Tagged: Star Wars

AP: Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with us! Before we get into a discussion about your writing, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how the writing bug ended up biting you?

Bill: The writing bug bit me before I even turned five. I taught myself to read on Dan Frontier when I was four years old and started writing my own stories at age 6.

AP: You have several series that are ongoing but let’s start with Hardluck Hannigan. Tell us how you came up with the character and a little bit about his adventures?

Bill: Hardluck Hannigan came about through a group discussion with Sean Ellis and Wayne Skiver. We were talking about a shared universe of pulp era characters and I came up with Hardluck Hannigan. I ended up using a much older version of Hardluck Hannigan in the Jack Riley book the Mummy’s Tomb, and I liked him enough to want to see how he had eveolved into that man so the fantastic adventures of Hardluck Hannigan were born.

AP: You’ve done other books besides the Riley and Hannigan ones — can you let our readers know about the other genres you like to dabble in?

Bill: I also write in the mystery and suspense fields. I write the Decker PI or Sam Decker books and have The Butterfly Tattoo a noir suspense thriller featuring Bayport Detective Joe Collins.

AP: When it comes to the pulp market right now, what are your favorite “new” authors and characters? Or do you usually stick to the classics?

Bill: I tend to stick to the classics like Doc Savage and the Shadow and the Avenger, but Mack Bolan is also a favorite as well as Remo Williams. I have read a Rook Novel and a Captain Hazzard and find them great fun as well.

AP: Can you tell us how your writing process works? Do you outline extensively or are you one of those who likes to wing it?

Bill: I admit I wing it. I start out with a paragraph long proposal and then go where the characters take me…

AP: If our readers would like to find out more about you and your writings, where should they go? 

Bill: The Bill Craig author’s page on amazon.com is the best place but I also have an author’s page on facebook and Hardluck Hannigan has his own page there as well.

RON HANNA, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Wild Cat Books

AP:  Thanks for joining us, Ron! Can you tell us about your history with the pulps — how did you first discover them and what led to the founding of Wild Cat Books?

RON: Well, like most people my age, I first discovered pulps through the many paperback reprints in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, especially the Doc Savage Bantam books. I’ll never forget the first ones I saw on the newsstand. “Land of Terror”, “Lost Oasis”, “Brand of the Werewolf” all had awesome covers, and when I first saw James Bama’s art, well, that intrigued me even more. I had never heard of Kenneth Robeson before, but he quickly became my favorite author. I read a lot when I was a kid, from Comic Books to the Classics. I always had something to read with me wherever I went. But it wasn’t until many years later that I decided to take my love of books, and pulp fiction in particular, to the next level by starting a fanzine in 1997. It was called “Secret Sanctum” and was probably the first “fan publication” that had glossy full-color artwork. My partner at that time worked in a printing company and he had all the pages printed at work, mailed them to me, where I then collated and stapled them, and then mailed them out to people who had heard about us on the Internet. This was before Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites. Back then I used the Prodigy network and everything was just a text message board and Usenet groups. Eventually, my partner and I parted ways, and I began Wild Cat Books, using my experience to try and make something even better than before. It was also in those early days that I discovered pulp fandom and met a variety of people who had the same interests as me. I still work with some of those people to this date.

AP:  In the early days of WCB, the Internet was quite different. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in pulp fandom over the years?

RON: I would have to say the social-networking sites such as Facebook, Yahoo and others. They opened up a much wider world and the vast advances in technology and software allowed much more discourse and interaction between fans all over the world. Although there have been many various conventions for over a generation, I believe it was some of these changes that really changed a lot of things. It used to be that only very wealthy people could afford a Web Site, but nowadays it seems the costs are much more reasonable, and it can really help a small-press publisher when they have their own page where they can showcase their work and attempt to attract new fans and readers. I say this with a caveat however: There is a big push toward everything becoming digital these days and the eBook format has become extremely popular. I have nothing against that, and we even have produced some digital books of our own, but to me there is nothing like holding a book or magazine in your hands. The tactile sensations, the smell of the paper or newsprint, the ability to have something really tangible to hold and treasure is something that is very important to me, and as a publisher I will never stop producing “hard copy” as my main source of publishing. Maybe it’s because of the generation I grew up in, but to me, an eBook could never replace an actual, real book… Besides, I also collect old pulps, comics and books and they are something I proudly display in my home. To me, those are repositories of adventure and imagination that I will never tire of, and I can re-read them even if the power goes out to the Internet or the batteries die on an eBook reader. Yes, everything does eventually decay or die, but the books on my shelf will always hold a special place in my heart.

AP:  The pulp market is getting rather crowded these days — what makes WCB stand out from the rest?

RON: That’s a good question. I’d have to say it’s because of the passion we have for what we do, not to mention the ever-improving quality of our publications. A lot of other companies concentrate on reprints in various genres, which is great for the collector who can’t afford the original issues, and others publish new fiction and characters, but I believe that we are one of the few who are actively publishing both classic and new fiction, and more importantly, history and art reference books as well. We try to offer something for everyone.

AP: Ver Curtiss and Bill Carney are both key members of the WCB production family — can you tell us how they became involved with the company and what their duties are?

RON: Ver is my Art Director, and he has been with me from the very start back in 1997. He submitted some Doc Savage pieces he had done, and as soon as I saw the first one, I begged for more. He and I are totally different people in terms of personality, beliefs and lifestyles, but we have one thing in common: Our love of the pulps and popular culture. That is the bond that has kept us together after all these years, and even despite some clashes and disagreements. I consider him my brother, and I even moved to Virginia from California back in 2001 to live near him. He is an entirely self-taught artist and he works in many different areas: Sculpture, Photography, and he’s now also working as a comic book artist for Moonstone Comics illustrating the “Black Angel” series for their Air Fighters title, which is written by Martin Powell. Ver has also done the interior art for Moonstone’s “Domino Lady” prose anthology. His work is in high demand, but he always will find the time to do something new for me if I need something special done on a moments notice. He is one of the most talented and wonderful person I’ve ever known.

Bill Carney joined WCB about 3-4 years ago when he and his brother Chris submitted their original creation “The Scarlet Shroud” to me for possible publication. Both of them are talented artists, and while Chris does most of the story writing, Bill is also a fine writer who has written some fine historical reference pieces, especially dealing with Science Fiction and Fantasy. He’s one of the most knowledgeable people in those areas that I’ve ever met. And like Ver, he’s also a great person to be around. He and I have gone to conventions together, I spend a few days each year visiting him in Upstate New York, as well as both of us going to visit his brother Chris in Pennsylvania. We all get along great, and I look forward to each of my trips to visit them. However, the best thing that Bill does is Graphic Design. I used to do all the book formatting for our titles myself, and while they were “acceptable” they were nowhere near as good as what Bill can do. He’s a professional designer by trade, and has even won some national awards for his Production Design work, and I finally approached him about becoming the head designer for WCB and he has really delivered the goods! I’ve had several people tell me that our titles are some of the most professional and beautifully designed books on the market today, and I owe all that to Bill… which is one of the reasons I recently promoted him to Managing Editor. He’s not only a voracious reader, but he knows how to best edit stories that are submitted to us. And, to tell the truth, what with all the “management” details I have to deal with as the publisher, it made perfect sense to have him edit our books as well. He’s much better at it than I ever was! He’s also in charge of our revival of the old pulp “Startling Stories”. He has full editorial control over that project, and I’m very thankful that he loves doing it. It really is one of our finest on-going projects.

AP: Looking back, what books has WCB published in the past that you think are ones you’re particularly proud of?

RON: Well, I love all my children equally (joke!) but I would have to say I’m really proud of some of our Pulp History reference books by Award-winning historian Wooda “Nick” Carr. He grew up with the pulps (he’s in his mid-80’s now) and, like Ver, has been with me from the beginning. Each issue of my various fanzines always had a new article by him… but it’s the book collections I’m most proud of: “The Pulp Hero”, “Master of the Pulps”, and “The Pulp Magazine Scrapbook”… All of these belong on any pulp fan’s bookshelf… “Pulp Hero” is an encyclopedia of over 100 heroes and villains, plus a complete bibliography of all of Nick’s articles and books. “Master” contains a variety of some of his finest articles gathered over the years from various publications. But the “Pulp Magazine Scrapbook” is something totally different. This contains copies of the letters that Nick received over the years from many of the original pulp writers and artists: Walter Gibson, Robert G. Harris, Harry Steeger, Ryerson Johnson, and many more. It’s a historian’s dream to actually go back in time and read what the creators had to say about their work and what it was like back in the days of pulp fiction.

Another one of my favorites is “The Captain Future Handbook” by Chuck Juzek. It’s a hard-cover full-color book that contains everything you could possibly want in regards to this classic space hero. It has complete story summaries, the very rare first chapter written by Edmond Hamilton that was only published previously in a small-press fanzine, and it’s lavishly illustrated with every pulp and paperback cover, including all the German and Japanese editions, and is probably one of the most comprehensive and beautiful books we’ve ever published. It retails for $75.00 but in today’s marketplace, that’s a steal when you consider the high-quality product that you’ll receive. It’s a true masterpiece!

Another book I’m very proud of is K.G. McAbee’s “Bewitched by Darkness”, a collection of some of this Award-winning writer’s finest short stories with Cover and Interior Art by the fantastic British artist Nick Neocleous. Nick has illustrated a lot of our book covers, and every one of them has been a winner. He’s one of my favorite artists, and he’s always willing to pitch in and do wonderful work for us. He’s been involved with some high-profile characters such as “Doctor Who” and “Indiana Jones”, so he’s always in demand, but I’m very happy he is able to find the time to work with a small-press company such as WCB. We even published a full-color art book of his finest pieces called “Cosmic Eye”, which is another book I’m very proud of. It’s absolutely beautiful…

Another character I really enjoy is “The Rook” created and written by Barry Reese. I can’t name just one book as there are now five volumes in the series, each one better than the last. These books are pure pulp action and adventure, and some of the Cover Artists include Storn Cook, Frank Brunner, Norm Breyfogle and Anthony Castrillo. Not only are there some great original characters in these tales, but the author also brings in some classic pulp heroes that are in Public Domain, which makes this series so much fun for all of us fans… These are some really great tales!

I could go on and on, but I really do like all our books, and the weird thing is that some of our best, and my personal favorites, are not always our best-sellers… Go figure…

AP: One of WCB’s key components is STARTLING STORIES, a revival of a classic pulp magazine. Can you tell us about the magazine and are you accepting submissions for it at the present time?

RON: “Startling Stories” is a mutant. We not only reprint classic Golden Age Science-Fiction in each issue, but we even include some of the advertisements that appeared back then. We also include new stories by some of the most talented new writers on the market today such as K.G. McAbee, S. Clayton Rhodes, and others. We also have a Retro-Review section, and in our first issues we were very pleased to offer a comic story written and illustrated by the very talented Ron Wilber. A lot of people really loved his “Saucy Blaine” strip, but that will be ending soon. Ron Wilber is one of the few people on the planet who does not have a computer and has never used the Internet, so he doesn’t get the feedback that all creators desire. Despite the fact that I call him and tell him how much everyone loves “Saucy”, he has apparently lost the desire to continue on with it past the sixth story, which really disappoints me. I hope he regains his enthusiasm again at some point, as I enjoy working with him very much.

As for submissions, yes, we are always accepting submissions for “Startling Stories” of any length. Although it’s only a quarterly magazine, we need to have a supply of tales on hand to give us ample time to plan and pace each issue. We try to maintain a certain page count, and sometimes it’s tough to find just the right story to balance both the texture and variety we try to offer. Not everything has to be Sci-Fi or Fantasy, as we also accept Horror and, well, pretty much anything that could be called “Startling”!

AP: What new titles are on the way and what you can tell us about each?

RON: We have a few books in various stages of development. “Zombies in Time and Space” (an anthology) was recently released, as well as the massive Sword and Sorcery novel “Legends” by Tim Jones with a Cover by a new artist on our team, Gary McCluskey. His work is awesome, and we hope to have a lot more from him in the future. Coming soon is a new book by Rick Lai called “Shadows of the Opera” and “The Halloween Legion” by Martin Powell with Cover and Art by Danny Kelly. And the next issue of “Startling Stories” is always in the works as it’s our one on-going publication that comes out on a quarterly basis. By the time people read this, “The Rook – Volume Five” will be available at Amazon, and we already have the files for Volume Six. I’m hoping to one day see a “Rook” comic book… That would be fantastic. But I’m not holding my breath on that one!

AP: If fans want to purchase WCB books or learn more about the company, where can they do so?

RON: We have a website that I try to keep updated at _www.wildcatbooks.net <http://www.wildcatbooks.net/>_ and it has various pages listing our books at Amazon, as well as our other store that we maintain at lulu.com. You’ll find most of our earlier works at Lulu, but when we had the chance to move to Amazon we discovered that the quality was just as good, if not better, but the production costs were a lot lower so we were able to start pricing our books at a more affordable price in today’s economy than if we had stayed at Lulu.

AP: What’s your stance on public domain characters? WCB has used a few in the past but it’s emphasis now seems to be on original heroes.

RON: I’ve always enjoyed the Public Domain (PD) characters, and have no problem using more of them, but a lot of that depends on what is submitted to us. We recently published a book called “The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown” written by Mike Frigon and lavishly illustrated by Verne Anderson that featured The Moon Man, Doctor Satan, and Secret Agent X… It’s quite good, and I’d love to see more of the same by the creative team. They work quite well together. However, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there are a lot of other companies using the PD characters so we try to offer more of a variety. A few PD heroes and villains make some appearances in the “Rook” tales, but as far as a new collection of stories or even a full-length novel is concerned, well, it all depends on the writers out there! As I’ve said, if it’s good, we’ll certainly consider publishing it, whether it’s PD characters, original creations or whatever. I will give you a little teaser though… Sometime down the road we plan on publishing the adventures of “Major Toad”, the frog from “The Wind in the Willows” in his own series of pulp adventures! This will hopefully be an on-going series, and the artist is working on the first book’s art even as we speak… We hope that this title will appeal to a wide cross-section of fans, both old and new, and for all ages… From what I’ve seen so far, I’m really excited about it…

AP: At one point, Airship 27 was associated with WCB… there have been many rumors about why the schism occurred, including tales that you and Ron Fortier now hated one another. Can you tell us what happened and what the current state of relations between creators and companies are now?

