The last issue of Hardluck Stories

Dave Zeltserman's great webzine Hardluck Stories has - sadly - come to its last issue. You can find the pulp-tribute issue here. At least the stories by Bill Crider and James Reasoner should hook you. Bill Crider's opening is simply great.

The University of Chicago Press reprinting Richard Stark

The covers of the first three reprints of Richard Stark's (AKA Donald Westlake's) Parker novels leaked out. You can see them here, here and here.

They're already diggin' it

Duane Swierczynski seems proud of his forth-coming Finnish edition. And he should be. (I should be, too. Elina told me I should be proud of this finally happening. Ossi Hiekkala should be the proudest of us all.)

I also posted the covers on Crimespace. Couple comments on the covers:

Wow - love it.
What a great cover.

And on Allan Guthrie's book's cover:

Double wow.

And finally.. the paperback line

I've been hinting for at least two years now that I may start editing a crime paperback line. Now it's finally official. The Finnish publisher Arktinen Banaani that has been producing mainly graphic novels or comics will start a paperback line that will feature also crime novels - and they will be handpicked by me. You've probably guessed already that the line focuses on hardboiled and noir.

The first books, out in October, will be Duane Swierczynski's The Wheelman (under the Finnish title Keikkakuski; which is the Finnish title for Walter Hill's classic getaway film, The Driver) and Allan Guthrie's Kiss Her Goodbye (under the title Viimeinen suudelma; this may still be subject to change). Both are excellent noir thrillers, although very different from each other. While Duane's book is a violent non-stop ride through a professional heister's worst nightmare, Allan's book is more into character (even though his hero, Joe Hope, is necessarily not one you want to get into). Its violence quotient is still quite large.

The paperback line will have three more novels the coming Spring, but more about them later.

Must admit that all this was mainly caused by Hard Case Crime. It was too cool a concept to leave undeveloped. The first two books will have illustrated covers done by Ossi Hiekkala, a young Finnish guy whom I've already dubbed "the Robert McGinnis of Finland" (even though there are no near naked babes on these two covers, sorry 'bout that). I'm hoping I'll find some use to my friend Jukka Murtosaari, too.

The illustrations on this post don't have the titles as yet, as I have those only as PDF's on my computer and I don't have the right program here to convert them into embeddable pictures. (Is that a word? Embeddable?)

Arktisen Banaanin pokkaridekkarit

Aiemmin sarjakuvakustantajana tunnettu Arktinen Banaani laajentaa ensi syksynä pokkareiden ja myös dekkareiden puolelle. Sarjan dekkarit keskittyvät uuteen kovaksikeitettyyn ja noir-dekkariin, jotka ovat tällä hetkellä vahvassa nousussa sekä Yhdysvalloissa että Englannissa, sekä isoissa kustantamoissa että erikoistuneissa pienkustantamoissa. Arktisen Banaanin dekkaripokkareissa kunnioitetaan lajityypin perinteitä tyylikkäillä kuvitetuilla kansilla.

Sarjan ensimmäiset kirjat ovat Duane Swierczynskin Keikkakuski (The Wheelman, 2005) ja Allan Guthrien Viimeinen suudelma (Kiss Her Goodbye, 2006). Kirjat ilmestyvät lokakuussa.

Keikkakuski kertoo Patrick Lennonista, pankkirosvojen käyttämästä keikkakuskista, jonka paras etu työssään on, että hän on mykkä. Philadelphialaisen Wachovia-pankin ryöstö näyttää aluksi sujuvan ihan kohtuullisesti - mitä nyt pitää ajaa autolla pankin ovi rikki ja pamauttaa lastenvaunuja työntävä nainen pois tieltä -, mutta sitten joku puuttuu peliin ja täräyttää isolla pakulla keikka-auton kylkeen. Patrick Lennonin elämän painajaismaisin viikonloppu alkaa: hän herää, kun häntä ollaan työntämässä mustassa ruumissäkissä rakennustyömaan putkeen...

