#kitschy pulp magazines

[sohannabarberaesque]

Trolltown, by contrast, has some raher introllesting specimens of lore in this particular vein. Howbeit where the "she-trolls of the jungle" are all the closer to Nature and have a deep and abiding regard therefor in line with the Unwritten Troll Code.

[closecore]

(7/12/20)

Today I went for a walk, and ended up at the corner store, and browsed the pulp horror bargain books, and found a kitschy paranormal magazine with big, glossy colored pictures jammed in the back of a bottom shelf. It had a big, poster sized photo of Raegan from the Exorcist in it, so I had to buy it! I feel compelled to tear the picture out, and hang it on my wall.

The whole time, I had my headphones in, and the Moldy Peaches album on. It was nice. I had fun laughing at all the silly misinfo in the tabloids, daydreaming about Freddy Lounds all the while, and left with that and a ¢89 coffee. It was a nice walk.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

categorized and generalized all the types of tumblr aesthetics i have come across.

I have been going through archives for the last five years on tumblr now, and i can’t help but notice that a lot of blogs are the same. There seems to be a pattern in the sorts of aesthetics i run up against. So, in my exhaustion, i tried coming up with all the different aesthetics, and i tried to put them into certain categories. Obviously, some of these categories are mixed with others.

PORN TUMBLR

-general porn

-lesbian/gay general

-kinky stuff

-daddy dom stuff - tied up boobies

-bears

-just unrealistic nudes

-just realistic nudes

-vintage porn, and occasionally porn that is so old that it was drawn by someone in the 1800′s

- hentai and erotic animal people cartoon characters going at it

-person who took about five pictures of themselves naked five years ago who has not come back

RICH KID TUMBLR

-super modelesque kids in their super rich cool kid clothes and fashion in Starbucks taking pictures of their food and their trips to Europe in 1st class

- incredibly expensive looking sunglasses

-rich kid travel blogs with hundreds of thousands of notes of pictures from rich people buildings

-quotes that say 'be happy' or stuff about saying anyone can just travel anywhere at any time, just the general advice you might get from someone who doesn't know how the other half lives

- cats

VINTAGE TUMBLR

-the greatest generation stuff, forgotten early hollywood actors/actresses, very old movie gifs, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Carol Lombard, early Joan Crawford, Gone with the Wind ect..

-50's, 60's and 70's, Nancy Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn – generally a lot of Audrey Hepburn

-Posts old advertisements and old cars, sometimes old toys, a few pinups, vintage comics, kinda weird

- vintage toy blogs - just toys, named and dated

-sometimes retrospace stuff

-sometimes just old comic book stuff

FEMINIST/ GENDER STUDIES TUMBLR

-intersectional feminists who post mostly text and back and forth writings, sometimes they fight 

-radfems and turfs, unpopular minority of angry at the intersectional feminists

- Fat Acceptance movement, chubby bunnies

-other girl's selfies, lots of girl power related drawings of gender symbols and the like, Grimes, being a witch, Courtney Love, sailor moon, and so forth, sometimes bleeds into soft grunge

-topics on transgender, gender fluid and others that have informative 

- asexual community

BLACK LIVES MATTER TUMBLR

-black lives matter awareness, police brutality, pointing out flaws in legal system

-lovely stylish selfies

-call outs of racism, lots of dialogue, and the extension of twitter

80's + 90's GIF TUMBLR

-like gifs of scratched up VCR obscure film openings, and repetitious obscure 80's gifs in general, everything is fuzzy and looks like it came from an 80' infomercial, kinda makes you feel scared

-90's gifs of Pee Wee Herman, Catdog, Clarissa Explains it All, Chucky Cheese, Fruit by the Foot, Beavus and Butthead, Bart Simpson, and so on

HIPPIE TUMBLR

-just like the rich kidz, only they have white kid dreads and post a lot of vanlife stuff, lots of festivals

-mostly psychedelic gifs, with occasional trippy art, Foster the People is their favorite band

-real hippies, who post pictures of communes and people making tyed dye things, nonsexual nudes with hairy women, Grateful Dead stuff

