May 24
Good Show Sir comments:
Got a black magic novel
Got a black magic novel
I’ve got a black magic novel
Got me so drunk I can’t read
That it’s black magic novel
And the cover art will make your eyes bleed
Published 1967
(Average: 4.37 out of 10)
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May 24th, 2023 at 8:54 am
While she had purchased her “sexy harem girl” costume well in advance, the boys had left their Halloween preparations till the last minute, so Rana threw something together out of an incomplete Sinbad the Sailor outfit, a Mexican wrestler mask, and a bedsheet, while Burke wasn’t _even_ trying with his ghost “costume.”
May 24th, 2023 at 11:37 am
Are you sure it’s Burke Blake, cover blurb. Because I could swear the luchador was called Blake Burke. And don’t get me started on Rana Shadna. I swear she’s a good friend of mine.
May 24th, 2023 at 12:14 pm
Never mind the black magic, when does the shirtless Phantom’s bullfight start?
Less frivolously, was this part of Dennis Wheatley’s series of “black magic” novels, which was quite a big deal in the UK in the ’60s and early ’70s? I didn’t know those had made it to the ‘States.
May 24th, 2023 at 12:57 pm
If you cajole your friends and relatives to pose for you, you can’t expect much in the way of “action” poses.
May 24th, 2023 at 1:51 pm
When cheapskates make Halloween costumes.
May 24th, 2023 at 2:29 pm
As Aleister Crowley said, ‘Do what thou wilt, even if you look silly as fuck doing it.’
May 24th, 2023 at 5:47 pm
Because it’s still easier to draw skulls than feet.
May 24th, 2023 at 6:42 pm
‘The Princess Bride’ was the Good Parts version; this is the rest.
May 24th, 2023 at 10:03 pm
@GSS: GSS! Love the song. 🎸
Burke Blake and Shadna Rana? Elliot sure liked him some similar names.
Besides evil sorcerers, did the hero have problems with bureaucracy, having either two first or two last names?
“Blake Burke?”
“No, Burke Blake.”
(under clerk’s breath) Berk, more like.”
The guys’ costumes look like they’re made out of parachutes. Polyester, not silk. No wonder the damsel looks so disappointed in them, and may be about to slowly exit stage left.
And GSS to, well, everyone. All the comments before mine are good.
@Max: When I only saw the title/blurb, I too thought it might be Dennis again. But his books had more colorful covers.
May 24th, 2023 at 10:36 pm
@GSSxN: To your keen observation of the troubles both characters are going to have with the Social Security Admin, both names seem incomplete: perhaps Burke Blake should actually be Burke Blake Burke — like William Carlos Williams without any poetry to the name at all. And the evil sorceress is close to a palindrome, which would be much cooler and Zatanna-like IMO: Shadna Randash.
Come to think of it, since any letter can go in the place of R for the palindrome, let’s make it an X: Shadna Xandash
May 24th, 2023 at 11:19 pm
For a second there I thought Good Show Sir was messing with us by showing one of those cover reenactments @GSS x-n shared a few years back (the shirt-over-the-head octo-monster was genius). This cover could have been accomplished using conference room tablecloths on 2 of 3 people in background, everyone else lined up in the foreground with “rictus grins” and, as @Cornelius mentioned, conveniently concealing footwear.
May 25th, 2023 at 10:59 pm
@Emster: Indeed, it could have been done! Find a girl in a similar costume (easy at a con), grab some flared trousers and purple covering, have the “skulls” all comb their hair back. I’d have volunteered to be a skull or the person peeking out of the tablecloth.
Yep, I can see it. Which proves that this is indeed a bad cover if it would be replicable in a suburban Marriott meeting room.
Got a suburban hotel
Got a suburban hotel
Got a suburban hotel
With a buffet on Sundays…
May 26th, 2023 at 12:44 am
so much depends
upon
a white sheet
costume
and a bored
damsel
beside the white
skulls
– Burke Blake Burke
May 26th, 2023 at 3:49 am
*snaps fingers*
May 26th, 2023 at 6:47 am
GSS, @Francis.
May 28th, 2023 at 11:57 am
Dammit, that’s what I love about this place. You can make a reference to a 50 year old Doctor Who episode or a classic of modernist poetry and be confident that people will understand!
May 28th, 2023 at 11:33 pm
@Francis: Seconded! All my favorite places get the jokes. My brother, who taught me many of the jokes, is living in a place where NO ONE does.
Once at a con, I went back to my hotel room with a friend to fetch something, and upon opening the door, the sun was pouring in, rendering everything blown out and shadowed. Including the mistakenly-delivered single roll-away bed. They’d put it standing upright, which meant all we saw was a dark rectangle, backlit by the August afternoon sun. While I stopped in confusion, my pal began humming “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, which I joined. We wheeled the monolith out to the end of the hallway (making ape noises) and I called housekeeping. All our friends were amused over dinner.
That’s why it’s important to be with people who Get the Joke.
Speaking of old DW, “Shadna Rana” sounds like a character from that era, doesn’t it?
May 29th, 2023 at 2:19 am
@GSS ex-noob: Madhav Sharma played Patel in ‘Frontier in Space’; Shirna was in ‘Carnival of Monsters’, both 1973. Rani Chandra was in ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures; forty years later.
May 30th, 2023 at 2:51 am
@Francis: GSS!
@GSSxN: brilliant story. Why has my business travel never been that good?
May 30th, 2023 at 3:02 am
@Tat: I knew you’d know. All I could think of was “that sounds like a Pertwee-era name”. Not to mention the famously unfinished “Shada”, and the Rani, under the respective Bakers.
Something must have been in the air in the mid-60s through mid-80s.
May 31st, 2023 at 2:59 pm
I thought of the Rani but that’s one of those things “we do not talk about”.
January 7th, 2024 at 3:57 pm
This looks like something you would have seen in ’60’s America if you happened to be watching a regional pro wrestling TV show. Heel in a mask, manager in a sheet, eye candy assistant.
January 7th, 2024 at 9:26 pm
@fred: I feel it would have been in B&W, and blurrier/out of focus. At least that’s how I remember it from my earliest youth, even when we had a color TV. You’d have had to adjust the rabbit ears, too.
But yes. That is a perfect description.
January 7th, 2024 at 10:13 pm
Ah, adjustable rabbit ears. Remember nearly electrocuting myself one time when I brought together the two antennae of a old (and clearly badly insulated) television. And then there was the little loop for the UHF channels, which was even more doubtful in how it could be adjusted.
Definitely has some old school wrestler vibes, although bringing along an assortment of skulls is going a bit above and beyond.