Viimeinen suudelma kertoo Joe Hopesta, karusta ja hiukan yksinkertaisesta koronkiskurin apurista, jonka tärkein työväline on pesäpallomaila. Joe Hope tulee aamuyöllä keikalta kotiin vain saadakseen kuulla, että joku on tappanut hänen teini-ikäisen tyttärensä. Masennuksesta ja juopotteluputkesta toivuttuaan Joe päättää kostaa.

Duane Swierczynski (s. 1972) iski itsensä läpi amerikkalaisten dekkarinlukijoiten tietoisuuteen toisella romaanillaan Keikkakuski, joka kertoo mykästä luottoajajasta. Tämä joutuu vaikeuksiin, kun huolella valmisteltua pankkikeikkaa onkin seurannut myös venäläisten mafia. Keikkakuski on 24-tv-sarjan ja 1950-luvun kovaksikeitettyjen rikospokkareiden risteytys: reaaliajassa kulkeva trilleri, jossa ei ole tyhjiä hetkiä.
Duane Swierczynski on nuoren polven amerikkalaisdekkaristien ehdotonta kärkeä, joka on kirjoittanut myös Marvel-yhtiön sarjakuvia, kuten X-Meniä ja Cablea. Hänen muihin romaaneihinsa kuuluvat The Blonde (2006) ja Severance Package (2008).

Allan Guthrien (s. 1965) debyyttiromaani Viimeinen suudelma löi dekkaripiirit ällikällä: kertomus pesäpallomailaa aseenaan käyttävästä koronkiskurin apupojasta, jonka tytär kuolee epämääräisissä olosuhteissa, on samaan aikaan inhimillisen lämmin että pirullisen väkivaltainen. Kirjallaan Guthrie oli myös ehdokkaana tunnetussa Edgar-palkintokisassa, joka myönnetään vuosittain parhaalle ilmestyneelle rikosromaanille.
Allan Guthrie on skottilaisen hardboiledin uusi mestari, jota on verrattu Irvine Welshiin ja Denise Minaan. Hän vain kirjoittaa väkivaltaisempia kirjoja.
Guthrien muuta tuotantoa ovat romaanit Two-Way Split (2006), Hard Man (2007), Kill Clock (2007) ja Savage Night (2008).

Finished things

I feel like a million bucks. The reason: I finished some hours back the first draft of the translation of a major new American hardboiled caper novel. I'm a bit too busy to write about the whole thing more fully, but you can guess what that novel is, when I tell that I burst out laughing when I received a spam e-mail two or three minutes after completing the job - the message "came" from "Wachovia bank". (And you may remember that I've hinted at the past on this blog and probably elsewhere, too, that I'll be editing a series of crime paperbacks. More on this later. Stay tuned.)

The translation is not the only thing that was finished lately. Yesterday I picked up from the printers the latest issue of Ässä. You may remember that my hobby is to publish small press crime magazines (or fanzines; I don't know what word I should use). Ässä is the kid brother of the family. It contains only stories under 1,000 words, preferably even shorter. It's the world's smallest pulp mag, a magazine with flash fiction stories.

The newest issue, No. 2, is a bit smaller than the previous one, from the last year, but it was only due my lack of time. There's not, for example, an old story from the archives (the last issue had two, one by Otso Kantokorpi and one by Jussi Kylätasku, both Finnish writers). There are more translations than original Finnish stories - Ässä has stories by JT Ellison, Patti Abbott, Patricia J. Hale, Pearce Hansen, Todd Mason and John Weagly. The Finnish writers in the issue are Pasi Karppanen, Tapani Bagge, Salla Simukka and myself. (Well, okay, Tapani's and Salla's stories are old - they were published in a flash fiction series I edited for a weekly paper, Valo, last year.)

The picture accompanying this post was just too hilarious not to use: when I went to the printers, the magazines were wrapped in a pink paper. That's just too cute!

The cover illo is by anonymous - I found it in a sixties' book that dealt with media violence.

Happy Midsummer's Eve to everyone!

Se on Ewers, ei Ebers!

(Just something that bugs me.)

