Tagged: Death

John Ostrander: Death and Comics

At a convention I was at some years past I was having dinner with, among others, Howard Chaykin and Joe Rubinstein. Howard is always an interesting dinner companion; whether you agree with him or not on a subject, the conversation is going to be interesting. I didn’t know Joe Rubinstein much before that – except by his talent – but he raised a serious point with me. Joe knew about my late wife, Kim Yale, and her death and what he was interested in seeing coming from me was a story or stories about how you cope with the grief and the mourning that comes with the death of a loved one. It’s an interesting challenge and, while I’ve had some ideas about how to do it, I have yet to answer it.

I don’t think that comics, as a medium, deals well with death. It’s become a plot device, a sales gimmick, since we all know the character who has died is going to be back. I was staggered at the time of the Death of Superman storyline and by the number of people I knew who contacted me and breathlessly asked, “Is he really dead?” I pointed out that DC had too much money to lose from Underoos alone to let Kal-El stay dead.

Sure enough, Superman got better.

I will say that DC dealt well with the aftermath of Superman’s apparent demise in the World Without Superman follow-up storyline. There was real feeling, real emotion, by individuals and by the general population. And life went on without Superman.

That’s what happens. Your world ends; life goes on. The one you loved doesn’t come back. You cope however well or badly. You recover or you don’t.

I’m not saying that killing off a character can’t be effective or shouldn’t be done. When I was doing Suicide Squad over at DC, I was something of a literary mass murderer. I killed off lots of characters – mostly villains. I even killed off my own GrimJack character and brought him back albeit in a different, cloned body. I then reincarnated him somewhere further down his own timeline and, eventually, killed off that incarnation as well. So, how is that different, you ask.

Reincarnation doesn’t give you back the same body; it gives you a different one. The resiliency of the Doctor Who series rests on the title character’s ability to regenerate or reincarnate. Completely different actor, very different personality traits. There is change. That’s the difference and a key one.

Over at Marvel, the Pearly Gates is a revolving door. Captain America dies; oops, he got better. (Okay, it was really a “time bullet” but it was sold as the death of Captain America.) His teen sidekick in WWII, Bucky, dies in action. Oops, no, he gets better decades later. Both “deaths” generated interesting stories but is there anyone who really thought that the original Captain America wasn’t coming back?

Actions have consequences and death does as well. Grief should be shown; tears should flow. One of the major flaws, for me, of the first Star Wars film is that Luke barely sheds a tear at the death of the only parents he’s really ever known but then gets mopey about a mentor he’s known only a few days. Whereas, in the Harry Potter films, especially the later ones, when a character dies we see real grief and sorrow. It matters to the characters and therefore matters to us. And, yes, Harry dies and comes back to life but that doesn’t change my argument. His death grew out of the story and was, in fact, demanded by it; it was the way to resolve the story. That includes his resurrection. My gripe is with deaths that simply are “events” and meant to push sales.

Death in comics is too easy because resurrection is too easy. It doesn’t mean anything most of the time. It’s a cheat. Life – and death – doesn’t work that way. If death doesn’t mean anything, does life?

Monday: Mindy Newell and how she got that way.

What a Pile of Books Demanding to Be Reviewed Looks Like

What a Pile of Books Demanding to Be Reviewed Looks Like

My plan to reduce the stack of read but unreviewed books by reviewing one a day has fallen sadly afoul of events — and the particular “event” in this case was the fact that Thing 2 (my younger son, now 11) and I have been playing a lot of Lego Indiana Jones 2 the last week or so.

(It’s not new, but all of the Lego games – except for Harry Potter, which has over-complicated game mechanics — are so much fun that it’s great just to pick them up and run around smashing things and jumping your little man around randomly; they’re the kind of games that make you happy just to look at on the shelf and even more so to pull them back down and play.)

In other, unrelated news, my iPod Touch has been acting up for the past couple of weeks, and finally succumbed to the Ubiquitous White Screen of Death over the last few days. Even the so-called “genius bar” — I’ve been a user of Apple products for a long time now, and I greatly preferred it when they were scrappy underdogs and not arrogant SOBs — was no help, and so I ended up having to get a new one earlier today.

