'You think you're Mickey Spillane?'

When I heard the name Mickey Spillane today, I knew I had heard it somewhere. I knew it.

The internet, namely this Wikiquote page, led me to this "Full Metal Jacket" conversation:

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Forty-two twelve, basic military journalism. You gotta be shitting me! You think you're Mickey Spillane? You think you're some kind of fucking writer?
Private Joker: Sir, I wrote for my high-school newspaper, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Jesus H. Christ, Joker! You're not a writer, you're a killer!
Private Joker: A killer, yes sir!

Apparently Mickey Spillane was a writer of cop novels, and a particularly non-PC one - his protagonist was killing bad guys in the style of "Dirty Harry" and "Death Wish" in the early 1950s. It makes sense that author Gustav Hasford would have the tough drill instructor (immortalized by R. Lee Ermey) cite Spillane as a writer that a person would aspire to emulate.

I can just imagine the drill instructor curled up in his bunk with a paperback of Spillane's.

Anyway, Spillane died a few days ago.