Tagged: Pulp Fiction

PULP 2.0 PRESS TEASES AGENT 13

Art: Jim Craig

Over on their Facebook page, Pulp 2.0 Press shared the work in progress from artist Jim Craig for the upcoming AGENT 13 Trilogy by Flint Dille & David Marconi. AGENT 13 (c) 2013 by Flint Dille and David Marconi. Published by Pulp 2.0.

COMING IN APRIL: FIGHT CARD MMA!

Our friends over at Fight Card Books shared their latest announcement.

Press Release:

COMING IN APRIL: FIGHT CARD MMA!

Fight Card Publications announces the upcoming April debut of its new series Fight Card MMA, the first of several new expansions of the bestselling Fight Card brand.  Fight Card MMA will take the Fight Card series from the ring to the cage, while delivering ground-and-pound action equal to the exciting fistic pulp action demanded by fans of the monthly Fight Card novels.

Like the original Fight Card novels, the Fight Card MMA tales will be written by many of the best authors working in New Pulp under the series unifying pseudonym, Jack Tunney.

First up in the cage is author Gerard Brennan. His Fight Card MMA: Welcome To The Octagon takes readers deep into the hardscrabble world of Ireland’s burgeoning MMA scene, from dangerous underground battles to the spotlight of the cage.  Brennan has previously won critical acclaim for his hard-hitting novels The Point, Wee Rockets, and Fireproof.

Published simultaneously, Fight Card: The Kalamazoo Kid comes from top MMA author Jeremy Brown.  Brown’s previous MMA themed novels, Suckerpunch and Hook And Shoot – featuring rising MMA star Aaron Woodshed Wallace – have become the benchmark by which all other MMA themed novels are judged. Fight Card: The Kalamazoo Kid is a tightly plotted tale of revenge where every move inside and outside of the cage can be deadly.

Fight Card MMA: Welcome To The Octagon and Fight Card MMA: The Kalamazoo Kid will debut digitally and in print during the Pulp Ark convention to be held April 26-28-2013, in Springdale, AR.

Pulp Ark is one of the nation’s leading popular culture conventions, and will be featuring Fight Card co-creator Paul Bishop as a Guest of Honor.  Pulp Ark will also see the digital and print debut of Fight Card: Swamp Walloper, written by Bishop as a sequel to his first Fight Card novel, Fight Card: Felony Fists.

For more information on Fight Card and Fight Card MMA CLICK HERE.

For more information on Pulp Ark CLICK HERE.

Marc Alan Fishman: Pulp Fishman

Fishman Art 130223I’m gonna take a slight detour off my normal path this week, kiddos. Mike Gold and I like to e-mail one another every now and again. It just so happened that today Mike name dropped the Djesus sketch from SNL from last week. I told him I’d not seen it, as I was waiting to see Django first. Turns out having a toddler makes for a pretty house-bound social calendar. In his retort, Mike lamented “Django is great, unless you don’t like Tarantino. Then it’s ‘Tarantino.’” Oh ho! Sweet Mikey G. Me and QT go way back.

Long before we were Unshaven Comics, Matt Wright, Kyle Gnepper and I were just bros. And prior to making amazing comics, we just read ‘em. Amidst the angst, part time jobs at local retail establishments and foodatoriums, we wasted our ample free time with movies, anime, video games, and comics all to help us find our way through the world. Nothing spoke to me in these tumultuous times more than the films of one Quentin Tarantino.

Somehow, his pop-culture drenched films permeated my mind in a wash of “too cool for school” attitude, and “fuck the system” structure. I wholly thank Kyle for introducing me first to Reservoir Dogs, QT’s take on a heist film. Here, I was left dumbstruck over the simplicity to it all. Over 99 minutes, we stay largely in a single location. There’s no massive chases, or hyperbolic action sequences. And best of all? No chicks getting in the way. OK, so it’s not a perfect flick. However, to a 16 year-old it’s practically soft-core porn. Everyone swears. Everyone has a gun. No one backs down. And Harvey Keitel suggests tacos. And it does it all with a wit and charm that required nothing more than snappy dialogue and expressive eyes.

I did not get to see Pulp Fiction in the theater. Knowing what I did about Dogs was enough; I promptly traded in some shekels for a VHS copy the second I could. In some weird way, I’d like to think this was exactly how Quentin would have wanted me to partake of his (then) magnum opus. I freely admit that I literally wore the tape out from watching and re-watching it. More-so than Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction was visceral style etched on to magnetic tape. Strictly speaking of the story alone, a teenage me got ruthless mobsters, ass watches, defeated boxers, sexy women, Mr. Pink as Buddy Holly, and most important, a dose of story by way of character, not plot device.