Minua on tänään ärsyttänyt Waltari-kirjoittelussa toistuva virhe, jonka mukaan Waltarin suomentaman Horst Wesselin (suom. 1933) kirjoittajan nimi on Hans Heinz Ebers, kun se on Hanns Heinz Ewers. Virhe lähtee nähdäkseni vuoden 1982 kirjasta Mielikuvituksen jättiläinen, jossa Eila Pennanen kirjoitti nimen väärin ja se toistuu Panu Rajalan kirjassa Noita palaa näyttämölle ja Reijo Vahtokarin ja Risto Lindstedtin viime vuonna ilmestyneessä kuvapainotteisessa elämäkerrassa! Ja kaikki kirjoittavat nimen samalla tavalla väärin.

Toivottavasti Rajalan syyskuussa ilmestyvässä elämäkerrassa nimi on oikein.

Dan Sontup on Scott Meredith

Oops... sorry, my memory of this little piece was that it was more about Sontup's career, but it's almost only about his stint at Scott Meredith's literary agency. But here goes nevertheless. There's first someone's (I don't know whose) question and then follows Sontup's answer:

When I was a beginning writer back in the 70s, teachers 'in the know' advised beginners to avoid the Scott Meredith Agency, saying he would only demand money for a reading and after getting the money would tell the author the story had no chance in the market. Do you think that was true? I never sent him anything. Maybe I missed the boat.

Here's how it worked back in the '50s (can't speak for the setup in the '70s). I started with Scott on what was called the "fee desk." Writers would pay $5 for a reading and evaluation, of which the fee desk editor got $2. Our instructions were to type at least a two-page report on each submission. (An interesting sidelight here. Lester del Rey had reworked on old Czech manual typewriter with English alphabet keys for Scott. It required a real heavy hand on the keys, but it had one big advangage -- the characters were very large type. This meant I could do the required two-page report with less wordage than a conventional manual typewriter, which the other editors used -- and this was important when trying to do as many $2 fee reports as possible in a day to make some money at the end of the week.) Also, in each report, we had to be sure to mention Scott's book, Writing to Sell, and in the case of fiction, delineate what Scott called "The Plot Skeleton," which reduced the amount of space you'd have to devote to actually discussing the submission itself. Also, when rejecting the submission, we were to make sure it was worded
so that the writer couldn't come back and say, for instance, "Well, if that's all that's wrong with the story, I'll revise it and send it back to you." The rejection had to be final and irrevocable to forestall repeat submissions of obviously
unsalable material.

If we found a manuscript that might have salable potential (which would be a rare find), we were to pass it on to the editor at the "pro desk." who at that time (a little name dropping here) was Evan Hunter, and who would make a final decision on the marketability of the manuscript. I estimated that I read through more than 200 manuscripts when I first started with Scott before I found one that I could pass on.

So, to finally answer your question -- yes, a good story would get consideration and, if marketable, would be taken on by Scott. Needless to say, this hardly every happened, because most of the submissions were from people who had not yet learned how to write.

As I said earlier, Sontup wrote this for the ShortMystery e-mail list. Tapani Bagge, who's a personal friend, is a member of that list and e-mailed this to me several years back. I've also joined since, but I don't have the time to follow the discussions there.

I've also included the only book-length work Sontup wrote (at least that I know of) - it's a novelization of the M-Squad television series, under the pseudonym David Saunders. I haven't read it.

Coming posts

After posting the Jory Sherman bibliography I remembered another item I have sitting on my computer that might be of interest - a short memoir by crime fiction writer Dan Sontup that he wrote for the ShortMystery e-mail list some years (five, six?) back. (It's on another computer, not this laptop I'm usually working on, so I won't post it now.)

I'm also getting back to writing about Mika Waltari's older books. I'll be writing about his humorous adventure novels under the pseudonym Leo Rainio and after I'll do a brief post about his mystery novels featuring Frans J. Palmu. I'll also try make a post with the covers of his American paperback translations.

And Jory Sherman's bibliography...

