At Pulp Curry, novelist and journalist Andrew Nette muses on crime fiction set in Asia, in particular China and Cambodia. “What does it mean for the story and characters when your crime fiction is set in a country where corruption and extreme violence are regular features of everyday life and the term ‘criminal’ is often [...]
The Best of S.J. Perelman including, “Somewhere a Roscoe…,” Perelman’s paeon to Spicy Detective Magazine‘s Dan Turner, is online at the Internet Archive. Perelman proclaims his love in the pages of The New Yorker: “Yes, I know— call it a school-boy crush, puppy love, the senseless infatuation of a callow youth for a middle-aged, worldly-wise [...]
The discovery of a skeleton found with metal spikes through its shoulders, heart and ankles, dating from 550-700AD and buried in the ancient minster town of Southwell, Notts, is detailed in a new report.”More at The Telegraph. (via Disinformation)
Fox Spirit Press has just released an anthology of Weird Noir edited by K.A. Laity and including some hardboiled Godzilla fiction by The Gutter’s own Comics Editor, Carol. “On the gritty backstreets of a crumbling city, tough dames and dangerous men trade barbs, witticisms and a few gunshots. But there’s a new twist where urban [...]
Character actor Hideji Otaki has died. Otaki worked with directors including Akira Kurosawa, Juzo Itami, Masahiro Shinoda and Koreyoshi Kurahara in films such as Kagemusha; Minbo: The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion; A Taxing Woman; Gonza the Spearman and Black Sun. The Japan Times and The Kyodo News have brief English-language obituaries.
” Is it not strange that after all this time we have not spoken about those incidents that haunt our memories?” Noir Nation is reprinting Edogawa Rampo’s story, “The Precipice” in excerpts.
Amanda Marcotte examines the hatred of Breaking Bad‘s Skyler White: “The anti-Skyler brigade seems to be part of a larger trend of fans loathing wives on television—especially if they’re married to anti-heroes.” And Tod VanDerWeff talks about the same in reviewing an episode of The Sopranos for The AV Club: “The Sopranos invented the many [...]
“The first book I read was Carter Brown’s The Unorthodox Corpse. The Fryer Library (at University of Queensland) had a battered copy and I loved it.” Pulp Curry talks with Toni Johnson Woods about Australian pulp fiction.
Screenwriter and director Frank Pierson has died. Pierson wrote such films as Dog Day Afternoon, Cat Ballou, The Anderson Tapes and Cool Hand Luke. Pierson also wrote teleplays for Have Gun Will Travel, The Naked City, Lakota Woman: The Siege at Wounded Knee, Mad Men and The Good Wife. The Hollywood Reporter has more on [...]
I am Ape. Nothing Ape is strange to me.–Publius Terentius Afer (sort of) For what is there beautiful in man,-what, I pray you, worthy of admiration, or comely–unless that which, some poet has maintained, he possesses in common with the ape? –Arnobius I’m surrounded by a stack of comics and one illustrated novel all set [...]
Author Donald Sobol has died. NPR has an obituary. At All Things Considered, crime novelist Jonathan Hayes remembers Sobol’s famous character, Encyclopedia Brown. “I loved these stories because they were about a kid like me, a kid who solved mysteries with logic and common sense, often exposing the hypocrisy of foolishly dismissive adults. I loved [...]
Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu compare Breaking Bad with The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men before examining its approach to evil: “Within this quartet, Breaking Bad is most similar to The Wire, and indeed is its twin and mirror image….David Simon likened The Wire to a Greek tragedy, by which he meant that sociology [...]
The FantAsia site is up and running with many, many trailers to get you ready for the festival. (Or at least, what films to keep an eye out for).
Actor and comedian Andy Griffith has died. Boston.com has an overview of his career. The Hollywood Reporter has memorials from Jim Nabors and Ron Howard. And here is a Griffith stand-up bit from 1953 with images drawn by George Woodbridge.
Summer’s come early this year, with the hum of air conditioners and fans in the air and the grass peacefully brown beneath my feet, the fireflies rising into the trees and all around the internet, Summer Top Ten lists are in bloom, from the Top Ten YA Summer Reads to the Top Ten Summer Eggplant Recipes [...]
Recently, I’ve been thinking about danger. Specifically, the kind of danger that runs through a certain subsection of Romance, often called ‘romantic suspense’. These are the stories that drop the hero and heroine into physical jeopardy in addition to exposing them to all the emotional risks of falling in love. When done well, they share [...]
Medical Transcription Net breaks down the value of your body in “You’re Worth More Dead Than Alive.”
Greg Rucka shares the short answer and the long answer to the question he’s asked most frequently, “How Do You Write Such Strong Female Characters?” My favorite line: “This is a matter of respect, for both the story itself and for the audience receiving it. The reader is smarter than you. The reader is always [...]
In 1978, Elmore Leonard followed Detroit Homicide’s murder felony unit, Squad 7 and wrote a story about it for The Detroit News Sunday Magazine. (Thanks, @booksadventures)
Enjoy full-on awesomeness as The Raid is recreated in stop-motion animation. (Thanks, Colin!)
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