Tagged: Thor

THE LAST OF THE SPECTACLED SEVEN TELLS ALL-VAN PLEXICO!

  • News
  • December 15, 2010
All Pulp’s Van Allen Plexico interview
AP: Tell us a little about yourself and your pulp interests.
VP: I’m a college professor living in southern Illinois but originally from Alabama. I’ve been writing and editing professionally for about six years, but I’ve been writing stories as far back as before kindergarten. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the old sword & sorcery and planetary romance tales of guys like Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Unlike probably most other pulp lovers, though, I didn’t become a big fan of the 1930s crime-fighter pulps (Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, etc.) until fairly recently, after I became a writer. Their appeal for me came as I was refining my own approach to writing. Most of what I had read growing up was lengthy science fiction in the vein of Frank Herbert and Larry Niven, and so when I tried to write, I would consciously attempt to emulate that rich, complex style—something that’s not easy for a novice writer, and something that is very difficult to pull off under any circumstances. Once I got into pulps, though, I realized there was an entirely different approach that I hadn’t tried—the approach of favoring fast-paced movement and action and vivid scenes over lengthy dissertation.
AP: What does pulp mean to you?
VP: I know there are probably a dozen (or more) different definitions and no one can really agree on it. For me, pulp is a style. It’s an approach to telling a story that, while striving to maintain quality and excellence in every traditional way, strips down the story to its bare essentials and races along at a break-neck pace the entire way. It doesn’t waste words. It’s efficient and it’s brash and bold and vivid. It gets in and gets the job done and kicks your butt and moves on.
AP: Your Sentinels novels are a mix of comic book archetypes and good old-fashioned pulp. What was your inspiration for The Sentinels books and what plans do you have for the future of the series?
VP: The Sentinels books really do represent the ultimate literary expression for me as a writer and creator. They combine the type of characters and stories I’ve always loved best—comic book-style cosmic action and character drama and humor—with the pulp approach of fast-paced action and constant forward momentum.
The characters came about years ago when my old friend, Bobby Politte, and I were brainstorming an interconnected universe of characters in the Marvel or DC style. Several years later, as I began to experiment with the pulp style of writing, I found that modern superheroes and the classic pulp style made a perfect match. I know there are some other original superheroes-in-prose projects out there, but I honestly don’t think anyone else is doing it quite this way. Our inspiration was predominantly the Avengers and X-Men comics of the 1970s and 1980s, which had such strong characterization and so many great moments of interaction among the cast—not to mention over-the-top threats, both from Earth and from outer space, other dimensions, godlike beings, and on and on. There really were almost no limits on what could be done in Marvel comics during those years, and I try to pull out all the stops to replicate that sort of feel with the Sentinels.
There’s not a lot of what I think of as the hokey tropes of so many superhero prose stories. The characters have their powers and mostly take them for granted the way a Star Trek character would have a phaser and a communicator and access to a transporter and take those things for granted in the course of a story. There’s virtually no dwelling on those tropes—they merely serve the story and the action. Readers tend to really like that. If you’re reading a story of this type, you probably already understand those basics and are wanting to get on with the action!
I have one more volume to complete to round out the current story arc, “The Rivals.” It will be called Stellarax and you can look for it next spring or summer, if all goes according to plan. That will bring the total number of books in the series so far to seven, including an anthology volume that came out in between the two trilogies. I have compiled extensive outlines and notes that should carry the overall storyline across at least two more story arcs or trilogies, and eventually I’m hoping it will round out at around twenty volumes. At that point, I can look back and feel I’ve produced at least one very solid body of work that will stand up for readers after I’m gone.
There has been talk recently of some RPG-related supplements based on the Sentinels, and I’m hoping that will move forward soon.
AP: Tell us a bit about your novel, Lucian: Dark God’s Homecoming. Are there any plans to revisit this world?
VP: Yeah, I do write other stuff besides the Sentinels! Lucian is a longer novel that I worked on for several years, pouring a lot of effort and energy and love into it. I tried to channel the sorts of attitudes and sensibilities that I loved so much in books like Nine Princes in Amber (by Roger Zelazny) into it. That includes a shady, not-terribly-sympathetic (at first) main character with godlike powers and a need to be taken down a peg or two.
In short, Lucian is the “god of evil” of a Jack Kirby-esque cosmic pantheon; think Loki or even the devil himself. He tried to take over the Golden City for himself, years ago, and was defeated and exiled to the mortal realm. While he was away, someone or something murdered dozens of the other gods—and of course everyone blames Lucian. So now he’s on the run, trying to prove that (at least in this one instance) he’s innocent!
With the whole thing written in first-person point of view, the reader lives the story from inside Lucian’s head. You experience the action from his perspective and you never know more than he knows, as the mystery unfolds.
When writing it, I tried to challenge myself to make every single scene “go to 11.” I was never satisfied with the first draft of any chapter; I added more and more visual imagery, made the language richer, and pushed myself to make the scenes as vivid and exciting as possible.
I do have three more books set in this universe roughly plotted out—one is sort of a prequel and explains where the gods actually came from; the events of the other two take place much farther in the future. A different “god” is the first-person protagonist of each—which is what Zelazny originally planned to do with his Amber books, before deciding to just go with Corwin the whole way through. If all goes well, the next one will be coming along soon.
AP: You have worked on shorter pulp tales for Airship 27’s Lance Star: Sky Ranger (vol. 2 and upcoming vol. 3), Gideon Cain – Demon Hunter, Mars McCoy – Space Ranger, and Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective vol. 1. What draws you to these shorter stories?
VP: I’m not nearly as big a fan of short stories as I am of big, epic sagas. That being said, though, short stories can be terrific if they’re done right. I like to think of a short story as “performing a trick.” Here’s what I mean: A great long novel can dwell on lots of details and lots of characters and just wallow in all the fun. But a short story, because of its brevity, is restricted to focusing very narrowly on the main point of it all. At the end, too, I think a short story needs to have a kind of kick to it—an “oomph” moment—where it “does a trick,” almost like telling a really good joke, where the end hits you and makes you go, “Wow! Cool!”
In the case of a character like Gideon Cain (the sword-and-sorcery guy I co-created as part of a group that included Kurt Busiek and Keith DeCandido, among others), the short story format really does work best, I think. Cain stumbles into a situation, encounters something weird and probably deadly, battles it, and moves on. I think it would be harder to sustain a single Cain story over the course of an entire novel, but short stories are just right for his kind of character.
