Author: Tommy Hancock

ALL PULP INTERVIEW-Mark Halegua-Collector/Writer/Entrepulpneur

AP: Mark, its really great of you to take time out to sit down with ALL PULP! First, tell us a little about yourself?

MH: OK, I live alone, except for my pet Sun Conure, Apollo, in Queens County NYC. Born in Alaska, came to NYC when 1 year old. Love to read, and generally prefer SF and fantasy, action/adventure (what some might refer to as new pulp like the Destroyer, Gunsmith, and others), and collect comic books. My favorite comic characters are Green Lantern, the Batman, Flash and mostly DC comics, used to have a complete set of Batman, golden age to current. Sold off a lot of the early issues. Like SF and action/adventure TV.

AP: Your involvement in Pulp is from a few different angles. We’ll get into them, but can you give an overview of what you have done/do/are doing that relates to the field of Pulp?

MH: Well, I collect pulps, I’ve organized the Gotham Pulp Collectors Club, which meets once a month, I sell digital pulp cover images in sets from my big DVD with over 23,000 images to smaller CD genre sets for westerns, Detective and Mystery, Hero and Villain, Anthology titles, Air and War, and others to come., and I write pulp stories of which I’ll write more later.

AP: You are the organizer/driving force behind Gotham Pulp Collectors. What is the purpose of this group? Is there an overall mission or is this simply a gathering of enthusiasts?

MH: I guess you could say getting pulp fans is the mission. NYC and the metropolitan/Gotham area has a lot of collectors and we meet once a month, the 2nd Saturday, to share our common affliction um, hobby. For anyone interested they can go to the gothampulpcollectors.com web site.

When we get together we talk about old pulps, we sometimes have a show and tell showing our new acquisitions, we talk about pulp adaptations in film, radio, comics, and what ever other media. One of our members, Ed Hulse, is a film and serial aficionado and the Windy City film expert, playing pulp related films during the convention. Another, Chris Kalb maintains a couple of web sites on the Spider and other pulp heroes. He’s also involved in pulp reprints called Age of Aces and did the reprint of the Spider versus the Black Police. Robert Lesser collects pulp cover original art, has written some books on that subject. David Saunders is the son of pulp artist Norman Saunders, a pulp art historian (written books on his father and H. J. Ward). We have other members as well.

We sometimes play pulp related movies, TV, and radio. We don’t charge to attend or be a member. We just share a common insanity … er … like for pulps.

 

AP: Do you think organizing pulp fandom as you have with the Collectors and through other ways, like fanzines, blogs, etc. is important to the existence and future of pulp? If so, why?

MH: I haven’t done anything in fanzines or blogs other in response to the yahoo groups I’m part of, PulpMags and others. I did create a Google group for pulp collectors, but, since PulpMags already existed, I really haven’t done anything with it. One of the purposes of the GPCC is to try and get younger people involved in the hobby. It’s been a (very little) successful in that. Most pulp magazine collectors are in their late 40s and later. I do know of a very few younger, a couple attend the meeting (Chris Kalb is one)

AP: You show a definite interest in pulps, covers especially. So much so that you’ve turned it into a business, Pulps 1st. A couple of questions about this. What is it about pulp covers that draws you and others as fans?

MH: I wouldn’t say I’m interested in covers particularly. I do like them. Frankly, my main interest is reading them. How I accumulated the images is interesting. Initially I did it for recognition purposes. I wanted to know what the covers I wanted looked like so I’d recognize them at conventions.

One day I wondered how many covers I’d gotten from the and other places. I had over 5,000! I thought to myself others might want to see them as well, and PulpCon was coming up in a few months, perhaps I could sell CDs of the images there. I’d already take tables at PulpCon in the past to sell pulp cover t-shirts. There are issues with doing that, so I wanted to change what to sell.

In the next few months before the convention I collected another 6,000 images, put together a disk, made my own cover for the disk, and went to the con. I sold 20 disks for $50 each. There was obviously a market for it.

Over the years I continued getting images and improving on images I already had. The current DVD now has over 23,000 images, including complete sets of Doc Savage, Shadow, Phantom Detective, and others and long runs of other titles (over 1,500 Argosy, nearly complete Weird Tales), this disk is the Pulp Image Library version 7. A few years after my first disk people started asking for single genre disks. They didn’t collect everything, only Western titles, or hero, or … well you get the idea. So, I’ve been adding them to the mix.

The market isn’t as big now. Anyone who has wanted a disk has one, so I don’t sell that many at conventions anymore.

Now, the question is, who has bought them? Well, artists, pulp collectors, people who like good cover art.

If anyone is interested, http://pulps1st.com. It needs updating, but they can enquire what I have for sale.

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

AP: When creating a character that you want to be considered pulp, what goes into that, sort of like ingredients? What does a good modern pulp character need to have to be good and pulpy?

MH:Writing in a pulp style is interesting. It’s getting to the action quickly, not getting verbose and flowery. I’ve heard some say it’s a punch in the nose.

You want action! You want the protagonists to get in each other’s face and duke it out! It’s like a heavy weight prize fight with the fighters going toe-to-toe and trading punches! You do want a good story and plot, but action drives the story.

I think that comes out in the two pulp stories I’ve completed, the Red Badge, published later this year, and a story I wrote for Christmas and put on the group for pulp writers and artists thepulpfactory. This story, titled the Night Before Christmas, was also published here on All Pulp. It’s about Santa Claus as a crime fighter on Christmas Eve.

I’m working on a second Red Badge story, a Secret Agent X story, and a couple of other characters I’m creating, one called Crescent Moon and the other … well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!’ll get into them, but can you give an overview of what you have done/do/are doing that relates to the field of Pulp?

MH: Well, I collect pulps, I’ve organized the Gotham Pulp Collectors Club, which meets once a month, I sell digital pulp cover images in sets from my big DVD with over 23,000 images to smaller CD genre sets for westerns, Detective and Mystery, Hero and Villain, Anthology titles, Air and War, and others to come., and I write pulp stories of which I’ll write more later.

AP: You are the organizer/driving force behind Gotham Pulp Collectors. What is the purpose of this group? Is there an overall mission or is this simply a gathering of enthusiasts?

MH: I guess you could say getting pulp fans is the mission. NYC and the metropolitan/Gotham area has a lot of collectors and we meet once a month, the 2nd Saturday, to share our common affliction um, hobby. For anyone interested they can go to the gothampulpcollectors.com web site.

When we get together we talk about old pulps, we sometimes have a show and tell showing our new acquisitions, we talk about pulp adaptations in film, radio, comics, and what ever other media. One of our members, Ed Hulse, is a film and serial aficionado and the Windy City film expert, playing pulp related films during the convention. Another, Chris Kalb maintains a couple of web sites on the Spider and other pulp heroes. He’s also involved in pulp reprints called Age of Aces and did the reprint of the Spider versus the Black Police. Robert Lesser collects pulp cover original art, has written some books on that subject. David Saunders is the son of pulp artist Norman Saunders, a pulp art historian (written books on his father and H. J. Ward). We have other members as well.

We sometimes play pulp related movies, TV, and radio. We don’t charge to attend or be a member. We just share a common insanity … er … like for pulps.

 

AP: Do you think organizing pulp fandom as you have with the Collectors and through other ways, like fanzines, blogs, etc. is important to the existence and future of pulp? If so, why?