(Someone once talked about how blogs could be sexy... You couldn't get any sexier than this. Steamy stuff, let me tell you!)

After writing a brief post about Jory Sherman it occurred to me that I once received Sherman's bibliography from librarian and pulp/SF fan Denny Lien. I think he got it from the Contemporary Authors database - I hope I'm not doing any copyright infringement posting the bibliography here. It's couple years old, and I believe Mr. Sherman has written some new books in the interim. There are so many books here I got tired pretty soon to try to italicize the books' titles...

So Many Rooms, Galley Sail Publications, 1960. [poetry]
My Face in Wax, introduction by Charles Bukowski, illustrated by Bobbie Blume, Windfall Press (Chicago), 1965. [poetry]
Lust on Canvas, Anchor Publications, 1965.
The October Scarf, Challenge Books, 1966.
The Sculptor, Private Edition Books, 1966.
The Fires of Autumn, All Star Books, 1967.
Nightsong, All Star Books, 1968.
(Under pseudonym Cort Martin) Blood Jungle, Triumph News, 1968.
(Under pseudonym Cort Martin) The Star, Dominion (San Marcos, CA), 1968.
(Under pseudonym Cort Martin) Quest, Powell Publications, 1969.
(Under pseudonym Cort Martin) The Edge of Passion, Saber Books, 1969.
MAN, WOMAN AND BEAST: A Clinical Study of Bestiality. Venice Books, 1971.
The Love Rain, Tecumseh Press, 1971.
(Under pseudonym Frank Anvic) The All Girl Crew, Barclay, 1973.
(Under pseudonym Frank Anvic) The Hard Riders, Barclay, 1973.
There Are Ways of Making Love to You, Tecumseh Press, 1974.
(Under pseudonym Frank Anvic) We Have Your Daughter, Brandon Books, 1974.
(Under pseudonym Frank Anvic) Bride of Satan, Brandon Books, 1974.
Gun for Hire, Major (Canoga Park, CA), 1975.
(Under pseudonym Charlotte A. Sherman) The Shuttered Room, Major, 1975.
Ride Hard, Ride Fast, Major, 1976.
(Under pseudonym Wilma Tarra) Her Strange Needs, Carlyle Communications, 1976.
(Under pseudonym Wilma Tarra) Trying Out Tricia, Carlyle Communications, 1976.
Buzzard Bait, Major, 1977.
Satan's Seed, Pinnacle Books (New York City), 1978.
Chill, Pinnacle Books, 1978.
The Bamboo Demons, Pinnacle Books, 1979.
Hellfire Trail, Leisure Books (Norwalk, CT), 1979.
The Reincarnation of Jenny James, Carlyle Books, 1979.
The Fugitive Gun, Leisure Books, 1980.
Vegas Vampire, Pinnacle Books, 1980.
The Phoenix Man, Pinnacle Books, 1980.
House of Scorpions, Pinnacle Books, 1980.
Shadows, Pinnacle Books, 1980.
Dawn of Revenge, Zebra Books (New York City), 1980.
Mexican Showdown, Zebra Books, 1980.
Death's Head Trail, Zebra Books, 1980.
Blood Justice, Zebra Books, 1980.
Wier Hell, Zebra Books, 1980.
Bukowski: Friendship, Fame, and Bestial Myth, Blue Horse Publications (Augusta, GA), 1981.
Duel in Purgatory, Zebra Books, 1981.
Law of the Rope, Zebra Books, 1981.
Apache Arrows, Zebra Books, 1981.
Boothill Bouy, Zebra Books, 1981.
Hard Bullets, Zebra Books, 1981.
Trial by Sixgun, Zebra Books, 1981.
(Under pseudonym Cort Martin) First Blood, Zebra Books, 1981.
My Heart Is in the Ozarks, illustrated by Sherry Pettey, First Ozark (Harrison, AR), 1982.
The Widow Maker, Zebra Books, 1982.
Arizona Hardcase, Zebra Books, 1982.
The Buff Runners, Zebra Books, 1982.
Gunman's Curse, Pinnacle Books, 1983.
Dry-Gulched, Zebra Books, 1983.
Wyoming Waon, Zebra Books, 1983.
Tucson Twosome, Zebra Books, 1983.
Blood Warriors, Zebra Books, 1983.
(Under pseudonym Walt Denver) Pistolero, Zebra Books, 1983.
(Under pseudonym Hank Mitchum) Stagecoach Station 8: Fort Yuma, Baam (New York City), 1983.
Death Valley, Zebra Books, 1984.
Red Tomahawk, Zebra Books, 1984.
Blood Trail South, Zebra Books, 1984.
Song of the Cheyenne, Doubleday (New York City), 1987.
Wier of the Wolf, Walker Co. (New York City), 1987.
Horne's Law, Walker Co., 1988.
Eagles of Destiny, Zebra Books, 1990.
The Arkansas River, Baam, 1991.
The Medicine Horn: Book One of the Buckskinners, Tom Doherty Associates (New York City), 1991.
An Early Frost, White Oak (Redwood City, CA), 1992.
Grass Kingdom, Forge (New York City), 1994.
Trapper's Moon, Tor (New York City), 1994.
The Rio Grande, Baam, 1994.
The Columbia River, Baam, 1996.
The Barons of Texas, Forge, 1997.
The Baron Range, Tom Doherty Associates, 1998.
The Baron Brand, Forge, 2000.
The Ballad of Pinewood Lake, Forge, 2001.

