Brand new old school pulp tales 2-in-1: "I'd buy *that* for a dollar!"

Just a quickie here, because time is money... or money costs a lot of time... or ya can't buy good time for a nickel any more... or somethin' like that. Plus this little tale is actually about money... or at least not spending much of it.

Anyway, my family and I hit the Halloween shop yesterday (after lunch, after church) and right next door to it is a Dollar Tree store. So I made a quick stop to check the Star Wars action figs/cards/etc, 'cause sometimes they have some cool stuff in these joints.

Now, in case you don't have them in your area, or if you've never heard of them before, the Dollar Tree is just one of the myriad dollar-store chains that seem to be everywhere these days. This one in particular truly is "everything for a dollar" (not *everything* in one huge pile for only a dollar, but a dollar per item).


So... I check the toys section real quick (for my kiddos, of course, right?... yeah right - LOL) and see nothing really cool, so I turn back and take a gander in the books section. Now these are usually some pretttttttty sucky offerings, ranging from cheesy knockoffs of legit characters/stories/etc to self-help/diet books and the like. But I did see a couple sci-fi/fantasy covers and authors (Andre Norton, Glen Cook, etc) so I dug a little deeper in behind the mess on the shelf.

That's when I saw this bad boy:

Slaves of the Laughing Death/Satan's Murder Machines - Some nice family reading time material, right?

Yep, two original The Spider stories in one paperback novel sized book. Sa-weeeeeeeeet! Now I'm not a HUGE Spider fan, as I haven't had a ton of experience with these stories. I am, however, a very BIG fan of pulp in general, especially the oldschool '30s/'40s stuff like Doc Savage, The Avenger... even The Shadow. I have far too many of the Bantam Doc Savage reprints to list here (most of those I actually only paid $1 each for too, but that's not a deal I can pass along like this Dollar Tree one), a dozen or so of the Warner Avenger books, and a handful of the Shadow books as well. I also have a small selection of the Nostalgia Ventures/Sanctum Books pulp-style magazine reprints that came out not too long ago, mostly of Doc. But I only have one, single-solitary book/magazine reprint of The Spider, so this one I found yesterday was a rare gem to my cheap@$$ eyes. (We're talkin' Dollar Tree, remember?)

OK, back to this book: These are NOT the Pocket books rewritten/updated versions that came out in the '70s. Those had a whole new image and artwork, and new(er) cars/gadgets/etc. Don't get me wrong, I dig these types of Men's Adventure books/illos too, but when you're expecting a creepy '30s pulp dude, you don't really want to see a blonde Mack Bolan on the cover. Dig?

Yeah, *not* this.

As far as I can tell these are the original stories, just reprinted in the '90s as doubles, in novel paperback form, not pulpish, trade paperback/magazine form. Here it is at The Vintage Library. Browsing that site, it looks like I may have overpaid for this little tome. Some of these are FREE there. Doh! - Of course there's that little thing of the $7.95 shipping (not sure if that applies to free stuff, but I suspect it does). Yeah, I'll just stick with the Dollar Tree for now.

So of course I immediately (nearly) tore the place apart looking for more titles, as this is #6 in a series of these doubles, but sadly I didn't find any more. So I'll be hitting a few more locations near my home and near work, just in case there are any more treasures there just waiting for me to find. If you dig pulp, you may wish to do the same.

Now get 'yer hands off me booty!