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Pulp Librarian Profile picture
@PulpLibrarian
Sep 14, 2021 • 10 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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Today in pulp... let me introduce you to Mark Hardin: The Penetrator!
Mark Hardin is a one-man strike force against corruption. Orphaned at the age of four he was brought up mean and hungry. He learned his fighting skills in Vietnam before returning to an America gone bad.
Actually The Penetrator is one of a long list of vigilante pulp heroes thrown up in the 1970s counter-counterculture backlash, along with The Destroyer, The Executioner The Iceman and The Marksman to name but a few.
Lionel Derrick was a Pinnacle house alias used by two pulp writers: Mark Roberts and Chet Cunningham. Overall they produced 52 Penetrator novels, with Roberts writing the odd-numbered books and Cunningham the evens.
Unlike other pulp vigilantes who only battle the Mafia, Mark Hardin fights anyone looking to destroy the American way of life: crooks, terrorists, pornographers, hippies, scientists...
But wherever he goes Mark Hardin knows how to blend in: his skills in covert operations and infiltration led to his uniquely memorable name - The Penetrator!
Are these books any good? Well there's plenty of bloody action and Hardin is always getting injured and having to fight against immense pain. Plus he has a moustache (sometimes). And a side parting. So he has lots to deal with.
If you like your books low on sex but high on blunt trauma, concussion and acid baths then The Penetrator is probably right up your alley. Omnibus editions ("Double Penetrator!") are also available.
But be warned: later Penetrator novels do get kinda weird: French-Canadian dwarf cults, mad Nicaraguan super-ants, mollusc assassins, remote controlled supervolcanoes etc.
The novels are easy to collect: prices are low and many editions are in reasonable condition, as they were only read once.

That's it for my look back at Mark Hardin and his one man war against weird villainy. More pulp heroes another time...

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More from @PulpLibrarian

Pulp Librarian Profile picture
Mar 25
Today I'm looking back at the work of British graphic designer Abram Games! Image
Abram Games was born in Whitechapel, London in 1914. His father, Joseph, was a photographer who taught him the art of colouring by airbrush. Image
Games attended Hackney Downs School before dropping out of Saint Martin’s School of Art after two terms. His design skills were mainly self-taught by working as his father’s assistant. Image
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Mar 23
Today I'm looking back at the career of English painter, book illustrator and war artist Edward Ardizzone! Image
Edward Ardizzone was born in Vietnam in 1900 to Anglo-French parents. Aged 5 he moved to England, settling in Suffolk. Image
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Mar 14
Today in pulp I look back at the Witchploitation explosion of the late 1960s: black magic, bare bottoms and terrible, terrible curtains!

Come this way... Image
Mainstream occult magazines and books had been around since late Victorian times. These were mostly about spiritualism, with perhaps a bit of magic thrown in. Image
But it was the writings of Aleister Crowley in English and Maria de Naglowska in French and Russian that first popularised the idea of 'sex magick' in the 20th century - the use of sexual energy and ritual to achieve mystical outcomes. Image
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Mar 8
Between 1960 and 1970 Penguin Books underwent several revolutions in cover layout, at a time when public tastes were rapidly changing.

Today in pulp I look back at 10 years that shook the Penguin! Image
Allen Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, aiming to bring high-quality paperbacks to the masses for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. Lane began by snapping up publishing rights for inexpensive mid-market novels and packaging them expertly for book lovers. Image
From the start Penguins were consciously designed; Lane wanted to distinguish his paperbacks from pulp novels. Edward Young created the first cover grid, using three horizontal bands and the new-ish Gill Sans typeface for the text. Image
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Mar 3
Today in pulp: a tale of an unintentionally radical publisher. It only produced 42 books between 1968-9, but it caught the hedonistic, solipsistic, free love mood of the West Coast freakout scene like no other.

This is the story of Essex House... Image
Essex House was an offshoot of Parliament Press, a California publishing company set up by pulp artist Milton Luros after the market for pulp magazines began to decline. It specialised in stag magazines sold through liquor stores, to skirt around US obscenity publishing laws. Image
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By the 1960s Parliament Press was already selling pornographic novels through its Brandon House imprint, though these were mostly reprints or translations of existing work. Luros was interested in publishing new erotic authors, and set up Essex House to do just that. Image
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Pulp Librarian Profile picture
Feb 26
Today in pulp... one of my favourite SF authors: Harry Harrison! Image
Harry Harrison was born Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925. He served in the US Army Air Corps during WWII, but became disheartened with military life. In his spare time he learned Esperanto. Image
Harrison started his sci-fi career as an illustrator, working with Wally Wood on Weird Fantasy and Weird Science up until 1950. He also wrote for syndicated comic strips, including Flash Gordon and Rick Random. Image
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