MH: I haven’t done anything in fanzines or blogs other in response to the yahoo groups I’m part of, PulpMags and others. I did create a Google group for pulp collectors, but, since PulpMags already existed, I really haven’t done anything with it. One of the purposes of the GPCC is to try and get younger people involved in the hobby. It’s been a (very little) successful in that. Most pulp magazine collectors are in their late 40s and later. I do know of a very few younger, a couple attend the meeting (Chris Kalb is one)

AP: You show a definite interest in pulps, covers especially. So much so that you’ve turned it into a business, Pulps 1st. A couple of questions about this. What is it about pulp covers that draws you and others as fans?

MH: I wouldn’t say I’m interested in covers particularly. I do like them. Frankly, my main interest is reading them. How I accumulated the images is interesting. Initially I did it for recognition purposes. I wanted to know what the covers I wanted looked like so I’d recognize them at conventions.

One day I wondered how many covers I’d gotten from the and other places. I had over 5,000! I thought to myself others might want to see them as well, and PulpCon was coming up in a few months, perhaps I could sell CDs of the images there. I’d already take tables at PulpCon in the past to sell pulp cover t-shirts. There are issues with doing that, so I wanted to change what to sell.

In the next few months before the convention I collected another 6,000 images, put together a disk, made my own cover for the disk, and went to the con. I sold 20 disks for $50 each. There was obviously a market for it.

Over the years I continued getting images and improving on images I already had. The current DVD now has over 23,000 images, including complete sets of Doc Savage, Shadow, Phantom Detective, and others and long runs of other titles (over 1,500 Argosy, nearly complete Weird Tales), this disk is the Pulp Image Library version 7. A few years after my first disk people started asking for single genre disks. They didn’t collect everything, only Western titles, or hero, or … well you get the idea. So, I’ve been adding them to the mix.

The market isn’t as big now. Anyone who has wanted a disk has one, so I don’t sell that many at conventions anymore.

Now, the question is, who has bought them? Well, artists, pulp collectors, people who like good cover art.

If anyone is interested, http://pulps1st.com. It needs updating, but they can enquire what I have for sale.

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

AP: When creating a character that you want to be considered pulp, what goes into that, sort of like ingredients? What does a good modern pulp character need to have to be good and pulpy?

MH:Writing in a pulp style is interesting. It’s getting to the action quickly, not getting verbose and flowery. I’ve heard some say it’s a punch in the nose.

You want action! You want the protagonists to get in each other’s face and duke it out! It’s like a heavy weight prize fight with the fighters going toe-to-toe and trading punches! You do want a good story and plot, but action drives the story.

I think that comes out in the two pulp stories I’ve completed, the Red Badge, published later this year, and a story I wrote for Christmas and put on the group for pulp writers and artists thepulpfactory. This story, titled the Night Before Christmas, was also published here on All Pulp. It’s about Santa Claus as a crime fighter on Christmas Eve.

I’m working on a second Red Badge story, a Secret Agent X story, and a couple of other characters I’m creating, one called Crescent Moon and the other … well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!… er … like for pulps.

 

AP: Do you think organizing pulp fandom as you have with the Collectors and through other ways, like fanzines, blogs, etc. is important to the existence and future of pulp? If so, why?

MH: I haven’t done anything in fanzines or blogs other in response to the yahoo groups I’m part of, PulpMags and others. I did create a Google group for pulp collectors, but, since PulpMags already existed, I really haven’t done anything with it. One of the purposes of the GPCC is to try and get younger people involved in the hobby. It’s been a (very little) successful in that. Most pulp magazine collectors are in their late 40s and later. I do know of a very few younger, a couple attend the meeting (Chris Kalb is one)

AP: You show a definite interest in pulps, covers especially. So much so that you’ve turned it into a business, Pulps 1st. A couple of questions about this. What is it about pulp covers that draws you and others as fans?

MH: I wouldn’t say I’m interested in covers particularly. I do like them. Frankly, my main interest is reading them. How I accumulated the images is interesting. Initially I did it for recognition purposes. I wanted to know what the covers I wanted looked like so I’d recognize them at conventions.

One day I wondered how many covers I’d gotten from the and other places. I had over 5,000! I thought to myself others might want to see them as well, and PulpCon was coming up in a few months, perhaps I could sell CDs of the images there. I’d already take tables at PulpCon in the past to sell pulp cover t-shirts. There are issues with doing that, so I wanted to change what to sell.

In the next few months before the convention I collected another 6,000 images, put together a disk, made my own cover for the disk, and went to the con. I sold 20 disks for $50 each. There was obviously a market for it.

Over the years I continued getting images and improving on images I already had. The current DVD now has over 23,000 images, including complete sets of Doc Savage, Shadow, Phantom Detective, and others and long runs of other titles (over 1,500 Argosy, nearly complete Weird Tales), this disk is the Pulp Image Library version 7. A few years after my first disk people started asking for single genre disks. They didn’t collect everything, only Western titles, or hero, or … well you get the idea. So, I’ve been adding them to the mix.

The market isn’t as big now. Anyone who has wanted a disk has one, so I don’t sell that many at conventions anymore.

Now, the question is, who has bought them? Well, artists, pulp collectors, people who like good cover art.

If anyone is interested, http://pulps1st.com. It needs updating, but they can enquire what I have for sale.

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

AP: When creating a character that you want to be considered pulp, what goes into that, sort of like ingredients? What does a good modern pulp character need to have to be good and pulpy?

MH:Writing in a pulp style is interesting. It’s getting to the action quickly, not getting verbose and flowery. I’ve heard some say it’s a punch in the nose.

You want action! You want the protagonists to get in each other’s face and duke it out! It’s like a heavy weight prize fight with the fighters going toe-to-toe and trading punches! You do want a good story and plot, but action drives the story.

I think that comes out in the two pulp stories I’ve completed, the Red Badge, published later this year, and a story I wrote for Christmas and put on the group for pulp writers and artists thepulpfactory. This story, titled the Night Before Christmas, was also published here on All Pulp. It’s about Santa Claus as a crime fighter on Christmas Eve.

I’m working on a second Red Badge story, a Secret Agent X story, and a couple of other characters I’m creating, one called Crescent Moon and the other … well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!’ve turned it into a business, Pulps 1st. A couple of questions about this. What is it about pulp covers that draws you and others as fans?

MH: I wouldn’t say I’m interested in covers particularly. I do like them. Frankly, my main interest is reading them. How I accumulated the images is interesting. Initially I did it for recognition purposes. I wanted to know what the covers I wanted looked like so I’d recognize them at conventions.

One day I wondered how many covers I’d gotten from the and other places. I had over 5,000! I thought to myself others might want to see them as well, and PulpCon was coming up in a few months, perhaps I could sell CDs of the images there. I’d already take tables at PulpCon in the past to sell pulp cover t-shirts. There are issues with doing that, so I wanted to change what to sell.

In the next few months before the convention I collected another 6,000 images, put together a disk, made my own cover for the disk, and went to the con. I sold 20 disks for $50 each. There was obviously a market for it.

Over the years I continued getting images and improving on images I already had. The current DVD now has over 23,000 images, including complete sets of Doc Savage, Shadow, Phantom Detective, and others and long runs of other titles (over 1,500 Argosy, nearly complete Weird Tales), this disk is the Pulp Image Library version 7. A few years after my first disk people started asking for single genre disks. They didn’t collect everything, only Western titles, or hero, or … well you get the idea. So, I’ve been adding them to the mix.

The market isn’t as big now. Anyone who has wanted a disk has one, so I don’t sell that many at conventions anymore.

Now, the question is, who has bought them? Well, artists, pulp collectors, people who like good cover art.

If anyone is interested, http://pulps1st.com. It needs updating, but they can enquire what I have for sale.

