Because he's a nice guy, he responded to this sick humor with a mail about collecting Black Mask. Sensing an opportunity for a free article on this blog, i asked him a few more questions and he responded to those too. The result is what you have before you today.
If you want more in this vein, tell Walker that. Leave a note in the comments section - you don't have to have a Google login to do that.]
Your question about Black Mask has started me
thinking about how I collected the set and then read most of it. In fact,
I've often said once you complete a set and then read much of it, the next step
in the collecting process is to sell it.
I may have told you this story before and some of it I wrote online for Mystery File back when I started the Collecting Pulps: A Memoir series but it all started when I was drafted into the army in 1966. The Vietnam war was heating up and I was headed for an infantry company when the army discovered I knew how to type thus possibly saving my life. I now had plenty of time to read and while in the PX I noticed Ron Goulart's The Hardboiled Dicks.
| US Army PX - inset image of Ron Goulart's The Hardboiled Dicks |
