Tagged: Stephen King

Martha Thomases: Cosplay Around The Clock?

Thomases Art 140502My friend Connie went to see the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden last weekend. She couldn’t wait to tell me about it. Apparently, it is common for people of Japanese heritage – or people who admire Japanese heritage – to wear traditional dress for this occasion, and she had looked forward to seeing some fabulous kimonos.

Only this time, there were cosplayers. Lots of cosplayers. No one was selling any comics or movies or video games or collectibles, but still there were cosplayers.

Is this a thing now? Are we cosplaying all the time?

I mean, next month at Book Expo America, a trade show for the publishing industry, is having a “Book Con” for people who like books enough to go to the Javits Center on a nice weekend in the spring just for the fun of it. Are we going to see people dressed like their favorite Jane Austen characters? Or Moby Dick?

Once we expand cosplay to the world of traditional (i.e. non-illustrated) literature, then the cosplay opportunities can be expanded infinitely. Perhaps your boss isn’t a plutocrat with no imagination, but is instead performing an homage to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Your mother-in-law hasn’t let herself go, she’s just a big fan of Stephen King. And your niece, the little princess? She dresses that way on purpose.

Actually, I already see a lot of kids dressed as princesses or Buzz Lightyear at local playgrounds. It’s possible they are coming from costume parties, which in the new kids’ culture now happen randomly all week long. And the hipster boys, with their artisanal beards, their vintage hats, and their flannel shirts, could just as easily be extras in a John Ford western.

I’m not going to do cosplay, at least not on purpose. I’ve already expressed a personal uneasiness with drawing attention to myself via spandex, and I don’t think that’s going to change as I get older. Having worn a uniform in high school, I am much too self-conscious about the message I send out when I put on clothes of my own choosing. Perhaps there would be some advantage to going to work dressed as Wonder Woman on the day of my performance review. Perhaps I could use a magic lasso to get rid of the creeps on the subway.

Still, the event in Brooklyn inspired this story
in which a snappy dressed African-American gentleman was swamped with fans who thought he was dressed as The Doctor. The writer of the story in the link observed that the random people at the cherry blossom festival were more open-minded than the people at New York Comic-Con six months before. As comics fans, we should be ashamed of ourselves. As Americans, maybe we can be encouraged by the progress we’ve made in six months.

In any case, if you’re looking for investment opportunities, I would recommend bow ties.

Bow ties are cool.

Mindy Newell: Who’s The Real You When You’re Writing?

“Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness then I send forth Myself.”
—Lord Krishna to Prince Arjuna,[[[The Bhagavadgita]]] (Song of God)

Sanskrit in origin, and a central principle of the Hindu religion, an avatar is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract an evil in the world.  A central principle of Hinduism, it usually refers to 10 appearances of Vishnu, including an incarnation as the Buddha Gautama and the Buddha yet to come, called Kalkin.”

In the 21st century, it has also come to mean that little picture that represents the user, blogger, columnist, commentator, gamer, or fan on the Internet, and (usually) will tell you something about that person, whether it is whom that user, blogger, columnist, commentator, gamer, or fan admires or identifies with, or even their sense of humor about themselves.  (See my avatar on my Facebook page, for instance, which is from the artwork of Anne Taintor and reads “I plead insanity.”)

James Cameron’s [[[Avatar]]] blended the two definitions in his hero, Jake Sully—Jake is both the “user” behind his genetically engineered Na’vi body (Jake’s avatar) and the “incarnation” of the savior of the Na’vi civilization.

Writers can also use avatars. (more…)

Mindy Newell: Blood And Streams

Newell Art 140120“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” – Gene Fowler

 “It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your mind, strength, and will, if you don’t feel joy and excitement while writing it, then you’re wasting good white paper, even if it sells, because there are other ways in which a writer can bring in the rent money besides writing bad or phony stories.” – Paul Gallico

 “Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.” – “Red” Smith

 “The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.” – Philip Roth

 “The road to hell is paved with adverbs” – Stephen King

Oy.