-Buddhist and Hindu quotes, sometimes lilies

SOFT GRUNGE TUMBLR

purple and pink skies, water, windows with lace

girls with pale skin and perfect make up, and chokers, bruises, sparkly skin

mermaid texture, mermaid hair colors

Lana Del Rey

kind of like 90's only more melty and pink

quotes about good vibes

Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless mind reference

moon print

dream pop bands from the early 90's

GROWN UP SOFT GRUNGE TUMBLR

picture of Uma Thurman overdosing in Pulp Fiction

lots and lots of flowers

lots of sensual pictures of pale skin under certain lighting

albino people

albino animals

pictures of sunrises

Reykjavic

kind of like the Soft Grunge, but just a little bit more subtle and film tumblry

ART BLOG TUMBLR

old roman art

chinese, japanese and korean art from long ago

renaissance and medieval art with religious context

just like medieval art of specifically torture

18th and 19th century portrait paintings

Scenic paintings of hills, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet

Dada, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Adolph Wolfie

Modern art that is squiggly, slimy, and bizzare, breaks art rules but looks good, David Shrigley

Modern Surrealists

ARTIST BLOG TUMBLR

posts really great homemade gifs that nobody knows about infrequently

blogs that only have the artwork of the blog owner – generally post infrequently and not given enough credit ever, except maybe one of there works has a whole bunch of notes

person who keeps painting the same thing over and over again and does it a lot for years at a time, 0 notes usually – who are you??

collage artists that mix 50's scenes with hyperspace backdrops

FILM BLOG TUMBLR

-Stanley Kubrick, Jean Cocteau, lots of black and white french films

-that movie where the two people are sitting on the ledge of a building and the other one jumps off

Clockwork Orange

-Paris, Texas

David Lynch

Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks (gets stolen by other kinds of blogs frequently)

Wim Wenders,

Rare film art from Poland in the 70's

Jans Svankmajer

Man Ray, Max Ernst,

cool quotes by philosopher, artist, psychologist, or film director

Amelie

sometimes Wes Anderson

PHOTOGRAPHY TUMBLR

abandoned places, gas stations, archaic cafes, falling apart amusement parks

uses too much dark fade out in the background pictures of fields and stuff, overused filtering – posted a ton three years ago and then left

just photostock

girl who takes pictures of herself in costume

Nature pictures, animal pictures ect..

person who just takes pictures of textures and minimalist buildings – usually colorful

person who's personal Instagram picture just automatically post to tumblr also, probably never checks up, usually pictures of them with friends as a pub

Indigenous pictures from around the world, some of them from books, some from National Geographic, some from other places

Super old pictures from old newspapers, the great depression, WW2 – generally black and white

MUSIC TUMBLR

Really likes Led Zeppelin, The Doors and The Who, sometimes mixed with other vintage, often posts the same pictures and songs for years – you feel bad because no new music will be coming out from these artists

super cheesy Van Halen, Kiss, Styx, Ozzy person, Big Hair, likes 80's pin ups and skulls, sometimes into martial arts

super cheesy death metal fan, lots of pinups, corny black and white pictures of skulls and such

REALLY likes British Invasion, The Zombies, The Kinks, The Hollies, The Animals, will occasionally post Detroit girl groups from the 60's, some Velvet Underground, pictures of the Beatles girlfriends

Just David Bowie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop. Maybe some New York Dolls

Old Blues and Jazz, Etta James, Son House, Nina Simone, pictures of Leadbelly and Howlin' Wolf and especially Miles Davis

really into post punk, Nick Cave, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Cure, Einsturzende Neubauten, Lydia Lunch, PJ Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, sometimes Morrissey. also generally mixes film and art blog stuff in with occasional feminist things

Just Morrissey, they call him Moz.

Fan clubs for specific bands that are newer and popular like Arctic Monkeys or Fallout Boy, but also ones blogs that really like emo lyrics from early 2000's and such – scene kids that are still scenin' it up

loves Jens Lekman, Belle and Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Cigarettes After Sex. Usually posts really cute modern art, and uses tumblr mostly for writing, has the cutest hair cut and can pull off overalls, never posts too little or too much, extremely twee

HISTORY TUMBLR

ancient mesopotamia, greek and Egyptian history and relics

Blogs that are specifically about one place in one era - Ancient Russia, Ireland before it was taken over, precolonial India and so on

