Art Gallery: Randolph Scott

1951

1958

1941

Authentic UNAUTHORIZED Photos of the Wild West

. . .Bally's Wild West, that is.

Finding ourselves in Atlantic City sometime back, my wife and I took the obligatory stroll down the boardwalk. And look what we found:

The Oregon Trail (we thought we'd left it behind).

The Cash Express

Blazing 7s

Wall mural 1

Wall mural 2: Is that Kevin Costner?

This hombre looks familiar.

Some of the gamblers have been here a LONG time.

The floor show.

Hey, Miss Kitty! Where's Matt?

Right about here, the 'Sheriff' accosted us, saying if we didn't stop taking pictures we'd have to leave. We did both. 

Hope for aspiring authors!

These are supposedly honest-to-god rejection letters received by the authors.

"I am most disturbed at the thought that the writer has asked that this be published. I can see no possible cause that could be served by its publication. I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years."

"The girl does not, it seems to me, have a special perception on feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity level."

"It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A."

The Mark of Zorro (1920) - Watch it here!

The Almanack wishes to thank Mr. Johnston McCulley, Mr. Doug Fairbanks and YouTuber JCRossetto1 for making this presentation possible. Bust out the popcorn and enjoy! And after the show, I encourage you to pay a visit to the always interesting Johnston McCulley/Zorro Yahoo Group. 

"The Mark of Zorro" Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8

Art Gallery: Tarzan of the Movies

1918

1938

1949

Forgotten Books: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: The Comic Strip

TRIVIA QUESTION: How many hardboiled private eyes had their own comic strip?
ANSWER: I don’t know, but I can think of only one. Mike Hammer.

Sure, there were other hardboiled dicks, like Dick Tracy and Kerry Drake, but they were either cops or working in some official capacity. So Mike Hammer, if not unique, was at least a rarity.

“From the Files of Mike Hammer” appeared in the funny pages in 1953 and ‘54. Half of the strip’s run is collected in this 1982 Ken Pierce book, and the rest in a second volume that seems to be missing from my collection (ain’t life a bitch?).

This 64-page first volume features four stories from the daily papers, one 17-week Sunday continuity and a fine introduction by Max Allan Collins. As detailed in the intro, scripting for the dailies was initially the work of Joe Gill, who had worked with Spillane writing Timely comics in the 40s. At some point early on, Gill dropped out and artist Ed Robbins took over the writing chores as well, with at least some input from Spillane. As seen in the samples here, Gill and Robbins were certainly up to the task. All the writing in these panels is theirs, with the exception of “Wait a minute - I know this guy… from someplace -”, which is from the Sunday story “The Sudden Trap”, written and scripted by Spillane himself.

This fun stuff. Short, sharp mysteries with plenty of hardboiled attitude. Adding to the fun is Robbins’ rendition of Hammer - a taller, tougher and more chiseled version of Mickey Spillane himself.

As Collins points out, the strip is all the more interesting because Spillane’s hardboiled hero was originally intended to be a comic book character (to be called Mike Danger). Because comics had then fallen on tough times, Spillane changed they guy’s name to Hammer and wrote I, the Jury. And the rest is hardboiled history.

Explore more of this week's fine Forgotten Books via Patti Abbott's pattinase!

Art Gallery: Hollywood Detective

1943
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1943

1945

"David Crockett in Congress" Wins IPPY Award!

I loved this book, and I'm not the only one.  

David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend by James R. Boylston and Allen J. Wiener (Bright Sky Press, 2009) has received a 2010 Independent Publisher’s Book Award for Best Regional Non-Fiction.  For fourteen years the Independent Publisher Book Awards have been conducted annually to honor the year's best independently published titles. The "IPPY" Awards reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.

David Crockett in Congress, says a press release, is the first significant new biography of the famous frontier congressman and Alamo martyr in over a half century.  Crockett emerges as a savvy politician, hardball campaigner and advocate for the poor.  The book is based on Crockett’s own writings and other original documents and appends all of his surviving correspondence, political circulars and key speeches.

The book has received high praise from others as well...