RON: Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to condense it. A few years ago, Ron Fortier of Airship 27 discovered WCB and submitted some really great stuff, and of course I immediately accepted, and even asked for more. Although we were the publisher, RF was the producer and he insisted on total editorial control. For a while that division worked well but eventually I found myself not having a say in anything: writers, artists, even the logo being used were not anything I had a say in, and even some of my suggestions were shrugged off. When he kept rejecting my ideas and insulted one of my best artists, well, that’s when I decided we needed to part ways. I returned all control and rights to his books back to him to re-release under his own publishing company, although some changes were made when he couldn’t get everyone who had been involved before to go along with the changes. I freely admit that there were a lot of hard feelings for quite a while. Too many people in the pulp world know what happened for me to even try to deny it, so I won’t. Yes, I was angry and hurt and he and I didn’t speak for a couple of years. But as they say: “Time heals all wounds” and since the pulp community is so close knit, I realized that there was no way we could, or should, continue under that veil of anger… It was time to let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge and all that. So we finally buried the hatchet (and not in each other’s heads) and agreed that we both had made mistakes and to let it go. He’s doing very well now with his Airship 27 titles, and I wish him all the best. He even told me that if it wasn’t for WCB he probably wouldn’t even be in the pulp business in the first place, and he obviously loves what he’s doing, so in a way, I guess, everything happens for a reason. We’re friends again… and that’s where it stands today. Heck, we’re even friends on Facebook!

AP: Have you read any of DC’s First Wave revivals? What do you think about the changes to the heroes that they’ve made? For that matter, where do you stand on making changes to classic heroes in general?

RON: I have read some of the First Wave revivals and, except for the cover art, I was really not impressed at all. In fact, as much as I love the characters (Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Spirit, etc.) I think DC has made a terrible blunder in how they are presenting these classics. Supposedly, everyone involved wanted to remain true to the “roots” of the pulp heroes, but it seems to me that they basically revamped them to the point that they are no longer recognizable to me. However, that being said, I really don’t have many problems with making some changes to the classics. But it has to be done with respect and love, and I didn’t get that feeling at all from DC’s revisionist take on them. They pretty much ruined the characters for all of us long-time fans, and by presenting them in the way they have, I doubt if new readers would be willing to read the original tales (which were so much fun), and that’s too bad, because the original tales make for very fine reading. In fact, I wish they would have adapted all those great stories to comics rather than see them turn out to be a miserable tragedy, and epic failure, for everyone involved with them.

AP: On a related note, how do you feel about Moonstone’s Return of the Originals?

RON: Now those are something I’m looking forward to reading because I know that Moonstone has a very high regard for keeping the faith! I haven’t read any of them yet (I don’t get to the local comic store as much as I used to) but from all I know about the creators involved, I have much higher expectations for this project than any others I’ve seen recently. In fact, I’m pretty much disgusted with all comics today. There’s only a few out there that I would even consider buying on a regular basis. DC and Marvel have both become gross distortions of their former selves, bloated from their greed, and I’m at the point where most comics no longer have the attraction to me that they did before. I’d rather spend my money on old Silver Age comics that I grew up with as a child. Those were inspiring and bring back many wonderful memories. Today’s comics pretty much just suck…

AP: As one of the elder statesmen in pulp and a Munsey Award Nominee, your words carry a lot of weight in the community. Does this ever influence your publishing decisions in any way?

RON: Well, thanks for the kind words, but I don’t consider myself as anything special. I’m just someone who really loves the pulps, the heroes, comics, and pretty much everything related to our Popular Culture. The only thing that I ever consider when making publishing decisions is: Do I like it?… I try to print the type of things that I would personally want to read. Not all of our books sell like gangbusters, but I’ve never been in this for the money… I do this because I really and truly love doing it… and I only hope our fans enjoy our books as much as I do!

JOE GENTILE, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief, Moonstone

JOE GENTILE (on right)

AP: Joe, first off, thanks a lot for sitting down with All Pulp! We definitely understand how busy you are with all the irons in the fire that Moonstone has, so this interview is definitely much appreciated. To kick this off, give us some background on you, as much as personal info as you want to give as well as your background in the publishing industry.


JG: Ah, starting off with the not-so pulp adventure life I have led, eh?


Well, lets see…briefly…I have been a freelance writer for many (many) years now, have a book retail background, a television production background, and I play bass guitar in a working band.

AP: Now that we know all about its brain and backbone, give us a brief history of Moonstone. Where it started, what Moonstone’s overall mission and purpose has been, etc.


JG: Moonstone started from the ashes of a company that never quite made it off the ground about 15 years ago. A bunch of us creators in the Chicagoland area suddenly had a bunch of projects without homes.


I was interested in having another publisher pick up those titles, but we didn’t really find what we were looking for, so my partner Dave Ulanski talked me into doing it ourselves. Dave, Rafael Nieves, and myself started up Moonstone at that point there. We published a bunch of small press b/w creator-owned comics. This went on this way for years.


One day, on the day before I was leaving for a Vegas vacation…(!)…I thought “hey. Why aren’t there comics about the White Wolf Games stuff?’’…and “what about all of these other cool characters…and pulps that I like? Someone should do something with those guys!


So, even though I left for vacation, this was pressing on my brain. When I got back, I started with the phone calls…cold…never having had to track down licensors, contracts, creative teams, etc. Just jumped in. Saying this out loud…now….the idea seems insane.


So our purpose became “telling good stories” foremost, and bringing NEW fans to comics (or fans who left) by having material based on sources OUTSIDE of comics (like the pulps, old time radio, newspaper strips, TV, etc.

AP: Moonstone is known largely for bringing established characters from the past, most if not all of them in the Public Domain, and introducing them to a modern audience. Moonstone has done this in a volume that no other publisher really has. The question is, why? Why the focus on these characters that some say may have outlived their own value?


JG: Well, first, I must set you straight a little…MOST of what we do is licensed. Very few characters of interest are public domain. You would be surprised to know who owns what.


If we thought these characters have outlived their value…um, we wouldn’t be doing them, right?


We fervently believe that these characters are more than vital…they have resonance today.


These characters had hundreds and hundreds of stories told about them, and some lasted for decades. But, even if you never heard of these characters, thats cool, because it really doesn’t matter either way. We tell interesting stories about unusual characters. We don’t necessarily need more superhero comics per se…the market is still quite full of them. Why put out more of the same?

AP: Some fans of Moonstone found your early comics years ago. At that time, you had titles like ‘Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,’ ‘Boston Blackie’, and ‘Pat Novak For Hire.’ Those titles, among others, were based on characters drawn from old time radio programs, popular in the 1930s-50s. This is a fascinating, still largely uncultivated area for new fiction. What drew you and Moonstone to tackle these stories and bring a modern take to them?

JG: Well, quite honestly, it was an area of interest of mine that had not been tried much in comics.

Johnny Dollar sold out, Boston Blackie’s GN sold out, and Pat Novak was in that “1000 Comics you need to read” book by Tony Isabella!

AP: Any future plans for further OTR treatments? If not, why not?


JG: Well, those characters do appear in other books from time to time…like our “crime team up novel” PARTNERS in CRIME…and our crime prose anthology “Sex, Lies, and Private Eyes”.

And there is always talk of further adventures. We do have some characters coming up that have appeared on radio, but wasn’t what they were primarily known for….stay tuned.


AP: Moonstone just didn’t resurrect radio characters. Talk to us about some of the other early characters you brought to an audience who may have not been familiar with them, such as The Phantom and Kolchak, among others? Are there other TV or comic characters you’d like to pull under the Moonstone banner?


JG: There is always more we want…we are insatiable that way! If you check our website, we are always leaving hints of whats coming…although we will have a press release about this soon, we have THE SAINT, The JUSTICE MACHINE, FLINT, and SHEENA…!


Kolchak…way ahead of its time, inspiration behind the XFILES, and is one of the highest rated TV movies OF ALL TIME! This was horror on primetime network television, my friends…unheard of!


There has been a cult following of Kolchak for many years, and a strong one as evidence by Columbia’s DVD sales of the movies and TV shows.


The Phantom is one of those characters that has been around for a long time…1936 (predating Batman and Supes)…I think people know of him…but we needed to tell some stories about TODAy to showcase this guy for all to read! He’s a well thought out character that still holds up today.

Buckaroo Banzai…cult movie of the 80’s with GREAT stars like John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Weller…all in one crazy neo pulp adventure!


It is a movie like no other…I mean, Banzai is a renown brain surgeon, rock star, adventurer…c’mon, how cool is that?)


AP: It seems that some of the characters you’ve taken on over the years, both early on and currently, were originally created for one medium only (prose largely, but we’re also thinking of the radio shows again). Yet when Moonstone gets them, they show up in comics, prose, etc. What goes into deciding what medium Moonstone puts an established property into?


JG: Well, that depends on some of the legalities, Some contracts specify. Sometimes a character just calls to us in that way…like Kolchak….and others.


AP: Speaking of processes, can you share a little bit of what goes into your daily job? What are your responsibilities and who within Moonstone do you delegate things to?


JG: OMG…what I do on a daily basis? Well…I contact creative teams for progress on ongoing projects or to set up new ones, I talk to the printers about scheduling and book details, I talk to distributors about PR and such, I create in house ads, I gather monthly solicitations, handle all incoming email, update the website, edit stories, write…scream!


*In addition to my insanity, we have Art Director Dave Ulanksi (also edits, writes, invoicing, and does cover set up),


*we have Editor Lori G (who handles both comics and prose projects, as well as administration),


*and Erik Enervold, Marshall Dillon, and Bernie Lee- who handle everything from prepress, lettering, and design.


*Mike Bullock (writer, group editor, project coordinator)


*We have Tim Lasiuta…research and development.


*Richard Dean Starr and Matthew Baugh (editors, writers, and project leads)

AP: We’ve asked a lot of questions about established properties Moonstone has handled and we’ll talk more about some Moonstone is now handling. But before that, what about original characters, newly created concepts? What’s Moonstone’s history with stepping off into the new and original arena?


JG: Original creation from a non M/DC/I/DH company is very difficult…and these lean times make it even more so. With a couple exceptions, Moonstone no longer handles projects we don’t completely control.


Our history with this has been a very rock road…we have had some successes, but not nearly as many as we would like.


Exceptions to the rule: “ROTTEN”, “VAMPIRE, PA” and the upcoming “SAVAGE BEAUTY”


AP: All right, now to the modern day meat and potatoes. It has been no secret over the years that Moonstone Books has been one of the biggest promoters and supporters of Pulp genre fiction. In the last few years, though you’ve really stepped up to the forefront, providing anthologies of known pulp types as well as the new comics line you have now. Before we get into specifics, why do you feel like pulp is such an important genre that needs to be introduced to a modern day audience?


JG: I just think the times we live in scream out for this.


Its adrenaline escapism roller coaster rides…


It’s justice being served…without legal technicalities. Who doesn’t want some justice, when most feel powerless in an escalating crazy society?


It’s also about folks with little to no powers, per se…just guts, guile, skill, and indomitable will.


There is an emotional impact that comes with these stories because these folks aren’t invulnerable…or whatnot…


Pulps are an important part of American history…it was a huge step up (from the penny novels)in fiction for the masses…selling to a people during the time of great strife….like today.

Without pulps, there would be no paperbacks…think about that…and all of the things that paperbacks have spawned (including increased literacy).


Without pulps, there would be no comic books…and all that they have inspired, from movies, to video games, etc!

AP: Let’s tackle the prose anthologies first. What characters has Moonstone spotlighted in prose collections?

JG: Ok, here we go…


The Green Hornet (any day now), Kolchak, The Avenger, The Spider, Doc Savage, Domino Lady, The Phantom, Zorro…and these do not include the characters that appeared in the anthologies with multiple characters.


Upcoming we have…more Avenger, more Green Hornet, more Spider, Sherlock Holmes, “Chicks in Capes”, and one surprise looming…


AP: Some would say that printed prose is no longer the way to go, yet Moonstone is still turning out anthologies. What is it about the print format that keeps Moonstone putting out these collections, instead of sending them all straight to e-book or in some other medium?


JG: Well, some people still read books of course…not sure that’s going away entirely.  And we also do E-book stuff.  You need both to make it work.

AP: A major emphasis for Moonstone right now is its new comics line. Tell us about Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS. How did the idea develop? Who was involved on the front end? And why populate this idea with characters that people may not recognize, some of them not seen for over fifty years?

JG: It started as a one shot graphic novel…then turned into a MOVEMENT!

And again, while some of these characters haven’t been seen in a while…does not mean they are not interesting for gosh sakes!


We did try to have some recognizable faces in there as well.


Many people encouraged us here…and Mike Bullock was probably one of the earliest “idea man” behind this.


AP: What is the general plotline behind RETURN? Who character wise is involved?


JG: It all starts with “The Battle for L.A”, which as some know, was a historical event. The history fascinated me.

Briefly…during WW2, near LA…a strange object is seen in the night skies (there is a newspaper photo on line), and no one knows what it is (to this day). Planes were scrambled…shore batteries opened fire…direct hits were scored by thousands of bullets…thousands…but to no avail. The odd thing just kept moving slowly until is disappeared. Just an odd little piece of history (WHICH WILL BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE) that was the catalyst.)

AP: The history of pulp characters being translated to the comic page has been spotty at best, especially with recent efforts by other companies. What is Moonstone doing to make sure that RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS is an appealing concept that will bring in new readers, while maintaining the characters and history that pulp fans truly enjoy in their characters?


JG: That, my friend is the rub. We have VERY unique characters that I think comic fans will dig in a refreshing way…and we didn’t feel that these guys needed to be changed to be cool.