AP: What, if any, existing pulp or comic book characters would you like to try your hand at writing?
VP: I always used to think I wanted to write the Avengers, but having written around 400,000 words of the Sentinels (so far), I think I’ve done many of the things with them I would have done with the Avengers—and more. Now, if Marvel suddenly handed the reins over to me, I’d like to think I could come up with a bunch of new ideas, and I’d certainly get the characters “right” after reading them for decades. But the desire doesn’t burn nearly as brightly as it once did.
Working on original characters is much more appealing to me. I can put little pieces and parts of many different existing characters I enjoy into my own creations—and just the best parts! Even working on a jointly-created character like Mars McCoy is appealing in that way, because I had a hand in his creation and I can concentrate on and emphasize the elements of that character and that world that I like the best.
AP: You’ve been referred to as “Mr. Avenger” by various sources. When did your association with The Avengers begin and what is it about this team that resonates with you? Also, tell us about the Assembled books and their charitable origins.
VP: The first Marvel comic I ever owned was a copy of Avengers #162, the Bride of Ultron, in 1977. They instantly became my favorites. The appeal was probably the combination of science fiction imagination, superhero action, and strong characterization; I loved how the members squabbled and fought each other as often as they fought the bad guys. (That’s a big part of what I’ve tried to bring to my Sentinels books.)
In 1995 I had the chance to create my first web site, and naturally I gravitated toward the Avengers, setting up AvengersAssemble.net, the first Avengers site on the Internet. (Hard to believe it’s been around for over fifteen years now, and welcomed millions of visitors!) A mailing list spun out of that site, and over the years we members there all discussed doing some kind of Avengers book.
In 2007 the opportunity finally came around to do just that, and we (the Jarvis Heads) put together Assembled!, a compilation volume of articles looking in-depth at the various “eras” of Avengers history, such as the “Stan and Jack Era,” the “Jim Shooter/George Perez Era,” and so on. We donate the profits to the HERO Initiative charity for retired comics creators. In 2009 we produced a second volume, Assembled! 2, focusing on the “Big Three” Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America) and the major villains. Both books have sold very well, and we’re hoping to publish a third (and final) volume in the months ahead, focusing on the rest of the characters and other villains.
AP: Who are some of your creative influences?
VP: In the realm of prose writing, nobody has been more influential on me than the late Roger Zelazny, the author of the Amber books and Lord of Light, among others. His writing manages to combine old-school pulpiness (and even noir!) with amazingly poetic prose work. I never get tired of studying his sentence structures and the way he incorporates so many diverse elements into a cohesive whole.
As far as superheroes and comics go, I have always loved the stuff produced by Jim Starlin (as both a writer and artist—the supreme master of the cosmic!) and also Jim Shooter’s 1970s Marvel work. While I can’t draw a lick, there’s no doubt that the art of George Perez, Steve Rude, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, and Michael Golden was all very influential on how I imagine scenes and how I try to depict action with words.
Other writers whose work strongly impacts me include Robert E. Howard, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Philip Jose Farmer, Dan Abnett, Richard Stark, James Clavell, Arthur Conan Doyle…and so many more.
AP: What does Van Plexico do when he’s not writing pulp stories and novels?
VP: Either teaching history and government courses at my college or helping take care of my daughters. I also write a weekly column on college football for an Auburn site. So I have to squeeze in the fiction writing whenever and wherever I can, and it’s not easy!
AP: Where can readers learn more about you and your work?
VP: I would direct them to my web site, Plexico.net, or to my Amazon author page.
The Sentinels have their own page at White Rocket Books, which you can reach here.
AP: Any upcoming projects you would like to mention?
VP: You mentioned the Lance Star story I will have in the next anthology, and that’s proving both challenging and fun to put together. It helps a lot that I have previously worked with the Griffon, another air-ace kind of hero from that era. I’ve been banging away at a big, far-future space opera trilogy for several months now—the first volume, HAWK, should be done sometime next year. Same with the concluding volume of the current Sentinels trilogy, Stellarax. If you like big, Marvel-style cosmic action with Galactus-ish and Celestials-ish characters threatening to destroy planets and battle one another, you will love Stellarax. And I contributed a long novella to the second volume of Airship 27’s upcoming Mars McCoy-Space Ranger anthologies, which I am particularly proud of and which I think readers will very much enjoy. I also co-edited the first volume, which should be along any time now.
AP: Are there any upcoming convention appearances or signings coming up where fans can meet you?
VP: Nothing in the near future. The bad economy right now is proving pretty disastrous to small press writers and publishers, and I’m no exception. I probably won’t even make DragonCon next year—ending a thirteen year run. Hopefully I will be at PulpArk (in Arkansas) and ImagiCon (in Birmingham) in the spring, depending on the financial situation at that time.
AP: You have served as a writer, editor, and publisher (White Rocket Books). Are there any creative areas you’ve not been worked in that you would like to try your hand at doing?
VP: Yeah, I’ve written for maybe six or seven different publishers now, and edited for two or three, in addition to my own White Rocket imprint. It certainly keeps me busy. A few months ago I would have said what I wanted to try next was sports writing, but now I’m getting to do that with the War Eagle Reader. Eventually I’m sure I’ll get around to writing comics scripts; I’ve done a couple in the past, but none have ever been produced or published. It’s just a matter of having the right ideas and finding a reliable artist to work with.
AP: And finally, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to be a writer?
VP: Read! Read and read and read. Read lots of stuff, including material (way) outside of your comfort zone. Especially stuff outside of your comfort zone.
When writing Lucian, I haunted bookstores and libraries, digging through volumes of Asian and European poetry, looking both for some good and fitting quotes to work into the story (Emily Bronte’s lines make a couple of appearances) and for general flavor to try to incorporate into my own prose.
When working on the Sentinels books, the last thing I want to do is read comics. That would just lead me to rehash stuff that’s already been done to death. Instead I go and read Patrick O’Brian’s “Master and Commander” series (very inspirational in terms of writing groups of characters trapped in hostile and isolated conditions) or James Clavell’s Asian Saga (books like Shogun—studying actual foreign cultures will give you lots of good ideas for writing SF!) or Richard Stark’s “Parker” novels or James Ellroy’s noir (to learn an economy of words and the impact of taut, blunt sentences and crystal-clear characterizations).
So I recommend that any beginning writer try to get as broad an exposure as possible to any and every kind of literature. The more different elements you have bumping around in your head, the more original the work you produce will be.
AP: Thanks, Van.

