2blowhards.com: 1000 Words — Gold Medal Books

2blowhards.com: 1000 Words — Gold Medal Books:
What if you could trace the French New Wave, Sam Peckinpah, cyberpunk, “Pulp Fiction,” “Mulholland Drive,” and “Sin City” back to one business gamble taken by a third-tier publisher in 1949? In fact, you can, and without being guilty of too much overstatement. A little, sure, but not that much.

The publisher was Roscoe Kent Fawcett of Fawcett Publications, and his gamble was to try something no one else had tried before. He decided to publish original novels in paperback. In 1950, his new line of paperback originals was launched. It was called Gold Medal Books, and it became not just a tremendous commercial success but a culture-shaping one too.

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and i learn something new every day….