(He's not a slow writer - and it's no wonder he's become blind in his old age.)

Edit: I thought I'd look on Abebooks and found quite easily some books the Contemporary Authors bibliographer hasn't noticed:

Incest: The Big Taboo, Venice Publishing Corp, 1966.
Secret World of Incest, Pendulum Books, Atlanta, GA, 1967
I Thee Wed, PEC, San Diego, CA, 1967
The Lips of Eros, Pendulum Books, 1967
The Summer Man, Challenge Books, 1967
The Passion Killer, Triumph Books, CA, 1968

Under the pseudonym Frank Anvic I find these books that are not on the CA list - of course it's possible that Anvic was a house name and Sherman wrote only those that are mentioned above.

His Mother's Arms, Barclay House 1969

Troubleshooter, Brandon House 1973

The Safari Women, Brandon House, n.d.

The Austrian Connection, Brandon House 1974 ("The assignment: Smash the huge international smuggling ring. The agent: Brad Saber. His abilities: Unique. His Achilles' heel: Women!")

Bonnie Does It Better, Beeline 1978

Some of these - at least The Austrian Connection - should be included in Al Hubin's bibliography of crime fiction. Will let him know.

Edit part two: I heard from James Reasoner that Blood Jungle, mentioned in the original Contemporary Authors bibliography, was published under the pseudonym Cort Martin and not under his real name. I'll add this info to the list as well.
Edit part three: I added a new pornographic book I happened to find (Man, Woman and Beast) when I was looking for something else. 

Jory Sherman's interview

A nice interview with Jory Sherman, ex-beat poet and Western paperbacker, who's had a long career, starting out with poetry and eating free in poetry cafés, then writing paperbacks for low-end paperback houses and then getting on with the adult Westerns of the eighties and then rising to prosperity. In Finland he's not well known, even though he's had a handful of Westerns translated, mainly in his Gunn series, and two horror paperbacks.

Algis Budrys dead

Heard earlier today that American science fiction writer Algis Budrys has died. When I read the obits by Ed Gorman and Todd Mason, I was a bit sorry that my reading of Budrys has remained only with Rogue Moon. I didn't like it, but it was one of those cases when you just can't get into a book, no matter how hard you try. I'll have to try it - or some other Budrys - again, since Ed and Todd, whose taste I've found to be trustworthy, both like him so much.

Budrys is very little known in Finland. I've found only one translation by him: "The Distant Sound of Engines" from 1959 became "Moottorien kaukainen kumu" in the fanzine Aikakone 3, in volume 2. (It's somewhere around 1984 or 1985.) I remember reading this when I was a teenager and simply not realizing what really happened in the story. Haven't read it again.