SIX DEGRESS OF PJF BY WSE!!!

  • News
  • December 13, 2010

Win Scott Eckert © 2005-2010
Farmerphile no.2
Christopher Paul Carey and Paul Spiteri, eds., Michael Croteau, publisher, October 2005

“Six Degrees of Philip José Farmer”
By Win Scott Eckert

Last column we discussed the great genealogist Philip José Farmer’s discovery of the “Wold Newton Family,” – highly influential people, many heroic, and some villainous, whose lives are chronicled in the guise of popular literature. While Farmer wrote critical essays and serious biographies in which he revealed his researches, he was also not above divulging more of his findings under the guise of popular fiction.
A full survey of Farmer’s Wold Newton “fiction” is beyond the scope of this column, so I will focus here on a few key pieces which reveal that, beyond the Wold Newton Family (WNF) proper, there is indeed a whole “Wold Newton Universe” (WNU) ripe for exploration. In fact, if one follows the trail of connections through his fiction, one is lead to the most astonishing places.

For instance, after reading Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, one might not be surprised to find in Farmer’s novel The Adventure of the Peerless Peer that Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, The Shadow (“Colonel Kentov”), and G-8 (“Wentworth”) shared an adventure together. One might not even be surprised that three other WNF members are mentioned: Leftenant John “Korak” Drummond, Lord John Roxton, and Allan Quatermain. But one might be taken aback to also see Dr. Gideon Fell and Henry Merrivale, two renowned detectives whose cases were recounted by John Dickson Carr. Farmer never mentioned them as Family members, but surely their appearance is indicative that sleuths in the larger WNU are not limited to WNF members.

