Happy #NationalWritingDay everybody! Today I'm looking back at that essential item all writers need, love and occasionally bash their heads against: the typewriter!
What? You're still writing in longhand? Tsk...
All pulp authors love a typewriter! Here's Michael Avallone - "The fastest typewriter in the East" - on how to write well quickly...
If you think you don't have time to write, remember this: Ray Bradbury began writing Farenheit 451 on a pay-by-the-hour rental typewriter in the UCLA library.
At his peak pulpwriter Orrie Hitt could write a book every two weeks, bashing them out on a Remington Royal typewriter with a carton of smokes and a bottle of Bourbon for sustinance.
Gruselroman legend Helmut Rellergerd (aka John Sinclair) is still writing stories on his old Olympia typewriter to this day - sometimes one a week!
Typewriter Repair Man! He's the hero we've been looking for...
Olivetti service advert, 1953.
The first novel written on a word processor was Bomber, published by Len Deighton in 1970. Deighton had an 91kg leased IBM MT72 carefully winched into his London home through an upstairs window.
It'll never catch on you know...
If you're not sure how to use a typewriter heres's a guide to the 1954 Olivetti Lettra 22.
Other typewriters are available...
And if you get bored writing... well you can always type a picture of Kojak'a head. Who loves ya baby!
In January 1919 a new magazine heralded the dawn of the Weimar era. Its aesthetic was a kind of demented Jugendstil, and its stories were dark gothic fantasies.
This is the story of Der Orchideengarten...
Der Orchideengarten: Phantastische Blätter (The orchid garden: fantastic pages) is probably the first ever fantasy magazine. Published in Munich by Dreiländerverlag, a trial issue appeared in 1918 before the first full 24 page edition was published in January 1919.
"The orchid garden is full of beautiful - now terribly gruesome, now satirically pleasing - graphic jewelery" announced the advanced publicity. It was certainly a huge departure from the Art Nouveau of Jugend magazine, which German readers were already familiar with.
If stock photography has taught us one thing it's how to recognise a hacker! But how much do we really know about these shady characters, with their ill-fitting balaclavas and their Windows 7 laptops?
Here's my essential stock photography guide to cybersecurity...
First things first, hacking has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Backing up your sensitive data on C60 cassette and labelling it "Flock of Seagulls Megamix' is no longer enough to keep your information safe!
And hackers are actually very hard to spot. That's because they dress head-to-toe in black (or very very very dark grey) since they live on the Dark Web and want to blend into the background.
Today in pulp, one of the most influential and outrageous illustrators of the Italian Italian fumetti scene: Emanuele Taglietti!
This will be interesting...
Emanuele Taglietti was born in Ferrara in 1943. His father worked as a set designer for director Michaelangelo Antonioni, often taking Emanuele with him on set.
In the 1960s Taglietti moved to Rome, where he studied stage design. He began a successful career as an assistant art director, working for Federico Fellini and Marco Ferreri.