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

AP: When creating a character that you want to be considered pulp, what goes into that, sort of like ingredients? What does a good modern pulp character need to have to be good and pulpy?

MH:Writing in a pulp style is interesting. It’s getting to the action quickly, not getting verbose and flowery. I’ve heard some say it’s a punch in the nose.

You want action! You want the protagonists to get in each other’s face and duke it out! It’s like a heavy weight prize fight with the fighters going toe-to-toe and trading punches! You do want a good story and plot, but action drives the story.

I think that comes out in the two pulp stories I’ve completed, the Red Badge, published later this year, and a story I wrote for Christmas and put on the group for pulp writers and artists thepulpfactory. This story, titled the Night Before Christmas, was also published here on All Pulp. It’s about Santa Claus as a crime fighter on Christmas Eve.

I’m working on a second Red Badge story, a Secret Agent X story, and a couple of other characters I’m creating, one called Crescent Moon and the other … well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!… well you get the idea. So, I’ve been adding them to the mix.

The market isn’t as big now. Anyone who has wanted a disk has one, so I don’t sell that many at conventions anymore.

Now, the question is, who has bought them? Well, artists, pulp collectors, people who like good cover art.

If anyone is interested, http://pulps1st.com. It needs updating, but they can enquire what I have for sale.

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

One thing I have done is add images scanned from my collection. Those are generally scanned at 150 and 300 DPI. I’d like to replace all my images with this kind of resolution, but I don’t own more than a couple three thousand pulps.

AP: What goes into turning an interest in pulp covers into a business? Is there a market for this and if so, who/what is it?

MH: I think I answered this above. There is a market, but it’s not a big one. I do all the work myself, from the DVD/CD covers to manufacturing the disks. One thing, I generally make enough money selling the disks and pulp mags I sell at my table to pay for the table and travel.

AP: You are a collector. Do you collect pulps in general or do you have a genre or character(s) you prefer? What draws you to the particular favorites you have?

MH:I started off collecting mostly hero and SF. I have widened my scope and have pulps in all genres. I started collecting Thrilling Western because the early covers were just beautiful. Ed Hulse got me more interested in Blue Book and Adventure (I’d already had some Argosy because of Zorro, Johnston McCulley, and Ray Cummings), and Earle Stanley Gardner stories got me into Detective Fiction Weekly. I love his Lester Lieth stories in particular, and pretty much anything he has written.

I also have, limited, samples of romance, sports, and railroad pulps.

AP: You are a creator and writer as well and have an original pulp character appearing soon. Just who/what is The Red Badge?

MH:Red Badge was born in tragedy and rage. A young woman was raped and beaten and left for dead. Someone didn’t like that. In the first story, Red Badge Attacks, he goes after one particular gang in a mid-western city (Central City) and. Like the Spider and Shadow) kills them. Unlike those two he also aims to cripple, shooting or knifing some of the gang in the joints. He wants the thugs to fear him more for the crippling than the killing.

The setting is the mid-1930s, a rather lawless time, where there are corrupt politicians and police.

This first story is scheduled for Airship 27’s Mystery Men and Women, vol 2, coming out sometime in mid year.

After submitting my bible for the characters and a short story, Ron Fortier asked me to add 10,000 words, which I did, and then Andrew Salmon helped me put a shine on it.

The mystery of the story is not what Red Badge or who he’s after is. The mystery is who is he behind the mask.

If you want to see one interpretation of how he looks, go to http://red-badge.com

AP: When creating a character that you want to be considered pulp, what goes into that, sort of like ingredients? What does a good modern pulp character need to have to be good and pulpy?

MH:Writing in a pulp style is interesting. It’s getting to the action quickly, not getting verbose and flowery. I’ve heard some say it’s a punch in the nose.

You want action! You want the protagonists to get in each other’s face and duke it out! It’s like a heavy weight prize fight with the fighters going toe-to-toe and trading punches! You do want a good story and plot, but action drives the story.

I think that comes out in the two pulp stories I’ve completed, the Red Badge, published later this year, and a story I wrote for Christmas and put on the group for pulp writers and artists thepulpfactory. This story, titled the Night Before Christmas, was also published here on All Pulp. It’s about Santa Claus as a crime fighter on Christmas Eve.

I’m working on a second Red Badge story, a Secret Agent X story, and a couple of other characters I’m creating, one called Crescent Moon and the other … well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!… well, I’m deciding between two names for him. Stay tuned.

AP: Pulp lately seems to be divided into three camps-The Purists who want new pulp to pretty much be in the vein of the classic pulps and for original pulp characters to be treated with respect and their original directions maintained…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!…The Modernists who want to bring in new themes, take characters different directions, and explore broader horizons through the venue of pulp…Then there’s those who don’t really fit either category or waffle back and forth. Where do you fall and why?

MH:In most ways I’m a purist, however, I don’t agree with your concept of three adversarial camps. What I don’t like is people making radical changes to characters. For example, what DC has been doing to Doc Savage and the Avenger. First, they exist in some unidentifiable time period that includes jets, cell phones, TVs, autogyros, zeppelins, and such.

Next, they have people call the Avenger, Richard Henry Benson, Benny? And have Josh Newton be an inveterate gambler, owing big money to bookies, with his hair in cornrows?

These show a lack of respect for the characters.

In trying to integrate this indiscriminate time period with some of the rest of the DC universe, Doc Savage and Batman are teamed. Batman has and uses guns (I know Batman used guns in his first year, 1939, but since then he doesn’t and abhors them. You’re going to forget 70 years of a character for one year most people don’t remember or know about?).

Plus, the story was lame, vanilla, and plot-less. It just seemed like a vehicle, a bad one, to get these two together. It made no use of the things they have in common (and they do have things in common) or the things which are totally different about them.

To fix this, at least for myself, I wrote a comic script teaming them and, did exactly what DC didn’t do. The story is available for pulpfactory members in the files section.

Moonstone seems to be following a similar path. I’ve only just read the semi-graphic novel teaming Black Bat, the Phantom (Detective), Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, and G-8, and I wasn’t impressed. I’d like to see at least one issue of the individual characters before I continue further.

To get to the question posed, I do like new stories about the old pulp characters. But radical changes no. I don’t want my pulp characters gaining super powers. There were only 3 such published – 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!– 4 if you count Captain Hazard and his telepathy – in the Black Bat being able to see in the dark, even when there was no light; Richard Henry Benson – The Avenger – when he could manipulate his face; Captain Zero, who could uncontrollably turn invisible (from midnight to 7AM).

I’m not including real magic.

And I don’t want their personalities to radically change either, or at least not without a period of time for it to happen.

But, I can see making gradual changes, with good reasons.

I’m not a fan of giving the Black Bat a costume, for example. He wore a business suit with a cowl (to hide his facial scars) and his ribbed cape (those stories need be before he was given a dog by Lt. McGrath). His guns were in shoulder holsters.

There’s enough good characters out there with good back stories radical changes are unnecessary. Use what’s given. There’s a lot given.

AP: What’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!’s coming up on all fronts pulp wise for you?

MH: What I’ve just expounded on isn’t enough?

My real job is as a Computer Consultant or Information Technologist (no, I’m not related to cousin It!). I try to keep up with technology and install and maintain it for small business and home users in New York.

That’s how I integrated my love for pulps and pulp covers into selling the disks. I combined my knowledge of one with my passion for the other.

I’m scheduled to attend the Windy City convention in April, Pulp Ark in May, and PulpFest in July.