Samurai, Geisha, and scrolls

Swords, knights, castles, kings of Europe in general

Specific Wars, examples: 7 Years War, Revolutionary War, WW1 + 2

France from before the revolution – pictures of wigged men, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette

Jane Austen time era anything 18th and 19th century, slight excuse to post lots of Pride and Prejudice gifs with Keira Knightly and that Mr. Darcy in the rain

Outfits – just outfits that are really old

person who is obsessed with the Nazis and seems to like Hitler

Flappers and earlier 20th – often an excuse to post gifs of Downton Abbey

Vintage books, often children books, but sometimes others

DESIGN TUMBLR

really fucked up pictures of the Simpsons melting and stuff

gradient graphic art with symbols or words meant to convey a product that I don't understand for an obscure magazine subscription

graphic squiggles without form, minimalist graphic pictures of beach balls, tennis bats, and sneakers

bizarre smiley faces made from smaller smiley faces

80's inspired design

odd looking models with undercuts and no eyebrows

cartoon dogs and cats

just static and glitches. Nothing more, nothing less

either they make their own graphic designs and they rarely post, or they compile reblogs of everyone else's and they post all the time

WEIRDO TUMBLR

insane family pictures of family who all has mullet dressed as bumble bees

Lots of Robert Crumb, some vintage stuff, but nothing remotely main stream

Some of the modern art, but only the weirdest of it

claymation masks

Comix

Moebius

art from early Power Point

100 piece sculptures with melted toys

paintings of monsters

Steve Brule

children's fan art of Smokey the Bear – looks disturbing

Items that are too kitschy to be accepted by your average vintage indie blog

sometimes a specific blog centered around some kind of crazy event where everyone dresses completely insane

POLITICAL TUMBLR

the communists and Marxists

a mixture of BLM and LGBTQ stuff

the libertarians, anarchocapitalists, Ayn rand folk

the left wing anarchists, freegans, graffiti punks, garden punks, possums

informative left wing news that explains to us everyday how the GOP is fucking us

alt. right creeps who are simply here to be trolls and upset everyone else – anti SJW, that stupid frog, nationalists, trump supporters and such – irrelevant poorly thought memes

I miss Obama memes

Bernie Sanders forever and always folk

RAINBOW TUMBLR

pictures of rainbow candies, toys, designs, clothing and so forth all of it rainbow

people who post one color at a time, so when you go through their archive it's all gradient and neat looking – usually the pictures are a little stock photoish though

HALLOWEEN TUMBLR

Betty Page

The Cramps. Reverend Horton Heat

Psychobilly pin ups, old cars, burning skulls, vintage B horror movies, The Swamp Thing

Legitimately obsessed with the activities of Halloween – posts witches, devils, trick or treat candy, Bella Lugosi, The Monster Mash, Halloween decoration - and doesn't ever forget how many days away Halloween is

Jack the Skeleton

Freddy Krueger

FANCLUB TUMBLR

Superwholock

Hannigram

American Horror Story

K Pop and J Pop + Korean Drama

boy bands in general

Hamilton

My Little Ponies

Ghibli Studios

Various anime shows

fat Disney princesses

Super heroes

Pokemon

Big Bang Theory

Mighty Boosh

Monty Python

Phantom of the Opera

Labyrinth

Vampire Chronicles

Orange is the New Black

Breaking Bad

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter

Star Wars

Steven Universe

Adventure Time

Game of Thrones and Walking Dead

any television show really

Furry cartoons

lots of spacy quick anime chibi versions of characters who are hooking up and wouldn't normally in the show

scenes from movies with subtext that comes from a different movie or show

probably countless others i am not thinking of.

SPECIALTY TUMBLR

serial killer blogs

unexplained mysteries, ghosts, ufo's

pictures of galaxies with information (not sparkly silly ones with no context)

sewing and yarn

precious stones

cars

just gardening

just cats

religious blogs, either Islam, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist

specific animal blogs, snake, spiders, wild cats and such

science blogs about technology and stuff

NATURE TUMBLR

stock photoish pictures of camp grounds and misty mountains – often taken by the hippies

angelic looking deer, and occasional animal burials with flowers'

person who takes pictures of flowers all the time

granola type fellow who loves juicing and backpacking – doesn't get on tumblr much

