Tagged: Mike Bullock

All Pulp Interviews: Moonstone’s Return of the Monsters – Eric Johns

  • News
  • September 19, 2011
Cover: Dan Brereton

This Halloween, Moonstone heads back to their monstrous roots with the Return of the Monsters Event. Return of the Monsters features four stand-alone tales of pulp’s mightiest heroes facing off against some classic monsters. One of those titles is The Black Bat vs. Dracula by Mike Bullock and Eric Johns. All Pulp sat down with the artist to talk about this upcoming book.

All Pulp: Tell us a little about yourself and your pulp interests.

Eric Johns: I’m just a regular guy, who spent far too much time studying the way the world works and the best way to record it. After unlocking some esoteric doors, I found my path as a Comic book artist. There are no limits to this format, all stories are possible, no production restraints, no boundaries like other mediums have.

Art: Eric Johns

Having owned a comic book store, I’ve read all kinds of Pulp: John Carter, The Shadow, Tarzan, Conan, and Doc Savage to name a few off the top of my head. These guys trailblazed the way for the comic book heroes we know today. Pulps, directly or indirectly, influence nearly all creators in the comic field.

AP: You’re providing pencils and inks for the Return of the Monsters Halloween event book, The Black Bat vs. Dracula. What can we expect from this titanic throw down?

EJ: Expect a captivating thrill ride, with a harrowing glimpse into Death Angel’s soul, as penned by the masterful Mike Bullock.

AP: The Black Bat vs. Dracula has a pulp hero battling a classic monster, a combination that even though done in some regards hasn’t ever really been done the way Moonstone is doing it with the Return of the Monster event. What do these genres have in common and how do they differ in ways that complement each other?

Art: Eric Johns

EJ: Well both deal with the dark side. They both wield weird, often powerful abilities that make brawls and action sequences far above the realm of knuckles and the 40 inch vertical leap of mere humans.
The Heroes of Pulp fit nicely in opposition to the evil Monsters, completing the chess pieces necessary for battle. A battle between beings that can actually go toe to toe, or claw in some cases.

AP: The Return of the Monsters Halloween event brings back several classic monster archetypes to Moonstone’s lineup. How does this version of Dracula compare and contrast to previous versions of the character?

Return of the Monsters Cover Art: Dan Brereton

EJ: Well he compares in power and weaknesses, and is shadowed comfortably in the darkness, like previous incarnations. Mike Bullock’s version deviates only slightly from the classic, he hides in plain sight at the beginning. Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. (laughs.) He has long hair, but otherwise it’s our beloved Drac.

Art: Eric Johns

AP: What appeals to you about pulp heroes battling classic monsters? What was it that excited you about visually pitting the Black Bat against the lord of the vampires?

EJ: Are you kidding me? Anytime you get to draw one of the classic monsters, it’s an opportunity not to be wasted.

AP: What, if any, existing pulp, monster, or comic book characters would you like to try your hand at drawing?

EJ: The Shadow, any of the Monsters, and Daredevil or Batman. My art style is probably better suited to Superman or Captain America, however, and I love both of those characters as well.

Art: Eric Johns

AP: What does Eric Johns do when he’s not drawing?

EJ: I’m a strange mixture of nerd and athlete. Athnerd or dorklete. I play basketball and Magic the Gathering, and love my comics.

AP: Where can readers find learn more about you and your work?

EJ: For those willing to ask, I’m pretty accessible: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1058905780

AP: Any upcoming projects you would like to mention?

EJ: I’m illustrating “SGT. Janus: Spirit Breaker,” it’s prose style Pulp fiction. I could give accolades to this book and it’s writer, Gentleman Jim Beard, but it’s better to just relate what I told Jim. There is a fairy tale that he created, pure Jim Beard, but it resonated with me and my mind kept telling me, “I remember that story,” as I read it for the first time. That is profound writing!

AP: Thanks, Eric.

The Black Bat vs. Dracula is solicited in August Previews for an October in store release.