I might come up with an update for vol 8 of my Pulp Image Library DVD and one or more of the genre CDs.

And I hope to have more pulp stories finished and published.

Whew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

AP: Mark, thanks for dropping by!

ALL PULP ANNOUNCES PULP ARK WEEKEND!!!!!

ALL PULP is bringing the focus in on PULP ARK, a brand new Pulp Convention/Creators’ Conference kicking off in Batesville, Arkansas May 13-15, 2011!  The newest entrant into the Convention circuit, PULP ARK also intends to set itself apart as a conference for writers, artists, and publishers to come together, discuss, collaborate, learn, and grow the field of Pulp together.  Stay tuned from today through Sunday for interviews, announcements, schedules, information, and goodies galore concerning PULP ARK!

ALL PULP wants all Conventions/Conferences that are related to the pulp genre to know that similar coverage is available to your event!  Email allpulp@yahoo.com and get your even covered here at ALL PULP!

Now, to kick it off, the general press release concerning PULP ARK!

the newest place for Pulp Writers, Artists and Fans to come together!

MAIN STREET, BATESVILLE, ARKANSAS!!!

Pro Se Productions, LLC (http://www.proseproductions.com/) in conjunction with Main Street Batesville of Batesville, AR announces PULP ARK 2011!!  Pro Se Productions, a company specializing in pulp storytelling in various mediums, primarily magazines and comics, made its debut in March, 2010!  Pro Se also seeks to bring all the over the top, grandiose, slam-bang impact of pulp to the South!  PULP ARK, scheduled for May 13-15, 2011 will be a convention dedicated to the Pulp Genre as well as a conference made up of panels, workshops, and activities to appeal to the Pulp writer, the Pulp fan, and that most unique creature, The Pulp Writer/Fan! 

 PULP ARK will be held in the historical town of Batesville, AR.  Nestled in the scenic Ozark foothills, Batesville provides most definitely a small town charm, but has facilities of all sorts, including hotels, major and local restaurants, and several venues for hosting panels, conferences, and vendors.  Batesville also affords a relaxed setting, different from most large cities where conventions are held, but also conducive to creativity, relaxation, and a furthering of Pulp fandom! 

PUBLISHERS AND VENDORS WELCOME-REASONABLE TABLE RATES

LEADING NAMES IN PULP TODAY AS GUESTS

PANELS LED BY WRITERS, ARTISTS AND PUBLISHING COMPANIES

WRITERS AND ARTISTS WORKSHOPS BY LEADING NAMES IN PULP TODAY

A PULP STYLE INTERACTIVE ADVENTURE THROUGHOUT PULP ARK

EVENTS FOR SPOUSES AND FAMILY MEMBERS

DISCOUNTS AT LOCAL HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, AND OTHER BUSINESSES

 

MAY 13-15, 2011-Prepare for the Flood of All that is Pulp-Get your place on the PULP ARK today! 

For more information , contact Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief and Audio Director for Pro Se Productions at proseproductions@earthlink.net or call or text at 870-834-4022. 

AND STAY TUNED TO ALL PULP ALL WEEKEND LONG FOR MORE TO COME ON… 

 

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND BULLDOG EDITION 1/13/11

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
BULLDOG EDITION
1/13/11

1/13/11
‘A WEEK IN HELL’ ON THE BOOK CAVE!!
This week on The Book Cave, Ric interviews Jim Layne, author of ‘A WEEK IN HELL’ and other pulp type works!  Then Tommy Hancock follows up with the ALL PULP news!
Listen in on the Book Cave, ALL PULP’s official podcast at thebookcave.libsyn.com!

INTERVIEW WITH PULP AUTHOR FRANK SCHILDINER!


ALL PULP INTERVIEW-Frank Schildiner-Writer

AP: Frank, Thanks for stopping by ALL PULP today! Start us off with a little background, if you don’t mind.

FS: I was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee….oh wait, that’s the Davy Crockett song…okay, serious now. I’m a martial arts instructor at Amorosi’s Mixed Martial Arts in Livingston, NJ. That and writing are my true joys in life, I’m not sure I could live without either. After years of rejection, I finally found my muse and learned enough from him to be published by Airship27 and Black Coat Press.

AP: You’ve done more than dabbled in the arena of pulp. What have you written, both fiction and nonfiction wise?

FS: I’m a regular contributor to Black Coat Press’s wonderful yearly anthology, “Tales of the Shadowmen” in which I’ve written characters such as Jean Kariven, the Toff, Inspector Cramer and Kato from the Green Hornet series. My first pulp was for Airship27, Secret Agent X volume 3 “The Mask of Medusa”. I’ve also written a Black Bat mystery for them called “Claws of the Crimson Commissar”. I’m very proud of the three stories I’ve written for Jay Piscopo’s pulp hero Commander X, for his year Christmas tales aka Commander Xmas. In non-fiction I wrote an article on Hellboy and the real Nazi occult and science from the series as well as a Wold Newton article on Dark Shadows and the show’s use of Lovecraftian themes.

AP: Why do you write? And after that, more specifically, why pulp?

FS: I write because not writing is impossible for me. There were times I tried to deny my need to write, but it never worked for long. It’s really part of who I am as a person. By accepting that much, I’m far happier with life. As to why pulp, I love both the period pulp represents and the positive message the style promotes. In this day of cynical heroes who are seen as pathological cases no better than the villains they fight, pulp stands apart. Heroes are good because they choose to right wrongs and villains are horrible, twisted creatures. It’s a respite from the deconstructionist beliefs that fiction, comics and Hollywood have promoted for many years.

AP: A major part of your writing resume centers around classic pulp characters that have found their way
into the public domain. What is the appeal of writing these already established, though possibly not wide read characters as opposed to your own original creations?

FS: I used to wonder that myself, until I was given a Nero Wolfe story by Robert Goldsborough. Of course it wasn’t as well-written as a Rex Stout, few could match that man’s mastery of language. But the story brought me back to a world I loved with characters I grew up making a part of my life. I’d like to think that when I write classic pulps or public domain heroes, I’m proving some of that pleasure to my readers. That’s my hope at least.

AP: There’s been a lot of talk about pulp being relevant today, especially here on ALL PULP. Although you can comment on that if you wish, there’s another question to ask. How do you as a writer think you can make pulp readable tomorrow…in the future?

FS: By growing without losing the spirit of what makes pulp enjoyable to the readers. An excellent example of that is the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson, a best-selling book that shows that a hero can be a good man, fighting the right fight, without being a cliche. Another illustration of pulp being accessible to the modern reader are the Pendergast tales by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. These demonstrate that pulp can be readable in the future and even be revered by those who would ignore the class heroes. Moving beyond the classics, without losing the spirit that made them legends.

AP: Talk a bit about your nonfiction work as it relates to pulp. Is there a level of academics, of scholarship to the pulp genre? What interests you enough to write articles about fictional worlds, concepts, etc?

FS: Non-fiction is very intensive and does require major research and analysis of detail. To be credible in any way, a writer needs to take their personal opinion out of the examination and learn from the results, at least in my opinion. My first non-fiction article was on the comic world created in the Hellboy comic series by Mike Mignola. I went in with definite views, but pushed them aside to learn from the actual true details from history. I believe in that case I succeeded, I was able to refute many of the more fanciful tales while presenting some pretty amazing details that astonished me in the end. And that also explains why I enjoy non-fiction, by remaining open to the evidence, I end up learning so much in the end.

AP: You’ve done quite a bit of work for Airship 27 Productions, most recently a story in the RAVENWOOD: STEPSON OF MYSTERY anthology. Can you tell us about your story and the character in general?