BLACK AND WHITE GOTH TUMBLR

slenderman fan art, actually just about anything creepypasta related

you have to turn off the music when you visit their page because it's just too much

fan art of black eyed children

slit wrists

pictures that were turned into Gifs because they shake

taxidermy

screamo lyrics

Alice in wonderland with X's for eyes

gothic models

occasional serial killer

skulls and references to Edgar Allan Poe

GIF MEME TUMBLR

just a sea of Gifs and memes relating to anything about life ever – almost shitposting but not quite

eventually one of the gifs got 100,000 notes for it's relatability so they get a lot of traffic

lots of pictures and circumstances from The Office, Parks and Rec, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Nihilist memes

SOFTY TUMBLR

kind of a little girl dom thing going on

Kawai and lots of Japanese girls

cute colorful make up

plushies and toys

references to fantasy cartoons from the 80's, the last unicorn, or that one with the girls in that band

Polly Pockets, Furbies, trolls

gifs of stars and hearts

Sailor Moon

pink bedroom

baby animals

occasionally more on the vintage kitschy side

WICCA TUMBLR

ravens, bats, candles

pentacles and other symbols

crystals

sometimes there is dreads

occasionally, it is a serious practicing Wicca who posts spells and gives witch advice

lots of personal reflections

boobs

GROSS TUMBLR

Tim and Eric, Steve Brule centered blog that are mostly in the act to make you feel queezy

like, people eating cheerios with ketchup and people wearing shoes with the soles cut out, people putting their feet in spagetti, bad tattoos on foreheads

snails, beetles, bird doing mean things to people

mostly moldy things, moss, strange dolls

things that look like they came from the dark crystal,

delapitating bedrooms that once belonged to a little girl, torn wall paper, old porcelain dolls that are slightly upsetting

Clowns

occasionally a blog so gross you will be ruined for having seen it – Two Girls one Cup sort of thing

NERD TUMBLR

old video game start up pages

Super Mario Bros.

Other video game characters

chibis of video game characters interacting with one another

Final Fantasy references

randomly doesn't post for a year

SELF HELP TUMBLR

blog that gives dumb advice that only works if you were already happy anyway

either semi fake or oversimplified 'psyche facts'

blogs from people who suffer from addiction or mental illness and want help and use their blog to vent

blogs ran by people who enjoy crystal meth and don’t give a fuck.

worthy of mentioning, blogs that nobody ever posted a single thing or just one thing, like, really cryptic blogs that nobody could ever understand, blogs that were taken over by some kind of virus and they are trying to sell you male pattern baldness remedies, or they are now call absurdly pornographic things because the virus took over and now they are like blonde cumfuck creampie or something of that nature, and blogs were the person was basically saying they have found a girlfriend/boyfriend now and don’t need tumblr anymore so goodbye

and in my experience ...

anybody can post pictures of jiggly boobs

anybody can post Grace Jones

anybody can post a Bjork song

these seem to be universal truths that defy limitations

[nomanwalksalone]

HUGH HEFNER, 1926-2017

by Daniel Penny

Hugh Hefner, millionaire libertine, child of sexually repressed Methodists, and father of a generation of men’s magazines, has died at 91. With the golden age of Playboy long gone by the time I would have been old enough to sweatily peruse its pages, my own feelings about Hefner have centered around a mixture of bemused indifference and the kind of awe one feels toward a grizzled old tree that’s been struck by lightning, yet remains standing. For me, he was always a fossil, a cartoon, and a skeezy brand ambassador—rather than a living person, or an agent of profound change in American sex culture.

Much has been written about Hefner’s dubious philosophies regarding women, but less I think, about the influence he has had over millions of men, who imagined his persona as the Mount Olympus of bachelorhood toward which we should all strive. Though Playboy of the past few decades was more Hollywood, Florida than Hollywood, California, it began as a fantasy that was hip, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated—as opposed to the macho pulp of lad mags like Men’s Adventure, Man’s Life and Stag with headlines like “Weasels Ripped My Flesh.” As a young Hefner wrote in Playboy’s first editorial in 1953, “We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.” Nevermind that when he wrote these lines, Hefner was living with his first wife, the first woman he’d slept with, and publishing his magazine with the help of his mother, who had loaned him a substantial $1000 to get it off the ground. “I was the boy who dreamed the dream” would eventually become Hefner’s refrain, and dream he did.