AP: The collection of writers and artists you have assembled for RETURN is truly staggering. We won’t force you to list all of them, but how did you get this stellar crew together? From so many different fields you have drawn top talent. What brought them to a pulp comic project? Did they all come for their own reasons or was there some sort of underlying theme that drew them to this concept?


JG: The creators kept coming…like a snowball rolling down a hill…all of them love the pulps and were just as excited as I was!


AP: So, what are the future plans regarding the cast of RETURN? Will there be ongoing series for all of them, more specials, what?


JG: At the present…there will be the one shot BATTLE that I mentioned, and ongoings for Black Bat, Secret Agent X, Phantom Detective, The Spider, and Rocket Man.

We are also putting together a “non-team” team ongoing series.

Some big mini series that will feature all of the characters…!

There are various Spider specials in the loop INCLUDING A NEW SPIDER NOVEL… an AIRBOY-G8 mini series,

A Domino Lady-Golden Amazon one shot…

A “all female team up” with Domino Lady, Golden Amazon, Blue Bulleteer (courtesy of AC comics), Valkyrie, Black Angel, Bald Eagle, and more!


AP: Joe, it’s been a blast! Stop by All Pulp anytime you want to chat!

Aaron Shaps, Writer of The Phantom Detective for Return of the Originals, Moonstone

AS: Over the last several years, I think Moonstone has done a fantastic job of establishing themselves as the premier publisher of faithful pulp and pulp-era characters and adventures. Obviously The Phantom has led that charge, and every Phantom “phan” I have encountered really feels like Moonstone was a great steward for that legacy during their time chronicling the Phantom’s saga. I kind of see Moonstone’s niche as being the company that keeps the pulp tradition alive, and I think that’s a very important responsibility to have, because without the legacy of pulp, the landscape of popular culture would obviously be very, very different today. So I think the overall idea is to really spearhead a full-on pulp revival, and remind the world why these characters were so great, and that their legacy is literally everything that comic book and sci-fi and fantasy and horror fandom consumes on a regular basis.  

THE GOLDEN AMAZON, for RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS, Moonstone

 WIN SCOTT ECKERT AND ERIC FEIN, Writers of
THE GREEN GHOST, for RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS, Moonstone

AP: First, gentlemen, let All Pulp welcome you to Moonstone Monday! Now, this interview is a bit different, in that it’s being done sort of in tandem. So, each you will just give your answers and in the final copy they will run together. So, first, introduce yourself to the audience and give them a bit of background, especially about your history in Pulp.

WIN SCOTT ECKERT (WSE): Howard Waldrop has said, “Like most things from the Seventies, this is Philip José Farmer’s fault… If you don’t like it, don’t write me. Write Philip José Farmer.” I was born in the Sixties, but the mid-Seventies marked the beginning of an eight-year-old’s lifelong fascination with pulp fiction. No doubt that fascination sprang, in greater part, from the fact that I received a bunch of the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks and a copy of Phil’s Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life in 1975 when I was eight years old. That spurred me on a two-decade quest to collect all the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks. Phil’s Doc Savage “biography” and his Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke had also left me with an undying hunger to read all the other characters he had referenced in the books—The Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, The Spider, Philip Marlowe, Nero Wolfe, Sam Spade, James Bond, Travis McGee, and so on.

Along with that, I became fascinated with crossovers, and with Phil’s shared-universe Wold Newton mythos, the “Wold Newton Family” (outlined in the two “mock biographies” listed above) and pretty soon I was compiling a shared-universe timeline of my own, which I called the Wold Newton Universe Crossover Chronology. I posted it on my Wold Newton Universe site (the first of its kind), and after that readers began sending in their own Wold Newton articles. So I created online essay section. A few years later a couple other contributors started their own sites, and a few years after that we had such a great stockpile of Wold Newton-inspired articles, it seemed a natural move to put together a print anthology, which I edited: Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe (MonkeyBrain Books, 2005) (a 2007 Locus Awards finalist).

With a fairly encyclopedic background on pulp and other characters, fiction writing seemed the next logical step. I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to Black Coat Press’ anthology Tales of the Shadowmen, and have been in every annual volume since then (six so far; Volume 7 is forthcoming). I’ve penned tales featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, Doc Ardan (a version of Doc Savage), Dr. Natas (a disguised version of Fu Manchu), Antinéa, and Sexton Blake. I wrote a tale for Airship 27’s Lance Star—Sky Ranger, and since then my time has been fully booked writing pulp fiction! For Moonstone Books: The Green Hornet Chronicles (co-editing with Moonstone’s Joe Gentile, as well as a contributing writer), The Avenger Chronicles, The Phantom Chronicles 2, The Captain Midnight Chronicles, and More Tales of Zorro (forthcoming). I also was invited to write the Foreword to the new edition of Farmer’s seminal “fictional biography,” Tarzan Alive (Bison Books, 2006) and am writing a series of tales about the origin of the Wold Newton Family, the first of which appeared in the just-released The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1: Protean Dimensions (Meteor House, 2010). I dived back into “non-fiction” with the encyclopedic Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World 1 & 2 (Black Coat Press, 2010), and somehow also found time to write a novel that Philip José Farmer began back in the ’70s, but never had a chance to finish himself: The Evil in Pemberley House (Subterranean Press, 2009), about Patricia Wildman, the kick-ass daughter of a certain bronze-skinned pulp hero—if you know what I mean.

That’s a lot of background—sorry about that.

Eric Fein (EF): I discovered and fell in love with Pulp characters around the same time I started to read and collect comic books. Like Win, I was a kid in the mid-Seventies so there was plenty of pulp related books in bookstores and candy stores. One of my favorite all time comic book characters is Batman and I remember having the two issues (Batman #’s 253 and 259) of his series that guest-starred The Shadow. That led me to seek out DC’s original Shadow comic book series and around the same time I discovered the Pyramid/Jove Shadow reprints with those gorgeous Steranko covers. After reading a couple of those, I was hooked and started collecting anything pulp related. During this time, I also got my hands on Walter B. Gibson’s Shadow Scrapbook and was just fascinated by every aspect of the character and what went into creating him. The fact that Gibson was able to write more than 1 million words on a manual typewriter year after year is just amazing to me. . My fascination with The Shadow led me to Doc Savage, The Avenger, and The Spider. I’m also a big fan of the James Bond novels and movies, the Mike Hammer novels, film noir, crime novels and private eye novels, anything by or with Orson Welles, and Old-Time Radio.

In college, I landed an internship at Marvel Comics, which led to a job as an assistant editor after graduation. I eventually became one of the editors in the Spider-Man group and at one point I was editing three of the then four monthly titles: Spider-Man, The Web of Spider-Man, and The Spectacular Spider-Man. I also edited several Spider-Man one-shots and limited series including the very first team-up between Spider-Man and Batman. After Marvel, I worked at DC Comics in their licensed publishing department doing How-to draw books, coloring and activities books, and storybooks.

After DC, I moved into educational publishing writing and editing nonfiction and fiction books for kids who have trouble reading.

Recently, thanks to Joe Gentile and Moonstone Books, I’ve had the opportunity to write some pulp stories. I have a story slated for an upcoming volume of The Avenger Chronicles and another story scheduled to appear in The Green Hornet Chronicles, Volume 2. I also wrote a Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar story for Moonstone’s Sex, Lies, and Private Eyes anthology.

AP: You both are involved with THE GREEN GHOST, a fairly obscure pulp character, which is featured in Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS line. Give us some history on this character, focusing on the parts you feel are important for readers to know.

WSE: Sure. The Green Ghost—magician sleuth George Chance—started out as The Ghost in the Winter 1940 issue of a self-titled pulp magazine, with a novel called, appropriately enough, Calling the Ghost. Over the next four years Chance appeared in thirteen additional tales, all penned by master pulpsmith G.T. Fleming-Roberts, in The Ghost Super-Detective, then Green Ghost Detective, finally migrating to Thrilling Mystery, and making his final appearance in the October 1944 issue of Thrilling Detective.

Chance equals his mentor, the late Harry Houdini, in the art of escape. He’s also a renowned skeptic and debunker of fakes and frauds, as well as a master criminologist, excelling in makeup and disguise, lock-picking, knife-throwing, illusion—anything and everything a top-notch magician knows. Chance puts his expertise to use as a relentless crusader for justice, donning a skull mask to become “The Ghost” (shortly after changing his name to “The Green Ghost”), and aiding Police Commissioner Standish against criminals everywhere, solving impossible crimes. Chance is aided by a select band of six agents and friends who know his secret and share in his mission for justice.

EF: I think Win covered all the bases on this question.

AP: What makes the Green Ghost a viable hero for a modern audience? Clones of characters, stereotypes, don’t typically appeal to readers today, but so many of the classic pulp characters were simply different riffs on Doc Savage, the Shadow, etc. What about The Green Ghost makes him more than just another avenging detective hero type?

WSE: The covers to the pulps that carried his stories depicted a character with a ghoulish visage—one that Eric has noted harkens back to Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera. Our new stories in Moonstone’s Return of the Originals will match the mood and intensity promised by the pulp covers.  The Green Ghost strikes terror in the hearts of criminals and even civilians due to his horrific skull-like appearance and his seemingly supernatural abilities.

And for the first time, The Green Ghost is going to face a few real supernatural menaces. We won’t go overboard, but the idea of a Houdini-type skeptic facing the real occult, as opposed to charlatans, and how he responds to it, is intriguing. In addition, his girlfriend Meriem “Merry” White had “flashes of intuition” in the original pulps, i.e. she’s psychic. How does her skeptic boyfriend deal with that? We’re going for a Mulder/Scully in reverse vibe here.

EF: Certainly from a visual perspective The Green Ghost falls into The Shadow end of the spectrum with his dark fedora and trench coat. However, there are several things that make him stand apart from being just another Shadow knockoff. One, his creator, G.T. Fleming-Roberts, made him a magician and gave him a drive to expose phony spiritualists. The other thing that separates him from The Shadow and Doc Savage is the relationship he had with his girlfriend Meriem White and his assistants. He wasn’t portrayed as some mysterious or awe-inspiring character when he interacted with them. Chance is very down to earth. His associates knew who he was and why he did what he did. It gave the stories a different dynamic.

AP: Now, each of you is working primarily in different media on the Green Ghost. Tell the audience what medium you are focusing on and how you go into adapting your version of the Green Ghost to said medium.

WSE: Eric is tackling the comic scripts, while I handle the prose stories, which will be featured in Moonstone’s “wide vision” format with spot illustrations. It turned out my time constraints necessitated collaboration on the first prose story, as well: I wrote the detailed outline, Eric wrote a first draft, and I wrote a second draft from that. We had fun with it, and we hope you’ll enjoy the results.

EF: Writing comic book stories allows you the freedom to play up more of the visual effects of the character – having him perform magic tricks, getting in and out of deathtraps, and other cool things that might not translate as well in just a prose story. And let me say that we have a wonderful artist illustrating both the comic book stories and the prose stories – David Niehaus. He shares our enthusiasm for the character and it shows in his artwork for the series.

AP: Two people sharing the reins on an idea with an already established history must be quite interesting. How do you two work this combined effort? Is someone the Senior Partner? Who contributes what? And how do you as a team tackle the fact that The Green Ghost has a history when you come to it?

WSE: I made the original pitch to Joe Gentile at Moonstone (the seed of the idea having been planted by my pal and fellow writer Martin Powell several years back) and did the initial draft of the series bible. Then I decided that I had too many projects going to write both the comics stories and the prose stories so Joe brought in Eric, a very talented writer, to write the comics scripts. Eric contributed several great ideas and we revised the bible; it’s a collaborative effort. We rarely disagree, and if we do, we resolve it quickly.

As far as the history and keeping things straight…. I am a continuity geek. I’m not slavish to it if the story dictates a different direction, but I do everything I can to accommodate and account for continuity. The history of the character matters to me. Look, for the co-editing duties for The Green Hornet Chronicles books, I created a timeline of the ’60s television series, and then inserted each and every story I read/edited into the timeline, based on textual clues and other references in the stories. This was purely for my own use so I could keep things straight. In some cases I asked the writers to make slight changes so as not to create a continuity gaffe with the timeline. So, yeah…a little OCD, maybe, but if you’re going to work on a character, or a shared universe, it’s worth the effort to take care of these little details, as well as the overall storytelling. Because believe me, someone will notice. J We’re bringing the same sort of effort and care and attention to The Green Ghost.

EF: From the first time we spoke and began trading ideas it was clear that we shared very similar sensibilities when it came to the character and our approach to storytelling so it has been a lot of fun working together.

As far as The Green Ghost’s history, Win wanted to make sure that we respected it and didn’t radically change it and I totally agreed. The main thing we adjusted was the tone of the stories. Ours have a harder edge to them than the original pulps did. At the same time, we have been careful not to contradict or negate any of the events in the original stories.

AP: Does the Green Ghost come with any supporting cast, special weapons, things that are identified with him? If so, are you adapting them for your stories?

WSE: All of the Green Ghost’s original supporting cast is back with our series. I’ll let Eric give the particulars on the cast. Chance also has the same bag of tricks, plus a bit more. In our continuation, Chance served in the OSS during World War II for a few years, and has returned home with a few additional things up his sleeve, but nothing radical.

EF: As mentioned earlier, The Green Ghost is a magician so we’ve worked in some magic tricks, such as gloves coated with a flash powder that emit a blinding green light when he snaps his fingers. The other thing we did is that we gave him a mask. In the original pulps every time he became the Green Ghost he had to put on makeup. We figured that might become cumbersome for some of the stories we wanted to tell. I had suggested that since the stories were going to be set just after the end of WWII that someone with Chance’s talents could have done secret missions for the government during the war, so we decided to establish the fact that he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and that their scientists fashioned a mask for him that has special lenses that glow green, allow him to see in the dark, and also has an apparatus inside it that functions as a mini-oxygen tank.

