental prowess to campaign against Albrecht.

As the 'Sword' unfolds, we follow Helmut, now transformed into a Conan-style berserker, and Sandivar as they confront Albrecht, his confederate the sorceress Kierena, and their formidable allies: legions of wolves, werewolves, and barbarians.............

I debated internally as to whether 'The Sword of Morning Star' was deserving of a four- or five- star rating, and eventually settled on a five-star rating. 

When taken for what it is, and what is what designed to be: a concise sword and sorcery novel intended to leverage the marketing climate of the late 1960s, 'Sword' does everything right. 

In the span of only 144 pages there is just enough space to introduce characters, a plot, and then a narrative that ties these together in as efficient a manner as possible. This is no minor thing to do, and author Meade / Hass does it well, particularly in the final chapters of the novel, featuring an exciting depiction of a climactic battle scene that may, or may not, go the way the reader is hoping. 

Had Meade been given the page count of contemporary fantasy novels, such as Scott Lynch's 2007 tome The Lies of Locke Lamora (736 pages), he undoubtedly could have provided a more expansive version of 'Sword' and all accompanying benefits such a lengthier format can provide. As it stands, however, Meade's work is one of the better sword and sorcery novels of the late 60s, and worth picking up.

[ For a different, but still approving, take on 'The Sword of Morning Star', readers are directed to this review at the M. Porcius blog. ]