(This must be one of the sorriest obits you've ever read.)

Kaksi vähäistä tekstiäni

(Just talking about some of my lesser writings.)

Posti toi tänään kaksi kirjaa, joissa kummassakin on tekstiäni: Suomen tietokirjailijoiden juhlakirjan He kirjoittavat öisin - mutta miksi? sekä sarjakuvamaagi Vesa Kataistolle tehdyn juhlakirjan Vesantologia. Kummatkin omalla tavallaan hienoja. Tietokirjailijoiden kirjan saatavuudesta en tiedä, mutta Vesantologiaa ilmeisesti saa ostettua toimittajilta, Ville Hänniseltä ja Otto Sinisalolta. Vesantologiassa on sarjauvia muun muassa Milla Paloniemeltä, Pertti Jarlalta, Ville Rannalta ja Kati Kovacsilta, ja kaikki kuvaavat tavalla tai toisella juhlakalua, jäljittelemätöntä maamme eturivin miestä Vesa Kataistoa. (Jolla oli blogikin jossain vaiheessa, mutta päivityksiä ei ole, krhm, vähään aikaan näkynyt.) Hauskimmat jutut on Ville Rannalla (jota olen muutenkin ihaillut jo vuosia) ja Pertti Jarlalla (tämä on paljon hauskempi kuin yliarvostettu Fingerpori: kirvestä Karviselle!).

Oma tekstini Vesantologiassa käsittelee Teuvo Teutori Koskisen sarjakuva- ja kuvitusuraa. Vasta jälkeenpäin muistin, että juhlakirjoihin tehdyissä teksteissä olisi asiallista mainita myös juhlakalu - riittäköön nyt kun totean, että tämä on juttu, jonka Vesa on minulta taannoin päätoimittamaansa Sarjainfoon tilannut. (Vielä myöhemmin jälkeenpäin tajusin, että kyllähän minun jutussani näkyy monissa juhlasarjiksissa esiintyvä piirre: kissat! Vesa K. on tunnettu kissojen ystävä. Mainittu Pertti Jarla repii siitä vaikuttavaa huumoria.)

Tietokirjailijoiden kirjassa oleva teksti löytyy täältä. Kirjaan pannusta tekstistä on otettu pois sanat "turuilla ja toreilla", kun puhun vaatimattomasta kirjakauppiaan urastani - en tiedä miksi, kun se kuitenkin on totuus (olen myynyt kirjoja ainakin Porin ja Harjavallan toreilla, mahdollisesti jossain muuallakin). Mutta kirjaan päätyi myös järkyttävä virhe. Kuten huomaatte, olen kirjoittanut ainoan varsinaisen työpaikkani pienellä ("ylioppilaslehti"). Nyt kirjassa lukee, että olisin ollut töissä Ylioppilaslehdessä! Toivottavasti kukaan ei nyt erehdy luulemaan, että yritän isotella. Olen siis ollut töissä kaksi vuotta (ja sivarissa vuoden) Turun Ylioppilaslehdessä. Helsingin Ylioppilaslehden toimitusta en ole koskaan edes nähnyt.

Huoratron: Finnish electro at its most fierce

Check out the latest video $$ Troopers by Huoratron, the Finnish hard bleep act. May not work best on a computer screen, but the video is great and the track.. um.. rollicking?

Review of Con Sellers's Red Rape

Here's a great review of Con Sellers's Red Rape, rather dubious sleaze-cum-hardboiled-action paperback from the early sixties. Should probably check more stuff at the Conelrad site, but am too tired at the moment. (Thanks to Steve Lewis for the link!)

John Benteen's Fargo

James Reasoner reviews one of the Fargo paperbacks by John Benteen AKA Ben Haas (also AKA Richard Meade and some other pseudonyms). I've also liked these, and other Western paperbacks Ben Haas wrote.

