I was learning techniques for aging photos in photoshop, and one turned out pretty well. So, I created an EMC caption to go along with hit. I hope you like it. This has also been posted on the Collective. (Click the thumbnail for the full picture.)
You can see the rest of my manips here.
I've mentioned my affection for Raymond Chandler and many other pulp writers from the 30's and 40's before, but in many ways, I'd resigned myself to the fact that the thrill of new and interesting, to me anyway, was in the past.
But I was going through some boxes of books, and I discovered the writer who, along with Mickey Spillane, picked up the torch during the 50's.
The weird thing is that he's been under my nose almost my whole life, and it bugs me that I've just now discovered his stories. One day, I'll learn this lesson and apply it: if I get the sense of something good, I should go to the source. Other people's interpretations are not the real thing.
Meet Mr. James Bond, created by Ian Fleming:
So this great red full stop marked the end of the Spangled Mob and the end of their fabulous traffic in diamonds. But not the end of the diamonds that were baking at the heart of the fire. They would survive and move off again across the world, discoloured, perhaps, but indestructible, as permanent as death.
And Bond suddenly remembered the eyes of the corpse which had once had a Blood Group F. They had been wrong. Death is forever. But so are diamonds.
Bond dropped down off the truck and started walking slowly towards the leaping fire. He smiled grimly to himself All this business about death and diamonds was too solemn. For Bond it was just the end of another adventure. Another adventure for which a wry phrase of Tiffany Case might be the epitaph. He could see the passionate, ironical mouth saying the words:
"It reads better than it lives."
From the final pages of Diamonds are Forever.
It has all the elements of great pulp: clear writing, fast-moving plots, new worlds in what seem to be ordinary places, but most important of all, a hero. James Bond is one of the good guys. He enjoys good food, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, and sex. He's also honest, just, and courageous.
This manifests itself in the legal authority he's been given: Mr. Bond has a license to kill. In the hands of a thug or the Bond who appears in the movies, this would be a dangerous, troubling thing, but Ian Fleming's James Bond is not a common thug. He views his license to kill this way:
So here came the last of them, the last of the gang, and yet the first. The man he'd taken a look at in Hatton Garden. The first of the Spangled Mob, the gang that had rated so high in Washington. The only one, except the harmless, rather likeable Shady Tree, Bond had not yet had to kill -- or, he thought of the Pink Garter Saloon and the two men from Detroit, almost kill. Not that he had wanted to kill these people. The job M had given him had only been to find out about them. But, one by one, they had tried to kill him and his friends. Violence had been their first resort, not their last. Violence and cruelty were their only weapons.
Again, from Diamonds are Forever.
The movie James Bond is not the same thing, not even close. I can't recommend the books enough.
Over at io9.com, they composed a list of the greatest SF dominatrices of all time. The 'bringers of pain and delight' from Spock's Brain have always been a favorite; push button control of the men they'd captured. Very nice.
Unfortunately, there is one glaring oversight on the list. They forgot Ursa.
I guess I was about ten when she came along in Superman 2. I didn't care much about General Zod or Non, but she was another one of 'those' girls: dark clothes, dusky makeup, cruel and pretty. I was kind of hoping she and Superman could work something out, especially since I liked Lois Lane about as much as Ursa did.
(tip of the hat to Boot Lady Teri, where I discovered the link.)