Lockdowns are mentally tiring, so you may not be in the mood to finish all those classic novels you started to read. Fortunately I have an alternative for you: Classics Illustrated!
Let's take a look at a few...
Homer eroticism: The Odyssey. Classics Illustrated, 1951.
Wrestling with issues of state: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Classics Illustrated, 1958.
Peck 'n' Pa...
The Food Of The Gods by HG Wells. Classics Illustrated 160, 1961.
Chug! Chug! Chug! Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Classics Illustrated, 1968.
Eyebrow game... Faust, by Goethe. Classics Illustrated, 1962.
I think this is the Nik Kershaw edition: Don Quixote, by Miguel De Cervantes. Classics Illustrated, 1943.
Spoilers! Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. Classics Illustrated, 1947.
That's a very *ahem* unusual bottle shape you've drawn.
The Bottle Imp, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Classics Illustrated, 1954.
"Is this a dagger I see before me?" Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Classics Illustrated 128, 1955.
That Scooby-Doo / Sherlock crossover you've been waiting for. Classics Illustrated, 1947.
Don Draper on a unicycle. The Time Machine by H G Wells. Classics Illustrated, 1956.
Hamlet, the codeine edition. Classics Illustrated, 1969.
A few panels from the 1949 Classics Illustrated edition of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
You can read many Classics Illustrated titles for free thanks to the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/classi…
Do have a look and crib your way to a classics education! What are the chances...
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What are the pulp archetypes? Pulp novels are usually written quickly and rely on a formula, but do they use different archetypal characters to other fiction?
Let's take a look at a few...
The Outlaw is a classic pulp archetype: from Dick Turpin onwards lawbreakers have been a staple of the genre. Crime never pays, but it's exciting and trangressive!
Some pulp outlaws however are principled...
As Bob Dylan sang "to live outside the law you must be honest." Michel Gourdon's 1915 hero Dr Christopher Syn is a good example. A clergyman turned pirate and smuggler, he starts as a revenger but becomes the moral magistrate of the smuggling gangs of Romney Marsh.
Given the current heatwave, I feel obliged to ask my favourite question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.