As for his supporting cast, we are using all of them. However, not everyone will appear in every story. We just don’t have the space for that. Here’s a rundown of The Green Ghost’s associates:

Meriem White is George Chance’s girlfriend and sometimes assistant. She is very smart and strong willed and, as Win pointed out, has some psychic abilities.

Ned Standish is the New York City Police Commissioner. Standish was the one who encouraged Chance to cultivate his interest in criminology into actual crime fighting.

Tiny Tim Terry is a childhood friend of George Chance. They both lived and worked in the circus as children.

Joe Harper is a racetrack bookmaker, a theatrical booking agent, and gambler. He’s got contacts in every strata of society, which makes him quite valuable to The Green Ghost.

Dr. Robert Demarest is the New York City Chief Coroner and works closely with Chance and Standish when needed.

Glenn Saunders is Chance’s assistant and a dead ringer for Chance.

AP: Some pulp purists believe updating characters like Moonstone is doing is being unfaithful to them, not keeping true to what they originally were. What is your response to this in terms of The Green Ghost?

WSE: Our approach is not to create an alternate neo-pulp universe where the characters are radically different. We see no reason to change what works—just provide a logical continuation, a view into what The Green Ghost’s adventures could have been had they continued in the pulps.

We are not changing the characters’ general backgrounds, although certain details are certainly being elaborated and expanded upon. As I said, George Chance has been off to war and back, so this is a continuation—not a “reboot.” For the modern audience, we can also ramp up the action quotient a bit, and where appropriate, provide a more frank and honest portrayal of characters’ sex lives.

Let’s face it, in The Spider, you knew Richard Wentworth and Nita Van Sloan were having sex. They weren’t celibate for the eleven years that were “engaged.” Similarly, the Green Ghost (George Chance) and Merry White (now a more grown up, Meriem White) are not a perpetually celibate couple: they wind down from their adventures and celebrate their victories, and living to fight another day, in bed. I know this may alienate a few folks who feel their pulp heroes should not have sex lives, but this doesn’t alter the basic premise of The Green Ghost—it just provides a window, another angle, into his life, and his relationship with Meriem. It rounds them out as characters. We don’t plan to be explicit—I’ll save that for when I collaborate with Mr. Farmer J—but we do plan to be a bit more realistic in a way that the original pulps weren’t.

Another difference with our Green Ghost is that he is actually part of a wider universe and continuity. The beauty of a shared pulp universe is that, unlike superhero universes, it could actually be our universe, the world outside our window. Yes, maybe occult menaces or mad scientist death rays really couldn’t happen in our world—but if one squints, or puts on the 3-D glasses, perhaps they could be rationalized away. Unlike the cosmic and world-altering events shown in the superhero universes, a shared pulp fiction universe is relatable to the “everyman.”

EF: I certainly understand their concerns and as a fan myself I am leery when any character with a long history is reinvented. We went took great care to make sure we didn’t throw away or contradict any part of The Green Ghost’s history. Again, the major change we did make has to do with the tone of the stories. In the original pulps, the stories were not as hardboiled or as spooky as you would have thought from looking at the covers. Win and I both wanted to do edgier stories without making wholesale changes to the character and we both feel that we’ve accomplished that. Hopefully, the readers will agree.

AP: OK, what about future plans for the Green Ghost, any hints? And what other irons do you have in the works you’d like to mention?

WSE: Eric’s two comic stories (so far) are called “The Mystery Named Rosabelle” and “Of Monsters and Men.” There a lot of fun, with art by the talented David Niehaus. The stories are set to appear as backups in Moonstone’s The Phantom Detective # 1 and 2, respectively. Both issues are already available for order (The Phantom Detective # 1 hits the shelves on October), so get out there and buy ’em!

Our “wide vision” prose story is called “Zombies under Broadway,” and is chock full of undead mayhem, with spot illustrations by the aforementioned Mr. Niehaus. It hasn’t been scheduled yet, so keep an eye out!

For my part, I’ve just submitted my second Avenger story to Moonstone. It’s an Avenger/Domino Lady crossover story, and I had a blast writing it. Next is an as-yet untitled story for Black Coat Press’ Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 7: Femmes Fatales; then editing Moonstone’s The Green Hornet Chronicles Volume 2 and possibly writing a sequel to my tale “Fang and Sting” which is in volume 1; then an as-yet untitled crossover story for a Sherlock Holmes anthology; and finally researching and taking notes for a novel I intend to write in 2011—wish I could say more about that, but the timing isn’t right. I hope you’ll have me back to discuss it when it is. J

EF: Well, the first comic book story, “The Mystery Named Rosabelle” concerns someone from Chance’s past trying to kill him and involves him attempting Houdini’s Chinese Water Torture Cell escape trick. “Of Monsters and Men” pits The Green Ghost against an escaped Nazi scientist and his man-made monstrosities and introduces a new member to his cast, an associate from his days with the OSS.

As for me, I have a novel I am shopping around as well as a couple of screenplays and of course more pulp stories, including more Green Ghost adventures, that I hope will see print real soon.

AP: Once again, guys, thank you for your time and your work in the pulp field!

WSE: And thank you for having us, and for the great work you’re doing promoting pulp fiction and keeping the genre alive!

EF: Yes, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you and your readers about The Green Ghost. It was a pleasure. 
 
 
TIM LASIUTA, Line Editor, RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS, Moonstone

AP: So tell us a little about your history in comics, Tim and in particular how you hooked up with Moonstone?

TL: I must have been born with a book in my hands, since I could read, my father would buy comic books (in the mid to late 1960’s), and we would read them at home. When he ‘grew’ up, I inherited a small collection of X Men, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, and Richie Rich. Today, I still have most of them. However, once reading bit me, I began to read his paperbacks too. I can still see his book shelf, double filled with mystery, western, and pulp. Doc Savage was probably my first ‘adult’ book, and what an introduction. I rabidly ate up any Doc, Shadow, Ace Doubles, while still reading and by now buying my own comics with newspaper money.
     It is a strange truth that what you imagine, you can become. When I was 14, I remember reading a Batman comic, and seeing the first ads for Kuberts School of Art. From that point on, I began to illustrate my own adaptation of Stokers “Jewel of Seven Stars”. It was terrible, but my limitations in art led me to begin writing, and my first novel was drafted out. I wrote short stories, and illuminated my social assignments with elements of the fantastic. Tarzan even flew through one of my Psych papers in grade 11.
     That aside, I wanted to be a comic book something. It was not to be, and I ventured into university, still buying and reading. Marriage kind of stopped that, and when I approached CBG about doing an article on Tom Gill, my mentor, I was ‘in’. From there I worked reviewing books, comics and doing articles for them for 4 years. Along the way, I found that a company called Moonstone was doing the Phantom, I emailed the publisher who actually responded.
     As a young(er) writer, I was thrilled. Joe sent me copies and for 3 years I stuck to mainly Indy books and Moonstone. When I approached Joe with an idea to help him, he accepted, and I have written short fiction, edited, arranged PR, negotiated for properties, written bibles, and promoted Moonstone in Calgary and elsewhere.

TIM LASIUTA (on left)

AP: What do you believe has been the motivating factor for Moonstone’s recent attraction to classic pulp heroes?


TL: Every publisher has an audience, and the DC audience is not the same as Marvels’, or IDWs’ or Archie. With our focus on the pulps and adventure characters, it is almost like we have re-introduced the ‘First’ Wave into the media. DC may have the splash, but we are the real thing.
     One thing that I am learning is that the concept of our pulp lines is a recurrent theme. For decades westerns were the preferred genre due to the quick justice and characterizations. My grandfather and father shared a love of books for decades. I share the same tastes, and have re-read the same books. Today, it seems that vengeance driven characters (ie pulp) are popular. Where else can you be so politically incorrect and solve a drug lord problem with a pipe bomb??? This may be the new release for society’s pent up anger and hostility.
     In terms of the genre, and our Originals line, our authors are true fans. They may write a good mystery in their day job but I suspect at night when the Black Bat flies, or the Green Ghost wanders the night, trench coats, gloves and weapons of all sorts come out of the hidden compartments. Need therapy, write a Spider tale. No need for valium…
     Joe and I have always said that we are cut from the same cloth, and our interests are almost identical. I love the concept of the ‘old’, and the new at the same time. For me, the Phantom, and Doc Savage are highlights of my time so far, but I can hardly wait until the New Originals mature and take off.


AP: Why do you think pulps are becoming popular again and will today’s comic readers embrace them or give them the cold shoulder?


TL: The wave of pulp reprints from the numerous houses, the new books from Airship 27, DCs’ First Wave, and our New Originals, all contribute to a genre that is growing. There is some kind of appeal to the vintage art that adorns the books, and with increased scholarship into the artists, writers, and industry, it is developing a momentum.
     In some instances, pulp readers are comic readers. An Archie reader will not pick up Phantom Detective, but someone who reads Sanctums’ Doc Savage, Avenger, or Shadow, will. However, while that book is on the coffee table, it may catch the eye of a parent, or friend. Someone who reads an adventure or team book may pick these up.
     Any new line or character is a literary crap shoot.
     That is the beauty of this line. We are not new. But I can guarantee that any reader who buys these books will love them.

Characters from IV FROST, edited by Tim Lasiuta

AP: Joe Gentile has a reputation for running a tight ship and in the past handling the majority of the editorial chores. With Return of the Originals, both you and Mike Bullock seemed to have assumed Associate Editor roles. What exactly are your responsibilities in this capacity?


TL: Joe is a one man army. With my growing interest in Moonstone, and some as of yet unannounced properties, I have been recruited to read, track, and do whatever Joe asks me to do. Mike is busy writing for the line, and with that, his duties will be what I cannot do. For instance, he is doing the Pulp Manual due out soon. I had no time, but I did read and edit 30 plus stories already. If you’re asking what my duties really are, I would tell you, and have to shoot you!
     I would love to write A Richard Diamond piece, and perhaps another Captain Midnight tale, but the New Originals take up a good amount of time.


AP: For those readers having been lost in the Amazon all year, would you please explain exactly what Return of the Originals is?


TL: The Return of the New Originals is an event unlike any other we have done at Moonstone. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, pulp characters were everywhere. You could not look at a newsstand and not be assailed without a lurid cover, and often trashy fiction. We have taken the best of those, and asked one question.
     “How can we turn these characters into viable icons for our time?”
     The result is a 20 plus character mix that ranges from occult to adventure. There are tough secret agents, strong teams, pilots, gutsy avengers, and dangerous sirens. They all share one commonality, Stamp out crime!
     We even tackle the issue of racism with Decimator Smith.
     One thing about our staff of writers, artists, and production personnel is that we share a love for the genre and medium. Every author, as Joe put it, was invited to play in our sandbox with his/her favorite character. They came with their own pails and shovels. The result is a stable of creators who write with passion. We all get to enjoy that.


AP: Which of these characters are you involved with personally and were you familiar with them before taking on this assignment?


TL: I was familiar with many of the characters before. I knew G-8, the Spider, Honey West, Domino Lady, Phantom Detective, Green Llama, KiGor and others, but once I saw the entire line-up, I was shocked. We have one busy setting, and by mid 2025, it should be free of crime. Until then, there are many stories to tell, and many crimes to correct.


AP: Tim, are there any plans for any Originals Universe crossovers between any of these great characters? Aside from the C.J. Henderson book, that is. And are you free to divulge those yet?
   
TL: As of this point, there are no plans that I am aware of, but only the Shadow knows…


AP: Any last words you like to leave the All Pulp readers with concerning Return of the Originals?


TL: Pulp fiction will never die as long as readers continue to support great writers! I love this job!


AP: Tim, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

DAVID BURTON, Pulp Artist

AP: First, thanks so much for sitting down with All Pulp for a few minutes, David. Why don’t you share with our audience a little about

yourself, both personally and as an artist, background and such?

DB: You’re welcome, its my pleasure. As far as my personal life goes, I’m a pretty private person. I’ve been drawing and painting pretty much all of my life. I’m mostly self taught but have had some of the best people in the industry, who also happen to be friends of mine both
encourage me and give my pointers over the years. The nice thing is that I’ve been able to help them as well.

AP:  Now, looking at your site (www.davidburtonart.net) you have a particular interest and affinity for pulp themed work. How did you
get into painting pulp? Have you always been a fan or did you come to it some other way?

DB: I’ve always been a fan and still am. That all started with THE SHADOW radio show, which my dad got me interested in when I was about 7. Than at about 12 I started reading DOC SAVAGE and was hooked. I started getting my work published in fanzines, most notably ECHOES and THE BRONZE GAZETTE. When I can I’ll do a piece for the BG. From there the subject matter has pretty much been fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Lately though its been pin-up and female figure work. I’m dealing with a few galleries right now about carrying that line of work.

AP: What appeals to you about painting pulp themed figures and works? Is there something about the characters and setting themselves or is it more about the stories?

DB: The sense of action and suspense mostly. The characters and the stories both offer something that just gets my imagination really
going.

AP: Can you share with us a little about the process you use when painting a pulp piece? Do you do research, any special preparation,
go in any particular order, like with pencils and such, or do you just go straight to paints?

DB: Each piece is different and I approach them accordingly. Regardless of the piece, unless the client wants something very specific, I’ll do research. I’m a stickler for getting things right. I’m working on a piece right now for an upcoming DOC SAVAGE painting that will feature both Doc and Princess Monja. I went to great lengths contacting Dr. Richard D. Hansen, who is one of the leading authorities on Mayan culture and was the advisor on the film, “Apocalypto”, who was a great help in getting me currect information on how a Mayan Princess would be dressed.
      As far as my approach to how I work goes, I always start with pencils sketches and then work them out into a full drawing if needed,
then go to the paints.

AP:  Is there a pulp character, series, etc. that appeals to you over the others as an artist? If so, why?

DB: Its a toss up between Doc Savage and The Shadow. They have a lot more of offer more in the way of potential than any of the others. Though I also like The Spider because he’s so over the top.

AP: The classic pulp covers were, of course, all painted works.  That’s sort of a staple for classic pulp.  Do you think that its
important to establish the same sort of link between painted work and modern pulp? If so or if not, why?

