Instructions on how to type your own picture of Kojak. (1982)

You never know when you might need to... Instructions on how to type your own picture of Elvis Presley (1982).

He's all shook up...

A few artworks now by Virgil Finlay... Horns of Elfland by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Illustrated by Virgil Finlay (1938)

Today in pulp... let me introduce you to Rod Damon: The Coxeman! Rod Damon is unique: he's both a super-spy and a Professor of Sociology, proving that academics can have a real world impact if they try.

Is there a future in old tech? Of course there is - especially when it's still powering some of our most amazing inventions. Which brings me to the matter of today's topic:

How's your FORTRAN? FORTRAN (in shouty caps) was released in 1957 as the world's first high-level programming language. It’s probably the longest lasting, with Fortran 2018 (no shouty caps) being its latest release. And it all started with a simple question: how do you simplify programming?

Today in pulp: the cover art of Horacio Salinas Blanch. If you've ever bought a sci-fi novel in Spain you'll probably be familiar with the Super Ficción range from Ediciones Martínez Roca. With a neat black spine and stylish cover it was a familiar sight to many in the 1970s and '80s.

L'Inferno - released in 1911 - was the first blockbuster movie and a pioneer of special effects. So today in pulp we go to Hell, to witness the birth of Italian cinema... #heatwave L'Inferno was directed by Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan and Giuseppe De Liguoro and took three years to make. It's the oldest full length film still in existence and the first Italian feature film.

OK, let's jump into the pulpmobile and head back to the world of 1976: they were having a #heatwave too! The shirt of seduction: Casos Reales! 1976.

Happy birthday TRON! Released in America 40 years ago today it's a tech-noir classic that pushed the boundaries of early CGI as well as using more traditional animation and post-production skills.

Get your light cycle ready... "TRON" is a debugging command in some versions of BASIC and stands for TRaceON. It sounds cool and geeky.

Good job the movie didn't use its complementary command: "TROFF"

Today in pulp: the searing, evocative power of a well crafted opening sentence!

For this thread I will draw my examples from the greatest writer* in the English language: the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe.

(*based on synonym use) On death:

"Bellenger was dead when they found him. That Bellenger was dead was probably the understatement of the year. Bellenger was horribly, violently dead!"

You know what you need today? The epic saga of Hawk the Slayer!

Enter mortal, if you dare... In 1979 writer Terry Marcel and musician Harry Robertson (of Hammer horror and Lord Rockingham's XI fame) were working on adapting a Ray Cooney play when they got chatting about Fritz Lieber and fantasy novels.

Time for a pulp countdown now, so here's my top 10 future inventions we were promised by Popular Mechanics magazine that we're still waiting for! At #10: motorised unicycles! This was a very popular Edwardian idea inspired by the penny farthing bicycle. Although a few prototypes were made we never really fell in love with driving one big wheel. Also: not great in the rain.

If you use news websites then you will already be familiar with the 12 step process for reading a news article online. If not, I've summarised them below.

Please follow all steps carefully and don't skip any... Step 1: accept cookies.

Time once again for my occasional series "Women with great hair fleeing gothic houses!"

No, I hadn't forgotten... Face Of An Angel, by Dorothy Eden. Ace Gothic, 1972.

"Mary Paradise" is a great a.k.a!

Today in pulp I look back at the Situationists: were they really all slogan, no trousers? Or did they have a real-world legacy? And how did they come about in the first place?

Well it's a complicated story... Let's start in 1916 Zurich at the Caberet Voltaire, where various artists disgusted with war and the interests inspiring it launch the new anti-art of Dada. In July 1916 Hugo Ball read out the Dada Manifesto to its patrons...

It's always a good day when Blade Runner is trending on Twitter, so let's look back at this classic 1982 movie and see how it compares to the book.

"It's not an easy thing to meet your maker..." Blade Runner is based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? However 'inspired' may be a better word, as the film is very different to the book.

Time for a pulp countdown now, and today it's my top 10 digital watches of distinction!

After all, why wear a Rolex nowadays? At #10: the 1973 Seiko 06LC. This was Seiko's first LCD wristwatch: a field-effect liquid crystal display showed six digits of time continuously - you didn't need to press a button to see it either!

It's #NationalWritingDay today, so let's look back at a few famous literary rejection letters!

Everyone's a critic... “An endless nightmare. I think the verdict would be ‘Oh don’t read that horrid book.'”

Rejection letter quote for War Of The Worlds, a novel by H.G. Wells.

Today in pulp... a few hair raising situations solved by Eveready!* "Moose hunter fights for life in raging torrent!"

Eveready advert, 1939.

Today in pulp... a few B movies from 1958! War Of The Colossal Beast (1958). A sequel to 1957's The Amazing Colossal Man this is the story of, er, a very big man who, er, gets pretty mad.

That's it. That's the plot

The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics (1969). Art by Alan Aldridge. "I read the news today oh boy. The English army had just won the war..."

Rolling Stone's 1st issue, 9 November 1967.

Today in pulp... it's all Beatlemania!
#PaulMcCartney80 Liverpool vs Tottenham: the Beatles meet the Dave Clark 5 (1964).