FS: Ravenwood was the creation of a giant in the pulp field, Frederick C. Davis, writer of many heroes such as the Moon Man, Secret Agent X and Operator #5. Ravenwood the Stepson of Mystery was a backup feature in the Secret Agent X magazines, an occult hero who was odd for the period in that he used actual magic. In pulp, magic powers tended to be reserved for villains or were scientific trickery. Ravenwood, who was raised by an Asian mystic called “The Nameless One” demonstrated true powers and were always on the side of good.

In my story, Ravenwood takes on another pulp legend, Sun Koh the Prince of Atlantis. Sun koh is called “the Nazi Doc Savage” and the comparison is apt. He’s an Atlantean prince brough back to our time, intent on returning his lost empire to greatness. The character, according to pulp scholar Jess Nevins who read the tales in their original form, was a thorough Nazi who promoted their horrific beliefs. Who better to pit against Ravenwood the Stepson of Mystery?! Oh and in my tale, Sun Koh is a follower of the terrible Lovecraftian Outer Gods…or maybe a stooge is a better way of putting it… Anyway, the story is action packed and fun, presenting my own way of writing occult, one that loses the dustiness and staid quality many occult tales seem to promote.

AP: What appeal does the supernatural have for you as a pulp writer?

FS: The supernatural is an area I love to write because it’s an area open to interpretation. As I’ve said to many would-be writers, you need to present your own view on even areas that are well-established. The biggest mistake many make when they write, say Lovecraft, is to try and present it in the same style the great man did back in the 1920’s. That’s a real mistake and results in painful copies not worth reading. By presenting your own version of the supernatural, a writer can create whole world of adventure for the reader.

AP: OK, now here’s what everyone wants to know…who are your favorite pulp/literary characters, not just those you’ve written, but the ones you enjoy as a fan?

FS:That’s a long list to say the least. Okay, here goes; Tarzan was probably my first pulp and still thrills me to this day. Doc Savage and the Avenger are the truest examples of the pulp ideal and I’ve been a fan for most of my life. Operator #5 and Secret Agent X are spy heroes I find far more enjoyable than modern spy tales and I collect their reprints. Also I’d add newspaper heroes like the Spirit, Flash Gordon, the Phantom as pulp heroes I absolutely love.

AP: Do you feel, both as a writer and a fan, that there’s a direction modern pulp hasn’t gone in yet that it needs to? If so, explain.

FS: There’s always new ground to cover, we’re only limited by our imaginations. As to what those areas are…I’m in the process of working on that myself now. Through much of 2010 and into 2011 I’ve been experimenting with form and learning the directions modern pulp can be taken by a writer.

AP: So, what’s coming up from Frank Schildiner? Anything pulp wise you want to talk about?

FS:I have an Avenger tale coming from Moonstone Pulp, I’m so happy I was given a chance to write that character. Plus it was a learning experience, Joe Gentile and Howard Hopkins taught me a lot about being a writer. I have an original occult action pulp starring a gangster turned hero named Lee Cohen. That one is being published by Pro Se Productions. Also in the works is a PD comic world called the “The Last Dominion” and an occult adventure in the period of King Henry V, to be published by Pulp Tone. Basically I’m always busy and that’s just a dream come true.

AP: Frank, ALL PULP appreciates you taking time to visit!

MYSTERY WRITER GORES PASSES AWAY

Joe Gores, former Private Investigator turned mystery writer and noted expert on the works of Dashiell Hammett, passed away on 1/12/11.  Gores, a 3-time Edgar Award winner and past president of the Mystery Writers of America, was the author and creator of a hard-boiled mystery series set in San Francisco, the Daniel Kearny & Associates series.  He was also the author of SPADE AND ARCHER, the novel that was the prequel to Hammett’s Maltese Falcon.

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND BULLDOG EDITION! 1/12/11

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
BULLDOG EDITION
1/12/11
PRESS RELEASE:

Sequart is excited to announce that 2011 is the YEAR OF ELLIS — as in celebrated comics writer Warren Ellis. Throughout the year, we’ll be offering three books and a documentary film on Ellis, exploring his major works, his overall career, and why he deserves his status in the top pantheon of comics writers.

First up will be Keeping the World Strange: A Planetary Guide, edited by Cody Walker. This book of essays will study the exhilarating collaboration of Ellis and artist John Cassaday.  It features essays by CBR’s Chad Nevett and Timothy Callahan (Grant Morrison:  The Early Years), Julian Darius (Improving the Foundations), Patrick Meaney (Our Sentence is Up), legendary comics scholar Peter Sanderson, and many others. The book is scheduled for May 2011 publication.

Our second Ellis book of 2011 will be Shot in the Face:  A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan, edited by CBR’s Chad Nevett. This book of essays will study the riveting collaboration of Ellis and artist Darick Robertson.  It features essays by Greg Burgas, Johanna Draper Carlson, Julian Darius, Sara K. Ellis, Ryan K. Lindsay, Patrick Meaney, Jason Michelitch, Chris Murphy, Chad Nevett, Kevin Thurman, Brett Williams, and Sean Witzke.

Our third Ellis book of the year will be Voyage in Noise: Warren Ellis and the Demise of Western Civilization, authored by Kevin Thurman.  This book examines Ellis’s entire body of work for common themes, discovering philosophical perspectives and parallels that illuminate contemporary society.

To top it all off, 2011 will see the premier of the documentary film Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts, directed by Patrick Meaney and produced in association with Respect! Films (Amber Yoder, Jordan Rennert, and Patrick Meaney). It’s executive produced by Sequart (Julian Darius and Mike Phillips) and F. J. DeSanto, with creative consultant Kevin Thurman. This follow-up to Respect! and Sequart’s popular Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods features interviews with Ellis and a plethora of other comics professionals. It’s tentatively scheduled for late 2011 release.

Although 2011 is the Year of Ellis, that doesn’t mean Sequart won’t also be releasing other works. In fact, even before any of our Ellis titles, we’re offering Classics on Infinite Earths: The Justice League and DC Crossover Canon, authored by Julian Darius. The book examines classic Justice League stories and universe-wide DC crossovers, arguing that they constitute a literary canon. Along with this book, other non-Ellis projects are in the works, and we’ll be making some major announcements on those in the coming months.

Thanks for your support, and be sure to tweet and post about the Year of Ellis!


ALL PULP INTERVIEWS MIKE FYLES, PULP ARTIST!

Mike Fyles-Artist

AP: Mike, thanks for stopping by All Pulp for an interview! Before we get to the nitty gritty, tell us a bit about yourself, personal background type stuff.

MF: My working week (of four days) takes place with students in a local College here in Staffordshire UK. My job is to provide them with further opportunities outside of the classroom. I used to teach more formally across a wide spectrum of subjects but I like the fact that I can now introduce students to more than the specified aspects of a syllabus. Around this job and a typical family life I get to pursue my artistic interests. I have been drawing and making things for as long as I remember, and what I remember best about doing it was how it has always been a motivation. I played out a lot as a child, walked to school, climbed trees, collected insects, and when it was rainy, stayed in and played with scale model figures and tanks, built nearly every evil hideout and spaceship I could with household items, and drew and traced a lot of pictures. Two comics came to our house every Saturday with the newspaper boy, one for me and one for my brother and together we read our way through The Beano, The Dandy, Topper, and Smash, and then we graduated to the Victor, the Valiant, and finally Look and Learn and TV21. We also used to revel in the old films and serials that were screened at our local cinema for children. When the first wave of American comics came to our local newsagents in the 60’s it was overwhelming. I just couldn’t get enough of them, but between friends we were able to collect different titles and then swap them to read. Nowadays my leisure time is more eclectic but does still involve comics, watching old films, swimming, and watching and playing cricket.

