The “penny dreadful” was the name given to an incredible publishing phenomenon that flourished in Victorian Britain between the mid-1830s and the early 1900s. The penny dreadful or “penny blood” was a luridly illustrated booklet or magazine—usually of some sixteen pages in length—filled with sensationalist tales of highwaymen, murderers, cannibals, bounders, vagabonds, vampires and thieves. 

The first known penny dreadful was published on Saturday April 30th, 1836 under the title The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads and Murderers. The cover featured a fight between a gang of ne’er-do-wells—led by Grimes Bolton, a notorious robber and cannibal—and a group of gamekeepers. The success of The Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads and Murderers led to an unprecedented range of similar publications which reached their height around the mid-1860s.

Originally penny dreadfuls focussed on thrilling tales of adventure but through time these fell out of fashion as the audience demanded increasingly lurid stories. These magazines hit pay-dirt with tales of true crime (Jack the Ripper being the best known subject) and grotesque fantasies of such creations as the murderous Sweeney Todd—the Demon Barber of Fleet Street; the bloodthirsty Varney the Vampire or the demonic urban legend of Spring-Heeled Jack—The Terror of London.

The penny dreadful ushered in a new era of publishing—launching a whole range of magazines and periodicals that benefitted from new printing technology and from the markets opened up by the penny dreadful. Political and educational serial publications similarly benefitted from the pioneering work of penny dreadfuls. But it wasn’t all money-making business. Before the Education Act of 1870 introduced free education for all, the penny dreadful can take some credit for encouraging generations of young men and women to read.

As tastes changed, the penny dreadful dropped in popularity—the now literate audience wanted more nuanced and stimulating tales. However, the genres it launched (horror, detective and true-life crime) continued and flourished under writers like Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells.
 

 
More pages from penny dreadfuls, after the jump…

 
So take a moment to remember all the gender variant people who have been killed in the past 12 months just for being who they are: Idania Roberta Sevilla Raudales, Luisa Alvarado Hernandez, Lady Oscar Martinez Salgado, Reana ‘Cheo’ Bustamente, Genesis Briget Makaligton, Krissy Bates (pictured), Alice Ferg, Tyra Trent, Priscila Brandao, Marcal Camero Tye, Shakra Harahap, Miss Nate Nate Daivs, Lashal Mclean, Didem, Camila Guzman, Gaby, Gaurav Gopalan, Ramazan Cetin, Shelley Hillard, Jesica Rollon, Astrid Carolina Lopez Cruz, Chassity Nathan Vickers, and the countless more un-named or unidentified murder victims (from the Transgender DOR website).

In their memory, and for all the gender variant people putting up with close-minded shit every single day, here’s Jayne County performing “Are You Man Enough To Be A Woman?” from the Japanese documentary New York Underground:
 

 
The LAPD are on the hunt for a man who fled down the fire escape from his penthouse in downtown Los Angeles ala ‘Jason Bourne’ leaving weapons, counterfeiting equipment, and passports in various names. From the Los Angeles Times:

It started 11 days ago when a resident at an upscale downtown L.A. high-rise tower smelled fumes coming from neighboring apartment. Firefighters knocked on the neighbor’s door, but he refused to let them in.

They called police, who broke down the door of the penthouse just as the man inside was escaping through a back window and down a fire escape with multiple duffel bags over his shoulder.

“He escaped like Jason Bourne,” LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Downing of the Counter-terrorism Bureau, referring to the movie spy character. What they found next has begun a week-long mystery.

The apartment contained sophisticated counterfeiting equipment as well as a cache of weapons, including an AK-47. They also found stacks of counterfeit $100 bills totaling $15,000 and a camera tripod.

But detectives’ interest was really heightened when they looked outside the window and saw that the penthouse balcony had a spot-on view of the U.S. Federal Reserve building on Grand Avenue. Detectives now are searching for the suspect, who leased the $3,400-a-month penthouse, paying in advance with stacks of cash.

Detectives aren’t sure what Brian Alexik, a 33-year-old New Jersey man, was up to, and what role, if any, the Federal Reserve might have played in his schemes.

The fake $100 dollar bills found in the penthouse are said to be extremely good forgeries by those who had seen them.

“There were many levels of criminality,” Detective Downing said. “He’s funding a criminal enterprise. He’s dabbling in narcotics, he’s manufacturing weapons parts. But what is it? Was there a bigger plan? What was his intent? We have a lot of questions for him when he is arrested.”

A room with a view to one big mystery (Los Angeles Times)