Farmer also wrote two novels of pre-history, Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar. In these, he discovered connections between the lost city of Opar from Burroughs’ Tarzan novels, and the novels of H. Rider Haggard. In a later interview, Farmer revealed that Hadon’s son emigrated south and founded the city of Kôr, from Haggard’s She. He carried with him a huge axe made of meteorite iron, which was eventually passed down to Umslopogass, the great Zulu warrior, who shattered it in the city of Zu-Vendis (Haggard’s Allan Quatermain). In this way, Farmer revealed that the WNU has a rich history beyond the WNF.

In Farmer’s translation of J. H. Rosny’s Ironcastle, he adds references to several WNF members, including Phileas Fogg, Sherlock Holmes (through a reference to the Diogenes Club from the Holmes stories), Joseph Jorkens, Doc Savage (although the reference in Ironcastle is really to Doc’s father, Dr. Clark Savage, Sr.1), and Professor Challenger (through a reference to the South American expedition from Doyle’s The Lost World). Sir George Curtis also appears; he is the nephew of Sir Henry Curtis from H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain novels. Farmer states that Hareton Ironcastle is related to Professor Porter, Jane’s father from the Tarzan books.

An interesting new element that Farmer adds with this crossover is the Baltimore Gun Club. This means that some version of Jules Verne’s novels, From the Earth to the Moon and The Purchase of the North Pole (aka Topsy Turvy), take place in the WNU. Since Verne’s works are also interconnected, this means that other Verne novels such as Hector Servadac, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, and The School for Robinsons (aka The School for Crusoes) occur within Wold Newton continuity.

Farmer’s novel of young Doc Savage’s first adventure, Escape from Loki, added many other elements to the WNU, as seen from this excerpt from my Wold Newton Universe Crossover Chronology:

ESCAPE FROM LOKI
Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr., meets his friends and associates Ham Brooks, Monk Mayfair, Renny Renwick, Long Tom Roberts and Johnny Littlejohn in the German prison camp Loki. There is mention of a “worm unknown to science,” which can be demonstrated to be a direct link to the Cthulhu Mythos. Doc’s tutor in mountain climbing, yoga, and self-defense, Dekka Lan Shan, is the grandfather of Peter the Brazen. A character named Benedict Murdstone also appears. Savage & Co. meet Abraham Cohen, who would go on to membership in Jimmie Cordies’ band of mercenaries, and an Allied prisoner named O’Brien, a soldier of Irish extraction. It is also mentioned that Doc Savage was trained by an aborigine, Writjitandel of the Wantella tribe. And Doc’s Persian Sufi tutor is named Hajji Abdu el-Yezdi.

Escape from Loki is a novel by Philip José Farmer, Bantam Books, 1991. The “worm unknown to science” was first referred to in Watson’s / Doyle’s “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” and was followed-up on in Harry “Bunny” Manders’ Raffles tale (edited by Philip José Farmer), “The Problem of the Sore Bridge – Among Others.” Peter the Brazen, aka Peter Moore, was an adventurer in pulp stories written by George Worts. Of Peter the Brazen, Wold Newton scholar Rick Lai adds, “One of Worts’ Gillian Hazeltine stories mentions a ship, The King of Asia, which also appears in the Peter the Brazen stories. Worts’ Singapore Sammy story, “South of Sulu,” mentions that Sammy was friendly with a jewel trader, De Sylva. This may be the same character as the jewel merchant, Dan de Sylva, who appears in a later Peter the Brazen story, “The Octopus of Hongkong.”

Murdstone is related to the family which appears in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. The Jimmie Cordie adventures by William Wirt are a series of twentyone stories about a group of mercenaries in the Far East after the Great War. Rick Lai adds: “O’Brien is probably Jem O’Brien, ex-jockey, exconvict, decorated soldier in the American army during World War I, and special assistant to the Scarlet Fox. Created by Eustace Hale Ball, the Scarlet Fox was a pulp hero who appeared in seven stories in Black Mask during 1923-24. The first six stories were published as a novel, The Scarlet Fox, in 1927.”

In Arthur Upfield’s novel about the Australian detective, Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte, No Footprints in the Bush (1940), a major character is Writjitandil (Farmer changed an “i” to an “e”) of the Wantella tribe. Rick Lai writes again: “In an introduction to an edition of an Upfield novel which does not feature Bonaparte, The House of Cain (Dennis McMillan, 1983), Philip José Farmer speculated that Bonaparte was the illegitimate son of E. W. Hornung’s A.J. Raffles. In Upfield’s novels, Bonaparte is illegitimate son of an unnamed white man and an aborigine woman. Upfield’s early novels suggest that Bonaparte was born in the late 1880s. Raffles was in Australia about that time according to Hornung’s ‘Le Premier Pas.’”