DB: I’d like to think that any media could make that connection. But I’ve seen hundreds of pulp related stuff done in electronic and it
just doesn’t have the same impact, so for now anyway, painting in traditional media is the only way to go.

AP: Any tips for artists who are working on pulp projects?

DB: Know your subject and know your history. Study the old overs and ask yourself, what colors did they use and why, look at how they lit scenes and how they managed their composition. And don’;t copy or rip them off, if you can’t come up with something on your own, then you need to practice more to see what you’re doing wrong. Copying or ripping another cover off is a fool’s journey. You think no one has
ever seen any of the covers you’re taking stuff from, but they have and if they don’t call you on it now, they will. That’s inevitable. It will
only give you a poor rep and that’s nearly impossible to overcome. Be known for YOU and let your work stand out that way. You’ll shine and that alone is priceless.

AP: Do you have anything in the works that would be of interest to pulpsters everywhere?

DB: Other than the above mentioned Doc painting, I’ve got a few things that are in various stages. Something with The Shadow again, it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with him. I’ll be working on a Doc drawing from my friend TOM JOHNSON that will feature Doc and Big Foot and there are some others, but I’d like to share those as they come along.

AP:  Awesome! Thanks so much, David!

AP: Who is B.C. Bell?

BCB: Byron Christopher Bell is a work in progress; a writer who hopes he never stops learning, or at least being curious; a bundle of contradictions. Mostly I’m a guy that likes a good yarn, something a little bit different that will still keep me on the edge of my seat. I love comics, heroes, hard boiled crime, horror, science fiction and pulp.

AP: What’s your background?

BCB: I was born a seventh generation Texan, and moved out while everybody else was moving in. I’ve worked as a musician, ranch hand, retail manager, construction worker, print salesman, artist and writer. I’ve also worked as Senior Resident at a halfway house, and both sides of the mental health desk. I’m from one of those families where the kids raised themselves, and I made a lot of mistakes on the way, so I’m probably one of the few hard-boiled pulp guys writing that has actually lived on the street. Hell, there’s a part of me that’s still dreaming up crooked schemes in my head—I’ve mentally pulled off at least three armored car jobs in the last year. But hey, that’s all for art, right? Hmmmm, well, at least part of it. The biggest thing as far as pulp goes is that without the heroes of my youth I know I’d be in jail.

AP: Where do you live?

BCB: My adopted hometown of Chicago, North Side. I think I’m in my fifteenth year here. Don’t even ask me about Cubbies vs. White Sox.

AP: How long have you been writing?

BCB: Since I learned the alphabet, in one form or another. Before I wrote, I wanted to be a cartoonist, so I wrote what I drew. I majored in journalism at the University of North Texas, but when I saw what was happening to American media, I dropped out and started working as a musician (bass, vocals, and blues harp). All through my years as a musician, I was writing songs and lyrics. Then one day in my thirties I read a lousy book by a famous writer, and said, “I can do better.” Subconsciously, I’m pretty sure I was aiming at the fact that Raymond Chandler (of Philip Marlowe fame) had started really writing at about the same age. Not that I’m comparing myself to Chandler, even though I’d love to.

AP: Share with us your thoughts on the current boom in pulp action/adventure fiction.

BCB: I love it, other than the fact that I can’t keep up with all the characters. Seriously, this is one of those weird moments in history where we get to see things change. Adventure fiction kind of got forgotten by all the big publishers, and I love being one of the guys to pick up the slack. I also think with my particular background, I have the chance to inject a voice that others might not know about. I’d seriously love to see a homegrown pulp movement that while still holding the moral virtues of the past, can also grow into a whole different new animal. In a way that’s what I tried to do with TALES OF THE BAGMAN, create a character, who in a world gone corrupt, still has a moral compass—even it is a little bit wonky. In the book I refer a lot to his “moral flexibility,” a nice way of saying legal, illegal, and extralegal.

AP: You’ve written SECRET AGENT X, JIM ANTHONY & DAN FOWLER, G-MAN for Airship 27 Productions. Who’s your favorite character of those three?

BCB: Tough question, I’ll try not to use the phrase “apples and oranges,” but it certainly applies. Secret Agent X is a man so dedicated to his mission he doesn’t even have his own identity. That takes a lot of commitment. On the other hand we have Fowler, who’s also a Federal Agent, yet is so recognizable that he really can’t go undercover—and his entire identity is wrapped up in being the stereotypical Hoover FBI man. Meanwhile, Jim Anthony, especially in his new Airship 27 tales, has vast potential. So part of me wants to say Dan Fowler, because I love the image of the thirties G-Man and want to write another one of those. But, since we’ve already been exposed to Elliot Ness, Dick Tracy and a host of others, Dan might not seem too original—there’s a lot of work left to be done by the author. So, OK, X is probably the best character, but I have to go with Dan Fowler because I still have my Melvin Purvis, Junior G-Man badge.

AP:  Is it safe to say that TALES OF THE BAGMAN is your most ambitious project to date?

BCB: Definitely Maybe. Obviously, it’s my most ambitious to be published, and it’s definitely the most fun thing I’ve ever written—fun to write, fun to read. But my first novel, Bipolar Express, was pretty ambitious, too. Picture a Science Fiction/Noir story written like a 1950’s Gold Medal paperback, starring three dually-diagnosed, mentally ill, homeless men, trying to survive the worst winter in Chicago history—and all the while the magnetic poles are shifting.
            Of course, what I’ve learned in the last few years is that I better think every project is my most ambitious; you stop aiming high, you’re going to start digging a rut. That’s my big lesson for 2010. And yes, I’d definitely love to write a few more Bagman books. I’m thinking Chicago World’s Fair and Dillinger, since The Bagman’s living in June of 1933.

AP: Who is The Bagman?

BCB: The Bagman is Frank “Mac” MacCullough, a criminal just on the edge of climbing organized crime’s corporate ladder. Then one day they send him to break his uncle’s legs, and he can’t do it. In the end he has to take on the mob, and deal with the cops at the same time. But in the beginning the only thing he has on hand to disguise himself is a paper bag that he wedges on under his fedora. Thus a man who was a bagman for the mob becomes, The Bagman. He uses a gun because so does everybody else, and he prefers a revolver to an automatic—that alone ought to tell you he’s a little bit different.
             Working with him, and every bit his equal, is “Crankshaft” Jones, an ace mechanic and WWI vet who served with The Harlem Hellfighters, to win the French Medal of Honor. So here he we have a black man who’s a war hero in France, but comes back to the states and he’s just another face lost in the crowd. Crankshaft is practically Mac’s foster dad, but his best friend, too. Also a bit of a cynic.
             And, I’d also like to point out that Mac is a character who I plan to evolve, so his future could get a whole lot weirder, and there are some definite signals toward that in the book.

AP: What works in progress can you tell us about?

BCB: Well, let’s see… I’ve got two novelettes for Airship 27 coming out sometime soon here. RAVENWOOD, STEPSON OF MYSTERY, the only occult character in the pulps to actually have supernatural powers. Another, newer BAGMAN story to appear in an anthology of all new pulp heroes. And a novel I’ve started, but have no idea where it’s going, that features Elizabethan playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe coming back to earth as a modern demon hunter.
          But, I have to say now, as of this second, I just decided I’m going to do another Dan Fowler. How many opportunities am I going to get in this life to write G-Man stories? Which I think kind of brings us back again to this whole pulp revolution. I love this stuff!

AP: What do you think are your strengths as a writer and what are your weaknesses?

BCB:I think one of my best strengths is visualization—at least that’s what I’ve been told. Being a visual thinker, it seems, makes it easier for the writer to pass that picture along to the reader. I’m pretty good with dialogue, and I’m also pretty big on history. Put it this way, I actually enjoy doing research.
         As far as what I’m not good at? I think plotting might be my weakest point. I like having a general idea of where the story’s going, but I hate writing outlines. Sometimes I finish an outline and there’s a part of my brain that says “Why write the story? You already know what’s going to happen?” Then again, Dashiell Hammet thought plotting was his big weakness, and it didn’t stop him from defining a whole new genre.

AP: Hobbies? Other Interests?

BCB: I like baseball, anybody that reads The Bagman book ought to figure that out. I have to admit I really do spend a lot of my spare time reading. Writing is such an imperfect art form, in that it’s never perfect, and I like to see how other people pull it off. I also ride a bike. I don’t drive. My wife and I buy and sell vintage goods so I always like looking at old stuff. Of course, there’s the whole musician thing, and music is like food: you got to try all kinds. Anybody that knows me also knows I’m a bit of a political activist; I really do hate injustice.

AP: Here’s your chance to give somebody a shoutout or plug something. Go.

BCB: I’ve got a story you can read for free up at SFReader.com, on their annual short story contest page, “How Pappy Got Five Acres Back and Calvin Stayed on the Farm.” It’s got monsters. And you need to check out Andrew Salmon’s The Light of Men. Not your average pulp novel.

AP: What’s a typical Day In The Life Of B.C. Bell like?

BCB: Oh, I wake up. Have a Pop-Tart. Go back to bed—wait, I think that was an episode of Lifestyles of the Poor and Decrepit…

AP: What else should we know about B.C. Bell?

BCB: I think we should just go right back to “he’s a bundle of contradictions.” Yeah, I may be conflicted, but I’m never boring.

JOHN MORGAN NEAL
Co creator/writer of AYM GERONIMO AND THE POST MODERN PIONEERS
All concepts and artwork is copyright John Morgan Neal and Todd Fox.

AP: Before we find out who Aym Geronimo is, tell us who John Morgan Neal is.

JMN: John Morgan Neal is a Texan Scot/Cherokee who grew up in the county seat of Grayson County on the edge of the Red River and who has always dreamed about being a storyteller such as the ones that entertained me in my youth in vibrant four colors and on yellowed paged paperbacks. I’m also a bit of a crusty ol’ kook as the regulars over at the Dixonverse, the official message board of Chuck Dixon where I help moderate can attest.

AP: Now, describe Aym Geronimo as a character. Who is she? Where’d the idea come from? What influenced you?

JMN: Aym Geronimo is a quintessential adventurer. She doesn’t do what she does as a job. She isn’t a spy or Tomb Raider or any other occupation that itself brings her to adventure. She herself seeks it out in various ways. Her motivations are to help people and investigate strange things and to basically find things out. And this leads to all sorts of danger. Which she enjoys. It’s why someone with Aym’s abilities doesn’t stay in a lab. She would wither and die there.

     The idea came from Doc Savage of course. By way of Buckaroo Banzai. The idea was originally to try and get the license to do Buckaroo after a group of other creators and myself had tried to do the same with the Evil Dead property. But soon it became obvious we should just do our own. So start with the original Doc Savage, toss in some Jonny Quest, Challengers of the Unknown and Fantastic Four and shake well. And tons of other influences as well to be sure. Aym comes from a rich and full pedigree.

AP: Now, although there are a few, there are not a tremendous amount of female lead characters in the pulp genre, particularly in the hero-leader mold you’ve cast Aym in. Tell us how you came to create the character as female.

JMN: To be utterly honest. It came from the name. I wanted a name like Savage and Banzai and we knew we were going with the American Southwest. So I came up with Geronimo and thought about what would work with that and came up with the slightly altered and misspelled short name for Amethyst and came up with Aym. Which for the readers of this interview’s sake is pronounced aim. So Aim Geronimo. Or Aym Geronimo. And it had to be a woman. Very quickly Aym herself started to take shape and form.

AP: Aym has her own cast of characters all around her. Tell us about the Post Modern Pioneers.

JMN: The PostModern Pioneers are Aym’s fellow adventurers, compatriots, allies, and pals that operate with her out of the Wonder Wall, which is located in a wall of the Grand Canyon near the Havasupi reservation. They are all experts and specialists in their respective fields except for one. And he is just Odd. Otis Delacroix to be exact. He has been an adventurer for many years prior to Aym and is her mentor now. He is a mysterious figure of advanced age and copious skills and knowledge that even Aym doesn’t know the full story about. We also have Bird the pilot, driver and mechanic. He had served in the military with Aym’s father and sort of looks out for her as his proxy. His real name is Charlton Portamayne and he tends to try and serve as the voice for reason in Aym’s ear. Which usually is deaf. Esmeralda Kausoulos is a former tomb raiding archeologist and geologist who Aym has given a new lease on life due to Aym’s loyalty to her as her former instructor. Pebbles tends to be saucy and sassy and sexy despite her more mature years starting to show. Danielle Roh, or Granny tinkers in her ‘Kitchen’ in the Wonder Wall as the resident technical and computer genius. She is by far the youngest of the PMP as she is barely out of her teens. She tends to be sardonic sometimes and can be distracted by her many youthful interests but is supremely capable and loyal. Erica ‘Flipper’ Ra is Aym’s best friend and a denizen of the Ocean since she was a little girl and first saw it. It has been a hopeless cause to get her out of it very long since then. Flipper is the provider of boats and diving equipment and information on the watery depths of the planet due to her talents as an Oceanographer. And finally last but not least is Aym’s big brother Granite. Going by his spiritual name of Wind. Aym serves as the expert on Legend Lore and the more esoteric non scientific side of things, many times in opposition to Aym’s point of view. Wind serves as Aym’s conscious and connection to her people. Wind also is an expert tracker and hunter.

AP: You’re working on a major project now concerning Aym and her crew, a story collection. Can you let us in on that?

JMN: That would be Aym Geronimo and the PostModern Pioneers: Tall Tales. It is a collection of prose short stories from various writers who I invited and they knocked it out of the park. The book is currently in the last stages of editing and will then go to the design stage and hopefully will be ready to debut very soon. I am very excited about this book.