Moorcock and I

Forgot to say (actually forgot all about it myself) that my short piece on an old sleaze film called The Smut Peddler (1965) appeared on Earl Kemp's fanzine here. Should probably point out that this is the first time - and probably will be the last - when I'm in a same publication with Michael Moorcock.

There was a comment on the film by a long-time science fiction fan called Mike Deckinger in the next issue of Earl Kemp's fanzine. I'll quote it in here:

"Of course I remember The Smut Peddler. It was released at a time when the more innocent and carefree nudies (as exemplified by Russ Meyers’ early contributions), were beginning to fade from view, and ushered in the era of the “roughies”; B&W independent films that featured ample flesh displays and undue amounts of violence and misogyny. The key developers of “roughies” included the incredible husband and wife team of Michael and Roberta Findlay, Barry Mahan (Errol Flynn’s drinking buddy), the delectable Audrey Campbell, star of the “Olga” series. and our very own William Rotsler.

The crusty character, in the still from The Smut Peddler also played the titular lead (adorned in scabby make-up and prosthetics), who, as noted, is only glimpsed in the trailer. The trailer itself was a marvel of manipulative direction. Since one of the shadowy plot elements centered on the production of a girly magazine called Dream Girl, re-enactments of an S&M photo-shoot were presented as if they foreshadowed actual scenes within the final product.

However, the sweaty viewer was not totally deceived. Additional unrelated scenes of European glamour girls rounded out the viewing experience.

Roughies only remained for a few years. Once the envelope was pushed to the limit, with the advent of hard-core, non-simulations, the soft-core genre dwindled and then disappeared.

I can understand that The Smut Peddler has become a rarity, but a sought-after rarity? Truly stunning."

A better cover for Kirsti Ellilä's book

Tein sen sitten saman tien: muokkasin Kirsti Ellilän Outoa rakkautta -kirjan kantta. En osannut tehdä sitä Photoshopissa enkä osannut tehdä värillistä PDF:ää, joten tein kannen Pagemakerissa ja tulostin sen ja skannasin uudestaan - siksi kuva on hailakka ja siinä on moiretta ja ties mitä. On tämä silti parempi kuin alkuperäinen.

(See below. This is my redesign of Kirsti Ellilä's book, Strange Love (it combines elements of women's romance and science fiction and crime and was published in the same series of books for which I've edited some, i.e. the porn anthology I've mentioned from time to time). The cover illo is by Jukka Murtosaari. I know designing book covers is difficult and I most certainly know this should be much better, but still I do think this would do better justice to the illo and wouldn't be so clumsy.)

Some obscure and more obscure animated cartoons

I've been watching some pretty forgotten or unknown animated cartoons lately. I don't really know why I like to waste my time on these kind of things, but hey, what else would I write about on this blog? Um.. was this blog supposed to be about pulp fiction? Or my writer's life? Nah, screw that.

And some of these I even enjoy.

The best of the bunch was undoubtedly a DVD collection of Gene Deitch's animations. Deitch is an oddity in the American animation business, since he skipped the US after having worked for Terrytoons in the late fifties and early sixties, and moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia to produce his films with the Eastern bloc animators and artists. Some of the stuff he produced with artists like Zlatko Grgic is interesting, surrealist take on the American animation's most familiar stuff, like a bigger animal chasing a smaller animal and never succeeding. Deitch has a big, black bird chasing a worm. The bird runs on its feet, it doesn't seem to fly (well, it uses some sort of a helicopter in one scene). There are some really surreal moments in these animations, while at the same time they are easily watchable like the Roadrunners or Tom & Jerry.

Deitch also made his own Nudnik cartoons - it's said that the character is based on his own creation for Terrytoons, called Floofle. These were also made in Prague in 1960-1964, and released through Paramount as theatrical shorts. Nudnik (Oiva Tumpeloinen in Finnish) is a small, human-like character who doesn't succeed in anything. He seems like a homeless person - occasionally he lives in buildings to be demolished. There's a feel of silent comedy in these shorts, and one easily thinks of Charles Chaplin or Buster Keaton watching Nudnik. I liked these a lot, but Kauto got bored. Ottilia liked Nudnik to a certain extent. I had to watch these all by myself...

