RARA-AVIS: RE: Browne's Spillane

From: Dick Lochte ( dlock@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 06 Jun 2001


> From: "Brian Evankovich" < brianevankovich@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Howard Browne and Mickey Spillane
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if Browne's "Spillane" story is lost to the ages,
> considering all the trouble that went with it. Although I'd like
> to read it myself, as a Spillane fan and someone familiar with Browne's
Paul
> Pine work, just to see how he pulled it off. --Brian

Well, Brian, it's a pretty good pastiche. Here's a sample:

"I felt my teeth cut into the inner surface of my cheek and the salt taste of blood filled my mouth.

"Nekko slid out of his chair and jabbed the .32 against the back of my neck. Ritter bent down until his face was inches from mine. His breath was the reason they'd invented chlorophyll.

"'Your name, you son of a bitch.'

"I spat a mouthful of blood squarely into his eyes."

That issue of Fantastic -- Nov-Dec., 1952 -- also has stories by Richard Matheson, whose short bio says he was making "fancy airplane parts out in Los Angeles" at the time, and Cornell Woolrich ("The Moon of Montezuma"). In addition to gathering a pretty good assortment of writers, Howard Browne also used the same unnamed artist who provided Manhunt with its pen sketches of authors. The story illustrations had that Manhunt look, too. Cover is a magnificently garish wrap-around of a blonde in a red peignoir being attacked by little demons with sharp spears that are dripping blood from a dead guy on the floor. A real beauty.

Dick Lochte

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca.  This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 06 Jun 2001 EDT