AP: How long have you been a working artist? Where can readers see some of your work as far as published things go?

MF: I’m far from being what I would call a ‘working artist’, still having to pay the bills with a day job, but I’ve been much more in demand in the last five years or so. It would be nice to spend more time producing artwork for other people’s projects and to be sometimes paid for it, but I’m a little too old in the tooth, at 55, to do anything now other than enjoy each opportunity as it arises. A friend once said that I was a good proponent of the view that at the point you get better at what you like doing, someone will notice!. The most prominent examples of published work are the Marvel cover commissions. There were four for an Iron Man Noir mini-series in the Marvel Noir collection and four for The Grim Hunt story arc in the long running The Amazing Spiderman comic. I’ve two covers and nine interior illustrations published for Airship 27/Cornerstone’s Green Lama and Green Lama: Unbound, with a comic and new GL novel to come this year. There are some very nice bookmarks that previewed ant the New York Comic Con last year and I’ve some pulp art in the three downloadable Commander X Christmas specials by Jay Piscopo. I’ve also a cover gracing a fine Elastic Press short story collection by Mat Coward called So Far, So Near.

AP: You definitely have an affinity for pulp style art. Are you a pulp fan? Who are your major artistic influences?

MF: I don’t count myself as a ‘pulp fan’, in the strict sense. I’m not a collector or for that matter an avid reader of pulp fiction – although I’m really enjoying some of the reworking of pulp characters going on at the moment. I began exploring the genre initially for the cover art work on old pulp magazines and paperbacks. I particularly liked the images that had more than just a basic illustrative aspect, the ones that really implied a compelling story or narrative. I also really began to appreciate the context of their production, and the skills of the commercial artists producing them. The whole idea of producing ‘faux’ covers was so that I could pretend to be working to similar constraints and schedules. I have a soft spot for the commercial illustration of the mid 20th Century that was made to promote ‘popular’ fiction and non fiction (especially children’s annuals, pulp magazines, paperbacks and comics). There is so much creativity and artistic competence to be found on the covers and within the pages of even the most mundane examples that it is difficult to credit any artist in particular as an influence – so my answer is, all the artists I’ve liked enough to ask, “How did they do that?”I have a soft spot for the commercial illustration of the mid 20th Century that was made to promote ‘popular’ fiction and non fiction (especially children’s annuals, pulp magazines, paperbacks and comics). There is so much creativity and artistic competence to be found on the covers and within the pages of even the most mundane examples that it is difficult to credit any artist in particular as an influence – so my answer is, all the artists I’ve liked enough to ask, “How did they do that?”

AP: Does pulp art have a place in modern times? There’s this obvious renewed interest, some even say ‘renaissance’ in pulp fiction. Do you agree that pulp is making a comeback and, if so, is art a relevant part of that?

MF: I think that for most ‘revivals’ to be successful, or long lasting, they require a certain authenticity, otherwise people just won’t be able to sustain their interest.

Art (and Design) were important factors for the original pulps, and it already seems they are just as important this time around. The constituency and context might be different now, but an interest and demand for the characteristics (and stylings) we associate with the genre is very evident. What I like most in what I’ve seen to date, is that some writers and some artists are trying to ‘reframe’ these elements for a more modern audience and sensibility. It would be nice to see that enterprise grow both commercially and artistically.

AP: You’ve done some work for the comics recently, including Marvel’s IRON MAN: NOIR. Is working for a comic company different than putting together a piece for a novel or magazine?

MF: Very different indeed! The work I’ve produced for Marvel has so far all been cover art. All the briefs started with background/scenario and usually some visual reference material. It was then a case of submitting ideas, which it is sensible not to over work (and which of course I did), because of the changes you might have to make to your artwork. Once a decision has been made by the series editor, and I think they have to pass it by a higher authority (known as Joe Q), you can concentrate on the final art work. The main difference for me was deadline, which was always sooner and stricter than I had bargained for. If you were working full time to produce work for the company I think you would have to be well organized and fix on your ideas and concepts quickly. What was particularly nice about the editors I worked for, Jeanine Schaefer and Stephen Whacker, was how pleasant and encouraging they were. There’s some talk about producing some more work for Jeanine in the near future.

AP: The NOIR concept definitely has pulp overtones. Do you think comics and pulps are taking full advantage of the ties they have to each other or could there be more pulpy comics, more interaction between the two genres?

MF: That’s an interesting question and maybe, yes, more could be achieved. My overview is far from extensive but I have noticed that it’s comic creators, rather than pulp writers, who tend to try and address the issue most. I’m thinking Mike Mignola, and more recently Darwyn Cooke, particularly his, ”The Outfit”, which retells one of Richard Stark’s Parker novels in various pulpy/retro styles and combinations. I would quite like to be involved with a prose and illustration story that took equal shares of the narrative but that didn’t just revert to comic book format for the storytelling.

AP: You’re also the artist on Airship 27’s/Cornerstone Books’ THE GREEN LAMA: UNBOUND as well as upcoming Green Lama projects. Is this just another gig for you or do you have particular interest in bringing the Green Lama to life?

MF: No, it’s not a commercial commitment anymore; I do genuinely want to contribute to the development of all the Green Lama characters. I actually enjoy making pictures which are not directly tied to any preconceived narrative, precisely because it’s a fictitious world I like to explore. Infact, while I was awaiting Adam Garcia’s draft of Green Lama: Unbound, and for Airship 27’s decision on what scenes they wanted me to illustrate, I kept on producing pictures. I’m not sure how exactly but Adam has said repeatedly that some of them directly influenced the content and direction of his story. It’s a very nice relationship to have with a writer, when your contribution extends to that kind of creative development. In fact my working relationship with Adam is very special.

AP: This goes back a bit to the comics/pulp discussion before. You’re working on a Green Lama comic story for Airship 27. Is there any difficulty in translating the Lama from pulp to comics for you? Does the character lend himself to both?

MF: I didn’t think about that too much, mainly because Adam has already done such a good job moving The Green Lama, and his friends, away from shallow characterization. I like to think that good characterization, with characters we grow to care about, balanced within a plot that keeps us interested, should be workable with most formats. My initial thoughts were actually concerned with my lack of experience of the comic book format, knowing full well how challenging it can be. Fortunately, Adam and Ben Granoff, passed over a very good script to work from, and which, interestingly, further developed two of The Green Lama’s lesser known associates, Gary Brown and Evangal Stewart. I think it works, especially because the comic has been designed to bridge the gap between Green Lama Unbound and the forthcoming Crimson Circle.

AP: Walk us through your process. When you start working on an art piece, what goes into preparation and such? Are there any special techniques you use?

MF: Once I’ve made important decisions in a sketch book I use the 3D computer programmes Poser and Vue to set up scenes/scenarios, incorporating costume designs and poses, just like a stage director/architect might ‘dress rehearse’ with models for visualization. I like to experiment with viewpoints and lighting, and both applications provide this function as a basic given. In all honesty I don’t really need many of the higher functions they have grown to incorporate over the years – most of which are devoted to the ever elusive search for realism. The result of this process is always a ‘rendered’ image that is either used as a reference, like photographs were used by commercial artists for traditional painting, or has been optimized in some way for digital painting in Photoshop/Painter. The best solution is when the ‘rendered’ image can function something like ‘under painting’ in traditional work, where the basic elements of the picture are available and can be refined. It is stating the obvious to those who choose to work digitally but a ‘digital toolset’, as they call it, really does provide a ‘working process’, and I state ‘process’, that cannot be equaled by traditional methods. I find it acts as a spur to my ‘creativity’ as well as improving the opportunities of working commercially. In a modest way illustration again becomes fairly cost effective so there must be some other reason why the popular print media still opts for an almost default use of photography to illustrate it’s pages.