Maybe you’ve figured out by now that today I’ve got nothing. Zip. Nada. A big Krispy Kreme donut hole. So I’ll just do a bit of stream of consciousness and see what comes pouring out.

Chris Christie. I don’t know why it took so long for Bridgegate to become front-page news. Everybody who lived in New Jersey last August seemed to know that the closing of the entrances to the GW Bridge was a political bullshit thing. Traffic study? C’mon, this is New Jersey. Everybody knows that the traffic at the GW Bridge sucks 23 out of 24 hours a day. You need a traffic stuffy for that?

What I don’t get, what everybody in New Jersey, home to Tony Soprano and Enoch “Nucky” Johnson (renamed Thompson in Boardwalk Empire) and the dirtiest politics in America, doesn’t get is how Christie’s staff could be so stupid as use e-mail in planning and enacting their stupid pet tricks. As to “was the boss in on it?” and “did Christie know and when did he know it?” You could bowl me over with a spoon if it turns out that the Governor was ignorant of his staff’s shenanigans. But I won’t be surprised if he comes out of this smelling, if not like a rose, at least then like a refurbished brownstone in downtown Jersey City. A function of all political flunkies is, after all, to fall upon their sword for God, Country, and Emperor when necessary, and I think that’s what’s going to happen.

“Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong. That’s the journalistic “hook” for Amanda Hess’s cover story “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet” in Pacific Standard magazine appeared on January 6, 2014, and the story’s first paragraphs are about her experience of receiving death threats over Twitter while on vacation in Palm Springs. Amanda Hess was on the Brian Lehrer show last week to talk about this. I couldn’t hear the whole thing because she came on in the second half of the show and I had to go into work, but I sat in the parking lot as long as I could listening and thought of all the stories I’ve heard this year from my friends in the comics industry. I’m thinking that maybe the end of “net neutrality” isn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe making it a little harder to have full access to the web will help cut this shit out?

Nah. To quote Scotty in The Search For Spock, “the more they over think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” I don’t know what the answer is, but it aggravates the hell out of me.

I adore my grandchild, Meyer Manual. I adore watching Alix and Jeff be parents. But I still can’t get used to the word “Grandma.” It just doesn’t fit into my self-image vocabulary. Isn’t that incredibly fucked-up? I am trying to think of another “name” for myself to have him call me. When Alix first began to talk she called my parents by their first names, and continued to do so for a very long time; I don’t remember when she stopped and started calling them Grandma and Grandpa, but I do remember that my father didn’t like being called Meyer at first – “I’m your grandfather, not your friend” – but when Alix grew into calling him Grandpa, he missed the first-name bit. I think some part of him was longing for that tiny little toddler. Me, I’d love it if little Meyer calls me Mindy. What the hell, I’ve always been an iconoclast, why stop now? On the other hand, I don’t care what he calls me, as long as he calls me (she said in her best Groucho Marx imitation).

Speaking of my father, we took him out on Saturday night to celebrate his birthday. I told you about how he kept eating the french fries as my brother “Heimliched” my mom, how he’s in his own “Never-never land” most of the time, and how in so many ways my father is gone. And yet, sometimes there’s the glimmer of the old Meyer. My brother ordered a vodka gimlet for him, specifying “Stoly’s.” The waiter repeats it, “Yes, sir, vodka gimlet with Stoly’s” and suddenly my father intercedes. “Ketel.” “You want Ketel 1?” my brother said. He nodded, and then he lapsed back into that place where he lives most of the time. But later, while driving home, Alix told Jeff and I that she heard my dad tell Isabel “it’s an honor to be here with you and the baby to celebrate my 91st birthday.”

Been thinking about the lack of comics in this house for the last year (for financial reasons, as I mentioned in a previous column). Been thinking that I might head over to Comixology or one of the other sites and do some downloading to catch up. Definitely cheaper. But only as a temporary measure. Somehow not holding the comic in my hand while reading seems wrong to me. Well, if not wrong, then weird. Maybe that makes me a Luddite, but if Jim Kirk can read A Tale of Two Cities in hardcover in the 24th century and Jean-Luc Picard treasures his copy of Moby Dick in the 26th, then I’m just doing my part to ensure that real books hang around for future generations.