So far, it doesn’t seem all that different — it supposedly has the super neat-o keen-o “retina display” and a faster processor, but it basically seems like the same device to me. Except. This new one has a camera in it, a cheap crappy phone-style camera, so I can now take cheap crappy pictures of random things when I remember to. And so, this afternoon, instead of actually writing a review for one (or more!) of the books in that big stack, I played some more Lego Indiana Jones 2 with my son, took a picture of the stack of books, and wrote the above.

I’m not proud, mind you.

Mindy Newell: Books, Banned and Burned

This one’s for Martha …

Nothing like a good book to get the rabble-rousers going.

In Field Of Dreams, Ray Kinsella’s wife, played by Amy Madigan, successfully shuts down the effort to ban Terence Mann’s books from the local Iowa school system. Terence Mann – played by James Earl Jones – was based on J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher In The Rye.

Catcher was published in 1951, and has pretty much stayed on “attempts to ban it” lists since its publication. In fact, it was the most censored book in America from 1961 to 1982, even though, according to Wikipedia, it was the “second most taught book in United States public schools.” It most recently reappeared on the “most challenged books” list, published by American Library Association, in 2009.

These are some of the books I remember being on the curriculum when I was in school, along some that I missed because I was already out of school by the time they made the list of required reading, courtesy of my co-workers, although I have read them all:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Animal Farm
Antigone Brave New World Beloved
Call of the Wild Catcher in the Rye The Color Purple
The Crucible Death of a Salesman The Diary of Anne Frank
Fahrenheit 451 The Glass Menagerie The Grapes of Wrath
Great Expectations The Great Gatsby Hamlet
Invisible Man Johnny Tremain The Light in the Forest
Lord of the Flies Macbeth The Miracle Worker
1984 The Odyssesy Oedipus
Of Mice and Men Othello One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Othello
Our Town The Outsiders The Pearl
The Pigman Pygmalion The Red Badge of Courage
The Red Romeo and Juliet The Scarlet Letter
A Separate Peace Shane A Tale of Two Cities
To Kill a Mockingbird Where the Red Fern Grows Wuthering Heights

And here are the books on that list that have been banned at one time or another – or on which attempts have been made ban, courtesy of the American Library Association (ALA):

The Great Gatsby The Catcher in the Rye
The Grapes of Wrath To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple Beloved
The Lord of the Flies 1984
Of Mice and Men Catch-22
Brave New World Animal Farm
Invisible Man One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Call of the Wild A Separate Peace
The Diary of Anne Frank The Outsiders

Call Of The Wild?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Other books on the list I found from the ALA include the Goosebumps series; the Earth’s Children series; Gone With The Wind (but not anywhere in the South – oh, for those good old antebellum days!); The Handmaid’s Tale (in the South, I bet!); the Harry Potter series; Slaughterhouse Five; Native Son; Cujo, Carrie, and The Dead Zone (someone really doesn’t like Stephen King); Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Forever, Tiger Eyes, and Deenie, (they don’t like Judy Blume, either); A Wrinkle In Time; Flowers For Algernon; James And The Giant Peach (but Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is okay?); The House Of Spirits; The Bluest Eye and Song Of Solomon (or Toni Morrison); and That Was Then, This Is Now (ditto for S.E. Hines).

And you wonder why this country is so frakked.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis Spills The Beans

 

MICHAEL DAVIS: Game Change

I’ve seen the light.

I’ve seen the future of comics.

I had a meeting yesterday with a company that is going to change the game on the net and can change for comics and creators. I’ve haven’t been this excited since I was 17 and my very first real girlfriend Yvonne Stallworth said, “My parents won’t be home until the morning.”

At 17you know what that means, right fellas?

Poon tang…yeah.

Or in my case spending the night saying; “Please…please…please.”  Before you think I was begging for poon tang; “Please, Please, Please” is the title of a James Brown song I was singing… as I was begging for poon tang.

