Category Archives: Australian popular culture

Sorting through the cultural blood and guts of Game of Thrones

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment


Kull 3Like many writers, I’ve attended my share of panels where publishing insiders share their experience about the industry, what they are looking for, what’s selling, etc. The most honest thing I ever heard came from a young up-and-comer from a mid-level publishing house with a strong focus on quality literature, who, when it came to his turn to speak, said, ‘We don’t know what’s big at the moment. If we did, we’d be doing more of it.’

This comment has stuck with me due to its frankness. It occurred to me again when recently asked what I thought about HBO’s latest blockbuster, Game of Thrones. It’s successful and, no doubt, if television studios could afford to, they’d be doing a lot more of it. Case in point is the historical mini-series, The Vikings, clearly marketed as a smaller-scale version of GoT.

Game of Thrones is interesting on many levels. The very first episode contains incestuous sex, the discovery of which resulted in a ten-year-old boy being casually thrown from a tower and crippled for life. Subsequent episodes contain graphic violence, torture, child marriage, slavery and rape. It has garnered mainstream acclaim (including 19 nominations Emmy nominations in 2014), as well as being watched by people whose taste (if my experience is anything to go by) usually veers to the high culture end of the scale.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Science fiction and fantasy

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Announcing Beat Girls, Love Tribes and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 – 1980

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

Happening At san Remo Pyramid Books 1967Regular Pulp Curry readers will be aware of my deep interest in pulp fiction. What you won’t know, is I’ve been working for a while now on a pulp fiction related book with another Melbourne writer called Iain McIntyre.

I’m thrilled to announce this book, currently titled Beat Girls, Love Tribes and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 – 1980, will be published by Verse Chorus Press in October 2015.

The book will be the definitive look at youth and counter cultural pulp fiction from Australia, the United States and the UK. It will feature contributions from over twenty writers and includes reviews, feature articles and author interviews. These will cover all aspects of youth and counter cultural related pulp fiction, starting with juvenile delinquency and gang pulp in the fifties, Beats and bohemians in the early sixties, to hippies, bikers, musicians, Mods, punks, and everything in between.

The book will also feature a large selection of covers from the books concerned.

Some of the pulp writers we cover you might know. But there’ll be a lot more you probably haven’t heard of. One thing we can guarantee is that the words “guilty pleasure” will not be mentioned once to describe their work.

This is a book about mainstream society’s obsession with the notion of out of control youth, and the pulp fiction that capitalised on the fascination, fears and desires associated with it.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Beat culture, Horwitz Publications, Monarch Books, New English Library, Pan Books, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art, Scripts Publications, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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In search of a proletarian James Bond

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I posted on one of the stranger cultural artefacts to come out of Australian pulp publishing in the sixties, the spy thriller Avakoum Zahov vs 07 by Bulgarian author, Andrei Gulyashki.

Spies first came to prominence as popular culture figures during World War One, it was the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, published in 1953, that really kick-started the modern fascination with spies. These days Bond may come across as massively cliched, but in the fifties and sixties, he was the epitome of sexual and social permissiveness, licensed to kill and swing. The casual sex, alcohol consumption, fine living and travel to exotic destinations were all potent symbols of the West’s economic and cultural affluence in the sixties.

Not only were the Soviet authorities aware of the global popularity of James Bond, they saw him as a major propaganda coup for the West. Fleming’s books were banned and Soviet newspapers lambasted the secret agent as a sadist and a Nazi.

And while Soviet culture never offered up anything as glitzy or lurid as Bond, it nonetheless produced its own fictional spies. The most infamous of these was Avakoum Zahov who featured in a series of books by Bulgarian author, Andrei Gulyashki, one of which was released in 1967 by local pulp outfit, Scripts Publications.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Ian Fleming, Scripts Publications

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Damned to literary obscurity: June Wright and Murder In the Telephone Exchange

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

JUNE_WRIGHT-author-picAs a seasoned habitué of second hand bookshops, and what is known in some quarters as ‘an early career author’, I often ponder the reality of literary obscurity.

It takes stern stuff (or huge sales) to go into a large second hand bookshop and not feel humbled by the sight of shelf upon shelf of old books. All those hours, days, weeks, years of literary labour selling cheap, if they sell at all.

What makes a particular book or author famous, while the majority are forgotten – the vagaries of history or the market, luck or accident? Equally fascinating is the process by which some authors are plucked from historical obscurity and given a second chance.

I thought about this most recently while reading Murder in The Telephone Exchange, a murder mystery set in late forties Melbourne by June Wright, recently re-released by US-based publisher, Verse Chorus Press.

You can read the rest of this piece here on the Overland Magazine blog.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime film, Australian popular culture, Forgotten Melbourne

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Pulp Friday: Key of Corruption

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

Keys of Corruption“She wanted her man to be sophisticated and successful – but there was a price to pay.”

Life is busy at the moment, but not so busy I don’t have time to post a little Pulp Friday offering for your enjoyment.

Key of Corruption was published by Horwitz Publications in 1963. Rene Crane was one of several pseudonyms for Rena Cross, a regular Horwitz author.

Cross featured in a previous Pulp Friday post as the author of Flat  4 Kings Cross. Flat 4 Kings Cross originally appeared in 1963 under the name Geoffrey Tolhurst, and was was republished twice by Horwitz.

Key of Corruption is of interest because it’s a local book that gives an Australian take on one of pulp’s favourite obsessions in the sixties – wife swapping.

Here’s what the back cover says about the story:

“The key of corruption is a dangerous game and the stakes are high. Meet the players…

Marilyn and Keith – unsophisticated young newlyweds, fresh from the country, anxious to get ahead and be accepted by the city;

Jo-Anne – Marilyn’s pretty teenage sister, brimming over with youthful enthusiasm, ready to dare anything for a thrill;

Grant – the too-experienced older man whose charm Marilyn accepted at face value;

Greda – fabulous, sophisticated, beautiful divorcee, leader of a fast set… who organised the game for kicks… “… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Horwitz Publications, Pulp fiction, Pulp Friday, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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