To a point, yes, much of the film is a meandering tale of cause and effect. But better than the action-and-gangster driven drivel my young mind was accustomed to, Pulp Fiction (Jackie Brown and Dogs as well) was a universe unto itself. As Roger Ebert noted in his reviews “A lot of movies these days use flat, functional speech: The characters say only enough to advance the plot. But the people in Pulp Fiction are in love with words for their own sake.” In short? The characters of the film were me and my kind. And better than my other deity-of-the-day, Kevin Smith, each person in QT’s films were individuals with individual drives. And don’t worry, I’ll talk about my love affair with ole’ Kev soon enough. As Alton Brown might say, “That’s for another show.”

If there is a point here in my one man circle jerk session, it’d come right down to Ebert’s aforementioned point. Beyond anything I’d seen or read up unto that time (comics included), characters in my fiction were always essentially empty vessels I could place myself into. In comparison to those heroes of my childhood, He-Man, G.I. Joe, and even the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were merely placeholders and plot movers. Tarantino’s films showed me a world where there was no room for me on screen. Vincent Vega was a cool, mysterious mob hit man who had come back from a vacation into a world of troubles. Mr. White was a hardened, loyal criminal with a past so chock full of vitriol, a lesser director would still be presenting us with prequels. And if you could find an inch of room to move inside the mind of Beatrix Kiddo? Well then you’re a better man than I.

In the post-modern world, I freely admit to the rafters that my own modern fiction was inspired first by Quentin Tarantino. And while masters like Waid, Morrison, Busiek, and Moore would soon lay claim to the rest of my influence CV, it was QT who started the big ball a rollin’ down the hill. His ability to fill worlds, to allow those worlds to breathe, and to realize that A lead to B, but not because the hand of God requires it… remains a breath of fresh air amidst rotting garbage. While I no longer need to proclaim him a lord of creation anymore, I can admit true admiration for a new-era genius of modern fiction. Tarantino mastered the art of homage, and proved that the stories that molded us can give birth to new creations unto themselves. Surely anyone looking at my own Samurnauts will see nothing more than a bearded QT-phile playing in the sandbox built by years broiling away under the heat of after-school cartoons.

Now I’m hungry. Let’s go get a taco.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘STEIN AND CANDLE VOLUME 1’!

All Pulp Reviews by Ron Fortier
STEIN AND CANDLE
Detective Agency Vol. One
By Michael Panush
Curiosity Quill Press
250 pages
One of the finest pulp novels we enjoyed last year was Michael Panush’ “Dinosaur Jazz.” In fact this reviewer nominated it as Best Pulp Novel in 2012 for both the Pulp Factory Awards and the Pulp Ark Awards.  Yes, it is that good and if you haven’t read it yet you should certainly go out and do so immediately.
Of course having discovered Panush’s marvelous fiction, we went hunting up some of his earlier works.  We found two volumes of stories starring a duo of occultdetectives operating in the years after World War Two known as Stein and Candle.  We’ve just finished reading the first collection and are thrilled to report Micael Panush is by no means a one-trick literary magician.  “Stein and Candle” features seven hair-raising, fast paced, pulp tales of the most unusual and original new occult heroes ever invented. 
Mort Candle was an army sergeant with the 101stAirborne during the war and is one tough as nails character.  During the last days of the European campaign, he and his squad were sent on a mission to rescue a Jewish family, the Steins, being held captive in their Austrian castle by a group of sadistic Nazis SS unit.  Count Wolfgang Stein was a scientist who dabbled in arcane lore and the Germans wanted him to create a zombie army with which to stem the tide of the war and save the Third Reich.  When Stein refused, he and his wife Hannah, during a daring escape attempt, were killed and only theiryoung eight year old son, Weatherby survived to be rescued by Sgt. Candle and his team.
This volume opens six years later as we learn Candle, now a civilian private investigator, has become the fourteen year old Weatherby’s legal guardian.  Together they take on weird cases tainted by the occult.  These pit them against all manner of horrific adversaries such as vampire bikers, a deadly ghost haunting a British movie company and a zombie plague in a Los Vegas like city in the California desert.  Each case is narrated by Candle in his rough, non-frills voice, and is a thrill ride this reviewer relished to the max.  Whereas the volume contains only one story presented in the third person style and it is the actual origin story of the young occultist, Weatherby Stein.  It is a most moving story and Panush deserves much credit for holding back towards the end of the volume.
Bottom line, dear readers, if you like hard-edged fantasy that combines both horror and pulp action, “Stein and Candle” is the book for youPanush continues to whip up fresh new ideas coupled with truly great characters establishing him as one of the best new writers in the New Pulp arena.  We fully expect his name and award titles are going to be synonymous all too soon.
Tags
Michael Panush, Curiosity Quills Press, Occult Detective, Pulp Fiction, Action, Adventure, Ron Fortier, Pulp Fiction Reviews