The particular figure that Hefner dreamt up has perhaps died along with him, or at least devolved into kitschy caricature, like the gravel-voiced “Most Interesting Man in the World,” who hawks Dos Equis between sword fights and yacht excursions. It was from Hefner’s loins that this type sprung: one part James Bond, two parts Ivy League prodigal son, and a dash of contrarianism for spice. His party guests spanned the intellectual and cultural spectrum of his time: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., Mick Jagger—and he greeted them all in slippers and a robe. What other man has turned a constant uniform of pajamas into a sign of success rather than a symptom of alcoholic depression?

When I look through men’s magazines and see guys who are supposedly living “the dream” today, I instead find blowhards, technocrats, and goons—more interested in bragging to attractive female journalists about how much they paid for a Picasso, rather than discussing the artwork on their wall. But perhaps those differences are purely generational: were he a millennial like myself, I imagine Hefner would have preferred smoking a vape to a pipe, and instead of building a media empire, he would probably have dropped out of college to found a VR-sex app. Ultimately, Hefner was very much a man of his time—an early defender of free speech and abortion rights, and also a sexist pig, obsessed with an idealized vision of female beauty. For better or worse, his tastes and obsessions guided the inner lives of his readers, who are themselves are getting on in years. Hefner may now be buried next to Marilyn Monroe in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, but he will manage to live on every time a curious boy exhumes his dad’s old Playboys and gives them a browse—for the articles, of course.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Bruce Pennington, Science Wonder Stories, H. Bedford Jones, Post Oaks and Sand Roughs

Reading (Rawle Nyanzi): By now it is well-known that reading in the US has declined across all demographic indicators. Whether it’s caused by television, the internet, video games, or boring literature classes, the drop-off in reading time is plain and obvious to see. Some even claim that we are entering a “post-literate” period where the written word is actively rejected in favor of images and sounds conveyed by electronic media.

  Art (DMR Books): In the process of finding art for my new Gene Wolfe post, I noticed that the artist, Bruce Pennington, turns seventy-five years young today. Bruce has been a fixture on the UK fantasy/scifi scene since the late ‘60s. Check the link here to see what Bruce has been up to for the last five decades.

  Science Fiction Pulp (Pulpfest): The first issue of SCIENCE WONDER STORIES hit the newsstands ninety years ago, on May 3, 1929. Behind the dramatic Frank R. Paul cover were included five short stories, the beginning of a serialized novel — “The Reign of the Ray” by Fletcher Pratt and Irvin Lester — a science quiz (with the answers in the issue’s stories), an essay contest, and “Science News of the Month.” SCIENCE WONDER STORIES ran for twelve issues dated June 1929 through May 1930. David Lasser was managing editor and Hugo Gernsback was publisher and editor-in-chief.  Each issue had a fantastic Frank R. Paul cover.

  History (Running Iron Report): On July 28, 2014, an American expat living in Sweden named Indiana Neidell (for real) launched a Youtube project titled The Great War. Its premise was to cover the events of the First World War, matching up the centennial of that seminal conflict week by week through November 11, 2018. Other segments included technology developed during the war, concurrent events like the Mexican Revolution and vignettes on remarkable personalities.

  Pulp (DMR Books): The King of the Pulps died on this date seventy years ago today. Henry James O’Brien Bedford-Jones, better-known to his millions of fans during the pulp era as “H. Bedford-Jones,” passed away in his comfortable Beverly Hills home after forty years of living well off his pulp fiction.

Bedford-Jones was born in 1887 in Canada, though he spent most of his life in the U.S. Before his twenty-second birthday, he had sold his first story to one of the greatest pulps ever, Argosy. He went on to write over a million words of pulp adventure per year for decades.

  Radio (Tangent Online): The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939-47) aired “The Adventure of the Dying Schoolboys” on November 9, 1946. During this incarnation of Sherlock Holmes on radio (the first coming in the early 1930s and the last running to 1959), Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce reprised their Universal studio film roles of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for close to 220 episodes. Afraid of being typecast–and following the cancellation of further Holmes films–Rathbone wanted out of his radio role. Though the show’s sponsor at the time, Petri Wines, offered him a generous bump in compensation if he would continue, Rathbone declined.

