Thursday, May 21, 2015

Today's Vintage Ad


5 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Reported sales for that issue of FANTASTIC: about 300K. It had to be reprinted. FANTASTIC by the end of its run in 1980 was lucky to sell 1/20th of that amount.

The story was ghosted by founding editor Howard Browne without Spillane's permission; Browne's pastiche of Spillane is pretty deft and only a bit parodic. Spillane had apparently described his submitted story in great detail to a LIFE magazine reporter, in a photo-essay in that magazine, before the FANTASTIC issue went to press and, Browne later added, the submitted Spillane story was terrible. And this from a guy who could tolerate whatever was published as by Ivar Jorgensen.

Todd Mason said...

Richard Moore, on a list Bill and I are on, found himself quoting Howard Browne today:

Here is what Howard Browne wrote about the Spillane story in "A Brief Memoir" which was included in the Dennis McMillan collection INCREDIBLE INK: "Bill Ziff called me down to his office and said, 'Why don't you get a story by Mickey Spillane?' Well Spillane was at the hottest point in his career at this time."

Browne told Ziff that Spillane was a detective writer and "...and he gets the kind of money that pulp magazines don't dream about."


Ziff said, "Well okay, it was just a suggestion."


Browne knew that he had to follow up. "So I called up an agent I knew and asked him who Spillane's agent was. He replied, 'By a strange coincidence, I am--I just recently signed him.'"


Browne explained his situation and the agent said, you couldn't afford him but Spillane had indeed written a fantasy story that had been turned down by everyone. The agent said it was awful but Browne said he like to look at it. Browne said he got the 6,000 word story "The Woman With Green Skin" and it was awful. But he took it to Ziff, who could not read beyond page four. But Browne went back to the agent who wanted $1,000. Browne agreed to give it to him as long as the agent sent a letter stating that Browne could "...make any changes I think necessary."


Then Browne wrote "I threw the manuscript in the waste basket. I went home on Friday night, and Sunday morning I came in with a 15,000 word Mickey Spillane story, "The Veiled Woman," I think I killed fourteen people in it. And in the end, he shot the woman in the belly for killing his wife. You got your 25 cents worth!"


The magazine sold 300,000 copies in three days. But the agent called Browne and said Spillane was terribly upset and ready to go to the media about it. Browne said he was willing to call Spillane to smooth it over and he did. "I'd never heard such a barrage of profanity in my life." Once Spillane ran down, Browne pointed out that in a five-page spread in Life Magazine, Spillane had related the entire story of "The Girl With the Green Skin."


"We bought the story in good faith. I loved the story,(God forgive me!), we were going to run it..."until they saw the issue of Life. "So we no longer had the first rights to the story, you'd already told it to a national publication." So what could we do?"Browne told him.


Spillane fumed some more and said the story published in Fantastic was horrible and what had Browne ever written before? Browne mentioned the Paul Pine novels published under the John Evans name. Turns out Spillane was familiar with the novels and Browne wrote "Now we were two pros talking you see. It made a big difference."


Spillane said when he told the story to Life, it had been around so long, he didn't see a problem. Finally he said, "Let's just forget it."

Max Allan Collins said...

This does not tally with what Browne told me. He said that Mickey missed his deadline and that, after all the hype, a Spillane story had to go into the magazine. So Browne wrote one quickly. Spillane was furious, but the rest of the account tallies: Browne reminded Mickey that he (Mickey) had told the basic story to LIFE and that was a breach of contract...and Mickey backed off. I like Browne's work a lot, but "Veiled Woman" really isn't a very good story, and isn't a good approximation or parody of Mickey, either.

Evan Lewis said...

Fascinating stuff.

Stephen Mertz said...

Sorry but I've always thought Browne was a talentless hack, whether copying Chandler in those Paul Pine books, his lame screenplays like THE ST. VALENTINE'S MASSACRE or the ghastly story being discussed here. So he starts it on Saturday and finishes it on Sunday? Read that piece of garbage and you'll wonder what took him so long. The story itself is bad enough in conception but, worse, drips with contempt for Mickey and his audience with every word. Howard Browne? He wasn't fit to shine Mickey's shoes.