All Pulp Interviews: Moonstone’s Return of the Monsters – Mike Bullock

  • News
  • September 14, 2011
Cover Art: Dan Brereton

This Halloween, Moonstone heads back to their monstrous roots with the Return of the Monsters Event. Return of the Monsters features four stand-alone tales of pulp’s mightiest heroes facing off against some classic monsters. One of those titles is The Black Bat vs. Dracula by Mike Bullock and Eric Johns. All Pulp sat down with the writer about this upcoming book.

All Pulp: Hi, Mike. Tell us a little about yourself and your pulp interests.

Mike Bullock: Well, I’m a guy who loves escapist fiction. Mostly the kind that goes on inside my head. I don’t have much time anymore to spend reading great books or watching thrilling movies, so that love burrows deep into my mind and sinks its fangs into the wellspring of imagination constantly flowing through my thoughts.

My pulp interests began with sword and sorcery stuff, then sci fi and space opera stuff. I was never much into the hard-boiled detective type stuff and somehow missed the boat on Doc Savage, but I love Conan, John Carter, Flash Gordon and the more fantastical stuff like Captain Future, Gladiator and the like.

Oh, and, I love pizza.

Art: Eric Johns

AP: Your story for the Return of the Monsters Halloween event is called The Black Bat vs. Dracula. What can we expect from this titanic throw down?

MB: It’s a game of cat and mouse and cat as Death Angel investigates a serial killing only to discover the killer is after her next and he doesn’t want to kill her, but to make her his eternal lover. A fateful game of huntsmanship through the historic Phaidor hotel, brought to life by the zealous pencils and pens of Eric Johns.

AP: The Black Bat vs. Dracula has a pulp hero battling a classic monster, a combination that even though done in some regards hasn’t ever really been done the way Moonstone is doing it with the Return of the Monster event. What do these genres have in common and how do they differ in ways that complement each other?

MB: I’m sure everyone has their own view of how to answer that, but since you’re asking me, here’s mine: Both pulp and the classic monster tales use some really imaginative characters that are far outside the ordinary and place them into situations that force the ordinary to become extraordinary. Frankenstein, Dracula, werewolves, mummies and zombies all seem to come from the same wellspring I mentioned above, and so do characters like Black Bat, Phantom Detective, Domino Lady, Spider and Death Angel.

I also think both “genres” (I use that word very, very loosely) appeal to a similar audience, people looking for escapism with a solid sense of right and wrong, the heroic and villainous. There aren’t many shades of grey in either, although characters on both sides of the table do have both human and monstrous sides to their personas.

AP: The Black Bat vs. Dracula also features your creation, Death Angel. How does this modern day creation hold her own against these two classic characters?

Art: Eric Johns

MB: I think that’s up to the readers to decide. I’d have to be pretty egotistical to think a character I came up with just a few years ago could compare to the likes of Dracula and Black Bat. Those are two creations that have stood the test of time for a very long time and will continue to do so. I can only hope ‘Angel is still remembered when she’s been around as long as those two heavyweights. Honestly, I’m just tickled that people seem to dig her as much as they do.

AP: The Return of the Monsters Halloween event brings back several classic monster archetypes to Moonstone’s lineup. How does this version of Dracula compare and contrast to previous versions of the character?

MB: I haven’t seen all the previous versions, but my take on the Prince of Darkness is fairly ‘classic’ I think. He’s young in appearance, charismatic, self assured, powerful and someone who is very used to getting his way. Until this story, Death Angel had never met her equal in a fight and it’s made her a bit overconfident. After this encounter, if she survives, that confidence will be shaken to the core.

AP: What appeals to you about pulp heroes battling classic monsters? What was it that excited you about pitting the Black Bat against the lord of the vampires?

MB: For me, it was a classic “Battle to Rule The Night” scenario. Black Bat, Death Angel and Dracula all exist in the shadows, stalking their prey through the darkness, using fear as a weapon. But, while their methods are all very similar, their motives and desired goals are definitely not. Black Bat wants justice, Death Angel wants revenge and Dracula wants blood. Aim those three at the same crossroads and get ready for the “big one”.

