At Ectomo, John Brownlee has launched an investigation into those books from the former East Germany* that concern the heroic exploits of truck drivers.
Note the fleeing children. Each is rendered with the garish ineptitude of a palsied Mört Drücker, and each reacts to the crushing onslaught of Der Katastrophen Truck with bizarre discordance. Perhaps most understandable of all their reactions, the eyes of the first child seem drawn to the hovering ghostly head -- as massive as the sun -- of who I can only imagine to be Der Katastrophen Trucker-King himself, Michael Connors.
*Allegedly.
DDR Pulps [Ectomo]
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While it's a nice cover, this certainly isn't from the (now former) East Germany, but from the western part of the country. The price is in DM (Deutsche Mark, the western currency). The cover also lists prices for France, Italy etc, -- not something that East German publications would typically do. Plus, Bastei is a well-known Western German publisher of this sort of stuff.
Those are West German. The fact that they are listed as having a price in 'DM' makes that clear. Also, Bastei is a West German publisher.
This is definitely a west german product. Bastei was famous for flooding the market with all kinds of pulp.
Haha, I remember this stuff. It was also called 'dime novels' (Groschenromane), some of it was fun to read! Has nothing to do with "former East Germany/DDR", though.
* Not from East Germany (DDR) Not even allegedly. Price is in DM= West German .
West Germany has (had?) a trucker obsession. Check out Tom Astor. Hallo, guten Morgen Deutschland. 1984.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYGIKjNne7E
This publishing house (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastei_Lübbe_Verlag) has been in West Germany forever, absolutely no connection to the DDR. They are most famous for a) vampire pulp fiction (John Sinclair etc) and b) cheap erotic pulp fiction, both sold in about every train station in Germany as well as in some kiosks.
Actually Bastei is a west-german publisher. And it clearly says "DM" (west-german money ) at the bottom.
If you are interested in actual bizzare DDR (East German) pulp, check out the DEFA (Communist state run film agency) movie "The Sons of Great Bear". It's a Western done from the standpoint of the Indians. No actual Amerinds in the cast, as not many of them lived behind the Iron Curtain, but a vaguely Asian-looking Serbian played the main character.
Just in case not enough evidence that this is most definitely not from the DDR has been pointed out: DDR publications would never list prices for Switzerland/Austria/France/Italy/Netherlands/Spain.
Also is it just me or does this manly trucker-figure look like a pedophile to anyone else? Maybe the truck is a symbol for...
Nope, not going there.
There are a lot of good people out there whose job happens to be in trucking. But despite that, every single media portrayal of them that I've ever seen was either corny or made the truckers appear universally simple-minded. It seems the corniness, at least, transcends culture.
Trucker Uhr, der es will?
As always, Mr. Brownlee commenting is spectacularly funny,
The tiny flying dragon is a nice touch. And the kids all appear to be on the brink of falling down.
hi,
here ar all of the 250 issues collected:
http://trivialitas.tr.ohost.de/trucker/trucker.htm
cheers
jesse
aka
www.media-digest.com
I find it ironic how boingboing authors take the time to criticize 'mainstream journalism' on a daily basis, yet are guilty of exactly the same follies as their print/radio/tv counterparts. All you had to do is read the cover.