I don't think these have ever been shown in Finland - the DVD collection (Oiva Tumpeloisen seikkailuja 1-2) must've been the first instance, even though some of the Czech stuff Deitch produced was shown on telly when I was a kid. If anyone knows more, I'd really like to know.

Now, to a bore called David & Sandy. The film was made in Hungary, which is why I bought the old VHS cassette from a thrift store - I thought it might be one of those artsy Eastern bloc animations I have a great liking for. But no. No no no. It seems that this was an independent production - in Hungary in the late eighties that may have been possible - and that this was intended for international distribution. The film has a feel of American animation, but the art is worse and the characters are very unappealing, especially the kid, David, in the lead, with his bulging eyes and small nose. (And the humans have only four fingers - I find this almost repulsive, even though with ducks or mice it's perfectly okay.) The plot is stupid, with lots of stuff thrown randomly in, from space aliens to a toy museum of the future. Kauto seemed to be interested in the movie, but I solemnly swear I'll never watch it again. (The terrible Finnish dubbing may have something to do with my dislike of the film, but the art was still awful and the plot clichéd and stupid.)

Last but not least, Vuk or The Little Fox by Pannonian Studio, also Hungarian, seemed a lot better, with nice animal characters, but the Finnish dubbing of the ancient VHS cassette was so bad that it seems unprobable I'll watch this to the end. It's been said that this has been the second biggest box-office hit ever in Hungary. No wonder - the little fox, Vuk, is cute. If I have the time to sit through this, I'll report back.

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Turbatorilta

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Outoa rakkautta Turbatorin m-sarjassa ilmestyi maanantaina. Kirja sisältää kuusi novellia, joista kaksi on ilmestynyt aiemmin Reginassa, kaksi Portissa ja kaksi on tätä kirjaa varten kirjoitettua. Kirjan tarinat edustavat jonkinlaista kauhun, scifin ja dekkarin rakoihin putoavaa romanttista viihdettä.

Kirjaa saa ainakin Akateemisesta kirjakaupasta sekä Pienestä kirjapuodista ja Turun yliopiston kirjakaupasta, mutta sitä voi myös tilata suoraan kustantajalta: lounaisranta@pelipeitto.fi. Hintaa en valitettavasti tiedä.

Kansikuva on Jukka Murtosaaren piirtämä. Kuva on hyvä, mutta en ole itse kovin tyytyväinen kannen asemointiin; koetan jossain vaiheessa vähän leikkiä kannella ja kansikuvalla ja tehdä paremman ehdotuksen. Tässä on liikaa tyhjää.

(Announcing a new book in a series I've had a hand in.)

Asentojen arvio

Pohjalaisen arvio Asentoja-kirjasta.

(A review of my porn anthology, in Finnish.)

My newest work: MACHINES

I've forgotten - as I've been doing something else besides blogging (which is a healthy sign, isn't it?) - to promote my newest book. There's not much to promote, though: the print run of MACHINES is a measly 30 and I've already sold and given away the majority.

MACHINES is one of my rare forays into experimental poetry (you never know what I'm up to) and is of a found text type. The four-page poem consists only of a import manual I found in an Indian guidebook from the fifties. (Exhilaratingly obscure, isn't it?)

The booklet has the ISBN title, though, so it's a legitimate publication. Be sure to grab one, while you still can - your future might depend on the breadth of your Nummeliniana collection.

Here's what my friend Jussi Parikka said about MACHINES:

"Hieno kokoelma, hämärästä lähteestä. Hyvin vaikuttavaa! :-) Tulee mieleen italialainen futurismi + seonnut teknoarkeologi, jolla luettelovimma. Toimisi hyvin ääneenluettuna (vrt. uudelleen italialainen futurismi.) / A fine collection, from an obscure source. Very impressive! :-) Reminds me a bit of Italian futurism and a crazed technological archeologist with a list mania. Would work well read out aloud (cf. again Italian futurism.)"

(Will scan the cover later on.)