Chris Carey points out that “Sir Richard Francis Burton (the real-life protagonist of Farmer’s Riverworld series) wrote a curious book entitled The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî. At the time the volume was first published, Burton claimed to be merely the translator of the wise Sufi’s work. However, the truth finally came out that Burton wrote it. While Haji Abdu El-Yezdi may be a fictional character in our world, we may only assume that he existed in flesh and blood in Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe.”


One never knows when additional information from Farmer’s researches will come to light. His tale “After King Kong Fell” clearly takes place in the WNU because WNF members Doc Savage and The Shadow arrive on the scene in the aftermath of the giant ape’s plummet from Doc’s headquarters, the Empire State Building. That King Kong exists in the WNU may be old news to some.

Imagine, then, the glee with which a “Farmerphile,” who thinks that there are no new Wold Newton connections to be revealed in Farmer’s work, learns that he is wrong. The young protagonist who is visiting New York during the 1931 events of “After King Kong Fell” is one Tim Howller of Peoria, Illinois, age thirteen. A newly discovered Farmer short story, “The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs” (published for the first time in Farmerphile No. 1, July 2005), features nineteen-year-old Tim Howller. The story takes place in 1937. It undoubtedly features the same Tim Howller from “After King Kong Fell,” and what’s more, “The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs” is semi-autobiographical.
The inescapable conclusion is that Philip José Farmer himself witnessed Kong’s plunge from the Empire State Building. And if that doesn’t enhance our understanding of the inter-tangled history behind the Wold Newton Universe, then I don’t know what does.

Additional Sources:
Carey, Christopher Paul. “Farmer’s Escape from Loki: A Closer Look.” The Official Philip José Farmer Home Page. <http://www.pjfarmer.com/fan/chris1.htm>.

Pringle, David. “Allan and the Ice Gods.” Violet Books: Antiquarian Supernatural, Fantasy, and Mysterious Literatures. <http://www.violetbooks.com/haggard-pringle.html>.

1 To be perfectly accurate, the real name of Doc Savage’s father, as Farmer demonstrated in Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, is Dr. James Clarke Wildman, Sr.

‘Thor’ trailer launches

‘Thor’ trailer launches

  • News
  • December 11, 2010

And here we go…

We have lots of stuff from the preview at San Diego this year, and a lot of new material as well. Looking good– what do you think about it?

MOONSTONE MONDAY-NOTED PULP ARTIST MARK MADDOX INTERVIEW!

  • News
  • November 22, 2010
MARK MADDOX AWARD WINNING ARTIST & HUMORIST

AP – Hi Mark, and thanks so much for stopping by All Pulp HQ. In the past few years you’ve made quite a name for yourself in the pulp field and it is a pleasure to finally be able to sit and talk with you about your art career. Why don’t we start with a little informal background. Where were you born and raised? Where do you live now? And do you have a “day” job with doing pulp art?

MM – I was born on Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida to Don and Joann Maddox. I have one brother, Mike and three sisters, Elise, Carole and Jeanne . Being a military brat had us moving around a lot. We lived in Germany, South Dakota, Maryland and North Carolina. After my dad retired we moved to Tallahassee, Florida. Later, when I got married my wife Carlyn and I moved to Thomasville, Georgia, had two incredible kids and are now settled in Athens, about an hour east of Atlanta. We really like it here.
At present the only work I am doing is freelance… the fun kind: Book covers (some which are pulp), illustrations, comic book covers, monster magazine covers, private commissions, game design, concept designs, logos, etc. It isn’t at the financial level I would like yet but I’m fairly new to this type work. Before that I did straight corporate graphics which isn’t terrible but it’s not nearly as much fun as my current endeavors.
　
AP – Mark, what kind of art education do you have? Did you always want to be a professional artist or was it something that came to you later in life?

MM – My parents were very supportive of my abilities which started around the age of ten. In high school I took art classes but the teacher was a joke. Some of the interns that came in were a lot more beneficial to my creative advancement. My dad saw my talent as a possible life long career and pushed me to go to take the commercial art course at Lively Vo-Tech school in Tallahassee. I had a great teacher by the name of Oral Ledbetter. He was an old school commercial artist/ illustrator and he taught us things that are all but lost today with computers and such. I also went to the local community college and Florida State University which had good art programs.
　
AP – Were you a comic book or sci-fi fan growing up? And did either of these genres influence your taste in art?

MM – Comics, movies, monster magazines, television…I ate it all up. My particular favorite reads were Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Doc Savage reprints, Edgar Rice Burroughs sci-fi, etc. Comics included Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Monster comics, Thor, Hulk, Captain America. Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy is easily my favorite comic strip. I’m actually one of those fans who likes Dick Tracy during his sci-fi period.
　

AP – Which artists, past and present, do you admire and did their styles have an effect on your own work as it developed?