I can’t talk about the company or what they are doing…no that’s not true, I can talk about it but I’m hedging my bets just in case I’m wrong…which, by the way, I’m not.

That way if they crash and burn I’m protected and if they succeed I’m golden!

All the above said, I’m at a lost as to what was the last game changing moment in comics.

I guess it was the New 52 from DC.

I guess.

I’m not sure because to say something is a game changer is a big deal. Because it’s such a big deal I started thinking, what does it take to be a real game changer?

This is what I came up with. Areal game changer is a person or event that creates a new way of looking at things and years later that way has become the way.

So, with my personal criteria noted what follows are what I consider the most important game change decisions or people who have done so since I’ve been reading comics. You may disagree and if so feel free to amend, add or challenge some or all of my choices.

This list is in NO particular order.

  • Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man
  • Image Comics
  • Jack Kirby
  • Stan Lee
  • Dwayne McDuffie
  • First Comics
  • Mike Gold
  • Milestone Media
  • Death of Captain Marvel
  • Death of Superman
  • The New 52
  • The iPad
  • The Killing Joke
  • Crisis on Infinite Earths
  • Secret Wars
  • Death of Barry Allen
  • Neil Gaiman’s Sandman
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Kirby’s fourth world
  • Death of Gwen Stacy
  • Dave McKean
  • Bill Sienkiewicz
  • San Diego Comic Con International
  • Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles
  • Alan Speiegal
  • Arkham Asylum
  • Paul Levitz
  • Jenette Kahn
  • Axel Alonzo
  • Howard Chaykin
  • Dark Horse
  • Mike Richardson
  • Len Wein
  • Marv Wolfman
  • The A.P.E convention
  • John Jennings

Like I said the above list is in no particular order. Don’t send me comments about McFarlane being before Stan Lee, the list is in no particular order.

Duh.

Now. Have at it!

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

 

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO ‘DEATHWALKER’!

  • News
  • March 12, 2012

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

DEATHWALKER
By R. A. Jones
Cover Art by Laura Givens
Interior Art by Michael Neno
Published by Airship 27 Productions
2012

It is always exciting when a  New Pulp character debuts.  It’s also a great thing when writers, especially those known in other mediums, make their way into the New Pulp field.   In the instance of this Airship 27 release, DEATHWALKER, both of these events have occurred.  Deathwalker, the central character of the book, is the creation of R. A. Jones, a writer known largely for his comic work.  This is one of two New Pulp works that Jones has had debut in the month of February.

But there’s a third neat occurrence that I like to see happen as well that DEATHWALKER also takes advantage of.

In DEATHWALKER, Jones mines a field of inspiration and creativity that I think we as New Pulp writers all too often either completely overlook or just steal bits and pieces from intend of wrapping ourselves in it whole cloth.  That is, the rich tapestry that so many ancient civilizations, religions, and mythologies offer to creators to draw stories and new adventures from.  Why more New Pulpsters aren’t stepping off into the catastrophic cacophony of myths and the screwed up creatures that inhabit them is a mystery to me.  Jones does not shy away from that at all, setting his entire tale squarely in Native American mythology, particularly that of the Cheyenne, Deathwalker’s tribe.

The story centers around the title character who, when he was known as High Bird, experienced a rite of passage common to many aboriginal races world wide, that of the vision quest.  In his fevered quest, High Bird is visited by Death itself and marked forever more to be a Hero, but also a Bringer of Death.  It will follow him, He will cause it, He will be surrounded by it, respected because of it, and feared for it even by those who love him.  Taking the name Deathwalker, he becomes the leader of the Dog Soldiers, a band of warriors within his tribe and serves in many ways as the protector of his people.

The action of the story erupts when a band of young Cheyenne braves steal ponies from a nearby Pawnee tribe.  The shaman of the Pawnees, Stands Alone, takes great offense to this and begins a quest to wreak his revenge on the Cheyenne.  Never one to back down, Deathwalker confronts the shaman, heaps a few insults on to the old man himself, and thus begins a war between the two men that involves wolf men, centaurs, flying pestilence, snake women, and so many more concepts and characters drawn straight from Native American beliefs.   Not only that, but Jones insures that his characters authentically use rituals and observe customs common to the featured tribes, even so much so that one such custom plays a pivotal role in the story’s resolution.

