Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942

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The winter of 1940 was a rough time for twenty-two-year-old aspiring writer, Frank Morrison Spillane. After giving up college at the end of his second year due to money problems, Spillane went to work in a department store — the bargain basement, selling neckties. What was a guy to do? The Great Depression may have been winding down, but jobs were still hard to come by, and the front pages of newspapers shouted stories of the war in Europe, now in its second year. Spillane knew that most likely he, and all his buddies, would be in combat before long.

Till then, a guy had to eat.

But selling ties wasn’t Mickey Spillane’s preferred mode of turning a buck. Storytelling was his line, ever since he “scared the hell” out of other kids, around the campfire on the beach where he was a lifeguard.

Spillane had written professionally even before college; and he wanted to get back to that now — preferably as a staff writer with some publication or other, where he could develop his writing skills further. A pal of Spillane’s — Ray Gill — had already landed at Funnies Inc., a comic book “packager.” The company rounded up writers, artists, colorists, and letterers to feed the publishers of a new craze — comic books.

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