AP: You’ve been spearheading the Black Bat’s comic book adventures for Moonstone. What’s ahead for the book and character?

MB: At some point the second Black Bat graphic novel will come out, concluding the “Black Death” story begun in the first graphic novel. I also have a Black Bat/Spider crossover tale coming in the Spider prose anthology. After that, I think the majority of new Black Bat tales will come in prose form. I’d like to start building him ground up in a series of prose tales, but we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds.

Art: Eric Johns

AP: What, if any, existing pulp, monster, or comic book characters would you like to try your hand at writing?

MB: Pulp – Conan, John Carter. Monster, more Dracula and possibly some Frankenstein. I wrote a Frankenstein tale years ago I might dust off, polish up and release in eBook format sometime. For comics, I’d love to write Moon Knight, Firestorm and Captain “Shazam” Marvel, and to a minor extent would love to do some Silver Surfer and eventually Batman.

AP: What does Mike Bullock do when he’s not writing?

MB: Spend entirely too much time on the phone discussing writing with clients, publishers, artists and friends. When not doing that, I love to spend time with my beautiful wife and awesome son.

Cover Art: Dan Brereton

AP: Where can readers learn more about you and your work?

MB; Read the tea leaves. They know everything. If not, roll the bones; the runes never lie. But, if you don’t have access to tea leaves and rune stones, you can check out my studios’ website at www.runemasterstudios.com and the sister site www.pulp.runemasterstudios.com/

AP: Any upcoming projects you would like to mention?

MB: Anyone out there who is into sword and sorcery should stay tuned for my first prose novel, coming from Airship 27 early next year, “The Runemaster.” It’s a Viking epic in the vein of Conan, Braveheart and Beowulf. After that, check out my second novel, coming from Pro Se entitled “Janus: Guardian of Worlds.” Janus exists in the late 1930s where he finds himself as the lone guardian between our world and an infinite number of others inhabited by all sorts of nasty creatures, unimaginable evil and supernatural forces all hell-bent on the destruction of everything we know. And you thought the Nazis were the only thing to worry about back then…

AP: Thanks, Mike.

MB: You’re welcome. Thanks for the interview and thanks for everything All Pulp does for those of us with an addiction to fiction.

The Black Bat vs. Dracula is solicited in August Previews for an October in store release.

Table Talk – Looking Forward Through The Rear View Mirror

  • Uncategorized
  • September 7, 2011

Table Talk, where three writer- umm, authors, discuss the ins and outs of creating fiction for prose, comics and other outlets. This week, Barry Reese, Bobby Nash, and Mike Bullock chat about how far ahead they plot and how far back they work when building their characters.
Table Talk: Looking Forward Through The Rear View Mirror with Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash is now available at http://www.newpulpfiction.com/

Table Talk – Kill ‘Em All!

  • Uncategorized
  • August 31, 2011

New Pulp Authors Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash are back for another installment of NewPulpFiction’s Table Talk. This week, the guys discuss attachments to their characters as well as the writing process itself

Table Talk: At What Price? with Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash is now available at http://www.newpulpfiction.com/

Table Talk: Creative Envy

  • Uncategorized
  • August 18, 2011

Table Talk returns to http://www.newpulpfiction.com/. This week Bobby, Barry, and Mike discuss creative envy.

Someone coined the term “creative envy” a while back in response to seeing the intellectual property of another and wishing they’d come up with it first. Most, if not all creators have a particular character or property they wish they’d thought up first. This week Barry Reese, Bobby Nash and Mike Bullock discuss creative envy and take a look at their own properties they wish they had time to fully realize.
 