DEATHWALKER has a lot to offer.  It is peopled with realistic characters while also being filled with fantastic magic and awesomely conceived mythical beasts.   Although the story telling is ponderous toward the beginning, it quickly gets beyond that and rolls fairly nonstop until the last page.  Also, there’s a device used toward the end of the book that sort of distracted me, took me out of the flow.   But overall, it was a solid read and fantastic story.

The interior art by Neno (that I was able to see in the PDF copy I had) stood out and was a fantastic rendition of the action in the book.  The Laura Givens cover was a mixed bag for me.  The central figure of Deathwalker was striking, but the surroundings and whatever lay in front of him seemed muddled and less clearly defined.    The overall design of the book, however, is top notch and makes a great package.

DEATHWALKER has been called ‘a Native American Conan’.  I don’t think that’s what I read.  The central character here had a code of honor and a direction much more specific and inherent than Robert E. Howard’s barbarian.  This struck me more as a Native American Hercules or Perseus and the story flowed with a more traditional Greek or Roman mythological pacing as well.  But, that is no way a negative at all. I actually find the depth that Jones worked into this tale its strongest point.

FOUR OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-DEATHWALKER runs the gamut of well told, fast paced, great mythological fun!  Well worth the read!

MINDY NEWELL: Character

What goes into making a memorable character for a story?

According to Lawrence Block, author of over one hundred novels and recipient of the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America, they must be three things: plausible, sympathetic, and original.

I think that’s a damn good definition of what makes a character real. Except that I think Mr. Block used the wrong word. It’s not “sympathetic,” it’s “empathetic.” Now, sympathy and empathy are kissing cousins, but sympathy, I think, allows the individual to separate from the character just a bit, to feel for the character while still allowing for some separation – six degrees of separation, if you will. Empathy, on the other hand causes the individual to feel with the character– it’s the recognition of self in someone else.

Without that recognition, without that empathy, the character is in danger of falling flat, of eliciting a “who cares?” response. The great characters are empathetic – Scarlett O’Hara of Gone With The Wind, the Joad family (especially Tom and “Ma”) of The Grapes Of Wrath, Vito and Michael Coreleone of The Godfather, Caleb Trask of East Of Eden, Joe and Kirsten Clay of Days Of Wine And Roses, Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, King George VI in The King’s Speech.

In comics there is Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and his sister, Death, the X-Men’s Max Eisenhardt/Erik Lensherr/Magneto and Jean Grey/Phoenix (Dark and “Light”), Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson, Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman. Of course there are more; I just chose those characters that appeared at the top of my head as I write this. You will have your own characters that engender empathy.

Originality is hard.  The history of storytelling begins when our ancestors first sat down around the fire and told tales to ward off the dark night. The history of storytelling is ripe with heroes and villains, love and betrayal, valor and cowardice. Originality, I think, comprises the total picture. As Block says in his book Telling Lies For Fun And Profit, “it’s not the quirks that make an enduring character, but the essential personality which the quirks highlight.” In other words, and like I said, it’s the whole picture, the complete character or individual that makes him or her an original.

Norma Desmond’s quirk is her inability to adjust to age and talkies, to realize and accept that time, and Hollywood, has marched on. Tom Joad’s quirk is his inability to accept injustice, even if it causes him to murder, which he sees as no injustice. Vito Coreleone’s quirk is to see the world as an “us against them” scenario, to nurture the family while attacking the world. Michael Coreleone’s quirk is to talk of love and loyalty to the family while he destroys it.  Swamp Thing’s quirk is that he is a plant trying to be a man. And Death loves life, even as she takes it away.

