We're Back!!!

 It's been a crazy few years, but from today the Archive is back with regular posts - well, several a week at least. So pop back and check out the usual mix of interviews, reviews and wide ranging articles on every subject imaginable.

Coming up over the next few days, we'll be talking about rediscovering old books and asking are old musty paperbacks actually hazardous to your health. There'll also be the usual news and speculation - in short everything that made the Archive a must read blog for many thousands of readers.

Onwards we go.....

The blog with the Google tattoo

Dearly beloved we are gathered here today....

The blog is dead..it's official - Blogging is  so 2004.


"Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge." Wired 2008

"One trend that bloggers don’t want to talk about? A number of my blogging friends have seen their traffic go down lately. They assume that their readers are off in social networks. I think they are absolutely right." Copyblogger 2007

The blog is dead and has been for sometime now - as a marketing tool it has been overtaken by the social network sites like Facebook and Twitter and the punky attitude of the early days has been replaced by corporate blogging.

"So there are plenty of reasons to be depressed about the blogosphere. It hasn't quite lived up to its early promise of a place where new voices would be heard, where reasoned argument would take place - a kind of Athenian ideal of democracy. Like just about everything else that has emerged from the web in the last couple of decades it's messy, chaotic and imperfect. But then, so is democracy - and nobody has come up with anything better than that either. " THE VIRTUAL REVOLUTION

In a sense I think I agree that the blog is dead, at least the form that blogs took in their original incarnation, but like everything the blog has developed over the years and now comes in many shapes and sizes - I'm never really thought of the Tainted Archive as a blog, not really. I mean it is a blog - it must be since it's hosted by blogger but I've always looked at it as a magazine...a blogozine if you like. To me it is the natural progression to the fanzines we used to buy.

And whilst some of The Archive's content may be genuine shit and of interest to only a select few, I am proud of much of the Archive's content - I've tended to come at it from a different angle to traditional blogs - I couldn't give a toss about generating revenue from the Archive, I really couldn't. Of course I use it to market my own books but if you look at it as a whole it is a very small percentage of the blog's swollen archives that push my own books. I update several times a day and since the Archive went live in 2008,  the number of days when I haven't posted anything can be counted on one hand.

"I blog more than some tweeting twats twitter" Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin

And yet the news media still claim the blog is dead -Organisations and individuals are having to find new ways to get their message heard, and are turning to services such as Twitter and Facebook in their droves. That's all very well but f**k Twitter - we still need to write whole sentences otherwise one day our messages will be trimmed down to mere bytes. And besides I've not really got a message to get across - and it is a fact that the great majority of tweets link to a blog post.

I maintain the Archive because I enjoy it and, in some small way, I suppose it is an addiction...but a very benign addiction. And besides where else but a blog would you find an article like this illustrated by a cat wearing a watermelon? Now surely that makes it special!!!

So I don't care if the blog is dead - in fact I'll dance on its grave.

Declaration of War

It's been a busy week over here in Archive land - I've been out filming scenes set in high summer all week - all location work and just to make things interesting we've had to contend with fierce storms and temperatures that make one wish they were wearing thermals.

However things will be picking up around here this weekend - I've posted a scan from the November issue of Writer's News which features an article from Nik Morton, Black Horse Western writer and part of the editing team at Solstice Westerns - click on the image for a larger readable version. The magazine's on sale in British shops now.

And very soon we will be giving you all the details on the next Edge eBook, a double edged volume that will contain two excellent westerns from the legendary George G. Gilman. Also keep an eye on the online eZine, A Twist of Noir which will very soon publish a new short story from myself, a blackly comedic noir piece called, The Man with The Sun in his Eyes.

Free fiction to read in one sitting - can't be bad.

This weekend The Archive will also have a shocking report on the movement to have movies that feature tobacco use reclassified with an 18 certificate - this madness means that Bridget Jones' Diary and The Lord of the Rings are just two of the titles on the BBFC's list for possible  reclassification as adult movies because of tobacco use. Makes me want a pipe to calm my nerves - the over the top treatment of tobacco use has recently seen the BBC series Sherlock feature a modern day Sherlock Holmes who doesn't smoke his beloved pipe. And a photograph at a London Museum's Winston Churchill Exhibition caused fury when  the great leader's cigar was airbrushed out of history. We all know smoking is a dangerous habit but these health Nazis are a bunch of crack pots.

