--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "foxbrick"
<foxbrick@...> wrote:
>
> The only Curt Cannon-signed fiction I've read was
also about the
> character Curt Cannon. Did Hunter also use the name
on non-Cannon
> (unCannonical) fiction?
>
> Todd Mason
I am not aware of any fiction published under the Curt Cannon
byline that did not feature the character Curt Cannon.
The character originated in that great hardboiled digest
magazine Manhunt. However, you will search in vain for the
name Curt Cannon in Manhunt. The stories were published under
the name Evan Hunter and at the time of their first
appearance, the character was named Matt Cordell. By the time
1958 rolled around and Gold Medal reprinted the stories in I
LIKE THEM TOUGH and published the novel I'M CANNON--FOR HIRE,
a funny thing happened to the byline Evan Hunter. In 1953 it
was perhaps the most common name used by a young writer born
Salvadore A. Lombino. He used it on mysteries and science
fiction. Then the movie "The Blackboard Jungle" was made from
his novel of the same name and immediately the name Evan
Hunter had value.
So the Matt Cordell stories by Evan Hunter became Curt Cannon
stories by Curt Cannon. An excellent short novel published in
the science fiction magazine IF by Evan Hunter became
TOMORROW'S WORLD (aka TOMORROW AND TOMORROW) by Hunt Collins.
It's been years since I read this novel but it was my
introduction to this writer when I was in high school and it
blew me away.
Hunt Collins was one of Hunter's favorite bylines. I am
looking at Manhunt's issue for September 1953 that has a Matt
Cordell story ("The Death of Me") by Evan Hunter and short
stories by Hunt Collins and Richard Marsten. Back around
1982, Michelle Slung set up a series of evening presentations
by mystery writers for the Smithsonian Institute. Given the
status mystery writers now have, it is not easy to remember
that most of this attention is a recent thing. I attended
that series and when Hunter's turn came I took along my copy
of that September 1953 issue. Hunter cheerfully signed it
Evan Hunter, Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins and Ed McBain, all
of whom had thrived in Manhunt. It was one of the best paying
magazines and it also seemed to favor Scott Meredith
clients--and Hunter worked for that agency for a time. As I
look at my issues of Manhunt, Hunter under his various names
appears in issue after issue.
I respect how Hunter managed to cobble together a living when
he was just another ex-GI scrambling for editors' attention.
Well below the payscale and respect of Manhunt were the pulp
magazines edited by Robert Lowndes. Lowndes is renowned in
science fiction circles for managing interesting issues on a
very limited budget. The same is true of his pulps Famous
Detective Stories and Smashing Detective Stories. Lowndes'
top rate was 1 cent a word and the average was less. He still
managed contributions from top writers.
One of the series characters in Lowndes' Famous Detective
Stories is Guthrie Lamb, a milk-drinking, .45 carrying
private eye in a series of stories by Hunt Collins. In one of
the neater things I can remember, Hunter did a reprise of the
Guthrie Lamb character. He was writing one of his Matthew
Hope novels and needed a private eye character. It would have
been easy to spin one up fresh and new but instead, Hunter
recalled Guthrie Lamb and brought him back. Lamb had aged the
appropriate number of years but still packed the unlikely .45
caliber automatic in a shoulder holster.
I daydreamed about approaching Hunter about reprinting the
old stories but he died about the time the daydream was born.
Perhaps one day they will be reprinted.
Richard Moore
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