(JMN also had his editor on this project, Sarah Beach comment on this question as follows) John asked me (Sarah Beach) as editor of the prose project to comment about this. Since he and Todd had hit some delays in getting a new graphic novel version of Aym and her team into print, John wanted to keep Aym in front of the audience. So some time ago he approached me about writing a prose story using the characters. He said he’d asked a number of other friends to do one as well. He gave us free rein, to use whichever characters we wanted and any type of story. Sometime later, I got involved as editor, proofreading the stories as they came in and doing a little bit of editing. It’s been a lot of fun, because there’s quite a variety of stories in the collection: character pieces, action adventures, mysteries and even a dash of some comedy. And yet, they are all credibly stories of Aym and the PostModern Pioneers. It’s a credit to John in the creation of the characters and the strength of Todd’s artwork that has given them real shape, that so many different writers have caught the nature of them.

AP: Your characters in Aym run pretty much the ethnic gamut. Was that because the characters just developed that way or was there a greater purpose?

JMN: No grand design really. Only that I knew she would have a team and that I wanted to avoid them all being WASP males. Other than that they pretty much came organically without much prior thought. Some of it came from mental casting. Like Bird is a combo of Yaphet Kotto and Morgan Freeman. And I knew I wanted Danille to be a cute little Asian college age girl and I wanted the Archeologist to be from Greece. And Wind had to be Apache like his sister. So that leaves Odd. Who’s just a typical old man. Or is he?

AP: What is in the future for Aym? More comics or other mediums? And as far as stories, anywhere you’re going to take her that we’d like to know about, any interesting locales or situations awaiting Aym that you can share?

JMN: Todd Fox and I are working on 12 page comic story for a special project I can’t mention yet and then we will get back to work on the epic Aym tale “The Devil’s Cauldron” which will be a huge comic volume. Or graphic novel as they are called. We also have wanted to do something online with her and I imagine I will be revisiting the prose world with her. As for locales and situations. There could be a certain large footed mammal missing link in her life and a trip to the ‘Ring of Fire’ in the Pacific to stop a cataclysm. And a trip to Russia to track down what might be a Werewolf. I think that’s good enough to whet the appetite for now.

AP: Do you have any other projects that would interest the pulp realm?

JMN: I have a western called Death and Texas that concerns a group of various folks who for one reason or another have “gone to Texas’ either to run from something or run to something. Primary among them is the Chinese American gunslinger named Ran Wu, dubbed The Yellow Devil by the Dime Novels. I also soon will have with my English partner from across the Pond a little number called Them: Atomic Age Heroes. Which is set in the 50’s and concerns the mutinous crew of various aliens on a flying saucer that attempts to save the Earth from their despotic masters.

AP: Thanks for your time and we can’t wait for the further adventures of Aym Geronimo and her Post Modern Pioneers. Any final thoughts?

JMN: Long Live All Pulp. And Aym for Adventure!

To find Aym Geronimo on the web, check out www,aymgeronimo.com   And on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aym-Geronimo-and-the-Post-Modern-Pioneers/105564933516

AP: What’s the secret origin of Danny Kelly?

DANNY KELLY: I’ve spent a lifetime in seclusion, with pencil in hand, creating imaginary worlds hoping that just once I’ll create one that I can actually jump in and hide. I attended the Joe Kubert school where I was completely humbled and became rededicated, after school I toiled away in the ”real world” until realizing that I had to escape this world at all costs, and the only way of doing that was to become a professional comics artist, over the last few years I’ve completely immersed myself in comic art and tutorials, eventually spreading my work far enough on the internet that I was ”discovered” by some great folks like Martin Powell and Neil Vokes, who have been so gracious and helpful to me, and it now appears that my sacrifices have paid off. My REAL Secret Origin? I’m a canine-human hybrid from a galaxy nearby who was put on earth to save all of dog-kind. After realizing the impossibility of such a task I decided to draw for a living :)

AP:  We’ve heard a little bit about Halloween Legion already but what can you add to it? How did you become involved in the project and how much of a free hand did you have in designing the characters?

DANNY KELLY: Martin has kept alot of the details to himself, I just know it’s a great quirky twist on superheroes and the Horror genre with deceptively simple looking heroes who hide several secrets just below the surface, and the Skeleton, well, much as I’d love to tell you his secret, and it’s a real good one, I just cannot at this time…Martin brought up the idea to me and I told him that of course I’d love to work with him and have something published by Ron Hanna, another one of my favorite people that I’ve been lucky enough to meet online, Martin gave me good thorough descriptions and I drew the crew several times to try to get a feel for them, Martin liked what he saw and I was on! I just had to follow Martin’s descriptions for the characters and try to keep them iconic but unique at once. We’ll see how well I pull that off,lol.

AP:  What else are you currently involved in?

DANNY KELLY: Right now I’m involved in self publishing a book that I penciled called The Curse of the Vessel, written by Michael Leal, about a mob gangster who shakes down the wrong guy and gets branded with a sigil that allow the dead to occupy his body, we won the third round of the now-stalled Small Press Idol contest for this year, I also have several small projects and stories in the works with a few different writers, the next thing that I’ve worked on that should be done is M.O.N.S.T.E.R. Home by Dan Barnes, a tale of Van Helsing being admitted to an asylum full of classic Universal Horror monsters, good fun!

AP:  For folks who might want to find out more about you or your works, where should they go?

DANNY KELLY: Facebook.com/Dannydog is my profile, send me a friend request! I have no website up just yet, I’m thinking about it but for now Facebook is my best networking tool and where I’ve gotten the most useful feedback on my work, I can also be reached at DrFate420@aol.com

AP:  Any dream projects that you’d like to work on? 

DANNY KELLY: So very many! I’d love to do several short stories featuring my favorite characters like The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Hourman and Dr. Midnight, Space Ghost, but as someone who was most motivated to pursue comics art by books like Year One, The Killing Joke and Dark Knight Returns, and as someone with the black Golden Age Bat-symbol tattooed on my arm (my first one) I’d love to draw a Batman tale, if just once!

MOONSTONE MONDAY INTERVIEW
MICHAEL METCALF
Artist on BLACK BAT and DEATH ANGEL

AP: Michael, welcome to All Pulp’s first ever Moonstone Monday! Before we jump right into the excellent work you’re doing at Moonstone, give us some background on you and what work you’ve done up until now.

MICHAEL METCALF: Glad to be here. Moonstone Monday is one of my favorite days! I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Before I became a part of these Moonstone projects, I worked on various children’s graphic novels such as Timothy and the Transgalactic Towel and The Secrets of the Seasons: Gimoles. Before those I worked on a strange mix of pinups, covers, one panel cartoons, catalog illustrations, and what I like to call “not-yet-published” comics.

AP: You’re working with writer Mike Bullock on two characters involved in Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS. One is an original character, Death Angel. Having looked at some of the images of this character, it’s clearly a frightening avenger type. Tell us something about the Death Angel and give us some insight into what goes into your art on this particular concept.

MM: Yeah, Death Angel is a dark, vengeful character born out of a tortured, abused childhood. The Death Angel costume is all black with a white skull mask and large tattered wings so there is a terrific opportunity to play with heavy shadows and the contrast of light and dark areas in the comic panels. An important part of the costume is the pulsing light and sound devices concealed in both gloves. These devices induce disorientation and hallucinations in Death Angel’s foes so I like to use alot of swirling flowing lines and trippy distorted images during the fight scenes.

AP: Switching gears, but only slightly, you’re also bringing a pulp icon to life on the comic page, The Black Bat, as written also by Mike Bullock. Pulp fans know how the Black Bat is and he’s also a dark avenger night type of hero, but the styles seem different from your BLACK BAT to your DEATH ANGEL. Can you point out the differences and explain why you’ve sort of approached each of these from different angles artistically?

MM: I think that both of these characters are psychologically damaged. They both want to fight evil, and they are doing it in a very violent way that is outside of the normal limits of the law. The Black Bat once worked within the legal system and knows how the system works. Readers will notice that the Black Bat’s mind is now fractured into different personalities, the defender, prosecutor, judge and executioner, and it’s these four distinct voices that determine how he deals with the bad guys. The Black Bat has heightened senses and a huge need for justice. On the other hand, Death Angel’s roots are in twisted religion and a childhood of horrifying abuse. The result is a tortured soul seeking to punish the wicked. I think Death Angel is particularly obsessed with avenging crimes against women and children. Death Angel doesn’t have any superhuman abilities, just deep psychological scars, some powerful but horribly skewed religious convictions and a freaky costume armed with mind warping devices.

AP: With the Black Bat, you’re treading on what some would consider sacred ground. The costume the Bat wears in your work is slightly different from what most pulp aficionados would say he originally wore. Can you explain some of the changes and your reasons for them as well as wade in on the discussion of whether or not original characters should be changed/updated for modern readers or left as they were originally conceived?

MM: Mike B and I love the Black Bat, so hopefully we won’t be spoiling anyone’s enjoyment by making some changes. Mike B is the driving force here and he has a great deal of respect for the source materials. With the Black Bat making his way back into the visually driven comic format, I think it’s a great opportunity to add some new details and show him off to a whole new fan base while hopefully providing something new and enjoyable to the existing fans. Readers will find that he now sports a cowl similar to the traditional one but with no eye holes. His boots, gloves and other costume parts are all combat-durable and quite scarred because he has a tendency to brawl and break through windows, walls or crooks that get in his way. I’d say we approached the creation of the first issue from the point of view that “wow! this is what we’d like to see the Black Bat doing, and this is what he might wear to scare that crap out of some thugs before he beats them to a pulp.”

AP: What appeals to you about working with pulp characters in a comics medium?

MM: I think pulp fiction and comics are branches of the same family. It’s always a blast to draw dynamic characters having sensational adventures so I guess that’s what appealed to me.

AP: Any pulp characters you’d like to try your hand at, either those currently being played with at Moonstone or otherwise?

MM: The Shadow and Doc Savage spring to mind and there are many, many others that would be a hoot to draw.

AP: Do you have anything else in the works now, either within Moonstone or beyond?

MM: Mike and I just finished separate Black Bat and Death Angel pulp tales for the widevision books. These feature a different size/shape format and some very moody art. I’m working on the next ish of BLACK BAT DOUBLE SHOT and we have a four issue mini series called Lions Tigers and Bears Volume Three that is awaiting a print date and volume IV waiting in the wings. As far as other projects, I’m illustrating a mystery novel and a mini-series that I’m dying to talk about but I can’t yet! Hopefully I’ll chat with you again soon about the other stuff.

AP: Michael, your time and work is really appreciated!

MM: Hope you enjoy the BLACK BAT DOUBLE SHOT!

MOONSTONE MONDAY INTERVIEW

Martin Powell-Writer of Ki-Gor and The Spider for Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS

AP: Martin, thanks for sitting down with All Pulp again so soon (For Martin’s first interview with All Pulp, actually All Pulp’s debut interview, click on the INTERVIEWS page on this site).  Aside from the Halloween Legion, you mentioned other projects you’re working on.  Can you tell us something about the RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS from Moonstone and your part in that?

POWELL: THE RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS is a pulp-packed event coming soon from Moonstone, resurrecting many of the classic pulp characters of the 1930s in both comics and pulp fiction form. It’s going to be really cool. I’m writing THE SPIDER’s new comic book series and prose adventures, as well as KI-GOR THE JUNGLE LORD.

AP: Wow, not only one but two classic characters.  Of the two, Ki-Gor is probably the least familiar to most people.  He has been identified as a ‘Tarzan clone’ by some.  Is this a true description?  If not, tell us about him? What if anything makes him stand out from the more famous Lord of the Jungle?

POWELL: He isn’t as well known today, and I’m going to try to fix that. There’s no doubt that Ki-Gor was originally created as a Tarzan imitator, and, in fact, the earliest Ki-Gor novels are very similar to the Tarzan movies of that same period, starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. But Ki-Gor quickly developed his own unique personality as the orphaned child of a missionary, rescued and adopted by a powerful jungle shaman. Ki-Gor appeared as the lead feature in Fiction House’s Jungle Stories magazine, from 1938 all the way through to 1954, for a total of fifty-nine adventure novels, which significantly outnumbers Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels.

     The most striking differences between Ki-Gor and Tarzan are that Ki-Gor’s stories are much, much weirder and they are far more sensually charged. Ki-Gor and Helene, his red-haired mate, have a very intimate relationship—and it shows in the stories, quite unlike Tarzan and Jane. Their adventures abound with deep passion, marauding prehistoric monsters, and terrifying black magic, with a touch of science fiction thrown in, too. It’s almost as if the concepts of Burroughs and Robert E. Howard came together in a macabre mix. Having said all that, I am a devoted Tarzan fan, by the way, and as such I’m working hard to make Ki-Gor very different from him.

AP: The concept of a ‘Jungle Lord’ doesn’t really fit well in the modern world where you can look at any point on the globe from a home computer.  As the writer, how do you intend to make Ki-Gor resonate with a modern audience?  What will you bring to the character that maybe hasn’t been there before?

POWELL: Well, I somewhat disagree with the notion that our “modern world” no longer offers any mystery or adventure. There are vast jungles in Africa and South America which have never been explored by so-called civilized humans. A lot of the planet is still completely unmapped and unknown, even in the 21st century. Within just the past couple years a vast “lost world” was discovered in Indonesia containing over 200 unknown species of animals, include a bizarre tree-climbing kangaroo. Our planet still has her secrets.
     Ki-Gor’s tales occur in the late 1930s, when Africa was even more mysterious than it is today. Mind you, this isn’t the same place as described in our geography books. It’s a strange world of terrible beauty and nature run amok, insidiously inhabited by witch doctors, cryptic creatures, missing links, and lost alien cities. Ki-Gor’s personality and, especially, his relationship with Helene will continue to evolve in my stories. This is not only a series of high adventure, it’s also an epic love story, which I’m enjoying very much.

 AP: What, if any, concepts are you bringing forward from the original Ki-Gor tales? Any supporting cast, recurring themes, etc.?

POWELL: Helene Vaughn, from the original pulps, plays a very important role in this series. We sort of see the Jungle Lord, and his world, through her eyes. She is an extraordinary woman from civilization who has become Ki-Gor’s moral conscience and his mate. I’m also retaining N’kuni the Pygmy Warrior, and bringing in a lot of my own characters and concepts, too. My artist partner in this is Tom Floyd, who recently received the prestigious Golden Lion Award from the Edgar Rice Burroughs Bibliophiles. Past recipients of the award have been folks like, Harlan Ellison, Johnny Weissmuller, and Frank Frazetta, so I’m really lucky to have Tom. It’s been great fun working with him on this grand, sweeping jungle adventure.