AP: There’s a lot of talk within the pulp community about whether or not pulp characters should be fitted into the molds we all identify them with and/or left in the past, in more ‘pulpier’ times or if the envelope should be pushed and pulp characters should hop into the modern era. As an artist and a fan, what are your thoughts on this?

MF: That’s another very interesting question. I certainly think there is still a place for heroic characters, toughing it out in light plot orientated fiction, but I think that they should now become something more than just a collection of personality traits. What I’m not so sure about is whether they can do this in modern times, because of how close we are to the actual events that might be portrayed. A late nineteenth or early twentieth setting, beside the wonderfully varied content it tends to provide writer and artist, also allows the reader the opportunity to sit back and enjoy the ride, without ‘real’ life interfering too much.

AP: What work do you have coming up that would interest pulp fans in say, the next year?

MF: Well, I’ll be producing a cover and interior illustrations for Adam Garcia’s second Green Lama Novel: Crimson Circle, from Airship 27/Cornerstone, which is a sequel to Unbound as well as a sequel to the very first Green Lama story in the original pulps. The comic short, “Green Lama and the Dealers of Death,” should also be available soon from Airship 27. And an original short by Adam Garcia, called “Final Column”, which I’m producing the cover for, will be included in Vol. 3 of Altus Press’s Green Lama reprints release. I’ve also been creating some pulp illustrations for Peter Miller of docsavagetales blogspot who plans to release some e-book stories featuring his Clark Tyler character. I also think it’s about time I started to make some original art and prints available for purchase.

AP: Mike, thanks so much for your time!

MF: Well, thank you for the opportunity. Best wishes. Mike Fyles.

PULP ARK ANNOUNCES FIRST LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT!

PULP ARK ANNOUNCES FIRST LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT!

PULP ARK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT SELECTED!
From Tommy Hancock, Pulp Ark Coordinator/Pro Se Press Editor in Chief-
PULP ARK,  a pulp convention/creators’ conference scheduled for its inaugural  weekend  May 13-15, 2011 in Batesville, Arkansas, is also host to the First Annual PULP ARK AWARDS.  These awards cover ten categories related to the Pulp field and nine of these are chosen by nominations from anyone interested in participating in the vote (Nominations open until 11:59 PM January 31st, 2011.).  The tenth one, however, was chosen in a different manner.
The PULP ARK Lifetime Achievement Award will be selected each year by an invited committee of ten people representing various areas within Pulp.  These ten committee members will nominate a maximum of three contenders for this award.  To qualify, a person must have been involved actively in the Pulp field for at least ten consecutive years and must have made considerable contributions to the genre either through creating, promoting, supporting, or a combination of those and other ways.  The three most nominated names through that process will then be put on a ballot and that ballot sent to the committee.  The one of those three receiving the most votes from the committee will receive The 2011 PULP ARK Lifetime Achievement Award.
Twenty seven initial nominations were made.   The numbers were tallied and the three who received the most nominations were determined. The ballot was formed and sent to the committee members who included-
                                                           Wayne Skiver (Age of Adventure)
                                                           Michael Brown (Reviewer)
                                                           Ron Hanna (Wild Cat Books)
                                                           Bill Cunningham (Pulp 2.0 Press)
                                                           Ron Fortier (Airship 27 Productions)
                                                           Ric Croxton (The Book Cave)
                                                           Barry Reese (Noted Pulp Author and Editor)
                                                           Derrick Ferguson (Pulpwork Press)
                                                           Win Scott Eckert (Noted Pulp Author/Historian)
                                                           Tommy Hancock (Pro Se Productions/Pulp Ark)
Following the above process, the 2011 PULP ARK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD is awarded to Tom and Ginger Johnson.  Both authors within the field, The Johnsons have contributed a great amount of support, effort, and research to the Pulp genre.  Publishers in their own right, Tom and Ginger were the force behind the ECHOES magazine, noted as a pivotal publication by many creators today.   A more extensive biography will follow in the coming days.
Congratulations to Tom and Ginger Johnson, recipients of the 2011 PULP ARK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD!

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND BULLDOG EDITION 1/11/11

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
BULLDOG EDITION
1/11/10
ALL PULP BREAKS 50,000!!!
ALL PULP, a news site focused on bringing readers All the Pulp News Possible all the time, has in the space of about four months and a few days, had over 50,000 views!  In less than a half year, The work of the Spectacled Seven (Ron Fortier, Van Plexico, Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Sarge Portera, Bobby Nash, and Tommy Hancock) has been viewed to date more than 50,000 times by fans, writers, passers by, artists, publishers, etc.   The reviews, interviews, panels, columns, news stories, our affiliation with THE BOOK CAVE as ALL PULP’s official podcast, and  fiction excerpts that ALL PULP provides from the myriad of publishers of Pulp today have been read and viewed by a major number of people.  ALL PULP would like to thank all the readers and fans and truly appreciates the support of all those who send news, request interviews, and help in other ways!! Keep comin’ back to where All The Pulp News is…ALL PULP!
SNEAK PEEK AT UPCOMING PRO SE COLLECTION COVER!
Barry Reese, writer and Editor for Pro Se Productions, has announced that the cover for his upcoming LAZARUS GRAY collection from Pro Se has been completed.  Brilliantly drawn by Anthony Castrillo and wonderfully colored by Tom Smith, this cover hints at the various adventures of Gray and clearly shows this new creation’s roots in classic pulp!  
Lazarus Gray is one of three characters that are a part of the TALES OF SOVEREIGN CITY universe at Pro Se Productions.  Sovereign City is so named because it is the ultimate city in many ways, including location, technology…and crime and corruption.   Out of this paradoxical mire of advancement and depravity must rise heroes to maintain the balance.  Lazarus Gray is one of those heroes.
The LAZARUS GRAY collection will debut in 2011 from Pro Se Productions and will collect his earliest adventures, all penned by Reese! Stay tuned to ALL PULP for further details.
NASH INTERVIEWED…AGAIN!!!
Bobby Nash, noted pulp author and one of ALL PULP’s Spectacled Seven, as well as self marketer extraordinaire has added another interview to his belt.   Bobby has been interviewed by the Kitty’s Pride website.  Read all about it at http://www.kittyspryde.com/?p=6654

MOONSTONE MONDAY-MOONSTONE CLIFFHANGER FICTION FEATURING A NEW HERO-DEATH ANGEL!


Moonstone Books and ALL PULP are proud to present the first half of this thrilling tale from MOONSTONE CLIFFHANGER FICTION featuring DEATH ANGEL, a character created by Mike Bullock!!!!

Let ALL PULP know what you think of MOONSTONE CLIFFHANGER FICTION on the Comments Page!!!
Want more Moonstone??? http://www.moonstonebooks.com/ !   And stay tuned at the end of this week’s chapter for a link to purchase the collection this story is featured in!
THIS WEEK ON MOONSTONE CLIFFHANGER FICTION-
HUNG JURY
BY MIKE BULLOCK
Character created by Mike Bullock
from Moonstone Books

Lester Ginn’s vision swam in crimson swirls as his eyes tried unsuccessfully to focus on what he saw.