  Robert E. Howard (REH Foundation): The REH Foundation Press is proud to present Post Oaks and Sand Roughs & Other Autobiographical Writings. Outside of the boxing stories, whenever Robert E. Howard used the name “Costigan” the autobiographical implications weren’t far behind. This volume collects those “other” Costigan tales, including the title novel as well as the previously unpublished early draft. It also contains other items that reveal details about the people and places in Howard’s life, including the “Lost Plains” stories, items from The Junto, personal essays, and more, all restored to the original text, where available.

  Popular Culture (Rawle Nyanzi): I believe that all professionally produced franchises are either SJW -converged or soon will be, given enough time.

Let’s run down some prominent examples:

– Star Wars, the biggest name in sci-fi, attacked its own legacy and its most loyal fans to the point where its most recent movie flopped — the first flop in the franchise’s history.

  Fiction (John C. Wright): From Book 1: My name is Officer Thomas Nolan, and I am a saint.Tommy Nolan lives a quiet life. He walks his beat – showing mercy to the desperate. Locking away the dangerous. Going to church, sharing dinner with his wife and son. Everyone likes Tommy, even the men he puts behind bars.

Then one day a demon shows up and he can smell it. Tommy can smell evil –real evil. Now he’s New York City’s only hope against a horrifying serial killer that preys on the young and defenseless.

  Fiction (Elgin Bleeker): John Buchan’s 1915 novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, is one of the grand old spy adventures of yesteryear and is still a pretty great read.

Most people will know the plot thanks to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie version, “The 39 Steps.”

A spy with information vital to the British government is killed in Richard Hannay’s apartment. The police think Hannay did it and hunt him down. The real culprits – enemy spies – think Hannay knows their secret plans, and set out to kill him.

  Cartoons (Broadswords and Blasters): As a kid growing up in the 1980s I was naturally attached to cartoons. That’s one of the defining characteristics of late Gen-Xers/early millenials (I’ve seen us referred to as a crossover generation, but isn’t everyone really?). For me, those cartoons were GI Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and Voltron.

  Pulp Awards (Pulpfest): The PulpFest Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that fifteen individuals have been nominated by their peers for the 2019 Munsey Award. The honor is named after Frank A. Munsey — the man who published the first pulp magazine. This annual award recognizes an individual or institution that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy. Congratulations to all of the nominees for this prestigious award, presented annually at PulpFest.

  Comic Books (Rough Edges): Several years ago, I read the graphic novel GRAVEDIGGER: HOT WOMEN, COLD CASH, written by Christopher Mills, and enjoyed it a lot. These days, Mills is putting together an entire line of comics called Atomic Action, which takes public domain superheroes and puts them in new stories written and drawn in the classic style of the Sixties and Seventies (which means they’re right in my wheelhouse). The first issue of these new comics, SPACE CRUSADERS #1, came out recently, and it’s great fun.

  Paperback Horror (Kirkus Reviews): If you’ve spent any amount of time in a used bookstore, you’ve undoubtedly seen the horror paperbacks section. Adorned with decades-old book spines that are predominantly black, they boast covers that are simultaneously creepy, kitschy and remarkably appealing. Those books never fail to evoke a sense of nostalgia and—I’ll admit it—appreciation.

Grady Hendrix shared that same appreciation with readers in 2017 with the publication of the Bram Stoker Award-winning love-letter to 70s and 80s horror fiction, Paperbacks From Hell.

Anime (Karavansara): I have often written in the past about the impact that the first series of Mobile Suit Gundam had on my generation and on me in particular. I think the best evidence of how much it impacted me is the fact that I am still watching the cartoons – no longer as a start-struck teenager, not as an otaku (I never was that), but with an eye to narrative structure, themes, character arcs, patterns.

  Gaming (Niche Gamer): One of the hardest aspects of game development is standing out from other games of the same genre. This is further compounded when you are heavily inspired by a particular style of game. Enter Hellmut: The Badass from Hell. A twin-stick shooter like Enter the Gungeon with a style roughly based on a more light-hearted classic Doom. Comparisons to both those games quickly end once you start to play. Does Hellmut evolve from other games in the genre, or is it a mutation better off being sterile?