MM – Dr. Seuss was awesome for a little kid. To this day I look at his work when I’m reading to my kids and marvel at it. Jack Kirby is, to me, far and away the greatest comic book artist. I am also a big fan of Will Eisner, Moebius, Frank Bellamy, Sergio Toppi, Joe Kubert, John Severin, Herge, Jose Gonzlez, Geoff Darrow, artists on the Jonny Quest TV show and so many more. I am a huge fan of illustrators like N. C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell, Virgil Finlay, Franklin Booth, James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson, Basil Gogos, Sanjulian, etc. Fine artists include the impressionists, John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Vermeer, Edward Hopper, Chuck Close and the Photorealists,

AP – Much of your early work is clearly inspired by horror and sci-fi movies. I take it you a movie fan? What is your favorite movie of all time?

MM – That’s not a fair question! I have so many favorites it’s impossible to pick just one. Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago are two of my classic favorites. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Aliens and Universal monster movies are some of my genre favorites. Popcorn munchers include: Dracula A.D. 1972, Japanese monster movies, Omega Man, Hell Drivers. The list is so huge a ten gig hard drive couldn’t hold it.
　
AP – Okay, so how did you get involved with pulps?

MM – A guy named Blake Wilkie introduced me to Ron Fortier who was with Wildcat books at the time. We did a few tiny comic projects together and one day he dropped me a line saying he needed a cover for his book Captain Hazzard and the Curse of the Red Maggot. I think the artist that was to do it had to drop out at the last second. It was a dream come true for me. He needed it quick and I was willing to burn the midnight oil to get it ready.
　
AP – You seem to have a natural affinity for pulps. What is it about the genre that appeals to you?

MM – I was born in the early sixties and came back to the United States when the big thing was the campy batman TV show (I preferred The Green Hornet). I later found out about pulps, radio plays and cliffhanger serials (Tom Tyler as Captain Marvel, yay!) and realized there was a huge amount of this great entertainment from a long time ago where fantastic adventures were treated seriously. Doc Savage, The Shadow, John Carter, Weird Tales, etc. That’s just great stuff! Plus it fit right in with my love of comics and old Hollywood.

AP – You were the recipient of the first Pulp Factory Award for Best Pulp Cover of 2009.
Tell us about that and how it all came about? What piece did you win it for?

MM – The piece I won for was Airship27’s Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. It was actually a piece that I resisted doing. I am a big fan of Holmes but in his original Strand Magazine form. When I was told I could do the art and design based on the original look and typography I was all for it. I was also allowed to dedicate the book to my late mother-in-law. She was a big Holmes fan and it would have pleased her so. I was very happy with the way that piece turned out because it was my take on Holmes and Watson the way they look in my mind’s eye. Most people don’t realize that Watson was a handsome, fit man.

AP – Weren’t you actually nominated for two covers that year and how did it feel to compete against yourself? Did you prefer one piece over the other?

MM – It felt great and strange! I was hoping they didn’t cancel each other out. The other cover was Captain Hazzard and the Python Men of the Lost City. And I really like them both equally. That’s a good feeling to have.

AP – Since your work for Airship 27, you’ve expanded your pulp career by working for other companies in the field. Tell us about your projects for Bill Cunningham’s Pulp 2.0 Press?

MM – I heard that Bill was going to be reprinting Don Glut’s Frankenstein books he had written in the sixties. Frankenstein is one of my all time favorite subjects and I had been reading Don Glut’s work since I was ten and I had been looking for those books for a long time. I wrote Bill and begged him to consider me for the covers.

I’ve completed the first cover in the series called Frankenstein Returns! I am very pleased with the way it turned out and Bills graphics look great on it. I’m getting ready to start volume two’s cover in the next month or so. I’m pretty excited about it.

AP – You also contributed covers to Win Scott Eckert’s CROSSOVER books, right?

MM – Yes, there are two of those so far and it was a lot of fun featuring all these classic characters together in the same image.

AP – You recently started doing covers for Moonstone Comics. Tells us about that and did the experience vary much from doing pulp covers?

MM – I’ve completed two covers and am working on a third. The first one was for Kolchak: The Night Stalker Files written by Christopher Mills . I was in front of the TV the night The Night Stalker film premiered in the early seventies and have been a fan ever since. It was another dream come true. The second cover was for the first issue of The Heap written by Charles Knauf (Iron Man and Captain America: Theater of War), featuring the creature from the Airboy comics of the forties. What could be better than a monster tearing the heads off of Nazis? The latest cover is for the great superspy Derrick Flint written by Gary Phillips (Vertigo Crime’s COWBOYS). I’m doing this piece with a nod to sixities design styles and having a blast. Moonstone publisher, Joe Gentile has been really great to work with.

