From Pro Se Productions and creator/author Derrick Ferguson, the man behind New Pulp mainstay Dillon, comes THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE MCCALL VOLUME ONE! And for a limited time, the debut of Sovereign City’s own princely protector is available to you for free as an Ebook!
From Sovereign City roars a Different Kind of Hero! Derrick Ferguson’s THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE MCCALL brings a seafaring gambling ship owner and adventurer to the shores of Sovereign and flings him and his circle of companions feet first into Murder, Mystery, and Madness! Four stories of Fortune and his team are featured here, all penned by Ferguson, the man behind Fortune McCall! The second volume in the Sovereign City Project from Pro Se Press-THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE MCCALL! Cover by David L. Russell inspired by concept by Peter Cooper! Heroes to spare, villains to fight, and a city to save. All from Pro Se and available NOW for FREE for 24 hours!
GA84B to purchase the book! Then, if you would be so kind, leave reviews for the book at Smashwords, Amazon, on your site or blog, and anywhere else you’d like!
Enjoy THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE MCCALL for Free! From Derrick Ferguson and Pro Se Productions!
If you’ve never read Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon (celebrating 10 years in print) then you’re missing out. But there’s hope. This weekend you can download an ebook copy of Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell in the format of your choice. Just click this link and you’ll be on your way to a fun, pulpy adventure.
You can thank us later.
You can learn more about Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon here and here.
Pulpwork Press shared this teaser image for the upcoming 10th Anniversary Edition release of Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon and The Voice of Odin by Sean E. Ali.
Airship 27 Presents All-Star Pulp Comics #2 is now available from Redbud Studios.
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
AIRSHIP 27 presents ALL STAR PULP COMICS # 2 (Portion of Profits Goes to Boston Red Cross)
Airship 27 Productions has once again teamed with Redbud Studio comics to release the second in their on-going pulp comics anthology. The first giant issue in this series won the coveted Pulp Ark Award for Best Pulp Comic of 2010.
Volume two of the series, co-edited by creators Ron Fortier and Rob Davis, is even bigger than that stellar premier issue. Contained here are eight stories featuring both modern and classic pulp heroes; Ki-Gor the Jungle Lord, the Black Bat, Cain, Robin Hood, Lance Star, Brothers Bones, Dillon and Domino Lady.
The cover is by Will Meugniot and features Ki-Gor’s lovely mate, Helene, battling back to back with Derrick
#1 Cover Art: Jeff Butler
Ferguson’s modern day adventurer, Dillon. Other creators represented are Russ Anderson, Fortier, Davis, Ian Watson, Thomas Deja, Michelle Sciuto, Sean Taylor, Aaron Meade, Todd Jones, Lee Oaks, James Gaubatz, Van Plexico, Andrew Salmon and Kelly Everaert.
The book is available from Indy Planet.com and part of the proceeds are being donated to the Boston Red Cross. “We were the last stages of assembling the book,” explains Editor Foriter, “when the Patriots’ Day bombings occurred in Boston. All of us, like the rest of the country, were in shock and felt helpless to do anything.” It was writer Van Plexico who contacted Fortier about possibly offering some of the sales proceeds to help those injured in the terror attack. “The second Van brought up, I knew it was something we had to do,” Fortier continues. He contacted Davis and all the creators and the decision was made to take all the profits earned by the book during its first six months in print and donate them to the Boston Red Cross.
“We truly hope our fans, when they learn of this idea, will want to rally around a truly good cause and help us put sales over the top,” adds co-editor Rob Davis. “We really want this to be the best selling title Redbud Studio has ever produced.”
One of the most enjoyable aspects of New Pulp Fiction has been the creation of memorable new heroes by today’s pre-eminent pulp writers. Derrick Ferguson has given us Dillon and Mongrel to name a few. Barry Reese has created a bunch of awesome characters, the most recognizable being the Rook and Lazarus Gray. And the list goes on and on. Which is why this reviewer has become so enamored with Michael Panush’s series, STEIN AND CANDLE : Detective Agency which features two of the most original new pulp heroes ever to grace a page of purple prose.
