I am away from home and my copy of Art Scott's book on the
artist Robert McGinnis but I believe he did some of the Frank
Kane covers. I've been tempted to give Kane another try,
although less so following these comments. I read several of
them when I was a teenager devouring the Mike Shayne novels
and picked up the look- alike Johnny Liddell novels. I
thought Liddell very inferior to Shayne and was annoyed by
the fact that Kane would recycle dialog and scenes from book
to book. The one that sticks in my mind is where Liddell is
offered a cigarette by a hop-head bad guy. Liddell would look
at the offered smoke and say "No thanks, I like tobacco in
mine."
I always ranked Henry Kane above Frank, although Henry's
Peter Chambers stories could also be repetitive.
My mild renewed interest in Frank Kane came about because
recently I picked up several episodes of the Mike Hammer
television from 1958-60 and Kane was one of the primary
writers of that series. I've only had time to watch one (not
written by Kane) and it wasn't bad. One outrageous detail is
that Darren McGavin's Hammer carries a revolver instead of
Hammer's famous .45 automatic.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Steve Lewis
<stevelewis62@c...> wrote:
>
> At 08:56 AM 12/29/2005, you wrote:
> >Message: 6
> > Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:13:13
-0600
> > From: "James Reasoner"
<james53@f...>
> >Subject: Re: Frank Kane
> >
> >Doug Bassett asked about the cover art on the
following Frank Kane
books.
> >Here's the information I have:
> >
> >DUE OR DIE -- Harry Bennett
> >A SHORT BIER -- Harry Bennett
> >TIME TO PREY -- cover credit given as Livoti;
probably Victor
Livoti
> >JOHNNY COME LATELY -- Ronnie Lesser
> >BARE TRAP -- Harry Bennett
> >JOHNNY LIDDEL'S MORGUE -- no artist credit on
the copy I have
> >
> >I read probably half of the Johnny Liddell
series during the
Sixties and
> >Seventies and recall liking the books quite a
bit. However, when
I last
> >read one a few years ago I didn't think it was
very good. Maybe
one of
> >those right time, right place things. I ought to
try another one
just to
> >see.
> >
> >James Reasoner
>
> Many if not all of the early Dell covers can be seen
at
> http://www.dell.bookscans.com/dell.htm.
Harry Bennett has long
been a
> favorite of mine. He is probably better known for
his covers of
gothic or
> romantic suspense paperbacks, but he did a lot of
mysteries too.
>
> As for Johnny Liddell, I think both James and Doug
Bassett are
right on the
> money. Very derivative and second rank, but in his
day, quite
popular.
>
> Steve
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
>
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> Know an art & music fan? Make
a donation in their honor this holiday season!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/.6dcNC/.VHMAA/Zx0JAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Dec 2005 EST