The Good Look Book Vol. 1 is made by Will Bryant and Gavin Potenza, with a cover by Liz Meyer. Vol. 1 is themed around primitive nature and tribal charms. Really looking forward to Vol. 2! Man, I would love the chance to contribute to a future Good Look Book. Pick up a copy ASAP they only made 60.
Some REH items from the author's personal collection
Welcome to my first blog entry here at The Cimmerian. Let me provide a little background about myself. I am an archaeologist and a historian with an avid interest in ancient cultures and mythology. But I also have a fascination with late nineteenth and early twentieth century popular culture, particularly examples of what some might consider "low-brow" pop culture – dime novels, pulps, comic strips, etc. I have always enjoyed reading good, rousing adventure fiction, but, even as a child, the speculative genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror were my favorites.
It was at a young age, perhaps ten or eleven, that I first read Howard in the form of the ACE paperback Conan yarns. Actually, "read" is not the right word – "devoured" is probably more accurate. While I read and enjoyed the De Camp pastiches, even at that age I could tell the difference between those and the pure Howard yarns – the latter were just more vivid, more memorable. In college I discovered Howard's other works through the Donald M. Grant editions and in recent years my interest in REH was rekindled with the publishing of the Wandering Star/Del Rey library.
I have always been a collector by nature and collecting Robert E. Howard material can be both challenging and rewarding and most certainly addictive. I began with the comic books and paperbacks when I was young, then moved on to the books published by Donald M. Grant, Arkham House and other small presses. Today, I am primarily focused on collecting pulp magazines with Howard stories. It is as a Howard collector that I will be posting here at The Cimmerian. There are many REH experts out there whose knowledge in this area dwarfs my own, but I have picked up a few things during my obsessive attempts to accumulate obscure "Howardiana" and I hope to share some of this knowledge with you over the following weeks.
A few years back, Don Herron wrote an excellent article for Firsts magazine on collecting Robert E. Howard books – a "must read" for any REH collector. I plan to follow Don's lead and discuss collecting Howard, but in other media – pulps, comics, fanzines, toys, etc. This week I would like to begin where Howard himself got his start – with the pulps.
Pulp magazines for sale at a newstand in 1938
From 1896 to the middle of the twentieth century, pulp magazines were a very popular form of disposable entertainment. Printed on cheap paper (whence they derive their name) with slick, sometimes lurid, covers, pulp magazines were one of the primary means of publishing popular fiction in the days before the mass market paperback. Authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Ron Hubbard, H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, "Tennessee" Williams, Arthur C. Clarke, Dashiell Hammett, and of course Robert E. Howard got their start writing for the pulps. During their heyday in the years between the two world wars, pulp titles such as Argosy, Blue Book, Adventure (a favorite of Howard's), The Shadow, Doc Savage, Amazing Stories, Black Mask, and Weird Tales sold millions of copies.
July 1925 issue of Weird Tales containing Howard's first published story.
After several previous rejections, Howard sold his first story, "Spear and Fang," which was published in the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales. For the remainder of his life and even after his death, he would be a regular contributor to Weird Tales and many of his most famous characters from Solomon Kane to Kull to Conan appeared in the pages of "The Unique Magazine." These issues are highly sought after by collectors and can be quite expensive, especially in higher grades. But Weird Tales was not the only pulp to publish Howard's work – his yarns also appeared in Argosy, Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet, Top-Notch, Action Stories, Fight Stories, Spicy Adventure, Thrilling Mystery, and a number of others.
For collectors interested in delving into the fascinating world of pulp magazines, there are a number of useful resources available both online and in print. A great place to start is ThePulp.net, an excellent site with an abundance of information, history, and useful links including links to dealers that sell pulps. The PulpGallery is a great site with numerous cover images. Collectors Showcase is a French site that is a very useful reference tool as they not only have a thorough collection of cover images, but also detailed contents of many issues.
There are several great books about pulps, but the "Bible" for pulp collectors is Bookery's Guide to Pulps by Tim Cottrell. This price guide and reference work is essential for anyone wishing to make a serious foray into pulp collecting. Also useful is The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Collecting Pulps by Ed Hulse.