Mort Candle is an ex-Army sergeant tough-guy private eye who is parts Sam Spade and Mike Hammer. Candle’s fist often speak louder than his words. His partner is a teenage boy named Weatherby Stein, a German youth whose parents were killed by the Nazis. Weatherby’s father was one of the world’s leading authorities on the occult and Weatherby was raised studying arcane lore thus making him, even at a young age, an expert in the dark arts. Thus this duo travels the post World War II globe tackling all manner of bizarre adventures. This is the second volume of their cases and like the first is jammed packed with memorable scenes that assure Stein and Candle a reserved niche in the halls of New Pulp Fiction heroes.
“Tiki Terror,” has the guys flying to Honolulu, Hawaii to solve a bizarre murder of a hotel magnate who was apparently eaten by sharks in his high-rise office far from the sea. While on the island, Weatherby is reunited with his older sister, Selena, a college student studying anthropology.
“Crimson Catch” takes our duo to the mysterious New England fishing town of Innsmouth where they cross paths with Lovecraft monsters from the deep. Panush audaciously swipes the plot from “A Fist Full of Dollars,” having Candle play the part of the instigator pitting two occult clans of fishmen against each other.
With “Mort Candle’s War,” Panush continues the origin saga began in the first volume returning back to the Black Forest where Sgt. Mort Candle and his squad of Screaming Eagles fight a desperate battle to save young Weatherby Stein and deliver safely to General Patton’s Third Army. Great combat sequences reminiscent of DC Comic’s old Sgt.Rock series.
In “Pharoah’s Palace,” Mort and Weatherby uncover an ancient Egyptian mystic operating a casino on Los Vegas and team up with legendary hero, Doc Dearborn and his daughter, Evelyn, to combat this ancient evil.
The fifth tale is called “The Hallow,” and has our heroes visiting rural Appalachia to rescue a miner’s daughter kidnapped by a coven of witches. But before they can formulate an effective strategy, the witches snatch Weatherby and its left to Mort to rescue his young partner with the aid of a con artist turned preacher man.
“Business Proposition,” picks up on the episodic origin story of how the gruff former army sergeant and the special trained teenager hook up again in Brooklyn after the war and what leads them to form their partnerships as detectives who specialize in the bizarre. Easily our favorite tale in this collection.
Finally the book wraps with “Crypt Chasers,” a high-balling confrontation between Weatherby and malevolent distant relative who has returned from the dead and plans on unleashing his particular brand of sadism on the modern world. Panush leaves the story open ended, having created what looks to be a recurring arch-enemy for our duo. Making us all the more anxious to dig into the next volume of this terrific series.
We’d also like to applaud Curiosity Quills Press for a gorgeous design package here, from a beautiful cover to fitting interior illustrations that truly enhance each story. “Stein and Candle Vol II Cold Wars” is a fantastic, thoroughly enjoyable book we cannot recommend strongly enough. If you like New Pulp Fiction, Stein and Candle are you kind of heroes. Move over Dillon and the Rook, you’ve got company.
The Nao of Brown By Glyn Dillon 206 pages, $24.95, SelfMadeHero/Abrams
Somewhat lost amidst the affection showered on Chris Ware’s Building Stories was Glyn Dillon’s triumphant return to the comics form with the impressive Nao of Brown. Dillon began making a name for himself at Vertigo with a variety of works, notably the Egypt miniseries and then walked away to work in film. The tug of comics was strong enough to lure him back and commit nearly three years of his to producing this lengthy graphic novel.
Making his writing debut, he presents us with the story of Nao, a half-Japanese/half-English twentysomething who is yearning for a normal life and love but struggles daily with purely obsessional compulsive disorder, a secret she shares only with flatmate Tara. Her mind is filled with images of committing extremely violent acts and rates them on a scale from 1-10. As we open, she’s using Buddhist meditation to control her impulses and takes a job selling Japanese collectable toys at a small shop run by her friend, Steve, totally oblivious toward how he feels for her.