 

Reviews from the 86th Floor: Barry Reese Looks at The Black Bat Graphic Novel

  • News
  • August 18, 2011



The Black Bat

Written by Mike Bullock

Art by Michael Metcalf and Fernando Peniche

Letters by Josh Aitken

Moonstone Books

ISBN 978-1-933076-96-6

$8.99

Longtime readers of my review column know that I’m a big fan of Mike Bullock’s run on The Phantom. So when Moonstone announced their “Return of the Originals” projects, I was intrigued to see Bullock’s name on both a revival (The Black Bat) and a new creation (Death Angel). This collection collects stories of both characters, though the cover is a bit misleading — it prominently features The Black Bat, with a relatively small “Also Starring Death Angel” logo on the lower right. There aren’t enough Black Bat pages to make it a graphic novel on its own so I understand the inclusion of Death Angel but I would have preferred a title that made it clearer that this was, in fact, a book with equal amounts of both heroes.

The front and back covers are by Tom Grindberg and are absolutely gorgeous. I really, really liked both images and I think the cover will definitely help sell a few copies. Super stuff.

Inside the book we get alternating Black Bat & Death Angel stories (both comic and prose), with one short teaming the two. In both cases, the heroes are tracking down drug pushers and the like. I was a little confused about the era these stories were set in — some things in the Black Bat stories definitely made me think this was set in the 1930s (fashion, the language used, etc.) but Death Angel seemed more modern, both in design and in terms of her hi-tech nano-fiber tachyon-shooting power suit. The two characters interact, so obviously they are in the same era, whenever that may be.

Let’s tackle The Black Bat first. This is not your father’s Black Bat. As in the original stories, this is District Attorney Anthony Quinn. Blinded by a criminal’s attack, Quinn later gets his vision restored and takes to the night as a vigilante. But in this version, The Black Bat suffers from multiple personality disorder and is as bloodthirsty as The Spider. While interrogating criminals, he uses various legal terms to question them, all the while arguing with himself for leading the witness, etc. It’s an interesting take on the character but purists will feel that this is not The Black Bat and perhaps should have been a new character instead. I’m okay with updating characters and this one retains enough of the original for me to recognize him but his willingness to kill (and kill graphically) was shocking. I wish there had been more time to show The Black Bat in his civilian identity, though. The profile that’s included implies that he’s relatively normal in his day-to-day affairs and that it’s only as The Black Bat that his mental instability comes to light. I’m curious how that would have played out. There were places in the story – and I’m not sure if the fault lies with the script or the art, or both — where things felt very, very disjointed and the scene jumps made me pause and flip back a few page to see if I’d missed something. It kinda felt like I was reading the Cliff note’s version of much cooler stories.

From an art standpoint… Hmm. Michael Metcalf does all but one of the Black Bat stories (Fernando Peniche does the one that teams The Black Bat with Death Angel) and I have to admit… I did not like it. The art is far too scratchy and actually looked unfinished in places. It detracted from the story. There were individual panels that looked kind of cool but overall, the story was not served well by this. The Peniche art was a step up and I liked it much better.

Death Angel is a far stronger package overall — perhaps because the burdens of our past expectations are not challenged here. With The Black Bat, pulp fans are constantly comparing and contrasting this version to the original — but Death Angel is a new character and is free from that. Strangely, Michael Metcalf does the art on these sections, as well, but the art looks much, much better. I can only assume that Metcalf deliberately used a different style on The Black Bat stories — this artwork is much stronger.

As with The Black Bat, Death Angel is a vicious character. Her stories all revolve around two things: drugs and sexual abuse. This latter plays well off her origin but I would have liked to have seen a little more variety in the threats she faces here. I found the Death Angel stories to be more interesting and would definitely like to see more.

The overall package… I will say that taken as a whole, this is probably my least favorite of Bullock’s works to date. If I separated out the character arcs, I’d give much higher marks to the Death Angel portions of the book.

Do I think it’s worth your time and money? If you’re looking for the classic Black Bat or if you like your heroes to be of the “don’t kill, but bring the bad guys in for justice” variety… No. If you’re looking for bloodthirsty vigilante types or want to sample a genuinely interesting New Pulp hero in Death Angel, I’d say yes.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Table Talk Returns… But At What Price?

  • Uncategorized
  • August 10, 2011

Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash are back for another installment of NewPulpFiction’s Table Talk. This week, the guys discuss the rising cost of books and what it means to readers, writers, and publishers.