Bookery's Guide to Pulps
For information on Howard's appearances in the pulps, the first stop, as always, should be HowardWorks.com. There, every REH story and poem published in the pulps is catalogued and split into two separate pages, his appearances in Weird Tales and his appearances in other pulps. A similar bibliographic-style reference is Robert E. Howard: A Collector's Descriptive Bibliography by Leon Nielson – essentially a print version of HowardWorks.com but annotated with values listed as well.
So where are the best places to find pulps for sale? As mentioned above, ThePulp.net has links to a number of dealers that sell pulps. There are always numerous pulps listed for sale on eBay but, as always, unless the seller is known to you then caveat emptor. Heritage Auctions often have REH pulps in their quarterly Signature Comic & Comic Art Auctions. There are three major pulp conventions held annually in the US, which many of the country's biggest dealers regularly attend: The Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention in Chicago, Pulp Con in Dayton, Ohio, and PulpFest in Columbus, Ohio.
Many pulps change hands in private sales between dealers and collectors. It helps to get to know other pulp enthusiasts and build a network of contacts. Internet forums and conventions are great way to make these connections. Many dealers will also take wantlists and will try to fill them. Some of my best pulps were acquired privately from fellow collectors.
In future posts I will go into more detail on specific pulps with Howard content, discussing scarcity, value and collectability. I also plan on giving occasional market reports with actual sales data on notable Howard collectibles. Until then, good hunting!
 | Anne Elizabeth Moore is the queen of the zine. |
 | By Molly Snyder Edler   OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Molly Snyder Edler |
| Published Nov. 13, 2009 at 5:19 a.m. |  |
The Milwaukee Zine Fest returns for a second year, but this time, it's in a new location. The Polish Falcon's Nest, 801 E. Clarke St., hosts the alternative media event on Saturday, Nov. 14 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The free event will feature zines for sale and trade, workshops and a post-party at Jackpot Gallery, 825 E. Center St. During the event, the Polish Falcon's bar will be open for business.
The workshops will take place across the street from the Polish Falcon's Nest at the Cream City Collectives, 732 E. Clarke St.
What the hell is a zine, you ask? A "zine" refers to a self-published, handmade periodical that is usually reproduced and distributed for free or a nominal fee. Zines usually have a small circulation, appeal to a niche group and are just as likely to be handwritten as created via computer.
Often a zine includes hand-drawn art, cartoons and anything else the author wants to contribute. In Milwaukee, Fischberger's, 2445 N. Holton St., stocks a fair share of zines.
Alternative, DIY pamphlets have been around for ages, but the modern zine scene emerged from the '70s punk rock movement. Despite the '90s technology boom and the popularity of blogs -- which are online journals -- the zine continues to thrive.
"The zine is undergoing a renaissance right now," says Milo Miller, who co-organized the event with Nico Bennet. Miller is the co-founder of QZAP, an online archive of queer zines that has been in existence since 2003.
"Zines are very personal," says Miller, who has created zines on topics that range from vegan cooking to radical queer Jews to mayonnaise. "Zines are completely in your control. They are without advertisements, so you are the last authority."
Cultural critic Anne Elizabeth Moore will attend the Milwaukee Zine Fest and teach a workshop from 2 to 4 p.m. entitled "The Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine: Cambodia's First Generation of Women Leaders Explore Democracy."
Moore is an instructor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the author of nine books including "Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity." Also, she is a gallery artist and an avid zinemaker.
Currently, Moore is working with young women in Cambodia to voice their opinions through zines about a variety of topics, including rice production, agriculture in contemporary society, women's issues, spirituality, health care in the countryside and Cambodia's genocidal history.
"This work is then used, as media should be, to inform other regions facing similar concerns or challenges about what solutions the young women in Cambodia are devising, and to help diverse communities build international systems of support," says Moore.
Recently, OnMilwaukee.com tracked down Moore and asked her a few Q's about zines.
OnMilwaukee.com: When did you start to make zines? What were your early zines about?
Anne Elizabeth Moore: Just the other day, I stumbled across my very first zine. I thought I hadn't started making zines until I was 15, but this one -- a comic about a flea with a catchphrase who is filled with pathos -- I made when I was 11. My longest running zine was called "AnneZine," and it served the international community of people that shared my same first name.