AP: Let’s go to your other character.  To do that we go from the little known (Ki-Gor) to the pulp icon (The Spider).  For many, writing the further adventures of Richard Wentworth would be a dream job.  Was it that way for you and what appeals to you about the Spider as a writer?

POWELL: Oh, absolutely. I love the Spider. I’ve been a Spider fan since I was a teenager. It is a dream job. I’ve never thought of it as anything less, and I’m very grateful that Moonstone chose me to write this new series.
     Richard Wentworth, the Spider’s alter-ego (or…is it the other way around?), is a fascinating character. Arguably, he’s the most three-dimensional, fully realized personality of the pulps. I certainly consider him the most interesting of all the other contemporary pulp heroes. Those who superficially think of him merely as a killing machine, are missing the point of the Spider, in my opinion. I’m striving to remain as close to Norvell Page’s creation as possible by portraying Wentworth as highly intelligent, possessing lightning-fast deductive skills, and as a brilliantly commanding strategist. He also possesses nearly superhuman physical prowess, extraordinary endurance, and an incredible tolerance to pain. His fearsome reputation as the “Master of Men” is fully warranted, and yet he is also sorely afflicted with a messiah-complex. The Spider is wanted by the Law and the criminal Underworld alike, with most people believing that he is out of control and murderously insane. Privately, Wentworth himself is haunted by this terrifying possibility.

AP: What about the Spider will ring true with a modern crowd?  Is it really just the violent way in which Wentworth handles his business or is there more to it?

POWELL: There is much more to the Spider than merely his body-count Alone among the pulp heroes on his day, the readers were privy to the Spider’s inner thoughts, his crazed obsessions, his astonishing genius, and his tormented and dreadful self-doubts. I will be preserving this and also adding to the concept considerably.
     Ultimately, the Spider is more terrible than the fiends he fights. In Wentworth’s nightmarish world, New York City teeters forever upon the brink of oblivion. It’s 911 every day. He boldly faces hordes of monstrous madmen with a venomous laugh and a thunderous brace of blasting automatics. No villain, no matter how diabolical, has ever defeated the Master of Men. He has become a monster in order to vanquish the devils that would destroy us. It is a transformation that will demand a terrible price, as we shall see, by the climax of my first year’s storyline.

AP: Writing pulp prose is one thing, but crafting a script to bring any pulp character to life in comic form is a tricky proposition, as we’ve seen from other companies in recent months.  Tell us how you feel about the work you’ve done so far on both characters, how you feel they translate to the comic page and how telling these stories in this form brings anything different to them?

POWELL: I’ve been doing this sort of thing a long time, almost twenty-five years. Whether writing prose, or comic scripts, the classic concepts themselves must be preserved and maintained. My feeling is that the fans all want these iconic characters to be the same as from the source material. The readers are expecting to find themselves in a familiar world once they open these books. Anything less is disappointing and disrespectful. Visualize, for example, someone who has obtained, say, a Superman license, then hires a writer who immediately proceeds to change the costume, the powers, and the origin into something utterly unrecognizable. I’ll never understand that kind of thinking. There is nothing that needs to be fixed, rebooted, or re-imagined about the Spider. He is what he is, and that’s more than enough for his fans. And for me.

AP: The Spider has companions and recurring characters as well as techniques that are almost as recognizable as he is to pulpdom?  What bits from the Spider’s original run are making it into your version?

POWELL: I’m using all of it. Nita Van Sloan, Ram Singh, Jackson, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, Professor Brownlee, and even a couple classic Spider villains—they will all be returning in my series. I’m focusing on Nita especially. As the only woman to share the Spider’s darkest secrets, her role, fighting alongside with him amid all this chaos and madness, fascinates me. There was no other romantic couple in the pulps quite like Wentworth and Nita. I will be delving deeper into their bizarre relationship with each story.

AP: What about pressure? Do you feel any obligations to handle an iconic character like The Spider in any certain way?  Any fears or misgivings about taking on such a task?

POWELL: There’s always pressure, of course, and a certain amount of stress with any creative endeavor. I do feel a serious obligation to properly present an authentic version of the Spider. That is of the upmost importance to me as a writer and as a fellow Spider fan.

AP: Pulp is on an upswing, according to most of us in the pulp community.  Obviously, this project from Moonstone is a major sign of that.  Why should people, both pulp nuts and pulp newbies, pick up your books, or any of the RETURN titles?

POWELL: Well, the main reason I would want to buy them is because both the Spider and Ki-Gor are being illustrated by two very fine artists. Tom Floyd, as I’ve already said, is rendering KI-GOR THE JUNGLE LORD, and the legendary Pablo Marcos—and a long-time favorite of mine—is drawing THE SPIDER. Both series look spectacular.

AP: Any hints of future developments for Ki-Gor or the Spider?

POWELL: Tom and I will be re-visiting Ki-Gor’s origin in an upcoming story, and the conclusion of my first year’s worth of Spider adventures will team him, for the very first time, with another classic pulp hero—G-8 and his Battle Aces. That’s just the beginning, but the rest are secret. I have a lot of plans for the Spider.

AP: It’s been great, Martin!  Thanks again!

POWELL: Not at all. I’m always happy to discuss the pulps. Thank you.

MOONSTONE MONDAY INTERVIEW
Mike Bullock-writer of Black Bat
for Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS

AP: Mike, welcome to ALL PULP and thanks for taking time to answer a few questions. First, for those who don’t know your background, tell us about Mike Bullock.

MB: I’ve been writing since I was four years old, unprofessionally that is. I learned to read with Batman comics when I was three and always dreamed of a day when I could tell stories in comic books. When I was a teenager, I joined my first band as a singer/lyricist and quickly discovered I had a talent for poetry. I spent the next decade or so as a professional musician and when the day came to call it quits, I decided it was time to get serious about writing. A year later I was working for Broken Frontier and Panzer, a music magazine, writing articles and reviews. Soon thereafter, I landed my first comic work at Image and then took over writing The Phantom for Moonstone. After that, I woke up this morning and found this interview waiting for me. Sorry I’m late.

AP: You play a major role in Moonstone’s latest project, RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS, which focuses on new comic stories featuring classic pulp characters. Can you give us any details on this project as a whole and specifically why you are glad to be a part of it?

MB: Back in 2007 Moonstone’s El Jeffe, Joe Gentile and I were tossing ideas back and forth and I suggested making a fictional city where we could tell stories featuring many of Moonstone’s characters like Domino Lady, Spider, Black Shirt and some new characters like Death Angel and one Joe had dreamed up whose name escapes me at the moment. We decided to do a team book to launch this idea, but Joe wasn’t sure that was the right time to push it, since they had the Twilight War series amping up. We continued discussing the idea and it soon evolved into a pulp city/universe, where we’d bring back a lot of original pulp characters and put them into a cohesive environment. It would also allow us a vehicle to introduce new characters that were exclusively under the Moonstone banner.
      Well, time went on and one day Joe emailed me and said he thought it was time to get the ball rolling on this idea. Pretty soon he handed me a list of characters and asked which one I’d like to pen. I wrote back and told him Black Bat, Gladiator, Golden Amazon and I tossed in Captain Future and Sign of the Crimson Dagger, as well as Death Angel. Joe loved the enthusiasm but realized that was too much for one writer to tackle all at once, especially since we were still going to co-write the team book and we settled on Black Bat, Death Angel, Gladiator and Captain Future. I was thrilled to say the least, especially with Black Bat and Captain Future. I’ve always held a love for characters like Black Bat, Batman and Moon Knight and this was a chance to guide the adventures of the one who started it all.
     The first prose book I ever read was the original Star Wars novelization. When I was done, I loved it so much I went to the book store looking for more and stumbled on a series about a Virginian who suddenly found himself on Mars fighting giant green men to save the most beautiful woman in the universe. Right then and there, I discovered the magic that is pulp fiction. I devoured every one of those John Carter books in less than a month and then branched out to Conan, Carson of Venus, etc.  With that in mind, and my lifelong love of comic books, it’s no wonder that writing pulp comic books is a dream come true.

AP: One of the characters you’re tackling for RETURN is one that is known to most pulp fans, The Black Bat. Briefly, acquaint those who might not be so familiar about whom the Black Bat was in his original appearances. Also, weren’t there two pulp Black Bats? If so, which one are you writing?

MB: Anthony Quinn was a man on a mission, driven to make sure justice was done in the courtroom. However, just as often happens today, criminals slipped through the loopholes of our judicial system on technicalities time and time again, which brought with it a level of frustration that only motivated Quinn further. One day, in an attempt to destroy evidence, a mobster hit Quinn in the face with acid, blinding him and leaving horrific scarring around his eyes. Quinn’s career as a DA was over, and for a brief time, so was his life, as far as he was concerned. However, as the saying goes, ‘you can’t keep a good man down’ and Quinn was certainly a good man.  As he sat in his parlor one night, contemplating his new found course of action, the smell of beautiful perfume wafted into the room. A gentle voice told Quinn of a secret operation that would restore his sight. Quinn and his right-hand man, Silk Kirby, drove out to the countryside where a doctor transplanted the eyes of a dead police officer into Quinn’s head, returning his eyesight. However, Quinn had already heightened his other senses and could now effectively see in the dark, as well as hear in a manner akin to bats, where minute air pressure changes alerted him to motion in his surroundings.
     Quinn took up the mantle of Black Bat, swearing to fight evil men with their own weapon: treachery, intimidation and terror. There were indeed two Black Bats, one a private investigator in search of the unknown and another, more successful version, which I’ve just detailed. Additionally, there were several other ‘Bat’ characters in the pulps as well as DC comics’ most famous one, Batman.

AP: As most pulp characters do, The Black Bat has a cast of helpers, a team of sorts, and a cast of recurring characters and even themes. What of these trappings are you bringing into your version of this masked avenger?

MB: We see Carol Baldwin in the first issue, Silk Kirby appears in #2 and Butch O’Leary enters in #4. Additionally, a new member of his inner circle, Langston Walker will join the ranks soon.

AP: There’s always a concern that a writer will ‘change’ an established character if he takes over the writing chores. What changes if any are you making in the Black Bat? Anything about his history or changes maybe in storytelling, tone, etc?

MB: I’m not sure what I’m doing necessarily falls under the heading of change, but more of deeper exploration of what came before. I did a lot of research on the impact of traumatic events, such as being hit with a face full of acid, and what it does to the human psyche and introduced my findings to the lore. I’ve also expounded on the heightened senses in a more realistic manner than what others did, (re: Marvel Comics’ Daredevil). Beyond that, the only real updates have been to the costume and storytelling style. On the costume front, I think artist Michael Metcalf has done a wonderful job bringing the Black Bat’s wardrobe into the 21st century. Hopefully, your readers agree.

AP: One aspect of your Black Bat that stands out is his deadly dedication to his mission. He intends to see justice done and sometimes that’s not so pretty. This is a trait, in my opinion, that he had even in his original stories, but it’s also a hot button with critics who claim that such violence is gratuitous, that it gives readers the wrong ideas about how to handle things. How would you handle such criticism if you received it for your Black Bat?

MB: I’ve already had such criticism and all I can say to the critics is wait and see. At first glance some of the ultra-violence in the first issue might seem gratuitous, but once a bigger picture unfolds, there’ll be more to the story than just a few two-dimensional thugs getting whacked.

AP: Let’s talk about time period. What era does your Black Bat take place in and why that particular period?

MB: We’ve intentionally left the time period for most of the Return line vague. While the Battle For LA story by pulp master C.J. Henderson obviously nails it down to the WWII era, this is an alternate earth where these tales take place, so you may see things in the books that defy chronological structures as we know them. Expect the unexpected, especially in the pages of Aaron Shaps’ Phantom Detective and the aforementioned team book Joe Gentile and I are doing.

AP: There seems to be two camps of pulp writers as well as pulp fans. Some want writers who take over established characters to stick right to the model already established, same costume, same friends, etc. Others allow that the modern writer may bring something different to the table and are more tolerant of change? Where do you fall as a writer and as a fan?

MB: I love new. No one will ever write stories exactly like the original authors and as a reader I’d rather not see someone try because they’ll ultimately fail. Instead, I think it’s the duty of writers to build on what came before. If you’re a professional writer and you have nothing new to say, your career will last as long as a mobster in Black Bat’s world. A lot has changed in our collective consciousness since these tales were first crafted; including the way we as a society look at storytelling. So, I’m excited to read Martin Powell’s new Spider tales, thrilled about what Aaron is doing in Phantom Detective and can’t wait to read Secret Agent X, Rocketman and the litany of other stories like I.V. Frost, Ki-Gor, G8 and more. I handed the reins of Gladiator over to Josh Aitken and can’t wait to see what he does with earth’s mightiest mortal, also.
     While I get the desire by purists to never have anything change, for those who subscribe to that mindset, there’s a litany of existing work to read. If nothing was to change, why bother doing anything new? On the flipside, if you’re going to do something new, to quote the cliché ‘Go big or go home’, which is a mantra I think a lot of Return writers are embracing.

AP: Depending on whom you talk to or what you read, The Black Bat had quite an influence on several modern day characters and concepts. Does that fact put you under any particular pressure to one up the original? What are your intentions with your Black Bat, to tell a great story or is there more?

MB: I don’t see any pressure from that angle; I do feel a pressure to live up to a great character and series of existing stories, just as I did when I took over the Phantom. Lee Falk was a master of speculative fiction and to walk in his shoes was quite intimidating at first, however I soon was able to spread my wings and fly with his great creation. I think with Black Bat, I’m revisiting those early Phantom days to some extent. I’ll make some mistakes, just as I did with The Ghost Who Walks, but hopefully the enjoyable parts will outweigh everything else. In the end, I just want to tell stories that I’d enjoy reading. Hopefully, they’ll be great stories and remembered as such, but I’m simply praying God allows me to do the best job humanly possible. I think if I do that and the book reaches a wide enough audience, it’ll all work out in the end.

