Prose – About Comics

Grab It!

by Sol Weinstein and Howard Albrecht

Marty Mulvane is a small-town boy with dreams of a literary career and a lust for bigger things… and also women. New York of the 1970s seems just the place to fulfill all of his desires, but Manhattan women and big-tme publishing both take him down paths he never expected. When opportunity presents itself, what can he do but… Grab It!?

Weinstein and Albrecht’s final novel together is their first new work in decades.

Paperback : 196 pages, 6″x9″
ISBN-10 : 1949996166
ISBN-13 : 978-1949996166

Get it now from Amazon, or special order it at your favorite indie bookshop!

FanMail ’66

The year was 1966, and the world was going crazy over the wham-socko superhero action that had leapt out from the comic books and onto the TV. With the internet yet to be invented, the fans of the day turned to their stationary pads and whipped off letters to the hero and to those who told his story, sending praise, complaints, questions and requests to the TV show and to the comic books. Best-selling book creator Bill Adler sifted through the letters and came up with the funniest, putting them out in a paperback that still draws praise to this day. Michael Eury’s new book Hero-a-Go-Go! says it’s a “brisk but deliriously engrossing read” and “the ultimate feel-good book”. Chris Sims at ComicsAlliance.com has called it “one of the single best pieces of Bat-ephemera,” and Al Bigley of Big Glee! told readers to “get ready to laugh!” But sadly, the book has been out of print for about half a century.

If this were anything but a press release, the story would end right there. But lucky for you, dear reader, this is a press release and we do not do such things just to depress you. No! We do such things to get you to spend money, and toward that end we are announcing a brand new reprinting of the same ol’ book under a bold new title: FanMail ’66. Now you can thrill to those mirthful missives and crusading correspondence of yesteryear, and we can thrill to getting a share of the $9.99 it will cost you!

Bill Adler created collections of kids’ letters to presidents (About Comics has already reprinted his Kids’ Letters to President Kennedy and Dear President Johnson), campers’ letters home, and fans letters to the objects of their adulation, whether that be the Beatles, the Monkees, or the Mets. He hit best-seller lists with books ranging from a collection to JFK’s humor (The Kennedy Wit) to the whodunnit Who Killed the Robins Family?

FanMail ’66 (ISBN-13: 978-1-936404-71-1) is a 128 page black-and-white paperback, 5″x8″, with a cover price of $9.99.

Order from Amazon!

Reality-Adjacent

14 short tales from the off-kilter viewpoint of Nat Gertler. There’s the young growing werewolf, the hardboiled space detective, the world that’s defined by pop music, the man whose love life is dictated by his tattoos. This includes four stories that have never seen print before, as well as ten favorites previously published in publications big and small.

List Price: $5.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
90 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1461011651
ISBN-10: 1461011655
BISAC: Fiction / Short Stories

Order Reality-Adjacent in from Amazon in paperback or for your Kindle.

The Origin of Sorrow

by Robert Mayer

It was a time of love, of struggle, of hope, of worship, of the birth of dynasties and the crushing affliction of hatred…

In the 1770s, the Jews of Frankfurt are trapped, both physically by the walls of the ghetto within which they must dwell, and in a larger sense by the rules of a society in which they are outcasts, legally debased and barely suffered to live.

And yet within those confines they find life, in all its glories and tragedies. This is the story of young Guttle, whose sweet face and curves could win her any man in her little world, but whose keen mind demands the best. It is the tale of Meyer Rothschild, who knows all the ways of the business world but discovers the ways of the heart. It is a tale of love and lust, of murder and betrayal, of holy works and unholy schemes, of bakers and brigands, of hope and of ruin. This is a novel, both amusing and sad, that will grace your bookshelf for generations – a book you will want your children to read and discuss as they reach maturity.

List Price: $19.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
578 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1936404094
ISBN-10: 1936404095
BISAC: Fiction / Historical / General

Order The Origin of Sorrow from Amazon in paperback or for your Kindle.

Loxfinger

by Sol Weinstein

Israel Bond may seem like a simple-if-sexy salesman for Mother Margolies’ Old World Chicken Soup, but when the Holy Land needs his skills – his quickness with a pun, his second-to-none semitic seduction techniques, and (if absolutely necessary) his abilities at actual espionage – then the man known by the code name Oy-Oy-7 (licensed not only to kill, but to say prayers over the corpse) is there to do what needs be done. In a land surrounded by its enemies, Oy-Oy-7 is called on to guard the nation’s great benefactor, the generous but odd Lazarus Loxfinger. Is there more to Loxfinger than meets the eye? Bond aims to find out, even if doing so requires sleeping with dozens of exotic beauties!

In the mid-1960s, when Playboy was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with the rollicking adventures of Israel’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the Chicago Tribune called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, all four books in the Israel Bond series are now back in new editions!

List Price: $9.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
116 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1936404100
ISBN-10: 1936404109
BISAC: Fiction / Humorous

Order the Loxfinger paperback, Kindle edition, or Audible audiobook from Amazon.