“W-where am I-?” he groaned, struggling to fight off the dull pain-induced haze that shrouded his mind.

He slowly lifted his head upward. He could barely make out several people standing over him. Light blazed between them as they moved, blinding Lester for a moment before their shadows fell on him again, menacingly; making the pit of his stomach ache as he tried in vain to gulp down the dry patch in his throat.

Who were they? What did they want with him? Where was he? The thoughts assailed his mind one after another as he slowly climbed back to consciousness.

The more he awakened, the more Lester became sure of one fact: something was very wrong.

Lester allowed his head to fall limp again as he tried to raise his right hand to his face. However, no amount of effort would bring his hand up from the arm of the chair. The reality sunk in, Lester was tied down like an animal. But how? How had this happened?

He fought off the mental fog and unpacked his memories. Where had he been before this? There was the school, the store, the sidewalk outside his row house.

But no, that was before.

He pictured the wooden steps leading down into his basement, around the corner to his secret place, where he brought them. No one knew, not even that nosy neighbor, although she had started asking far too many questions… questions that would now remain unanswered forever.

Lester remembered he was in his basement, but what was he doing? Oh yes, he was cleaning up his newest plaything. He’d had his eye on this one for several months. She was such a precious little one, walking to school each morning, singing her sweet little songs over and over as she skipped along to catch up with her friends, past Lester’s store. He felt the fog lift as adrenalin coursed through his veins at the thought of her. Oh what fun he would have with her. Lester remembered he was in his basement, but what was he doing? Oh yes, he was cleaning up his newest plaything. He’d had his eye on this one for several months. She was such a precious little one, walking to school each morning, singing her sweet little songs over and over as she skipped along to catch up with her friends, past Lester’s store. He felt the fog lift as adrenalin coursed through his veins at the thought of her. Oh what fun he would have with her.

But wait- why did she stop?

He remembered her songs had gone silent. She had been singing, but not happy songs, no. They were songs of terror, she cried out for help, begged Lester to let her go. But why would he let her go? Didn’t she know how much he loved her? And why had she stopped singing?

Lester’s jaw tightened as he recalled his anger with her. She was his pet, his plaything; he had never given her permission to stop singing. Who did she think she was, anyway? The little tramp! And what was that damn humming noise?

Lester winced reflexively as he recalled what happened next.

He had spun around, rage cruelly twisting his lips, as he sought to punish her as she and all her little friends had punished him all those years ago. But there it stood, between Lester and his toy.

Something horrific…

Something unimaginable…

It towered over him, sharp teeth glimmering, black wings unfolding…

And then there was darkness.

As the memories replayed in his mind, Lester’s vision cleared and he looked at those who stood before him as if in judgment. But, this must be some sort of trick, he thought. These people weren’t here for Lester. They couldn’t be.

They were all dead.

Hanging from the ceiling in the dingy basement, illuminated only by the murky light that shone in through the lone window behind them, Lester saw them all. They danced slowly, moving to and fro almost imperceptibly. Their weight pulled at the ropes around their necks, making the knots groan as they dragged minutely over the rafters. The sound reminded Lester of an old Erol Flynn movie he’d watched as a boy. 

Lester looked around, trying to determine where he was. He was certain this wasn’t his basement, his secret place. No, no, this was too light, yes. Lester preferred darkness, wrapped around him like a cloak of protection. He guessed, by the tone of the light seeping in through the window that it was near midday. How long he had been here was a mystery, but it had interrupted him just before dinner. Was that last night or the night before? Lester had no idea. Lester looked around, trying to determine where he was. He was certain this wasn’t his basement, his secret place. No, no, this was too light, yes. Lester preferred darkness, wrapped around him like a cloak of protection. He guessed, by the tone of the light seeping in through the window that it was near midday. How long he had been here was a mystery, but it had interrupted him just before dinner. Was that last night or the night before? Lester had no idea.

The room was very dusty, as evidenced by the thick gray air roiling through the beams of unobstructed light that shone between the bodies. As he looked around further, he noted what appeared to be three large statues, covered up with sheets, perhaps to protect them from the sea of particles floating in the air. Beside them, he saw what appeared to be a pulpit, and beyond that, a large ornate cross sat, propped against the wall.

A thought struck Lester that moment like a bolt of lightning, bringing him upward to full alertness. Where was his toy? Had someone taken her? She was his!

Lester began to snarl in anger and strained at his bonds, gnashing his teeth as a trickle of saliva escaped the corner of his mouth.

“Let me out of here!” he bellowed, as if the dead bodies would do his bidding.

“I say unto you-,” a guttural voice replied from one of the bodies.

Lester went wide eyed as it continued.

“Inasmuch as you have done unto one of the least of these, you have done unto me.”

“Who are you?” Lester snarled voraciously. “Show yourself!”

Silence mocked Lester’s command, as the bodies continued their slow dance while dust floated uncaringly through the room.

“Answer me!” he roared again, as his eyes darted from one body to the next. “I know you can talk!”

Several seconds passed with no reply. Lester’s agitation reached a fever pitch as he began bouncing up and down in the chair spasmodically, trying in vain to break loose from his bonds.

“Once I get free, I’ll kill you, I swear, I’ll kill you! RAAAAAHHHH!!” Lester raged at the bodies, which hung limply, as they paid no heed to his frantic gyrations.


“What was her name?” a rasping voice growled in Lester’s ear. His head jerked to the left, trying to see the speaker. However, nothing was behind him but more bodies. “What was her name?” a rasping voice growled in Lester’s ear. His head jerked to the left, trying to see the speaker. However, nothing was behind him but more bodies.

“Who? Whose name? What the #@*$& are you talking about?”

“The last little girl you murdered, Lester. The child in this picture,” grated the voice as a clawed hand jutted out in front of him, holding a photograph of his last plaything, as she sat upon a see-saw. Lester recoiled unconsciously, more at the site of the crosses adorning the thing’s claws than the sight of the little girl or the words “my favorite” he had scrawled across the picture in her dried blood.

“Where did you get that? It’s mine! Give it back!” Lester spat, as if he could command the speaker to do his bidding by sheer force of will.

“Her name was Arianna, Lester. Her parents still pray for her safe return, but she isn’t coming back to them, is she?”

Lester’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he remembered the last seconds of Arianna’s life, her cries for mercy, her last gurgling gasps of breath…

“IS SHE?!” the voice demanded, snapping Lester from his reverie.

“N-no… no she isn’t,” Lester mumbled, more to himself than his inquisitor.

“What of her?” the voice demanded, shoving another picture in front of him. A girl, about eight years old was jumping rope in this one, her blond curls bouncing innocently in the air. “Where is she?”

A disgusting grin played across Lester’s face as he looked at the photo. He knew where she was and once he was free, he would go enjoy her once more.

WHAM!

The backhand across his face drew blood from his left orbital socket, where the tiny crosses had cut him deeply, like scratches from a tiger.

“Tell me where she is, Lester, or I shall cast you into the pit…”

“W-who are you?” sobbed Lester, as the pain from the side of his face intensified. “Why me? Why can’t you just leave me be?”

“Tell me where she is Lester.”

Lester tossed his head back and stared full into the face of his adversary. The skull shaped visage shook him for but a moment, as the gaping maw seemed to draw him in hypnotically. This was the face he had seen at home, before everything went black.

 

Stay tuned to www.moonstonebooks.com for upcoming tales of DEATH ANGEL
And tune in next week for the conclusion of ‘HUNG JURY’ from MOONSTONE CLIFFHANGER FICTION!