Political correctness has made common sense a thing of the past. If you catch a burglar in your house then it's probably best to help the poor soul by carrying your possessions to the front door lest he should trip up and hurt himself and it's you that end up in court! And the impact of the movement on popular culture is truly terrifying - It's getting beyond a joke, a film is made, upsets some group or individual, and the next thing is it's being pulled from release, re-dited, or hopefully at the very least, delayed until it all blows over. It seems you just have to complain about a film upsetting someone and the rest of the audience suffer. When the minority can dictate what the majority can and can't see, read and not read, hear and not hear even think and not think, what's the right in that?

The Archive has now officially declared war on political correctness and we will fight them on the blogs, on the websites -  we will never surrender and join them in their moronic, insufferable ways.

And so, "there's this Paddy, this Taffy and this Jock, all smoking a huge ciggie and...."

BEST OF THE TAINTED ARCHIVE - sort of

While surfing the wild west web I came across a great post on the Only Good Movies Blog - here the author has collected links of his best posts. I thought this was such a good idea that I've decided to do likewise and so here are links to what I consider some of the highlights:

A cracking interview with pulp Historian Laurie Powers - I'm proud of the introduction to this one.

How to emulate The Saint - This one worked rather well.

He only killed four men - Billy the Kid, Fred Nolan - need I say more.


The Saint comic strip - Not seen for decades and digitally published for the first time thanks to the author, Keith Chapman

James Bond and Beyond - an interview with Bond writer Raymond Benson

The music never really died - we show that Paul McCartney has done some cool stuff besides The Beatles of course

Wild West Monday - The western fiction initiative

Yondering Man- we were proud to interview the son of Louis L'amour

The book business is in deep shit - we spoke to horror master, Shaun Hutson

London confidential - we spoke with the new king of British crime Mark Billingham

The Apache - we went all historical for this article

The Sheriff and the Widow by Chap O'keefe - we published the long out of print classic novel in full. This is part one but all four parts can be located in the sidebar of this blog.

Battle picture weekly - I wax lyrical about my fave childhood comic

Of course there were so many more great interviews - Lance Howard, Ian Parnham, Ian Dickerson to name but a few - just type interviews into the search box and you'll find the almost three dozen interviews the Tainted Archive have carried out. And there are scores of articles that may take your fancy so take a browse.

But remember the best is yet to come

2009 JUNE - DEC

Continuing our look back at the Archive year.

The big news for June was the publication of my debut western, The Tarnished Star. The novel had been sitting at the top of the Amazon pre-orders for westerns for the best part of four months. And I was nervous as people started receiving their books - thankfully the feedback was good and I was interviewed on many websites. The month also saw a Jack Martin weekend on the Blasck Horse forum and I spent an enjoyable few days answering questions. I did a book signing at my local Borders and was dismayed to find gaps in their usually packed shelves. As the year went on the gaps would become wider. The month saw the death of Michael Jackson and the Archive gave its own tribute to the troubled singer.

The big news in July was the first stirrings of a UK version on the Kindle. And in the western genre we had the launch of a new paperback imprint, BHE Books - western author Chap O'keefe had decided to launch his own imprint to allow him greater creative freedom. The Tarnished Star reviews kept coming and the Archive featured a student movie I'd starred in - Kenny Constricted. Marcus Galloway and James D Best were interviewed to keep up the western flavour. And silent movies were the order of the day with the Archive reviewing a number of Chaplin films as well as several Laurel and Hardy movies and the odd Harold Lloyd. And we posted the winners of the Bristol Short Story Prize. It was great to see a western amongst the winning entries - The Archive was thanked for its support of the competition with a free copy of the wonderful anthology. And we also launched a new social network for western fans.

August -Saw the announcement that Disney were to buy Marvel. The Archive ran a Paul McCartney feature which argued that he wasn't just the sloppy one. We also interviewed Chantel Foster who at age sixteen saw a story accepted for the Fistful of Legends Anthology - truly remarkable that one so young should feature alongside such seasoned western scribes. Well done Chantel. Horror master Shaun Hutson popped in for a chat and we looked at the history of horror magazines in the UK. Elsewhere the excitement for A Fistful of Legends grew as a full line up was announced which included yours truly with a story called, The Gimp. We ended the month with an interview with president of the Western Writers of America Johnny D Boggs. We were saddened this month to hear of the death after a long illness of western legend, Elmer Kelton.

September saw the Archive investigating the Jack the Ripper case. And we posted scans of some rare old comic books. The big thing this month was our Saint Weekend which saw us interview many luminaries connected in one way or another to The Saint. We also ran the digital first publication of an old Saint strip by Keith Chapman AKA Chaps O'keefe and the hits went through the roof. The big media news this month was the release of The Beatles past cataloug in new remastered format. The Archive were well impressed and there were many Beatle centric posts.