Matzohball

by Sol Weinstein

Things are really smoking on the island of El Tiparillo when the Holy Land’s superest, secretest agent Israel Bond is called to wield his weaponized mezuzah to save innocent lives and formerly-innocent beautiful lasses in the midst of rebellion. Will he manage to fend off the assassins, the vicious wildlife, and the mysterious Herbie while seducing the island’s wide array of fascinating and exotic women… or will it be the other way around? With Soviet spymaster General Bolshyeeyit, the insidious Dr. Nu, Rotten Roger, and “The Man with the Golden Gums” all on his tuchis, things will not be easy for Oy-Oy-7, licensed not only to kill but also to say prayers over the body…

In the mid-1960s, when Playboy was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with the rollicking tales of Israel’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the Chicago Tribune called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, all four books in the Israel Bond series are back in new editions!

List Price: $9.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
126 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1936404117
ISBN-10: 1936404117
BISAC: Humor / Form / Parodies

Order Matzohball in paperback or for your Kindle from Amazon.

On the Secret Service of His Majesty, the Queen

by Sol Weinstein

It’s dire times for Israeli intelligence agency M 33 and 1/3. Auntie Sem-Heidt and her sinister agents of TUSH have been killing off Hebrew agents, as part of a devious plan to eradicate Jewish culture at its base. And in the midst of this, turmoil, super agent Israel Bond finds himself stuck with the job of protecting Baldroi LeFagel, the half-arab and all-fabulous new King of Sahd Sakistan. Will the Star of David-lovin’ Agent Oy-Oy-7 be willing to handle all of the crosses needed for this assignment (crossing physical boundaries, moral boundaries, and even cross-dressing), or will all this mishugas leave him cross-eyed and just plain cross?

ABOUT ISRAEL BOND, AGENT OY-OY-7: In the mid-1960s, when PLAYBOY was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with the rollicking tales of Israel’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the CHICAGO TRIBUNE called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, all four books in the Israel Bond series are back in new editions!

List Price: $12.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
170 pages

About Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1936404124
ISBN-10: 1936404125
BISAC: Fiction / Jewish

You Only Live Until You Die

by Sol Weinstein

All good things must come to an end… and few things are gooder than Agent Oy-Oy-7, the hero of the Holy Land. When Israel Bond is drawn to Japan, he finds himself lost in a culture of miniaturized cars, oversized Buddhas, and danger around every tight turn. But what will spell the end of Oy-Oy-7? Will it be the deadly price of his high-stakes game of Monopoly? Will he go at the hands of the villain who got away in one of his earlier, affordable adventures? Might an oversized shellfish cause a doom both untimely and unkosher? Or could it be a fatal seduction by the delectible Miss Kopy Katz, Xerox’s learned mistress in the art of reproduction? Does Oy-Oy-7 end with a whimper or a bang? If both, who is whimpering, and who is banging? Read, and find out!

About Israel Bond – Oy-Oy-7: In the mid-1960s, when Playboy was serializing the adventures of the world’s most famous superspy, they interspersed them with the rollicking tales of Israel’s most hilarious weapon, Israel Bond. After the book editions of what the Chicago
Tribune called “probably the funniest secret agent parodies ever written” had sold over a million copies, they were allowed to fall out of print. Decades later, all four books in the Israel Bond series are back in new editions!

List Price: $14.99

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
160 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1936404131
ISBN-10: 1936404133
BISAC: Humor / Form / Parodies

Order You Only Live Until You Die in paperback or for Kindle from Amazon!

The Israel Bond Omnibus

All four of Sol Weinstein’s classic Israel Bond Oy-Oy-7 spy parodies under one cover for the first time. Loxfinger; Matzohball; On the Secret Service of His Majesty, the Queen; You Only Live Until You Die – thousands of laughs apiece, cheap humor that’s even cheaper in bulk!

List Price: $29.95

6″ x 9″ (15.24 x 22.86 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
560 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1936404148
ISBN-10: 1936404141
BISAC: Humor / Form / Parodies

Order The Israel Bond Omnibus from Amazon.

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang

Edited by Captain Billy Fawcett, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and World War I, this complete facsimile edition of the February, 1922 issue of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang featuring a collection of humorous prose, poetry, and essays on the carefree life was the racy magazine for libertines in its day. From its opening description of Cuba as “the land of liberty” through the jokes littered with the situations, slang, and bigotries of the day, this book serves as a fascinating time capsule of what great great grampa’s world was like. Entertaining and educational, Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang is a lively piece of pop culture history, living up to both its masthead description as “America’s Magazine of Wit, Humor, and Filosophy” and its cover motto, “Explosion of Pedigreed Bunk.”

List Price: $6.99

5.25″ x 7.63″ (13.335 x 19.38 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
66 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0979075032
ISBN-10: 0979075033
BISAC: Humor / General

Order Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang from Amazon!