Tamil pulp fiction anthology

Posted by Cory Doctorow, August 22, 2008 4:59 AM | permalink

Sudarshan sez, "The Tamil language, widely spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu in south India, has a large body of pulp fiction. But it hasn't been available to non-Tamil speakers, until now. A new publishing house, Blaft translated a bunch of these stories and published an representative anthology of the stuff. I loved the book myself when I read it (I raved about it on my blog). The book has gone on to be one of the big successes of the year in India, and they're thinking of bringing out a sequel, and similar anthologies for pulp in other languages. " The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction (Thanks, Sudarshan!)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by HenKaiPan , August 22, 2008 5:46 AM

Spectacular cover!

Looks as if Kyle Baker inked and designed pencils by Howard Chaykin

I wonder if that style is not unusual in contemporary Tamil graphic design? Anyone know? I want more.

Baker and Chaykin were very unusual in comics in the 90s for their mixed media, computer assisted near-collage comic art, and are still distinctive today.

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#2 posted by Arun Jiwa , August 22, 2008 7:34 AM

It's awesome to see the pop lit. from home(for me) being plugged on BoingBoing.

@Henkaipan, the style on the cover is very much what goes around on the covers of the tamil pulps. My copy of the book doesn't indicate that it's from one of the stories, so it could be an original.

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#3 posted by Arun Jiwa , August 22, 2008 7:36 AM

Oh, and from the back cover:

MAD SCIENTISTS! HARD-BOILED DETECTIVES!
VENGEFUL GODDESSES! MURDEROUS ROBOTS!
SCANDALOUS STARLETS! DRUG-FUELED LOVE AFFAIRS!

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#4 posted by melissa , August 22, 2008 8:11 AM

this looks SO COOL!

thanks for the heads up, i'm totally going to get this.

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#5 posted by NidSquid , August 22, 2008 10:56 AM

I just ordered this - it looks like a terrifically fun read. Thanks for the post. LOVE the front cover.

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#6 posted by rakesh_blaft , August 23, 2008 2:10 AM

The cover illustration was commissioned for the book from a Chennai artist named Shyam, who does regular work for book covers and for the Tamil weekly magazines. The rest of the design was done by Malavika.PC who photoshopped it up a bit.

Also, there's 16 pages of color Tamil pulp cover art reproductions inside the book.

Thanks for the plug! (I'm the editor) Hope you all enjoy!

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#7 posted by error404 , August 23, 2008 8:55 AM

@ #1 HenKaiPan

Abso,lutely bang ion.

that is exactly what I thought when I saw the cover.

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#8 posted by quantumage , August 24, 2008 11:03 AM

Oddly enough, when you call the support number for the Indian publishing house, you are transferred to a call center in Alabama where someone answers your call in sleepy, heavily accented English.

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#9 posted by billtheburger , August 26, 2008 5:17 AM

i supply the libraries in the uk with Tamil titles and until today i thought every Tamil book we got was a Romance novel due to the artwork on the cover.
in future i shall classify them as general