OMC: How many zines have you made over the years?
AEM: I was asked once if I made zines reflexively, and that's exactly how it works. I've probably made hundreds, only about half of them have I even kept copies of.
OMC: What are they about?
AEM: They are about whatever happens in this society -- or whatever society I'm in at the time -- that desperately requires a response that is more drastic than senseless screaming. That happens a lot.
OMC: What materials do you use?
AEM: They're made with materials relevant to the issue or audience that I'm addressing. For example, a zine about an international coffee shop chain will be a deep green and be distributed in the bathrooms of that chain. A zine about the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) will be folded as if a map and left on buses. The project on the doll store that became a big deal used the little free folders you can get there and was distributed inside the store. This is all legal, mind you.
OMC: Does a zine need to have a theme?
AEM: A zine can be anything published in an edition larger than one. It doesn't need to have anything.
OMC: What is important to teach to kids about the zine-making process?
AEM: That it's their own, and that they can do whatever they want with it.
OMC: What is the difference between zine making and book making?
AEM: It depends. Books are usually just identified by how they look and feel. If your zine is of a certain heft, weight and conceptual gravity, it's probably considered a book. People apply the term "book" to things though as if it meant they were better than "magazines," "zines," "booklettes," or "pamphlets," but really the same methods apply, even in the professional realm.
OMC: What is the purpose of a zine?
AEM: To establish a communication between the creator and the reader. It's an important relationship, so both parties should treat it with respect and use it wisely.
 | 1 comment about this article. Post a comment / write a review. |
Posted by tomjulio on Nov. 13, 2009 at 7:10 p.m. (report)
congrats to Miss Nico for organizing and bringing this all together for Milwaukee.
| Rate this: | |
SUPERFUNSEXYTIME is another rad zine published by Islands Fold. This one features art by Jon Boam and Geometric Bang.
Check out these dope posts:
I've been having pangs of guilt recently. I haven't been reading enough. There's a little worm inside my head coaxing me back to words on screens and words in books and words in zines. The realisation I was starving myself textually came during a recent train journey from the Blue Mountains to Newcastle. I foraged through my bag for pen & paper and wrote for literally hours (the train ride is about 5-6hrs!). Then I returned to reading this lengthy and incredibly interesting paper on zines as ephemera and as political pieces of paper. And not just political in the sense of anarcho punx and feminism (etc) but moreso in that ALL zines are political. The mere act of putting together a zine is taking control of media, removing the financial motivation that is usually attached to our materialist society and poignantly stating that "everyone's voice has value, and factors such as money, status, and even talent are not limiting to one's ability to create a zine" (p.6). Well, anyway, I implore you to read it. It's here:
But wait, there's more. Both yesterday and today were filled with lovely zine deliveries. Our PO Box has never been so happy. I've got a few of them here with me.. they'll be available to buy soon!
This is such an amazing zine. Both Sarah and I were nervously excited as we read this zine
This zine has so much inside! Recipes, stories, tidbits, rants and comix!
Whoosh! The Zine for Whale Lovers
Roller Derby zines rule so much. This one's by freshmeat Amy from SRDL. We also have derby zines by Bettie Brimstone of NRDL!
Marbles
Sandy is a professional writer from Australia and she wrote this little instructional zine. She says it’s a “mini-zine of excercises that have helped me through writer’s block.” Twenty-six different exercises describe a variety of things that writers can do to inspire creativity and get the words flowing again. I don’t usually get excited about writing exercises, but there are some pretty good ideas in here, and I can see them being useful even if you’re not struggling with writer’s block. A couple that I really liked were Write About Your Writer’s Block (“Explore the possibility of having writer’s block forever.”) and The Worse It Gets, The Better It Gets (“Write the worst piece you could possibly write.”).
Contact Sandy to find out about the cost of the zine and possible trades.
sandy.xox@gmail.com, www.sanlive.com, www.sandylovesyou.com/marbles
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Review by Dan Murphy, publisher of The Juniper, and Elephant Mess. If you wish to swap zines with him, send them to: Dan Murphy, PO Box 363, Edwardsville IL 62025, http://juniperbug.blogspot.com