October saw 128 posts in total - the greatest majority of them western based. There was a lack of interviews this month but we did manage to talk to Nik Morton about the Fistful of Legends anthology. The news was given about our upcoming Sherlock Holmes weekend and in a major feature we asked, What's so good about these Black Horse westerns? The cover image for Arkansas Smith was posted for the first time. And overall the month was filled with varied items on popular culture. It was noted that the eBooks news was increasing as the Ereaders became more and more popular. The Archive also bemoaned the demise of Borders which we felt was on the way to destruction.

November - saw the Sherlock Holmes weekend repeat the success of the earlier Saint weekend. So successful were these two ventures that Jan 2010 will see the Black Horse Western weekend - believe me there is much to look forward to here. We interviewed Lee Walker and talked about his debut western - Gun Law which I'd had on preorder from Amazon for some months. The book did not disappoint and will be reviewed on the ARchive during the Black Horse weekend. We also interviewed the editor of the Commando comic book range Calum Laird and David Whitehead who writes for the line was also questioned. And of course no little thing but November saw another successful Wild West Monday. There'll be another some time in 2010.

December - saw us interview James Bond author, Raymond Benson. As well as post more news on the Fistful of Legends anthology - we even ran a special offer which you can still take advantage of....

To find any of the past year's features either look in the sidebar or type the required material in the search box at the top of the blog. I hope you enjoy looking back at the Archive's 2009.

Which leads us to... The future of the Archive. I hope the Archive continues to develop as a sort of mixture of a blog and a magazine - a blogozine so to speak. I hope to provide content that equals much of the paid for content out there. You regular readers can help by telling me what you like in the comments to this post.

Here's to the future....2010 and beyond

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Archive is taking a break for one week only and will return on Wed 23rd September, fully refreshed and ready to go. Today is the 16th September and already there has been 83 posts this month so there's plenty to read while we're gone. And if you missed the digital publishing first which was the publication on this blog of Keith Chapman's ultra rare Saint strip then check it out now.
Part 2
Part 1







Over the next few hours there'll be a new video promo going up in the sidebar which will link to this strip.

When the Archive returns October will be perilously close and we start a month of nothing but western posts leading up to the next Wild West Monday in November - so there's plenty to plan while the Archive is away. And soon we'll be gearing up for the launch of Arkansas Smith, my follow up to the successful Tarnished Star.

There'll also be news of the next THEMED WEEKEND - This time it's the Black Horse Western Range and we'll have an insane amount of interviews and features running over the weekend. You think The Saint weekend was busy - you ain't seen nothing yet.

Me I'll be using the time to finish up my contacted commission for BBC Books and also trying to get to the final stages of It's High Noon, Boyo (working title only) which will probably end up going under the title of, A Policeman's Lot. I've promised myself there'll be no internet use for a week - I've just got to get some work done.

So that's it - be here in 7 for more of the same

STATS, THE SAINT WEEKEND

The Saint weekend has been a massive success - including overnight hits from Sun thru Mon - there has been well over a thousand visits. And although it's a lot of work I have further themed weekends planned. I think of the Archive as more of a online magazine than a typical blog and it's certainly become that - an interactive magazine. Future themed weekends planned include John Wayne, Film Noir, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and whatever else pops into mind. The next themed weekend will be a Black Horse Western special in which I'm hoping to cajole many BHW authors to contribute something for your enjoyment. That will take place during October's run up to the next Wild West Monday.

Thursday this week will see the Archive closing down for one week only - I've got a commission to finish and need to concentrate on the MSS alone, I will not be firing up the Internet connection at all, but the Archive will be back the following Wednesday, refreshed and ready to go.

But we've got a packed few days ahead of us including on Wednesday the latest instalment of the Story with no name.


Weekly Stats Report: 7 Sep - 13 Sep 2009
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	351	277	330	416	360	296	590	2,620	374
Unique Visitors	219	169	195	234	221	174	336	1,548	221
First Time Visitors	175	131	165	179	161	140	290	1,241	177
Returning Visitors	44	38	30	55	60	34	46	307	44

We're celebrating

Yep - today saw The Archive get its one hundredth follower - not bad for a blog which only started a little over a year ago and is these days becoming essential reading for a great many people. I'm pleased that my mixture of news, reviews, humour,self promotion, interviews and oddities are pleasing you folks. I do try my best, hoping to provide a kind of on-line magazine.

The Archive's 100th follower is:

And so thanks to Moonlight Mesa, a independent western publisher, for helping the Archive reach this milestone. Check them out on the Wild West Web HERE. They have just published their first two western books.

And now let's head towards 200 and beyond.