“James R. Boylston and Allen Wiener have done a masterful job of recovering the real David Crockett, a figure of enormous historical significance in the tumultuous and critical Jacksonian age.” —  Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.

“. . . offers a fresh look at Davy Crockett's congressional years. . . The authors. . . create a fascinating portrait of ‘the real Crockett.’"  Dallas Morning News

"Boylston and Wiener conclude — and ably demonstrate — that Crockett wasn't the country bumpkin many have thought him to be.”  Austin Statesman

“The best thing on Crockett since William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo.  This book should have long life.” —  Allen Barra, author of Inventing Wyatt Earp

“. . .an extraordinary book.  It should be read by anyone interested in Crockett and politics during the Age of Jackson.  I found a surprisingly more admirable Crockett than the one I though I already knew.”  Wild West History Association Journal

“A true gem, essential for anyone interested in Crockett himself, the Jacksonian milieu, the roots of modern democratic practice.” — Daniel Feller, author, The Jacksonian Promise: America, 1815-1840

“Crockett's political life has never been subject to the close scrutiny it receives here. Boylston and Wiener show him to be a masterly campaigner and astute politician.  They let Crockett speak for himself.”  —  Library Journal 

“. . . the best book on Crockett ever written or compiled  . . .”  Craig Anderson, Our History Project website

“. . . destined to be a valuable resource for researchers studying David Crockett for many years to come.” — K K Searle, texas-history-page.blogspot.com

 Here's a look at the proud authors, Jim and Allen

And just in case you missed it - or are in the mood to read it again - here's an encore presentation of my own review:

DAVID CROCKETT IN CONGRESS: THE MOST IMPORTANT CROCKETT BOOK IN FIFTY YEARS

When this book was published, I invited co-author Allen Wiener to say a few words about it here on the Almanack (that's HERE). He made it sound like a fine book, and I was anxious to read it. So I ordered a copy.

When it arrived, I was shocked at the size. I’m not sure how I pictured it, but I wasn’t expecting a deluxe hardcover the size of a big city phonebook!

Then I read it, and had still another revelation. You see, folks, this ain’t no ordinary history book. It’s a landmark in Crockett literature. Bottom line? This is the most important Crockett book to appear in over fifty years. I know, because aside from a handful of juvenile biographies and storybooks, I’ve read them all.

Why is it so important? First, it provides a wealth of new scholarship regarding an vital and long overlooked period of Crockett’s life. And second, it introduces us to the real David Crockett in a way never before possible - in his own words.

Wait! you say. Didn’t Crockett write an autobiography? Yes he did, sort of. And it’s a fine read. But he had help. It’s not pure Crockett, and it’s not always as factual as historians would like.

That autobiography was published in 1834, and for the next 122 years, biographers just rehashed the same information. James Atkins Shackford changed all that in 1956, with David Crockett: The Man and the Legend, opening up acres of new territory in Crockett’s life. Most important of these was Crockett’s political career. But while Shackford’s work on that period was groundbreaking, it left me wanting more. I kept expecting someone to dig into the original sources Shackford only alluded to and give us the whole story.

That’s what James Boylston and Allen Wiener have done, and the result is far more than I’d hoped for. The back half of the book delivers all the poop from those original sources - letters, circulars, newspaper articles, and the congressional record. Much of this stuff is in Crockett’s own unvarnished words (complete with lack of punctuation), taking us closer to the real man than we’ve ever been.

The first half of the book puts that information in context, taking us step-by-step through Crockett’s career in Congress. Boylston and Wiener introduce us to all the major players, both friend and foe, and give us a firm grounding in the issues of the day, allowing us to understand what Crockett was up against, and appreciate what his actions revealed about his character.

This is not the Davy we saw on the Disney show. This is the real guy, and we get to know him warts and all. The Crockett that emerges is a different kind of hero, the one hinted at in the book’s subtitle. Whatever troubles came his way (and they were many), Crockett never lost sight of his ideals, and truly was “the Poor Man’s Friend”.

Watch James and Allen’s 40-minute presentation at the Texas Book Festival, as broadcast by C-SPAN2, HERE.