Obsessive Compulsions: John Shaft

"Hey, man," Shaft said with weariness and exasperation. "What is this bullshit?"

The glint of metal became a blossom of flame, a bouquet of orange and vermilion thunder flowers. But only for the shortest moment known to man, that moment before dying.

Those are the final lines of Ernest Tidyman’s The Last Shaft, published in 1975. The end of the line for the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about. But you can’t keep a good cat down…

[Cover art by Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz]

I've written about my lifelong obsession with Shaft many, many times before, so I’ll try not to cover the same ground here. But that doesn't preclude me from expressing my delirious excitement that Shaft is BACK! Not only are Dynamite Entertainment bringing all seven of Ernest Tidyman’s novels back into print (They Are Great! Buy Them All!), but a whole new cycle of John Shaft stories are about to begin in a series written by David F. Walker and illustrated by artist Bilquis Evely. As someone with a complete run of the original Shaft novels and an almost complete print run of Walker’s BadAzz MoFo magazine, I have no doubt that he is absolutely the right man for the job and I can’t wait to get my hands on some brand new Shaft. The man entrusted with continuing the legacy of Ernest Tidyman’s creation talks a little bit about what he has planned in an interview at Comic Book Resources here.

I’m positive I’m not the only one happy about the rebirth of an icon. I recently discovered that writer Steve Aldous has been working on a book provisionally called The Complete Guide to Shaft. He talks about the book and his research in fascinating detail at The Rap Sheet here.

But there’s more! Kimberly Lindbergs wrote about photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks for the Movie Morlocks recently here, discussing not only Shaft, but also Parks’ achievements as a photographer, accompanied by a selection of some of Parks’ greatest photographs. And there’s also a selection of pieces about both Gordon Parks Senior and Junior that tied into a recent season on TCM in the US. Start here with the one on Shaft by Richard Harland Smith and click through to the rest of them from there.

This is the dawn of a new golden age for this inveterate Shaft fan. Right on...