Plausibility allows the reader to suspend his or her disbelief, to accept that the actions of the character are true and real and acceptable. Now in comics, of course, plausibility is a two-edged sword. Of course we know that nobody can fly; nobody is invulnerable or runs at supersonic speed; no one can turn invisible or survive the explosion of a gamma bomb (except Bruce Banner, of course!) But as readers of superhero comics, we willingly suspend our disbelief, the implausibility of the character, before we even open the book. Why? Well, I think it has something to do with the capturing of our imagination, the “what if?” factor that I wrote about several months ago. But I also think that the other factors mentioned above play a role in our acceptance of Superman or Rogue. Empathy: “I get it. I know what it’s like to be Rogue, to be unable to really touch someone, to really get close to someone.” Or “Yeah, sometimes I feel like Kal-El, a stranger in a strange land.”

I watched Game Change on HBO. The movie is based on Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann of New York magazine and Mark Halperin of Time. Both men are seasoned politically analysts, and their book, which was released on January 11, 2010, is an inside look at the Presidential campaign of 2008. The HBO movie focuses on Palin, played by Julianne Moore, from the moment the McCain campaign decides to ask her to be his running mate to Obama’s running mate.

The movie is riveting. Moore buries herself completely into the role, and I’m guaranteeing right now that she wins an Emmy for her performance. Sarah Palin is, without a doubt, love her or hate her, an original. She is empathetic – and sympathetic – as she works to maintain her sense of self and, love them or hate them, her own beliefs against the McCain and Republican political machinery.

But is she plausible? The movie shows that, as far as being capable of being “one heartbeat away from the Presidency,” Palin was an implausible candidate. But don’t tell that to the huge – and I mean huge – groundswell of love and support she engendered.

Yesterday afternoon I went to my local comic book store, Vector Comics, to pick up my haul. Joe and Tina, the terrific and wonderful owners of the shop, were busy with other customers, so I browsed through the stacks to see if anything not on my list that caught my interest. (Actually, almost everything piques my appetite, and if I allowed myself to buy everything I want, I couldn’t pay the rent!)

Know what I found? The Sarah Palin comic from Bluewater Comics.

What a character!

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

 

MINDY NEWELL: Who’s Dead As A Doornail?

MINDY NEWELL: Who’s Dead As A Doornail?

Death aims only once, but never misses.

(Maxims: Political, Philosophical, and Moral, by Edward Counsel)

Except in comics.

I was doing a search for quotes about death when I found this one, which is so apropos. I never heard of Edward Counsel; did a Google search, but couldn’t find him?? Found a reproduction of his book on Amazon; the original was published before 1923. All I can gather is that he was an Australian who was born before 1900. Anyone who has more info is welcome to let me know in the comments section.

The reason I was looking for a quote about death – of which there seems to be milllllllllions – is because all us comic fans are buzzing about the YouTube video The Death and Return of Superman, by Max Landis (son of John Landis), who stars in The Chronicle. I was going to post it here, but Martha (Thomases) beat me to it three days ago – which amazingly points out that DC actually thought Tim Drake’s/Robin’s new costume was more of a P.R. event than Supe’s kicking of the bucket – so I won’t do that. All I can say is that, if by any chance you haven’t seen it, do so at once. You have my permission to stop reading this column, go watch it (it’s about 16:00 long) and then come back. It is bitingly hilarious, and exceptionally on the mark!!!! (Major kudos to Landis and his fellow actors btw!)

SPOILER ALERT!: Okay, I’m going to assume that you have either already seen the video or have taken the 16:00 to watch it before returning here, because I’m going to give away the ending here.

Landis concludes his short film by stating that Superman’s death and return opened the floodgates for other comic characters to die and then resurrect. In other words, said resurrection cheapened the dramatic impact of said death, and ended the ability of readers to mourn the loss of the character, because the reader knew the character would eventually return. Cynics like me will always point out that the death of a character in the comic book world is always due to (1) marketing; and (2) the dictates of Hollywood – as Martha ably points out in her column concerning Lois And Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

As a comics writer, a editor, and a reader, the “make-believe” of death in comics really pisses me off.