Table Talk: At What Price? with Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash is now available at http://www.newpulpfiction.com/.

Reviews from the 86th Floor: Barry Reese looks at Phantom: Guardian of the Eastern Dark

  • News
  • August 8, 2011



THE PHANTOM:

GUARDIAN OF THE EASTERN DARK

Written by Mike Bullock

Art by Sivestre Szilagyi and Fernando Peniche

Moonstone Books

ISBN 978-1-933076-81-2

$24.95

This heavy tome collects the entire 12 issue run of Moonstone’s second ongoing Phantom series. All issues are written by Mike Bullock while Silvestre Szilagyi handles the art on what was originally issues 1-3, 5-6 and 8-12. Fernando Peniche is the artist on issues 4 and 7.

If you’re a fan of The Phantom, then you’re probably already aware of Bullock’s contributions to the character. He was the primary writer of The Phantom during the character’s time with Moonstone and he peppered his stories with real-life issues related to Africa. This collection is very much a sequel to Bullock’s work on the first Moonstone Phantom series, as it brings back one of his greatest creations, the villain known as Him. Indeed, the entire 12-issue arc is based around Him’s return and the various ways that he manipulates The Phantom. The stories are fast-paced and action-packed, featuring The Phantom in a number of dramatic situations… he even battles a polar bear towards the end!

The artwork is serviceable — Szilagyi is a good storyteller though his style lacks some of the flair that would help set the stories apart. He seems to come from the lineage of guys like Don Heck: draftsman who know how to clearly lay out a page and can hit all the required notes but there’s not any pages here that scream “Boy, I wish I could get that one as a poster!” Peniche is a far more dramatic artist but has some wonky anatomy and layouts at times.

If I had any criticism of the storyline as a whole, it would be that there’s little downtime for The Phantom. Diana is very much a background figure in the series and Kit and Heloise do show up for a couple of drama-inducing pages but I would have enjoyed seeing an issue somewhere in the run where The Phantom would have spent more time with his family: I think mixing in a “small” story amidst the proceedings would have made the final chapters have more power. As it is, readers are required to already have feelings for the kids and understand The Phantom’s devotion to his family — there’s not really much in the way of explaining that to new readers along the way.

I consider this book well worth the money and it should be of interest to any Phantom fans. I will say that my favorite Bullock storyline is collected in The Phantom: Checkmate and it serves as an excellent lead-in to this volume, since it also features Him. Get ’em both, if you haven’t already.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Table Talk – Go behind the table with Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash

  • Uncategorized
  • August 5, 2011

Table Talk – Go behind the table with Mike Bullock, Barry Reese, and Bobby Nash at http://www.newpulpfiction.com/.

From Mike Bullock’s opening comments:

When you get two or more creators sitting behind a table at a signing or convention, when no one is around, they inevitably start talking shop. I’ve now done more signings and conventions than I can remember at once but the one thing they all have in common is an opportunity to gab with other creators. Despite what anyone might think, this is the thing I love most about the events. Whether it’s comparing a common love of some old character or examining the ins and outs of the latest news or talking about our creative processes, it’s always an enjoyable conversation.

When I mentioned this one time to a non-creative friend, he replied “I bet a lot of people would love to hear those conversations.”

In response to that, we dreamed up Table Talk, a semi-regular column where you can read conversations between New Pulp creators discussing things we love. Since just about every conversation starts out with a compelling question or statement, that’s the format we’ll follow here.

I asked fellow writers Barry Reese and Bobby Nash to join me in this, as I feel a solid connection to these two guys, and can only imagine if the three of us spent a weekend sharing a booth at a convention, we’d have some sterling back-and-forths about everything from old pulps to action figures to Silver Age comics and New Pulp.

To start the inaugural column off, Barry Reese suggested someone throw out a question to get the ball rolling. Bobby and I quickly nominated Barry to come up with said question.
 
You can read the conversational back and forth at www.newpulpfiction.com/2011/08/table-talk-behind-table.html

Check back each week for a new installment.

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