And, yes, comics count as real books.

Blood has been spilt in their making.

TUESDAY: Jen Krueger

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

Martha Thomases, Goddess With Portfolio

thomases-art-131004-150x78-9976668You probably know me as a ComicMix columnist, someone with keen insights into the art and commerce of modern popular culture. My experience as a writer, a journalist, and a public relations professional give me a unique perspective on the various aspect of this subject. And also, you know, a fan and the mother of a fan.

I am also, however, a person with a job. That job is Vice-President, Corporate Communications, for ComicMix.

Which sounds really good, and made my father happy, but it means that I spend a lot of time telling people about all the cool stuff we do here at ComicMix, both on the site and behind the scenes. This week, we had a really big announcement.

A big announcement means I’m really busy, and don’t have as much time to tune into comics and television and movies and books (although Dr. Sleep is totally worth your time, and your weekend, and your peaceful dreams). Which means I don’t have a subject about which to opine.

This announcement is more important than whether or not Batman can ever get laid. This announcement is more important than who will be the villain in a third Thor movie. This announcements more important than what happens to Jesse after the end of Breaking Bad. This announcement is even more important than the real identity of the Dr. Sleep of the title of that book I just mentioned.

This announcement means more and better comics. For you, for me, for anyone who enjoys reading. A worthy goal, in and of itself, made even more important because it means the people who make the comics will have more control over their work, and more control over their contracts, and ultimately more control over their money.

This announcement is so important that I’m going to send you to another website to read it. Go ahead. We’ll still be here when you get back.

Coolness, right?

Maybe you have an idea for a story you want to tell, but never knew how to get it together. You can go get information about the nuts and bolts here.

Or maybe you want to show your support for truly independent comics in a way that guarantees a high level of production values and joy. In that case, definitely check out the first campaign here.

If that campaign isn’t your taste, don’t be discouraged. There will be more.

And that brings us to the most important part of this story. One of those upcoming campaigns will be for a book written by me. Martha Thomases. Media Goddess. Queen of Spin.

You’re welcome.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Mike Gold: Where Have All The Comics Gone?

gold-art-130925-150x217-4987394About a thousand years ago, I was on Steve King’s WGN radio show (now sorely missed) and somebody called in and asked about the name “Comic Book.” I was taken aback momentarily, trying to decide if I should go into my “we’ve kicked the kids out of the donut shop” auto-rant. Out of respect for Steve and his 33 state / five province reach, I did a short history instead.

I talked about how the original comics were simply reprints of newspaper strips, some funny (hence the term “funny books”), some were adventurous, and the best were surreal. Within a few years all the licenses were tied up – not just the good ones – and new publishers like Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson had to hire young (read: inexpensive) writers and artists to create new stuff.

Funny comic books continued to dominate newsstand and subscription sales for the better part of two decades. Indeed, Dell Comics’ Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories sold over three million copies each month, the majority as subscriptions. Other movie cartoon stars did quite well, and before long we had a plethora of original funny animal and funny human comics, including Bob Montana’s Archie, Walt Kelly’s Pogo (yeah, the li’l possum and his alligator buddy got their start as a comic book feature), and Shelly Mayer’s Sugar and Spike.

In those hallowed days, comic books were only available on newsstands (stand-alones, in drug stores, transportation stations, etc.) and by subscription. There were no comic book stores. The concept was ridiculous: how could you make money only selling ten-cent product?

This is a question that haunted publishers in the late 1950s when the traditional outlets started to die off. Shopping malls replaced drug and candy stores and five-and-dimes (Woolworths, Kresges) were rendered redundant by convenience stores. Public transportation was severely reduced as people moved out of the inner-cities and into suburbs and outlying neighborhoods, necessitating the purchase of a car. You can’t read a comic book – or text, for that matter – while operating an automobile.