I’d like to point out that the ability of fiction (any fiction, from comics to television to movies) to help children understand and cope with finality of death is incredibly important. J. M. Barrie understood this, as he has Peter Pan say “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” And of course, J.K. Rowling did not flinch from the meaning of death in the Harry Potter And The novels; it was one of the themes of her “magnus opus” – beginning with the main character. Need I remind you that Harry was an orphan?

Okay, young readers of comics are scarce these days. We all know that. But they are still out there; my eleven-year old niece Isabel being one of them. And children are curious about death. About six months after my husband left me, the family was out to dinner. Right in the middle of the laughter and the eating, Isabel, six years old at the time, said to me, “Is John dead?” (That was a conversation stopper, let me tell you.) Of course her parents had explained what had happened. But obviously Isabel couldn’t grasp the concept of marital separation and divorce, so all she knew was that John was gone, which in her thoughts equaled death… because, as her mom told me later, she had just seen a movie – I don’t remember which one, it might have been one of the Harry Potter’s – in which one of the characters died. And she was trying to wrap her young mind around “death.”

Which I think is good; our society tends to put death into a dark, dusty corner where it molders and mildews and mutates into something unbearably monstrous. Remember the uproar over Terry Schiavo? How about the Republican bullshit of equating Obama’s healthcare bill with death panels? And as a registered nurse in the operating room, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen terminally ill or extremely aged patients subjected to the stress of unneeded or useless surgery or treatment because the family insists on it because they can’t deal with the impending death of their loved one.

Death can be welcomed as an end to unending pain and torment. Death can be aggressively fought against with all the tools of modern medicine. Death can be sudden, or it can be stretched out into nanoseconds.

But death is real.

I’m still reeling from the death of Kara Zor-El – Supergirl – in Crisis On Infinite Earth.  Don’t talk to me about the reboots.

The Very Short List of Comic Book Superheroes Who Have Died And Returned: Alfred Pennyworth, Aquaman, Aunt May, Big Barda, Bucky, Captain America, The Doctor, Elektra, Fahrenheit, The Flash, Firestorm, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, The Human Torch, Jean Grey, Moon Knight, Negative Man, Punisher, Robin, Supergirl, Superman, The Thing, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (many if not all), Wonder Man, Wonder Woman, Yellowjacket.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis. Sponsored by the Bacon Council.

DENNIS O’NEIL: TeeVee’s Super Ray

A few weeks ago I was blathering about the absence of new superheroes in the current television schedules. Shame on me! I forgot about Super Ray.

Before you rush off to consult TV Guide searching for time and channel, be assured that you won’t find Ray there. The show he’s on isn’t about him. Fact is, he’s not exactly on the show. He’s a character created by one of the fictional people who is on the show. This character, also named Ray, is a comic book artist and Super Ray is his brainchild.

Still with me? Good, because it gets even more complicated.

The show is called Bored to Death and it concerns Jonathan Ames, a largely unpublished writer who moonlights as a private eye, his editor/restaurateur mentor George, and his cartoonist pal Ray. It’s a comedy, one which has grown on me; initially, my reaction was take-it-or-leave-it, but that’s morphed into a genuine fondness for an entertainment that’s quirky, unique and… what am I forgetting?… oh yeah, often quite funny.

Bored to Death gleefully and wantonly blurs the line between fiction and real life. The nominal hero, Jonathan Ames, played by Jason Schwartzman, is – no surprise here – based on the real Jonathan Ames but…the actual Ames plays Irwin who is trying to stab Ray because of a problem involving a woman. George Christopher is played by Ted Danson and I’ve never liked him in any role as much as I like him as George.

Which brings us to Ray, played by the ubiquitous Zach Galifianakis, and also inspired by a person with an address and a social security number, Dean Haspiel. Like the quasi-fictitious Ray, Dean is a cartoonist and a friend and colleague of Mr. Ames. All clear, right? Ray is tight with the Schwartzman/Ames and Dean is tight with the Ames/Ames.

Wait – there’s more! Some of Bored to Death’s storylines are borrowed from Dean’s autobiography.

