I first became a fan of Australian pulp culture scholar and novelist Andrew Nette when I bought GIRL GANGS, BIKER BOYS, AND REAL COOL CATS: PULP FICTION AND YOUTH CULTURE, 1950 TO 1980.
He co-edited that fascinating, lushly illustrated history of “teensploitaiton” paperbacks with fellow Aussie pulp maven Iain McIntyre.
He and Iain followed that up with STICKING IT TO THE MAN: REVOLUTION AND COUNTERCULTURE IN PULP AND POPULAR FICTION, 1950 TO 1980, which focuses on vintage paperbacks written about or Hippies, Yippies, and other social rebels.
Then they collaborated on another excellent paperback history book, DANGEROUS VISIONS AND NEW WORLDS: RADICAL SCIENCE FICTION, 1950–1985.
Nette also happens to be the author of two of the best hardboiled crime novels I’ve read in recent years, GUNSHINE STATE and ORPHAN ROAD.
They feature his character Gary Chance, a tough but likeable Australian thief that has some DNA from Donald Westlake’s Parker, and some from the hit man character in the Australian TV series MR. INBETWEEN.
Andrew has written other books and monographs, and many articles for magazines and fanzines, like Justin Marriott’s great PAPERBACK FANATIC, and book and movie related online sites, like Crimeads.com.
He has also contributed to the men’s adventure magazine story and art anthology I co-edit with Bill Cunningham, the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY. He recently wrote terrific article for the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #9 about vintage Australian men’s adventure magazines. (You can read more about that issue in my post at this link.)
Andrew is the only person I know who has a university degree related to vintage pulp fiction. He has a PhD. in Publishing History and Cultural Studies from Australia’s Macquarie University.
The research he did to earn that degree is the basis of his latest book HORWITZ PUBLICATIONS, PULP FICTION AND THE RISE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PAPERBACK, now available from Anthem Press on Amazon worldwide in paperback and Kindle editions.
It’s the first in-depth study of the company that eventually became Australia’s largest and most successful publisher of pulp fiction novels, as well as magazines and comics.
The heyday of Horwitz Publications came in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, under the leadership of Stanley Horwitz, the son of the company’s founders. Stanley was a keen observer in the rise of the paperback industry in the United States.
As documented in Nette’s amazingly well researched book, Stanley guided the company into publishing paperbacks in genres that were popular in the US in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, including detective and crime novels, Westerns and war novels, science fiction and horror, and even “sleaze” novels that were geared to accommodate Australia’s especially strict censorship laws.
One of trends he capitalized on was the popularity of detective and crime novels by American writers like Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross Macdonald.
Horwitz got into that realm in a big way by launching the career of an English-born, Australia-based writer who became one of the most phenomenally successful writers of detective and crime novels in the world—Alan Geoffrey Yates.
You may not recognize that name, but if you’re a pulp fiction fan you’re probably aware of his best-known pseudonym, Carter Brown. Between 1954 and 1984, Yates wrote over 300 “Carter Brown” novels and dozens of short stories and novellas. Australian protectionist and censorship laws made it somewhat difficult for American detective and crime paperbacks and digest magazines to be imported there in the ‘50s, but Yates knew that Australian readers liked them.
So, he decided to write detective and crime novels set in America with American characters. His four most popular characters were Los Angeles Homicide Detective Al Wheeler, Rick Holman, a Hollywood-based Private Detective, New York P.I. Danny Boyd, and the blonde bombshell female P,I. Mavis Seidlitz. There are 52 books in the Wheeler series. 35 Holman novels, 33 Boyd novels, and 12 books featuring Mavis Seidlitz.
Thanks to deals Horwitz and Yates made with Signet, Carter Brown novels were hugely popular in the US. and were reprinted in several editions by Signet in the ’50, ’60s and ’70s. Their popularity was due in part to the fact that several of America’s top paperback cover artists—most notably Baryé Phillips, Robert McGinnis and Ron Lesser—did classic, eye-catching cover paintings for them featuring sexy women. (You can see many of Lesser’s in the book Bill Cunningham and I co-edited with him, THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL 1. DEADLY DAMES AND SEXY SIRENS.)
Although the paintings used on the covers of the Horwitz editions of the Carter Brown novels also tend to have sexy women cover paintings, most are not as well done as the art on American editions and most are not credited or signed by the Aussie artists who did them.
Horwitz was instrumental in the career of one Australian illustrator worthy of special mention—Col Cameron. Cameron did scores of wild cover paintings for Horwitz paperbacks.
Most were boundary-pushing action/adventure, war, and “sleaze” novels as opposed to detective and mystery books.
He also did great covers for the Aussie men’s magazines ADAM, which was part bachelor mag and part men’s adventure mag. (The issue at left is the December 1963 issue.)
Many of Cameron’s paperback cover paintings are similar to the American men’s adventure magazine cover paintings that show evil Nazis, “Japs” and Commies torturing scantily clad women or American prisoners of war.
Nette says of Cameron’s artwork in his Horwitz book that the influence of such MAM covers is clear, “especially in the covers he did for the John Slater series. Stark, brutal illustrations of white men and women suffering every imaginable derivation of psychological and physical violence at the hands of Japanese and Nazi soldiers, these became more extreme, culminating in covers like the one for ISLAND HELL (1972), in which an allied soldier is crucified by Japanese soldiers as a naked Caucasian woman looks on.”
I was greatly impressed by Andrew Nette’s book HORWITZ PUBLICATIONS, PULP FICTION AND THE RISE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PAPERBACK.
And, I was excited to read in an interview he did about it with Justin Marriott in the latest issue of the PAPERBACK FANATIC (PF #48) that he’s now planning to do a book on the history of Australian men’s adventure magazines.
That will be another first in terms of a book subject. `
I think Andrew may have gotten an initial start on the research for it when he wrote an article about Aussie MAMs for the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #9.
It’s a terrific overview with information that will be totally new to most American MAM aficionados. I’m really looking forward to the book—and to Andrew’s next Gary Chance novel.
By the way, PAPERBACK FANATIC #48 is another great issue. I’ve done several posts on this blog about the fanzines edited by UK paperback historian Justin Marriott. I’m a huge fan of his. In addition to Justin’s interview with Andrew Nette, PF #48 is chock full of insightful book reviews and beautifully illustrated in full color with scores of high-quality cover scans. The range of topics covered is amazing.
They include Steve Holland‘s article about Badger Books, Tom Tesarek‘s article about obscure paperbacks the FBI investigated in connection with the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Justin’s articles about historical naval adventure fiction and novels by famous authors in genres they weren’t normally associated with, Jeff Popple’s article about Australian paperbacks, James Doig‘s article on Australian “sharksploitation” books, Jules Burt‘s article on the little known UK Panther “Crimebands” novels, and Jim O’Brien‘s article about Alistair MacLean‘s novel WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL.
Of course, I especially enjoyed Steve Carroll’s “Manly Man Cave” column, which features the spy story and artwork issue of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY and the Men’s Adventure Library book THE NAKED AND THE DEADLY: LAWRENCE BLOCK IN MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES, which I co-edited with Wyatt Doyle and Larry himself.
Justin himself also wrote a nice review of the MEN’S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY #10, the Vietnam War issue. Double thanks to Steve and Justin for their support!
FYI, MAQ #10 is now available in full color print and Kindle editions and a B&W “Noir edition on Amazon worldwide. You can also get copies of the full color print edition with free shipping via my online bookstore.
