Les Taylor
@lestaylorwriter
Science Fiction writer, father, MFA regretter. He/Him All opinions and statements are my own and not representative of my employer. Currently Querying: Stars Beyond Comprehension (Space Opera 96,000 words) Trans rights are human rights.
The Internet Archive is a treasure trove of old pulp magazines. My favorite discovery is the Captains Future series: a magazine focused around one character, each issue containing a novel by Edmond Hamilton (and later other authors). Hamilton was a master of pacing and action, but not of… subtlety.
Suitably ashamed for their behavior, Brother and his gang take down their segregation sign and replace it with “Girls Welcome!”
Mama has Papa grill salmon and honeycomb to attract the boys (milkshakes would have worked but that reference wouldn’t exist for another twenty years), and then they are invited into the rad treehouse to share their bounty.
Mama has another idea: for Sister to get all her girl friends together to form a cool club, with a tree house built by Papa, a master carpenter, as their base of operations. Sister wants to make a sign saying “No Boys Allowed” but Mama stops her.
Sister tells her parents about how Brother and his friends are absolute tossers. Papa, appropriately, threatens to destroy their clubhouse if they don’t let her in. Presumably with the National Guard escorting her into the clubhouse.
The boys go missing for three days (she never thinks to ask brother where their gang has been hanging out). Then she discovers they built a clubhouse. To her annoyance, they post a sign saying “No Girls Allowed.”
In the story, Sister Bear is the only girl in her brother’s friend group. It’s made clear she has female friends, but her and Brother got a bear gang going on, and Mama and Papa even point out the Smurfette issue. Sister ends up beating the boys in all their gang.
Perusing books for my daughter, my wife reread this banger from Stan and Jan Berenstain (not stein). At first expecting a sexist screed, the book is about something very relevant to today…
As a professional body builder, I need your evaluation of this. Checks out.
Found it! Planet Magazine March 1943. Listerine when you wash your hair for some unhinged reason, possibly from all the lead poisoning.
I can’t stress enough the oddity of seeing these ads in an ostensibly young adult fiction magazine. Ex-lax, ulcer medication, and… wait… what is this Gillette ad saying? That the model needed to shave? That the artist needed to? No matter what, it’s horrifically offensive.
Several ads are for career services. It appears Captain Future appealed to such a wide demographic that boys, lads, young unemployed men, and older men with hernias may all be reading. Also, what am I supposed to do about diesels???
There are a lot of ads for “ruptures” and to buy this weird product in lieu of wearing your “truss.” Apparently proper lifting form wasn’t invented until the ‘70s, so everyone had hernias. Enough that some issues of Captain Future magazine had several ads for this.
On a livestream tonight, I claimed I saw an ad from an old pulp magazine advertising Listerine for washing hair. I haven’t found it yet, since I spend too much time reading old pulps on archive.org than, you know, reading comps. Here are other discoveries. 🧵 @geekyjules.julessherred.com
Went to the bad place to see Derek Smart’s profile. I got this message. Are you really a fan of SciFi games if Dr. Derek Smart hasn’t blocked you?
I pirated The Boys, and I think there’s something wrong with my copy.
Wife: Let’s keep the politics to a minimum, it’s Christmas. Me: sure. Also me five minutes into dinner:
No “right to receive information”? Then what is the point? What is any of this? What are we doing here? “You can write Common Sense, Mr. Payne, but no one is allowed to read it.” What???????
If you’re not watching football and are tired of MST3K and need something to watch on Thanksgiving, check out this bizarre anthology show Chillers hosted by Anthony Perkins. It’s… full of choices…
I may start something here, and I don’t have much of a platform. I also don’t have bridges to burn. This seems… bad. Theft is one of many problems with AI. Others include: not paying an artist, destroying the environment, AI art being total ass (see the new Feast for Crows illustrated edition), etc
Amazing things are happening on Kickstarter’s fiction section, y’all. Uh… “why choose”? Do I want to know?