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Category Archives: Australian popular culture
Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction & the Rise of the Australian Paperback
I know that this site has not been getting quite as much attention from me as usual over the last year. This is largely because I have been so busy with various book projects. A quick update on these might be in order.
First up is my academic monograph, Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction & the Rise of the Australian Paperback. Out via the Anthem Press Studies in Australian Literature and Culture series in early July, it now has a cover and is available for pre-order. It is in hardcover, with a price that reflects the fact that it is being targeted at institutions and, in particular, libraries, in the first instance, but I have negotiated with Anthem for a much cheaper paperback version of the book will be released by Anthem next year.
Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction & the Rise of the Australian Paperback originated in a PhD I took at Sydney’s Macquarie University and turning it into a monograph has taken a considerable amount of my time over the last year. Regular readers will no doubt be familiar with Horwitz, as the publisher of many of the paperback covers that I post on this site. My study is the first book length examination of Australian pulp and one of the few detailed studies I am aware of a specific pulp publisher to appear anywhere.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Australian television history, Book cover design, British pulp fiction, Carter Brown, Crime fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gold Star Publications, Horwitz Publications, Men's Adventure Magazines, Mickey Spillane, Noir fiction, Pan Books, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy, Scripts Publications, Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980, True crime, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged Anthem Press, Australian pulp fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1980, Down and Out Books, Girl Gangs Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture 1950 to 1980, Gunshine State, Horwitz Publication Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Australian Paperback, Horwitz Publications, Orphan Road, PM Press, Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950-1980
Phoenix: down Melbourne’s 1990s means streets
The recent inclusion of the 1995 Australian true crime mini-series Blue Murder as an offering on Netflix Australia provided an opportunity for many critics, present company included, to once again laud it as our best piece of true crime television made so far. While not walking back on this claim, there is another show that I would argue gives Blue Murder a run for its money in terms of being a gritty, true life depiction of policing, which I watched recently – the thirteen-part 1992 Australian Broadcasting Commission series, Phoenix.
A lot of 1990s Australian popular culture exists in a rather liminal space for me due to the fact that I spent a large chunk of the decade working in Southeast Asia. I don’t think I saw any episodes of Phoenix when it first came out, but I am pretty sure I caught parts of the first series (there were two) on VHS tapes that my partner’s mother sent us in the post when we were living in Hanoi, Vietnam. I am not even sure if Phoenix has as a current DVD release, as the discs I found were second hand and seem to have been released at least a decade ago.
Phoenix focuses on the Major Crimes squad, an elite group of Victorian cops.… Read more
Punchdrunk at the Yarra Valley Writers Festival
With a bit on my plate at the moment, I have not been posting as much as I would like to this site. I have a few things up my sleeve in terms of posts over the coming weeks that will hopefully turn this situation around but, in the meantime, I just wanted to hit you all with news of an event I am taking part in a few weeks that may be of interest.
The Yarra Valley Writers Festival is taking place, in person, on the weekend of July 16 and 18. You can check out the entire program online here. On the Saturday of the program, July 17, at 10.30am at the Warburton RSL, I’ll be interviewing author Michael Winkler about wonderful book, Grimmish. Grimmish tells the story of Joe Grimm, one of the most flamboyant boxers ever to our visit Australia’s shores in the early part of last century. Partly based on real events and part fiction, the book can best be described as a literary fever dream that speaks to our collective relationship to physical power, masculinity and pain. I’ll be talking to Michael about all these topics, the process of research Joe Grimm’s life and whether a traditional sport such as boxing add to the evolving discussion on what is to be male.… Read more
Video of my talk, The motorcycle – rebel in pop culture, now available
For those of you who were unable to attend my recent talk hosted by the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, ‘The Motorcycle: Rebel in Pop Culture’, there is now a video of the entire presentation on Youtube. The wonderful folks at QAGOMA have even done an Auslan interpretation of it for the vision impaired.
My talk will take you on a journey through the various representations of the motorcycle in youth and popular culture history, mainly in the United States, Australia and Great Britain. I examine what has given the motorbike its cool reputation and discuss how it has also functioned as a lightning rod for post war concerns around various youth subcultures. In addition to film, I also look at the representation of the motorbike in music and pulp fiction. You can also find it on YouTube here.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Australian crime film, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Book cover design, British pulp fiction, Crime fiction and film from Japan, Dystopian cinema, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, Mad Max, Men's Adventure Magazines, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art, Scripts Publications, Steve McQueen, True crime, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged Andrew Nette, Bikers, Bikies, Marlon Brando, QAGOMA, The Motorcycle Design Art Desire, The motorcycle in pop culture, Youthsploitation, Youthsploitation pulp