The medium survived, if you call this survival, by the creation of the direct sales marketing system wherein cockroach capitalist comic book stores could order new comics on a non-returnable basis. They received them about three weeks early, so those few remaining newsstands faced severe competition if they were located near a comics shop. Then again, those few remaining newsstands couldn’t care less: the amount of profit in a comic book wasn’t worth the effort of maintaining the racks.

Several comics retailers and at least one severely shortsighted comics distributor discouraged marketing towards children because “they didn’t have enough money and weren’t worth the bother.” Oh, yeah? Well, then, where are your new customers going to come from ten or twenty years down the road?

Well, twenty years down the road, comic book sales were a small fraction of what they had been and, as DC’s co-publisher recently quipped, “our average reader is about 50 years old.” (I paraphrase.) So, in effect, by cutting off the kids we’ve voluntarily placed ourselves in the position the mom’n’pops were in a generation ago. Worse, actually. Most kids know from comics characters not because of the comics, but because of the movies and television shows. They find comics confusing, boring and expensive – if they can find them at all.

As my fellow ComicMixer Marc Alan Fishman said last week, a few publishers are trying to correct this by establishing lines of kid-friendly titles. If they succeed, we’ll have a next generation of comic book readers.

If they fail, the American comic book will become part of our cultural history.

So here’s what you can do. Halloween is coming up. Many publishers have produced special digest-sized comics to give to trick-or-treaters, and that’s great. But if you can’t find them, there’s plenty of new kid’s comics out there. Buy a couple dozen and give them out instead of all that sugary candy stuff.

If you already bought all that sugary candy stuff, ship it to me. I’ve got plenty of comic books.

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: The Debut of Tweeks!

 

REVIEW: Twixt

twixtb_packagingblurayToday, Francis Ford Coppola is celebrated, and justly so, for his work on The Godfather Trilogy, and being one of the 1970s wunderkinds who helped change the look of movies. But he’s also the same guy who cut his teeth on Roger Corman low budget genre offerings and he seems to have come full circle with Twixt.

Once more Coppola does it all: writing, directing, producing. Unfortunately, the results are visually stylish and emotionally empty. If the lead character is a bargain basement Stephen King, this is Coppola’s shoestring budget The Shining and neither looks particularly good.

Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) was a once-promising author reduced to writing occult novels with declining sales and readership, causing him to go wherever he can to personally sell his books. As a result, he winds up in a creepy small town, tucked in a corner of the hardware/bookstore when he is told of a serial killer by the local sheriff (Bruce Dern). Desperate for cash and reinvigorating his deteriorating career, he agrees to stick around and help the sheriff investigate, offering to share the sales, but secretly pocketing the advance from the hardnosed editor (David Paymer).

twixt_bildgrossOne reason he agrees is that he encounters an ethereal girl named Virginia (Elle Fanning) who claims to be a vampire and no one else can see. Audiences realize something’s up because the color palette is totally washed out except for Virginia in glowing white and red. Coppola cleverly plays with reality via color filters and digital trickery that gives the movie an interesting atmosphere and look.

Before long, though, the story spirals into lengthy expositions with flashbacks within flashbacks as we pick up the pieces about what really happened to the thirteen girls who mysteriously were killed in a now abandoned hotel. Baltimore’s investigations are helped along by the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin) who once stayed at the hotel. Their conversations about the craft of writing and storytelling is among the freshest and most interesting parts of the film.

Coppola neglected to give the characters any real personality. Baltimore’s unhappy wife (Joanne Whalley) is a desperate shrew; Paymer’s editor is tough, the sheriff desperate for fame, and Baltimore a stereotypical alcoholic writer, mourning the loss of his daughter. In the commentary and documentary accompanying the 1:28 film, now on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment, Coppola explains he dreamed about Virginia and woke up in 2009 and dictated his thoughts into a still-preserved recording. Clearly he decided the script should be as ephemeral so no character, alive or dead, is made three dimensional.

