Month: August 2019

Sleeping In

Hack wrote this novel as a jab at his cover artists Jonny M., who missed a production meeting with him because he chose to sleep in instead. Jonny screwed Hack over by depicting himself on the cover in bed with Hack’s biggest celebrity crush Linda Ronstadt. As soon as Hack saw the picture, he had an immediate nervous breakdown and was institutionalized for four months where he had to endure a rigorous healing regimen that saw him rise at 4:00 a.m. while Jonny was sleeping in until noon. Hack has never mentioned the book since and if it is offered to him at book signings, he slaps it out of the person’s hand and insists that he never wrote it.

The Dog was on the Bed

Hack’s output was so great by 1970 (often finishing a dozen novels a week) that his publisher John Kane suggested that he write under a pseudoym for the “romance novel” division of his company, Pierrot Romances. Hack wrote 17 titles under the pen name “Helen Bedd” until Kane finally determined that there was no market amongst his female readership for Hack’s angry depiction of anal sex.

The Magic Carpet

This is a unique title in Hack’s collected works because it’s a wholesome kid’s book in which there is no sex whatsoever. It’s actually a pretty adorable takeoff on “The Arabian Nights” which fell flat on its face because his devoted readership bought Hack Werker novels for scenes of anal sex, not cutesy-poo adventures on a flying carpet. Hack later disowned the book, claiming that he only wrote it to impress a nursery school teacher that he wanted to have anal sex with.

Amazon Warriors

Hack became obsessed with the idea of Amazon warriors watching the old “Wonder Woman” TV show with Lynda Carter. The producers were going to sue Hack for plagiarism (the novel is a blatant rip-off of the show) but they reached a compromise and loosely based the third season two-part episode “Phantom of the Roller Coaster” on the book instead. The TV version is way better than the book.

Invasion of the Mondays

Hack’s infrequent stabs at the sci-fi genre are surprisingly pretty good. This cover went into more detail than usual because a fan bought the book “Jonny’s Birthday,” the cover of has literally nothing to do with the contents and the guy tried to sue Hack for a billion dollars in damages. They settled on an autographed headshot and one of Hack’s used Kleenex (the guy collected celebrity used Kleenex).

The Man-Bun

This was written during an unfortunate period when Hack was convinced that women love man-buns. His own hair was too thin at that point to even attempt the look so he glued the carcass of a rat he dug out from behind a pizza oven to simulate it. Chicks turned out not to dig it.

Shanty Town Scum

This was written in response to a gang of teenagers at the arcade in the Shakey’s Pizza Parlor where Hack works as a janitor taunting him for being a loser. In the novel, the hero drives low-lifes out of town. In real life, the kids put bottle rockets in the toilets Hack was paid to clean.