AP: Other than breathing life back into a pulp icon, do you have anything else in the works that would make pulp fans sit on the edge of their seats?

MB: Well, Death Angel debuted in Phantom Doubleshot #1 last year and garnered some real excitement from readers. I’m hoping the character’s further appearances in Black Bat Doubleshot will build on that until ‘Angel can survive as the headliner.

     Captain Future is another pulp character I’m working with that has me really excited. The idea that this character is so overlooked today boggles my mind. For those who aren’t aware, the good Captain was one of the originators of the space opera sub genre, popularized originally by Flash Gordon and later by Star Wars. Some describe Cap as Doc Savage in space, which is more than enough to get me jazzed. The original stores, penned by Edmond Hamilton, have all the excitement found in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter stories and they harken back to a time when our society was more innocent and captivated with imagination. Look for the first Captain Future tale in the Moonstone Pulp Fiction magazine’s first issue.

     Outside the pulp arena, I’m writing a new “jungle girl” book called Savage Beauty which takes the sensibilities of my Phantom stories and infuses them into an old genre desperately in need of modernization. Savage Beauty #1 hits shelves in early 2011.

AP: Mike, thanks a lot for taking the time to spend Moonstone Monday with ALL PULP!

MB: Thanks for the interview, Tommy, it’s greatly appreciated.

MOONSTONE MONDAY INTERVIEW
Ron Fortier-writer of I.V FROST
for Moonstone’s RETURN OF THE ORIGINALS

AP: Ron, you’ve made a name for yourself in comics and recently in pulps. Now the two fields are coming together for you with your work for Moonstone. Let us in on the project overall that you’re a part of and how it came about.

RF: Well, I’m a small (note very, very small) part of Moonstone’s new pulp inspired comic book line, Return of the Originals spearheaded by Managing Editor Joe Gentile with able assistance from Mike Bullock and Tim Lasiuta. For the past several years Moonstone Books has been creating a really substantial presence in the pulp community with their excellent prose anthologies featuring such characters as the Spider, the Avenger and from the comic ranks, the Phantom. With this next step into pulp comics, Joe set about recruiting those writers who had contributed to the prose books and I am happily one of those.

AP: With the Pulp resurgence going as it is, fans are aware of Doc Savage, the Shadow, and even some of the lesser known names like the Black Bat and The Phantom Detective. But you’re putting your talents to a hero only die hard pulp fans may know. Just what is the story behind I.V. Frost? What’s his history?

RH: Honestly, the more obscure, the better where I’m concerned. These lesser known heroes are real gems. I.V. Frost was invented for Clues Detective Stories by veteran pulp writer Donald Wandrai. Between Sept. 1934 and Sept. 1937, Wandrai wrote a total of eighteen stories starring this scientific criminologist. Frost is best described as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and the two-fisted private eye Sam Spade. A genius who puts his intellect to use solving bizarre crimes, he is not above getting his hands dirty to bring the bad guys to justice. Frost is aided by a platinum blond beauty named Jean Moray who is not only sexy and street smart, but also a scientist with a college degree. They make a fantastic crime solving team.

AP: You’re known for your desire to stay as true to the history of the public domain characters you write as you can, but you are obviously a modern era writer. What do you think you bring to this idea that will make Frost appealing to readers who pick it up today?

RF: After writing comics for thirty years, I’d like to think I’ve learned what a graphic story requires to make it both interesting and fun for the average comic reader. Although a lot of what happens in Frost’s adventures is indeed cerebral, I’m well aware no one wants to read a comic made up mostly of the hero locked in his lab simply staring off into space thinking. Thus far all of my scripts have made a concentrated effort to get Frost out of his lab and out where the action is. As long as I remember to the keep the fists and bullets flying, hopefully no one will get bored with him.

AP: There are just some ideas from pulp that may not translate well from the written word to the comic panel. What do you think there is about Frost that makes comics a good medium for him to return in?

RF: One of the things I know for a fact is Sherlock Holmes’ lasting personality was never really about how he solved any of his cases, but what a truly unique and colorful personality he was given by Arthur Conan Doyle. Both I.V. Frost and the delectable Miss Moray are such original, different characters. I’m using this as a base line and then writing exotic, fantastic crimes to get them involved with. That combination of bizarre cases and Frost’s eclectic persona will hopefully be very appealing to comic readers. There really aren’t any other pulp heroes quite like him.

AP: A lot of classic characters come with their own trademarks, a team of supporters, certain gadgets they always use, etc? Does I. V. Frost have any of this baggage and if he does, what of it are you bringing into your stories?

RF: Well, I’ve already spoken quite a bit of Jean Moray. There were a few police detectives who worked with Frost and I will be incorporating one or two of these, plus others of my own invention. As for gadgets and gizmos, Frost’s own brownstone in New York City is filled with all manner of recording devices, electric surveillance equipment etc. It is practically a fortress. There is also his personal laboratory where he can whip up all manner of fiendish cocktails and contraptions to aid him in cracking a case, such as his bullet-proof plastic suit. Many of these I’ve lifted right out of the original stories.

AP: Those of us that are pulp fans as well as pulp writers and artists see a major push in not only the creation of new pulp characters, but also the revitalization of older characters. A question to ask, though, is why? Why do you think now is the time for a character like Frost to return to the public scene? Why do you think there’s a reading public interested in him and his fellow pulp characters?

RF: I’ve been thinking about this on and off for the past several years, watching this Renaissance of Pulps if you will, and trying to fathom its meaning. I may be all wet, but I just cannot accept that it is mere coincidence that the pulps were born during the Great Depression and now, when our country is once again undergoing economic woes, readers find themselves hungry for escapist entertainment to help them forger their troubles, if even for a few hours or minutes even. Pulp literature is a purer form of action adventure than what evolved over the past thirty years in this country. From the late sixties to the present, we’ve been given “realistic” anti-heroes who in the end are often indistinguishable from the villains they battle. I hate the word anti-hero, it’s a joke. The anti-hero is the villain. Always had been. People today are fed up with this narcissistic junk and want real old fashion heroes again and that’s why pulps are making a strong comeback in all mediums. Because the pulps were never afraid to create heroes people could look up to, emulate and find hope in. Pulps have always been a literature of hope.

AP: Any plans for Frost you can let your adoring fans in on ?

RF: Well, so far I’ve turned in one prose story and three comic strips, all of which are being beautifully illustrated by Jake Minor, a super  talented artist whose work reminds me of Brian Bolland. Fans are going to love it. As for future plans, only to keep writing more of these as I’ve grown really fond of these characters. Hopefully so will the fans as it will be their vote that determines their future from here on out.

AP: I. V. Frost is not all you have cookin’ on the pulp stove. What else do you have your hands in currently that we can look forward to in the future?

RF: Well, I mentioned some of the prose stuff from Moonstone. I’ve an Avenger story due out in the second volume of that series and a Green Hornet story in the first volume of that set due out any day now. I’ve also written an Athena Voltaire prose story for creator Steve Bryant’s anthology book now in the works. There are several pulp and radio heroes that have never been translated to comics that I’m hoping to develop for various publishers next year. Obviously I’m not at liberty to divulge their names, but I think fans will be pleasantly surprised. I’m also working on my fifth Captain Hazzard novel for Airship 27 Productions and hope to start writing another set of stories for Pro Se Productions featuring another of my characters that’s been sitting on the shelves way too long. I guess you might say I’m kind of busy.

AP: Thanks a lot, Ron!

RF: My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.

MARTIN POWELL AND ‘THE HALLOWEEN LEGION’

THE HALLOWEEN LEGION are TM and copyrighted by Martin Powell and Danny Kelly

Longtime author Martin Powell recently sat down with All Pulp contributor Barry Reese to talk about his upcoming book THE HALLOWEEN LEGION. THL will be released in October from Wild Cat Books. All images shown are rough preliminary sketches and are not finished artwork.

BR: Tell us a little bit about The Halloween Legion and how it came about.

POWELL: Be glad to. THE HALLOWEEN LEGION is a concept and group of characters that I originally dreamed up many years ago, way back in the vacuous days of high school. One day, during a mind-numbing semantics class, I started sketching these figures in my notebook: a Skeleton, Witch, Devil, Ghost, and a Black Cat, the iconic archetypes of All Hallows Eve.

I remember getting a mild chill when I first drew them all together, a sort of jolt of anticipation. Suddenly I began imagining a whole series of adventures for the weird little group.

Of course, they’ve been simmering in my subconscious until recently, never quite forgotten, and patiently waiting for their chance to be born. I’m actually very glad that I waited this long. I needed the last couple decades of writing experience to prepare me for their debut. This is a very important, very personal project for me.

I’ve always loved the autumn and Halloween in particular. I wanted to somehow capture that feeling of magic and mystery, the sort of thrill you get as a kid when the falling orange and yellow leaves appear to follow you down the street. It’s too brief a season and I suppose in some crazy way I wanted to have that feeling with me always. THE HALLOWEEN LEGION is the result of that yearning.

BR: You’re collaborating on this project with Danny Kelly — what is he bringing to the table that you think will enhance the experience for readers?

POWELL: I hand-picked Danny from a number of artists that I had to choose from. There is something raw and elemental in his artwork that mixes perfectly with what I had in mind for these characters. I look at Danny’s drawings and I immediately smile. I wanted his sense of energetic, creepy fun.

Although I had lots of suggestions, and directed him a little, Danny essentially designed the visuals of THE HALLOWEEN LEGION himself. The fact that he gives the Ghost such amazing expressions, in spite of the fact that he’s a kid wearing a simple sheet with eye-holes cut out, is phenomenal.

I didn’t want this group to be photo-realistic, and the works of Edward Gorey and Charles Addams were closer to what I had in mind. Danny fits that sort of style perfectly, while also maintaining his own artistic identity.

BR: The promotional artwork by Danny Kelly suggests a somewhat fanciful tone to the book. Is this an all-ages story or something a bit darker?

POWELL: Hmm. It’s tough to describe. Sounds ambitious, I know, but I’ve always wanted THE HALLOWEEN LEGION to appeal to everyone, kid and grown-up alike. I suppose I can safely compare the book to John Bellairs’ eerie mysteries in its tone. I love his scary novellas.

There is a certainly a whimsical side to my story, but it’s pretty dark, too, even terrifying in some places, I hope. Fans of the pulps, Harry Potter, and Baum’s Oz books will probably feel quite at home here, but I like to think that THE HALLOWEEN LEGION is unique and original.

BR: Again, just by looking at the promotional images, it seems like this is perfectly suited to become a continuing series and even has possibilities for multimedia usage. Any plans for any of this?

POWELL: That’s exactly what I’ve always had in mind for them. Although Danny and I are starting THE HALLOWEEN LEGION off with an illustrated novella, we have lots of other plans, too. I’d love to do HL comic books, animation, action figures, lunch boxes, t-shirts, Halloween masks, radio shows, newspaper comic strips, feature films, and even a gentler picture book version for younger kids, too. I’m going to do my best to make all of that happen.

BR: This is your first foray into the Wild Cat Books publishing line. How long have you known publisher Ron Hanna and what led to WCB becoming the home for The Halloween Legion?

POWELL: Actually, I first worked for Wild Cat Books several years ago, co-writing the Captain Hazzard novel, “The Citadel of Fear”, with Ron Fortier. I’d wanted to do something more for quite a long while, but I could never manage to free up enough time in my schedule.

I’m a full-time freelance writer, and in order to make a living at this I need to write constantly. Luckily, my desk is usually happily swamped with contracted projects, but there just never seemed to be time for anything more.

Then, several months ago, Ron Hanna made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He offered to publish anything I wanted to write. Anything. Anything at all. In over two decades as a professional writer, no one has ever done that for me. I’ve always been lucky enough to get to write for many terrific characters, like Superman, Batman, The Spider, and Sherlock Holmes, but I’ve very rarely ever been given the opportunity to create, and to own, my own characters.

Well, I doubled up on my writing schedule, working twelve hour days and more, including weekends. Fortunately, I hardly ever sleep. After a few months, I’d finally cleared the space necessary to devote to Wild Cat Books. I thought about what I wanted to do for a few weeks. Ron had stressed “anything” I wanted, after all. That’s quite a situation to wrap your mind around.

Then, THE HALLOWEEN LEGION reacquainted themselves to me, from the back corners of my brain. Of course! I thought, with a distinct, rather giddy thrill. It had to be them. Just had to be. They had been waiting so long for me to get my act together. So, I dusted the cobwebs off my little group and contacted Danny Kelly almost immediately. And now here we are.

BR: You’re also busy these days with Moonstone’s Return of the Originals project. Any information you’d like to share on that front?

POWELL: Thanks for mentioning that. I’m the writer on the new comic book series for THE SPIDER, with artist Pablo Marcos, which is a dream come true for me. In addition to the regular comic book series, I’m also writing a semi-regular illustrated SPIDER prose pulp ‘zine, too. I’ve lots of plans for THE SPIDER.

Also, I’m writing KI-GOR THE JUNGLE LORD, in collaboration with artist, Tom Floyd. I should mention that Tom is the recent recipient of the Golden Lion Award from the Edgar Rice Burroughs Bibliophiles, in recognition of his Tarzan and other Burroughs work. Past recipients have been folks like: Hal Foster, Russ Manning, Harlan Ellison, Johnny Weissmuller, Joe Jusko, and Frank Frazetta, so I’m honored to be working with Tom. He’s also my best friend.

BR: For folks who might be interested in learning more about you and your work, where should they go?

POWELL: Well, I post lots of news about my current and upcoming projects on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/martin.powell1). I also keep a blog for those purposes (http://martinpowell221bcom.blogspot.com/). And I have an Amazon Author’s Page, too, which lists many of my current books (http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JRXRSU). Soon THE HALLOWEEN LEGION will be lurking among them!