Kilmer and PoeKilmer’s distraught writer sleepwalks through the investigation, getting everyone around him to help with the investigation without a hint of gratitude. Whatever writing talent he had was many cases of whiskey back and he struggles to even begin his new manuscript without resorting to the very clichés his editor warns him against. The rest of the cast is never given much to work with and as playful and interesting as Fanning’s V promises to be, even she can’t make you care enough.

The film was shot in California and subsequently screened at numerous film festivals but could not secure a domestic distributor so audiences only now have a chance to see this thin, not terribly frightening misfire from a once great visionary. The movie has a so-so commentary from his grandson Gio or also shot the 37 minute Making Of featurette which is the sole extra accompanying the disc. The combo pack comes with Blu-ray and digital copy.

INTERVIEW SERIES- ALL PULP TALKS TO BAD TIGER STUDIOS- INTERVIEW ONE- C. WILLIAM RUSSETTE

  • News
  • July 21, 2013


BAD TIGER STUDIO debuted recently as a new force in Pulp and Comics, fitting the bill for just what All Pulp covers!  With this first interview of Company Partner C. William Russette, All Pulp begins a series spotlighting Bad Tiger Creators discussing characters, plans, and more to come from this new, but already popular company in Comics and Pulp Fiction


ALL PULP BAD TIGER INTERVIEW #1
C. WILLIAM RUSSETTE

ALL PULP:  Tell us about yourself, your personal background, and how you got into writing/art/etc.


CWR; My name is C. William Russette I currently pay the rent working retail. I have an incredibly supportive wife and a fantastic son who digs my art. I have been drawing since I could hold a crayon as so many artists claim. Far as I recall it was the truth for me. I didn’t get interested in writing until I started playing role playing games and the plots provided just weren’t interesting enough for me to run my players through. Basically I always fancied myself an artist but never pushed that too hard. Writing was all dabbling too until I was in the army and took a correspondence course. That and trying to impress my future wife got me to start taking my writing seriously. I wrote some comic book scripts and short stories. Tommy roped me into the first of many web projects and his health has been on the decline ever since. I have been published in both comic book format and prose; most recently in Pro Se Presents.

AP: What is your role at Bad Tiger?


CWR: I am the co-Founder along with Justin Ditzler. That’s my biggest hat. I am also the plotter-scripter-penciller-inker of the OPERATOR ZERO comic. I recruited all of our talent from past associations be it writing or art. I also wear an editors hat but that’s pretty loose.

AP: In our modern society, some would say that there’s nothing new or original anymore.  What makes Bad Tiger stand out?


CWR: I don’t care for that idea. By that reasoning no one has done anything new or original since Macedonia four thousand years ago. Plots and themes can be retreaded and slapped together with different characters in different places and times. I think it really depends on how you present the story. How well was it written? Was it executed properly? What will make Bad Tiger material stand out is that no one has our unique viewpoints or the way we process everything we absorb. I’ll let my peers answer for themselves but I grew up reading a lot of fiction from comic books to fantasy-adventure and devouring films like Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian and especially the Ray Harryhausen works. So add to that a fondness for Pulp (that I was unaware of until it was brought to my attention.) and dump trucks of Robert E. Howard, Stephen King and Jeffery Deaver and there is a healthy eclectic mix that my creative engine can chew up, lace with adrenalin and spit out what I call my kinda stories. BTS is my stories done my way. It’s something that I have been wanting to do for some time and I’ve assembled a gang of like minded individuals to share their wares.

AP: What are your inspirations, influences for the work you do?