    Sensor Sweep: Bruce Pennington, Science Wonder Stories, H. Bedford Jones, Post Oaks and Sand Roughs published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[ebthblog]

Going Retro: 9 Fun Ideas for Kitschy Collections

Kitsch is a special category of retro fun. It offers an approachable, playful view into the trends and fashions of different eras.

Sure, kitsch isn’t high art, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have cultural significance, aesthetic appeal, or interesting history. If you have a love for the charm of everyday objects, join EBTH in checking out some of our favorite vintage kitsch. This could be the perfect inspiration for your next collection:

1. Pulp Sci-Fi

Thanks to recent developments in science and technology, the 1950s and '60s were an era marked with an almost obsessive focus on the future and outer space. A lot of retro kitsch focuses on themes relating to this obsession, but pulp sci-fi novels, magazines, and comic books are particularly interesting subjects for collection because they can actually be quite valuable in addition to being fun to collect. Whether you focus on high-value entries into the pulp sci-fi canon or not, the cover designs and stories inside reveal a somewhat quaint vision of the future that's both funny and highly revealing from a historical perspective.

2. Salt and Pepper Shakers

The balance of utility and high kitsch factor reaches new heights with vintage salt and pepper shakers. You can actually still use many of these decorative little items, but they also look great lined up in a large collection. From cartoonish figures to replicas of famous landmarks in materials ranging from ceramic to plastic and glass, collectible salt and pepper shakers offer a wealth of opportunity, are often affordable, and don’t take up much space.

3. Vintage Cigarette Lighters

These days we know that smoking isn't the harmless, glamorous activity it was seen as in the past, but smoking culture is inextricably linked with kitsch and vintage sensibility. Vintage cigarette lighters were often particularly inventive; they were made into decorative objects that could be kept on display on coffee tables and desks. These range from the artistic to the silly and are easy to collect and show off on shelves and tabletops.

4. Retro Lunchboxes

From the metal lunchboxes of the 1970s to the plastic of the '80s and '90s, vintage lunchboxes are colorful and lighthearted, offering plenty of great opportunities for display. You can also trace the history of kids' pop culture with a collection that spans the decades. This is a particularly fun collection for anyone who loves TV and movies from the late 20th century. If you're wondering how to start your collection, consider looking for a retro lunchbox that you owned as a kid — it's a great opportunity for a little bit of nostalgia.

5. Printed Glassware

Vintage printed glassware is often one of the best ways to enjoy different motifs, emblems, and design elements from the past. Atomic Age design, retro tourism, abstract patterns, historical events, popular culture, and bright colors can also get their due exposure in this category of collectibles. One important thing to keep in mind if you plan to serve drinks in retro glassware is that most of the printing on these glasses isn't dishwasher safe. Even if it's labeled as such, you still might want to wash by hand. Dishwashers and detergents are a lot more powerful now than they were even in the '80s and '90s.

6. Vintage Holiday Decor

Chances are good that you already have a collection of current-day holiday décor for Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and Valentine's Day, so why not add to it with some kitschy vintage holiday décor? Holiday decorations offer a fun window into the design sensibilities of the past, but they also show us how timeless holiday fun can be. You can even focus all of your holiday décor collecting efforts on vintage items to add a twist of retro kitsch to your celebrations.

7. Colorful Retro Product Packaging

Color printing technology has improved by leaps and bounds since the mid-20th century, but vibrant product packaging printed during the 1950s, '60s and '70s is often quite charming, showing the ingenuity graphic designers had to use to make their packaging stand out on the shelves. Setting the specific goal of finding bright, colorful items will make your retro packaging collection even more exciting to hunt down.

8. Garden Gnomes

Garden gnomes are inherently kitschy, and they're popular enough that you may be able to find quite a diverse range of items for a cute collection of friendly figurines. If you opt to keep your gnome collection outdoors in a natural habitat, you may want to consider keeping them up off the ground so they're exposed to minimal moisture and dirt. That way, you can keep your little garden gnome collection looking sharp.

9. Anodized Aluminum Housewares

Vintage housewares often made use of as much color as possible, and that makes them extra-special to collect today. From tumblers and ice cream dishes to coasters and ashtrays, anodized aluminum sets are colorful kitsch masterpieces that are just begging to be collected. Aluminum is durable and easy to clean, so if you're looking for vintage barware or dinnerware accessories you can actually use without being excessively gentle, this is a good collection for you.

