Primal Spillane Read online

  Who would ever believe him now? He looked down at his knife on the leather thong around his neck. He could show them that … but no, he could have found that anyplace.

  So he walked home with the sun about to go down behind him. The first person he saw was his mother who said, “Where have you been all day? Do you know what time it is? I’ve been worried sick.”

  Wardie looked at her and shrugged. “Why, mom? What could have happened to me on the beach?”

  THE END

  About the author and editors

  Lynn F. Myers, Jr.

  Lynn Myers has been a researcher for Max Collins for many years. A radio newsman, Myers has written about Spillane and his group of Spillane-style writers for Paperback Parade.

  Spillane and Collins

  Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins collaborated on numerous projects, including twelve anthologies, three films, and the Mike Danger comic book series.

  Spillane was the bestselling American mystery writer of the 20th century. He introduced Mike Hammer in I, the Jury (1947), which sold in the millions, as did the six tough mysteries that soon followed. The controversial P.I. has been the subject of a radio show, comic strip, and several television series, starring Darren McGavin in the 1950s and Stacy Keach in the ’80s and ’90s. Numerous gritty movies have been made from Spillane novels, notably director Robert Aldrich’s seminal film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and The Girl Hunters (1963), in which the writer played his own famous hero.

  Collins has earned an unprecedented twenty-three Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations, winning for the novels True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1993) in his Nathan Heller series, and for “So Long, Chief,” a Mike Hammer short story begun by Spillane and completed by Collins. His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award-winning Tom Hanks/Sam Mendes film. As a filmmaker in the Midwest, he has had half a dozen feature screenplays produced, including The Last Lullaby (2008), based on his innovative Quarry novels, also the basis of Quarry, a Cinemax TV series. As “Barbara Allan,” he and his wife Barbara write the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mystery series (recently Antiques Wanted).

  The Grand Master “Edgar” Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America, was presented to Spillane in 1995 and Collins in 2017. Both Spillane (who died in 2006) and Collins also received the Private Eye Writers life achievement award, the Eye.

  ***

  Comic Book Fillers

  “Trouble — Come and Get It,” 4Most Comics #2,

  Spring 1942

  “A Case of Poison Ivy,” in Blue Bolt, Vol 3 #1, June 1942

  “Clams Make the Man,” from Joker #2, June 1942

  “Creature of the Deep,” Target Comics, #27, May 1942

  “Fresh Meat for a Raider” from Sub-Mariner Comics #4, Winter 1941

  “The Curse of Tut Ken Amen,” Marvel Mystery Comics #34, August 1942

  “Flight Over Tokyo,” Human Torch #8, Summer 1942

  “Devil Cat,” Human Torch #7, Spring 1942

  “Jinx Heap,” Blue Bolt, Vol 2, #10, March 1942

  “Jap Trap,” Marvel Mystery Comics #33, July 1942

  “Killer’s Return,” Marvel Mystery Comics #31, May 1942

  “Man in the Moon,” from All Winners #6, Fall 1942

  “Scram, Bugs!” Marvel Mystery Comics #37, Nov. 1942

  “The Sea Serpent,” Sub-Mariner Comics #6, Summer 1942

  “The Ship In the Desert,” Marvel Mystery Comics #29, March 1942

  “Undersea Champion,” Target Comics #30, Aug. 1942

  “Woe Is Me!” Marvel Mystery Comics #36, Oct. 1942

  “Spook Ship,” Target Comics #33, Nov. 1942

  “Terror in the Grass,” Blue Bolt Vol 2, #12, May 1942

  “Tight Spot,” Sub-Mariner Comics #5, Spring 1942

  “Lumps of Death,” Marvel Mystery Comics #30, April 1942

  “Satan Himself!” Marvel Mystery Comics #35, Sep. 1942

  “Sky Busters,” Target Comics #34, Dec. 1942

  “Last Ride,” Marvel Mystery Comics #32, June 1942

  “The Sea of Grassy Death,” Marvel Mystery Comics #28, Feb. 1942

  “The Secret of the Wreck”

  “The Woim Toins,” All Winners Comics #5, Summer 1942

  “Woodsman’s Test,” 4Most Comics #3, Summer 1942

  “Fast Thinking,” Blue Bolt Vol 3, #2, July 1942

  “Death in the Sea,” Target Comics Vol. 3, #7, Sep. 1942

  “Phony Fish,” Joker #4, Nov. 1942

  “Goon With the Wind,” Joker #1, April 1942

  “Fighting Mad,” Blue Bolt Vol. 3, #7, Dec. 1942

  “No Prisoners,” Target Comics Vol. 3, #4, June 1942

  “Ill Wind,” Target Comics Vol 3, #8, Oct. 1942

  “Spy Paper,” Joker #3, September 1942

  “Target Terrors,” Target Comics Vol. 3, #5, July 1942

  “The Mouse Fights Back,” Blue Bolt Vol. 3, #6, Nov. 1942

  “A Shot in the Dark,” from Blue Bolt Vol. #3, #3, Aug. 1942

  “A Turn of the Tide,” first publication in Primal Spillane

  ***

  A Tip of Porkpie Hat

  The editors would like to thank the following people for supplying the stories collected in this volume. They include: Mickey Spillane, Jim Traylor, Jess Nevins, Jim Steranko, Denis Riley, Randy Scott and his team at the Special Collections Department at the University of Michigan, Doug Hodges, Mark and Judy Cooke, Richard Halegua, and Rich Harvey.

  Lastly, the editors would like to give a special thank you to Charles A. Bixler for taking the time to go through his massive collection of early comics and furnishing both lost stories and helping to put the finishing touches on the Spillane bibliography.

  The editors also wish to thank Jane Firestone and Erin Mohl who managed to assemble the final manuscript from photocopies, scans, and sometimes even the priceless original comic.

  A final and special thanks to Scott Beatty at Heritage Auctions, Christopher W. Boyko. and especially to Joseph C. Hsieh, for providing the original manuscript to “A Turn of the Tide.”

  ***

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