CWR: There are many so I’ll just scrape off the icing. For art I will say Mike Mignola, John Byrne and Walt Simonson are top of the heap. I am still learning to ink but Gary Martin and Shawn Martinbrough jump to mind. For writing it is really all over the place. Warren Ellis, Jim Shooter, Clive Barker, Stephen King, James Clavell (Shogun is still my favorite novel), R. A. Salvatore, Bruce Lee, Robert Ludlam, Chris Claremont and Grant Morrison to name a few. Are we doing movies? 13 Assassins, The Crow, Gladiator, The Avengers and cartoons like Alladin, Akira and Transformers G1. Toshiro Mifune, Jeff Goldblum, Jack Nicholson and Donnie Yen. For music its mostly 80’s rock and metal. For it all I need the high water mark, a direct line or an adrenaline shot to get the juices flowing. Oh, and coffee.

AP: What do you think appeals to the public about heroic/genre fiction and/or comic strips?  Why will people come to Bad Tiger?


CWR: I think there are a number of reasons why people like heroic fiction. I think there is a certain thrill to living vicariously through the characters that you’re absorbing. I know I do that. I think there is a certain level of escapism that feeds a down-time need during troubled times in your life. You want to forget the rent, the war, the homework or the job. Maybe reading about a domino masked ex-sailor that stands up against the unjust and lands a mighty jaw-breaking right cross is just the ticket to lower your blood pressure. The creators that I have roped into presenting their varied super-charged crime-breaking, airship-flying, sword swinging, mask wearing, machine gun unloading stories will deliver the super charged pulp, genre tales that much of the comic book industry just doesn’t deliver. Heck, we even have a comedic strip in Junior’s World by Frank Dawson Jr. Its all under one roof and great things are coming down the pipe. I assure you.

AP: Any closing thoughts?


CWR: I’ve gone on long enough but I will say that I am having a great time working with these guys and creating along side them the stories that we all love to read. Watch this Bad Tiger as he claws his way to the top!


 Bad Tiger Studio- http://www.badtigerstudio.com

Mindy Newell: To Tell The Truth

Steven-Colbert-with-Elements-of-Style-Fourth-Edition-William-Strunk-Jr.-Author-E.-B.-White-Author-Roger-Angell-ForewordEmbellishment.

Is it a dirty word, especially when it comes to writing? Well, it depends. Simply put, there must be no embellishment when writing for a professional journal. The truth must be told.

There is a big difference between writing for a professional journal and writing fiction, or even this column. Writing for a professional journal must follow a proscribed style set by peer-reviewed organizations whose rules on grammatical usage, word choice, elimination of bias in language, the proper citation of quotes and references and the inclusion of charts and tables have become the authoritative source for all intellectual writing. This means that for me, as an RN, BSN, CNOR, I must adhere to the styles and standards set by the Publication Manual Of The American Psychologoical Assocociation (APA), which is “consulted not only by psychologists but also by students and researchers in education, social work, nursing, business, and many other behavioral and social sciences” (VanderBros, 2010) if I submit a paper or article to the Journal of the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) for publication.

Does this mean that when I write fiction, or this column, I am allowed to freely embellish my stories? Does it mean that I am allowed to not to tell the truth?

Fiction writers do not really have one easily referenced professional publication in which the governance of grammar and punctuation are laid out in indisputable terms, in which the standards of style are set – though this does not mean I can sit down in front of my computer screen and write just one continuous sentence that goes on and on for pages and pages – well, perhaps I could if I was James Joyce. But all writers do need to start somewhere, and for anyone who has ever taken a creative writing course, or even tried to stay awake in their English high school class, the classic Elements Of Style, first written in 1918 by Professor William Strunk, Jr., is a good place to start. Strunk said something in that first edition that, 95 years later, has withstood the test of time and which, I believe, every writer, aspiring or published must integrate into his or her understanding of the art of writing:

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

Elements was first revised in 1957 by New Yorker writer E. B. White (the author of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web), and by 1979s third edition, listed 11 rules for grammar, 11 principles of writing, 11 standards for form, and 21 recommendations for style. (A search on Amazon revealed that Chris Hong updated The Elements Of Style for Kindle readers in 2011.) But there’s a lot more advice out there. A little while ago I entered “standards for fiction writing” on Google, and got 15,400,000 hits in 0.23 seconds.