AP – People who have met you personally all comment on your dry, acerbic wit. Have you always had this humorist bent and do you like looking at the world in a slightly skewered way?

MM – I don’t know. I come from a family smart mouths. Everything had to have a comeback. It’s a way for me to keep things lively and it’s nice to see people laugh.

AP – Is there any single genre you have yet to work in that you would really like tackle?

MM – Adventure, 60’s period Marvel heroes, monsters, drama, crime, sci-fi. I’d even like to tackle a western some time. In the seventies, Thrilling Adventures Magazine did a short comic about Lawrence of Arabia. I would love to work on something like that. A sort of adding on to the legend. Like the Daniel Boone TV show.

AP – So, wrapping this all up here. What’s on the horizon for you project wise? Can you give our readers some preview as to where your marvelous art is going to pop up next?

MM – Well besides the work for Moonstone I’ve got two new Hammer film books that are coming out. One called The Last Bus to Bray: The Unfilmed Hammer. It’s about many of the films that Hammer almost got produced but didn’t see the light of a projector for one reason or another. This includes the infamous Vampirella, a movie about Prince Vlad starring Yul Brunner, another about the Loch Ness Monster with backing by David Frost and many others. The other book is from Hemlock called Hammers Fantasy & Sci-Fi dealing with films outside of the Dracula and Frankenstein realm (One Million Years B.C., Quatermass, etc.). There are also one or two projects I’ve been sworn to secrecy on although I can say they are sci-fi and monster related… plus more artwork for Little Shoppe of Horrors.

AP – Mark, this has been a blast. Thanks so much.

MM – Thank you.
　
　

PULP ARTISTS’ WEEKEND-PEDRO CRUZ SPOTLIGHTED! INTERVIEW AND GALLERY!!!

  • News
  • November 13, 2010


AP – Hi Pedro, and thank you so much for agreed to doing this little interview with here at All Pulp. Let’s get started with a little background about yourself. Tell us something about who Pedro Cruz is. Where do you live, where did you grow up etc.etc. and what is your current status?

PC – Hi, thanks for having me. I live with my dear wife on the same town where we’ve lived since we were kids, a small suburb of Lisbon, the city where we were born, in Portugal. Thirty-five years ago (that’s how old I am) Portugal had just left a long dictatorship and, by modern standards, it was an incredibly old fashioned place! Just to give you an idea, when I was born, there was only one single TV channel (owned by the state) broadcasting in black and white for just about six hours every evening! Everybody saw the same shows and heard the same news – it was like growing up on a little village. We used to watch old Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Japanese animated series like Marco, Heidi, Future Boy Conan, experimental animation films from Canada and even from the old eastern bloc countries too, but also old ‘60s series like The Avengers, The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. There were many documentaries and we got to see old classic Hollywood and European movies in prime-time, something that would never happen now. Plus, most shows, even for kids, were broadcast in their original languages and subtitled, which made it easier for the kids of my generation to become polyglots and actually helped us learn to read. So TV had a huge part on shaping up my worldview. At the same time, there were plenty of newsagents with loads of comics featuring the Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Popeye, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Little Lulu, Tubby, Richie Rich, Casper, Hot Stuff, Turma da Monica, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, Conan… just to give you an idea, they could have a whole wall devoted just to comics. These were mostly Brazilian editions, as Brazil is an old colony of Portugal and we share the same language. I should point out that in terms of format, these were usually quite different from traditional American comics, about A5 in size ( 210 x 148 mm or 8.3 x 5.8 in ) and had from 64 to 300 pages featuring both current tales and reprints of old golden or silver age stories. And they were very cheap – I could read all the marvel line easily as one single magazine would be a sort of anthology consisting of one or two issues of the original editions of Captain America, the Avengers and Thor, for instances. Sometimes, they also featured articles on the authors or had pastimes or bring some kind of toy or poster… They were fun! On proper bookstores you had B.D. (Bande-Dessinée) hardcover comic albums with Tintin, Astérix, Spirou, Smurfs, Lucky Luke, Blake & Mortimer, Michel Vaillant, Ric Hochet, Valerian, Lieutenant Blueberry, Corto Maltese, Mafalda… I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, but nowadays, this reality I’m describing is mostly gone. Bookstores still have B.D. albums, but it’s very rare that you find newsagents carrying comics and there are very few anyway. Back to the past, my parents were very supportive and enthusiastic of me, they were big moviegoers and took me to see the Disney, Spielberg and Lucas movies that have had such a big impact on me and my generation. I was incredibly lucky of being born in the right time and place to experience this pop golden age and it left a mark in me that made me want to make things like what I saw in movies, cartoons and comics. I was an only child and my dad would bring home paper, pencils and pens in ample supply, so I’d spend long hours trying to draw characters and adventures either copied or imagined, in a style that echoed that same sensibility and aesthetic of all this pop culture. Later I went to study architecture in college, that seemed like a nice choice because I had the grades needed to get in there, it was a respectable profession and I still got to draw and learn art, but my heart was never there. During college, I worked for awhile at a small animation studio and it was an eye opener to how that really functioned. It was the galleys, really, you were just a cog in a machine. Animators got treated with very little respect and earned minimum wages. I left that, finished my graduation and went on to become a teacher while never stopping to draw. I won two awards on the annual public cartoon contest at Amadora Cartoon (the biggest comic convention here) and had quite a few illustrations, comics and cartoons published on DNJovem, a youth supplement that used to be a part of the print edition of Diário de Notícias, one of our leading newspapers. Unfortunately, there is no comics industry here in Portugal so I developed my blog as a way of showing my work. Currently, besides the comics on the blog, I’m also producing illustrations for Airship27.

