Sunday, March 24

The Basis for Dynamite's Masks – The Spider vs. the Empire State, Available as Inexpensive eBooks

Just a short plug to let interested parties know that the pulp basis for Dynamite's current Masks comic book miniseries, Norvell Page's wonderful 1938 trilogy of tales from The Spider magazine, collectively known variously as “The Black Police Trilogy” or The Spider vs. the Empire State, under which title they have been available for a couple of years now in a nice trade paperback edition from Age of Aces, containing a fine historical introduction by Thomas Krabacher (reviewed here, parts one, two, and three respectively), have recently been made available in inexpensive eBook formats by the wonderful folks at RadioArchives.

Part of an aggressive initiative by RadioArchives, mainly known for making available remastered, high-quality CD sets of classic radio shows of all genres, to expand their market into the realm of classic pulp literature, The Spider is just one of several series that are appearing in rapid succession as part of “Will Murray's Pulp Classics” eBook library – see here. All this in addition to marketing pulp reprints and replicas from a number of different publishers.

One great feature of the RA eBooks is that they include the entire contents of the original magazine, including the typical backup short-stories, columns, and letters pages. About the only thing they do not reproduce are the original interior line art illustrations. Well, or the advertisements.  But for one cheap price each (currently – but as long as I've known about them – slashed by a buck from $3.99 to $2.99 apiece), you buy the right to download the eBooks in multiple DRM-free formats, suitable for just about any eReader including Kindle and Nook as well as plain old pdf.

So if you want to read the original tale of the criminal “Justice Party's” fascist state in 1938 New York and the Spider's valiant war against it, for currently less than $10 in total, follow these links: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

Cheers!, and Thanks for reading.

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