On my bookshelf I have not only Elements of Style, but also Zen in the Art of Writing – Essays on Creativity by Ray Bradbury, Write for Yourself – The Book About The Seminar and Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, both by Lawrence Block, Write in Style – Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to Improve Your Writing by Bobbie Christmas, How I Write – Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof, Inventing the Truth – the Art and Craft of Memoir edited by William Zinsser and which includes essays by such notables as Russell Baker, Annie Dillard, Toni Morrison, and Frank McCourt, Is Life Like This? – A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months by John Dufresne, The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel by Robert J. Ray, Writing Fiction from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and Writers on Comics Scriptwriting which includes interviews with such illustrious authors as Peter David, Kurt Busiek, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb and Grant Morrison.

I also have Eisner/Miller – Interview Conducted by Charles Brownstein, which is wonderful not only for its historical perspective, but for a peep into two great creative minds, and “Casablanca – Script and Legend” by Howard Koch,” which is incredibly instructive in detailing how magic sometimes happens despite ornery studio heads, battling co-writers, and an inability to decide how the story ends. I also have Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” on my to-buy list.

And to tell the truth, I sometimes think that all this advice is still not enough.

Reference: Vandehaus, Gary R. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (6th ed., pp. xiii – xiv). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

To Be Continued…

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘THE SIX GUN TAROT’!

  • News
  • March 16, 2013

ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier
THE SIX-GUN TAROT
By R.S. Belcher
Tor Books
361 pages
Were we about to pitch this book as a possible movie to a Hollywood studio, we would  present it as a super amalgamated cross between Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” and Lawrence Kasdan’s “Silverado.” 
If you are an avid reader, then we no need to tell you that the new pulp genre known as the Weird Western is extremely popular these days.  From anthologies and novels, it is a fantasy theme that has captured the fancy of readers everywhere.   “The Six-Gun Tarot” is the best Weird Western book on the market today.
The setting is post-civil war in a Nevada mining town called Golgotha.  For reasons known only to a select few, it is the nexus of good and evil at the heart of the universe.  Locked up its mountains lies an ancient evil that existed before creation and here Belcher dives into Lovecraft territory head-on setting forth the book’s primary plot conflict.  The beast, known as the Black Wurm, is about to be released from captivity and if it succeeds it will destroy the world.
Thus is falls upon a handful of truly memorable characters to save creation.  These include Sheriff Jonathan Highfather, a man who cannot be killed; his deputy, a half-breed Indian coyote-changeling called Mutt, a young fifteen year old boy, Jim Negrey, on the run from the law who possesses a mysterious all-powerful eye said to contain unimaginable power and the beautiful but deadly Maude Stapleton, a Southern Belle secretly trained in ancient martial arts and occult practices.
That is only a sampling of some of the fantastical citizens of Golgotha that play an active part in this cataclysmic battle between light and dark, good and evil.  There’s also Auggie, the local shop merchant who keeps his dead wife alive in a vat of chemicals put together by the town’s eccentric inventor and Malachi Bick, the saloon owner who just may be a fallen angel sent to protect mankind at the beginning of time.
“The Six-Gun Tarot” is one of those rare books that kept surprising us from chapter to chapter.  Just when we thought it couldn’t get any weirder, it did just that until we became totally enraptured by Belcher’s daring and exuberant imagination.  It certainly has no bounds.  This is a book we recommend to all lovers of fantastic fiction and assure you once you’ve ridden into Golgotha, you won’t want to leave.

A WHITE ROCKET AND A DARK TOWER!

Just in time for Halloween— New Pulp author and artist David Wright visits The White Rocket Podcast to talk about Stephen King’s epic THE DARK TOWER saga with host, New Pulp author Van Allen Plexico.

Spoilers aplenty! Van and David talk about every book and even dig into the ending of the whole story– what it really meant, and how they feel about it. You can listen now at www.whiterocketbooks.com/wrpodcast.

Note: This is the last episode of The White Rocket Podcast before it officially joins Earth Station One‘s  ESO Network of shows.

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