Instead, Nao is drawn to a large bear of man, Gregory, who repairs washing machines. Engineering a meeting, she damages the flat’s machine so he can come fix it. They begin to date, a tentative start at best given his own issues. He has some deep pain he masks with alcohol so we have two damaged souls looking for love and saving.
Throughout this beautifully illustrated work, Dillon presents a parallel story in Nao’s favorite Ichi style. While it features a protagonist named Pictor, who tries to rescue his family after being turned half into a tree by a being called the Nothing, it also has father figure Nobodaddy, who looks somewhat like Gregory. Here, Dillon shows his versatility, channeling the influence of Moebius and Miyazaki although the sequences don’t always work or really enhance the main story.
Tara, Steve, and the mothers to Nao and Gregory are fine, underdeveloped supporting characters. Contrasting the relations between the lovers and their mothers might have given this a little more substance but it’s nice to see positive familial relations and good friends in a story like this.
This is a slice of life style story as we meander from the shop to the flat to dates to Nao’s OCD and imaginary tale. We enjoy this because Dillon, younger brother to noted artist Steve Dillon, takes his time and makes us care about these characters. His naturalistic style emphasizes body language, setting, and mood through watercolor work that is a delight to look at.
He does not dwell at length on any of the themes raised in the story and this is far from a moral tale about OCD, despite the unique take on the mental disorder. He told The Comics Journal, “I was learning to meditate as well. In this meditation group there were other students saying how they couldn’t stop their minds from racing when they were trying to meditate, and there seemed to be parallels between that and OCD that all interested me at the time.” We get into Nao’s head and see what she gets out of meditation, what she sees in Gregory, and how she copes day in and day out. The coping and self-absorption, though, blinds her to other issues such as Steve’s infatuation or Greg’s personal demons, which eventually are thrown in her face.
As a tyro writer, though, he does not successfully build up to a strong climax, but let’s things happen and then we hurry through the crisis and then leap four years ahead for a too-tidy ending. A compelling character study, I find his overall message elusive. While entertained by the characters and enthralled by the art, the conclusion suddenly feels predictable, undercutting the rest of the book’s strengths.
Dillon’s return to comics is a most welcome one and if The Nao of Brown is an indication of what he’s interested in exploring, I‘ll be there to see what he uncovers.
Airship 27 Productions publisher, Ron Fortier shared a sneak peek (above) at a page from the New Pulp Publisher’s upcoming second volume of All-Star Pulp Comics in his weekly Flight Log at www.airship27.com.
All Pulp will post more news about All-Star Pulp Comics #2 when it becomes available.
Artist Will Meugniot provides the cover (at left) to All-Star Pulp Comics #2 featuring Ki-Gor’s lady love, Helene teaming up with Derrick Ferguson’s pulp adventurer, Dillon.
Artist Will Meugniot shared his step-by-step process for creating the cover for Airship 27‘s upcoming All-Star Pulp Comics #2 featuring Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon and Helene from Ki-Gor. You can see it all here.
Keep watching all pulp for more on All-Star Pulp Comics #2.
Airship 27 Productions and Redbud Studio’s All-Star Pulp Comics #2 is in production and will feature comic tales of some of pulp’s favorite characters by some of New Pulp‘s best. Cover artist Will Meugniot shared his behind-the-scenes process for designing the cover on his Facebook page.
From Will Meugniot: Here’s a preview of the new cover I just completed for Airship 27’s ALL-STAR PULP COMICS #2 out early next year. That complicated man with the Tommy gun is Derrick Ferguson’s exciting new pulp era adventure hero, Dillon, battling unknown evils alongside classic hero Ki-gor’s lovely mate, the crimson tressed Helene. On the left is the comp, at center is the inks and to the right, the finish. Hope you all will pick up a copy!
All-Star Pulp Comics #1 is still available. Features cover art by Jeffrey Butler. You can find it here.
Keep watching All Pulp for more details on All-Star Pulp Comics #2 when they become available.
