Category Archives: Horwitz Publications

The power of pulp fiction: Girl gangs, biker boys & more

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

It takes scholarly love and a fan’s enthusiasm to devote oneself to putting together a 300-plus page book dissecting obscure pulp fiction. But that is exactly what Australian writers Andrew Nette and Ian McIntyre have done with Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980.

The respected site, Literary Hub, has a terrific piece by New York crime writer, Scott Adlerberg, talking about pulp fiction and the new book on youth subculture and pulp fiction that Iain McIntyre and I have edited. You can check it out in full on their site here.

Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980 is out now through PM Press.… Read more

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Posted in Australian pulp fiction, British pulp fiction, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art

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Launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Thanks to all those who came out on Monday for the launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, at Grub Street Bookshop in Fitzroy. A fine time was had by all ushering the book into the world.

The book is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. It is the perfect Christmas present for that hard to buy for family member or friend.

Melbourne folk can buy copies of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats at Grub Street Bookshop, Brunswick Bound bookshop and Sun Books in Yarraville, with other locations to follow soon.

You can order the book online from the following places:

From the publisher, PM Press, here

From Amazon

From Book Depository.

From Booktopia

From Angus and Robertson Online

From Waterstones

Folks in the US who have pre-ordered have started receiving the book. Those in the UK will have to wait a little longer, probably until later in December, early January, to receive their copy.

Those of you who have the book and like it, please don’t forget to spread the word, including rating it on Goodreads and Amazon. If you work in a library, it would be great if you could order the book in.… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, New English Library, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art

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Melbourne launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Please join me on Monday, December 4, for the launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980, a book I have co-edited with my friend, Iain McIntyre.

The launch will take place from 6.30pm at one of Melbourne’s coolest second hand bookshops, Grub Street Bookshop, 379 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. We’ll be doing live readings from some of the pulp novels included in our book. There will be cheap drinks available and, of course, you can buy a copy of the book.

Girl Gangs, Biker and Real Cool Cats is the result of four years work. It is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in Australian, American, and British mass market pulp fiction. It includes approximately 400 covers, many of them very rare, and 70 in-depth author interviews, illustrated biographies and articles regarding authors novelists who exploited and celebrated juvenile delinquents, beatniks, mods, bikers, hippies, skinheads, punks and a host of other subcultures.

I am really proud of this book and would love it if you could join Iain and I to launch it. This book will have very limited distribution in Australia, so for Melbourne folks, this is your ideal chance to snag a copy.

… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Book cover design, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art

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Pre-orders open for Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

Girl Gangs Jpeg

Here is the updated cover for the book I have edited with my friend, Iain McIntyre, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980. This beauty will be out through PM Press in October.

It is available for pre-order here.

Long terms readers of Pulp Curry may remember this book was originally scheduled to appear, with a different publisher and under a slightly different name, in late 2016. But the publisher concerned experienced finance problems which resulted in the book being pulled from their schedule.

Thanks to PM Press that project is a going concern again.

The book is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behaviour, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. From the juvenile delinquent gangs of the early 1950s through the beats and hippies, on to bikers, skinheads, and punks, pulp fiction left no trend untouched. With their lurid covers and wild, action-packed plots, these books reveal as much about society’s deepest desires and fears as they do about the subcultures themselves.

Girl Gangs features approximately 400 full-colour covers, many of them never reprinted before.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art

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Pulp Friday: Weird stories & terrifying tales

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

Weird storiesA belated happy 2017 to Pulp Curry readers. I have had a very busy start to the year, with my PhD studies and various writing projects, hence the first post of the year has taken me a while to get around to.

The first Pulp Friday of 2017 is a stunning collection of horror themed 1960s pulp titles by Horwitz Publications. These are a mixture of titles I own and books from other collectors.

While horror tales were a staple of American and British pulp fiction in the 1950s and 1960s, they failed to achieve similar popularity in Australia. Australia’s censorship regime – both at the state and federal levels – were far stricter and, as a result, our publishers were much more timid. According to Canberra based scholar, James Doig, horror never had the commercial appear amongst Australian pulp buyers of other genres, such as crime and romance.

That’s not to say there was a total absence of local horror pulp. Influenced by the US magazine Weird Tales, Currowong published a series of horror titles in the 1940s. And Cleveland and Horwitz published some novelettes and pocket books in the 1950s and 1960s.

The earliest Horwitz effort in the 1960s appears to be Weird Stories, published in 1961, part of an anthology series edited by Charles Higham, which was most likely a response to the very successful Pan Book of Horror Stories series that began to appear under the editorship of Herbert Van Thal in 1959.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Horror, Horwitz Publications, Pulp fiction, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art

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