But here the correspondences begin to dissolve. You probably wouldn’t mistake Haspiel for Galifianakis. Zach/Ray is a pretty dour dude whereas Dean is cheery and ebullient. To me, Dean seems to be absolutely delighted to be who and what and where he is.

(Yeah, you got me. I do know Dean – have known him since he was a little kid. He’s one of my son’s oldest friends. Okay with me if it’s okay with him.)

One more thing: Dean Haspiel is the only person I know who possesses an Emmy, an award he received for work on Bored to Death’s animated title sequence. And when Zach/Ray draws a picture on television, Dean actually wields the pencil…and again, the lines blur.

But see for yourself. Bored to Death. HBO. Monday nights at nine, eastern time.

RECOMMENDED READING: Nothing in particular, but Dean Haspiel’s website has information about his published work and a little Googling would probably yield more Dean, as well as a list if Jonathan Ames’s books. (The real Jonathan Ames, that is.)

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

A NEW HERO FROM AIRSHIP 27-ENTER CHALLENGER STORM!

  • News
  • November 4, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Move over Doc Savage and Captain Hazzard, here comes America’s newest pulp hero –
CHALLENGER STORM

Airship 27 Productions and Cornerstone Book Publishers present another new pulp hero crafted in the mold of the classic 1930s adventurers. The sole survivor of a senseless tragedy, the heir to a massive fortune devotes himself to a life protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. From his base of operations at the Miami Aerodrome Research & Development Laboratories, he and his colorful associates brave any danger to bring justice to those in need.

His name is Clifton Storm… the world will call him “Challenger”.

THE ISLE OF BLOOD

When a wealthy aviation tycoon asks Storm to help return his kidnapped daughter, the MARDL crew is plunged into a rescue-mission on the tiny island-nation of La Isla de Sangre. From the sunny streets of Miami to the assault on a guerrilla enclave & the ruins of a lost-city deep in the jungle, the action is non-stop in this debut pulp thriller. Can Storm rid La Isla de Sangre from the vicious warlords known as the Villalobos Brothers and defeat the mysterious Goddess of Death?

Join Challenger Storm and his loyal band of adventurers as they fly off on this, the first of a brand new series of pulp thrillers. Writer Don Gates and legendary graphic artist, Michael Kaluta join forces to unleash this exciting and original new pulp hero guaranteed to provide pulp fans with explosive thrill-a-minute entertainment. All brought to you by the always ground-breaking crew of Airship 27 Productions; Pulp Fiction for a New Generation!

ISBN: 1-613420-23-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-613420-23-2
Produced by Airship 27
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers

Release date: 11/15/2011
Retail Price: $16.95
Digital Download Now Available for $3 –
(http://homepage.mac.com/robmdavis/Airship27Hangar/index.html)
11/20/2011 @ (www.IndyPlanet.com) for $15

FROM ALTUS PRESS-THE GREEN LAMA VOLUME 2

  • News
  • November 2, 2011

The Green Lama: The Complete Pulp Adventures Volume 2
Authored by Kendell Foster Crossen, Illustrated by V.E. Pyles,
Introduction by Michelle Nolan


Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum! The first of its kind, the complete adventures of the Green Lama follows the adventures of Buddhist Jethro Dumont and his aides as they battle the forces of evil in the western world.

Written by Kendell Foster Crossen, it’s non-stop action in the vein of The Shadow!

Never completely reprinted before, the series is collected in three volumes. Each volume contains an all-new introduction, focusing on a different aspect of the character’s life across several forms of popular media. Volume 2 contains an introduction by comics historian
Michelle Nolan and features the next five stories: “The Case of the Death’s-Head Face,” “The Case of the Clown Who Laughed,” “The Case of the Invisible Enemy,” “The Case of the Mad Magi,” and “The Case of the Vanishing Ships.”

GREEN LAMA is a trademark controlled by, and licensed from, Argosy Communications, Inc.

List Price: $34.95 softcover, $44.95 hardcover
6″ x 9″ 512 pages


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