Are you ready to start your kitschy collection? Find curios brimming with retro flair in our online auctions at EBTH. Everything But The House gives you access to unique estate sales from around the country, and with thousands of new listings popping up every week, it’s easy to find collectible treasures.

[sohannabarberaesque]

But on the other hand, try not to cross paths with Hong Kong Phooey. He's quick to deflate and find hidden (and even fatal) flaws with assorted so-called "self-defence systems" advertised in especially kitschy pulp magazines.

[sohannabarberaesque]

Herewith, what you might call a Hanna-Barbera Hobby Lobby

(As in such specimens of hobbies that certain Hanna-Barbera characters could be imagined dabbling in, by and large, with inspiration from the radio and TV series "Hobby Lobby," as featured the more interesting and unusual hobbies of interesting people.)

Ruff and Reddy: Repairing and restoring old Cushman motor scooters and collecting Cushman brochures, sales literature and suchlike

Yogi Bear: Twiddling around the shortwave radio dial, using a kite antenna from his cave

Pixie and Dixie: Cheese-and-crackers parties, especially where the likes of Carr's Table Water or Stoned Wheat Thins come into the equation

Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy: Taking stock of the simple pleasures in life, in particular trying out magazine-ad receipts from the 1930's to the mid-1960's that some would see as kitschy

Top Cat and crew: Old-school New York-style delicatessen, in particular such dominated by chewy Jewish-style rye bread, hot corned beef/pastrami/Swiss sandwiches, Genoa-style salamis and otherwise obscure groceries unlikely to be had at Walmart or Ralph's

Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-Along Coyote: Roasting their own green coffee beans in a hand-crank drum roaster over a blazing fire

Granny Sweets: Collecting glass bakeware such as Pyrex, Fire King and CorningWare

Peter Potamus: Collecting and sharing Polynesian lore and legend of especially an erotic sort ... as well as SCUBA and freediving

Penelope Pitstop: Compounding and extracting her very own essential oils for homemade cologne and toilet water

Snorky (as per The Banana Splits): Playing theater organs and listening to theater-organ music

Groove (as per the Cattanooga Cats): Barbecue (and even fixing his own barbecue sauce)

Bristlehound: Just taking a lazy afternoon off fishing

Velma Dinkley (as per Scooby-Doo): Collecting and looking for esoteric pulp mystery and detective fiction from the 1930's to the 1960's, as well as listening to Old-Time Radio detective fiction

Norville "Shaggy" Rogers (again per Scooby-Doo): Vegetarian cooking

The Entire Hair Bear Bunch: Cheesy Indian cuisine (curries and butter chicken in particular) and bodysurfing

Mr. Chan "himself": Collecting Chinese firecracker labels, matchboxes and Chinese product packaging tending to the kitschy

Gilly (as per Goober and the Ghost Chasers): Developing infrared photographic effects in the darkroom

Satchel (as per Skatebirds): Out-of-the-way seafood grottoes such as are rare along the Southern California coast, and somehow have a certain air of the kitschy among them

The Entire of the CB Bears: Planked fish, especially on cedar and alderwood ... and especially when they've caught the fish themselves

Yukka-Yukka (as per Heyyy, It's The King!): Collecting classic examples of practical jokes at their finest, such as joy buzzers, whoopee cushions, chattering teeth, fake vomit and cigarette loads

Sheena (again, as per Heyyy, It's The King!): Jogging for fitness

Undercover Elephant and Loudmouse: Nut brittles (especially peanut and cashew), coconut cashew crunch and even fixing their own nut butters (cashew, almond and mixed-nut especially)

The Bungle Brothers: Collecting vaudeville-related ephemera, in particular showbills and jokebooks (some, mind you, with content now seen as Politically Incorrect)

Kwicky Koala: Cooking with Vegemite and Copha (the last one being solid coconut oil)

Crazy Claws: Just taking stock of the scene along The Broadway in Downtown Wisconsin Dells, particularly while sipping on bottled water with Crystal Light mixed in

Pixlee Trollsom (as per Trollkins): Researching introllesting and esotrollic examples of Troll lore, legend and custom, partiularly while being in a closeness to Nature such as through kayaking, backpacking, camping and diving underwater