AP –What level of formal art education did you have? What schools did you attend? Do you also teach art? If so, what kind?

PC – I graduated as an architect by the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa and this year I’m taking a master’s degree on the area of Education, specifically Art Education. Currently, I work as a teacher on the public school giving art lessons to the 5th and 6th grades. My students are mostly children of African and gypsy ethnics from one of the most socially problematic suburbs in Lisbon, they’re extraordinarily creative and love expressing themselves through the arts which makes my job very fulfilling and fun too. I’m also coordinating a couple of projects at my school, one involving a role-playing game that helps pupils develop personal and social skills through problem-based learning, and another where I’m tutoring a small group of students developing a comic book and learning the different tasks involved in its creation (writing, penciling, inking, coloring, lettering).

AP –Did you always want to be a commercial illustrator? What was your first professional commission? Have you ever done work in the advertising field?

PC – I’ve always wanted to work on areas related to art, and had dreams of being able to draw as a full-time job. Unfortunately, the market here in my small country is diminutive and doesn’t pay all that well, especially if you want to have a house and family. The first time I got a professional commission was right after college, when an old classmate’s girlfriend asked for a caricature of all her fellow employees and her boss to give him as a good-bye present because he was moving to another department.

AP –Your website indicates you’ve done comic work. Have you always been a comic book fan and what are some of the comic projects you have worked on?

PC – I have always been an avid comic book fan and it’s only been on recent years that my consumption of comics has slowed down almost to a halt. I still read a book here and there but it has to be done either by a friend or from a very limited list of artists whose work I continue to follow. In spite of that, I still find great enjoyment in creating and drawing comics.
As far as collaborations in comics go, I worked on Guard Dogs, a series written by Jason Quinn for Starscape Illustrated, a UK-based fanzine. I drew “Helljacket”, a short story written by Steve Zegers for Ronin Studio’s Ronin Illustrated. I also drew the first issue of NiteLite Theatre’s White Ghost and a short story featuring the Semite, one of writer Mike Haselhoff’s characters. There’s also been Grace, a great short story written by Aria Ponto. My blog is the best place to find some of these and other comics, if you take the time to explore it.
I’ve done entirely on my own WHYM and METANOIA. At the moment, the later is still a work in progress which I post once a week on my blog but it has a definite ending. I also have a few more projects in different stages of development which will hopefully see the light of day sooner or later.

AP –What graphic illustrators have been the most influence on your development?
What did you learn being a fan of their work?

PC – Comic book art has always been my primary influence and the list of graphic illustrators who have and continue to influence my development would probably be too long to relay here. Speaking strictly for the pulp illustrations I’ve been doing for Airship 27, I’ve purposefully tried to do what I’d call a classic American style. To this end I’ve been using the duoshade technique, which I was first introduced to by the work of John Byrne in the early 1990s in comics such as his OMAC mini-series and Namor. Originally, this was done through the use of a special paper called craftint, I think, that had imprinted lines or dot screens in non-repro blue, that became visible when a special chemical was applied. I was fascinated with the results of such technique and thought it was a very efficient and graphic way of introducing value, tone and special effects that could enhance the sense of mood, place, texture and dimension in a drawing while still working with just pure black ink on white paper. I investigated more and learned that the original master of such technique in comic illustration was the late great cartoonist Roy Crane and have devoured his work whenever I’ve come across a reprint of his comic strips. Since I had no access to craftint boards or the chemicals used to develop that process, I ended up creating duoshade through digital effects on the computer. So, basically, those are the two cartoonists that have probably influenced most the work I’ve been doing for the pulps.

AP –Of all the artists in the field today, which do you admire the most and why?

PC – I am very omnivorous in my tastes but, speaking strictly of comics, of all the artists still regularly working professionally in the field, the one that still amazes me the most is Jean Giraud “Moebius”. I can look repeatedly even at his latest works, like Inside Moebius or Le Chasseur Déprime, and still feel surprised, inspired and refreshed. Looking at his work makes me want to draw! There’s no bigger compliment I can think of for an artist.

AP –How did you first become affiliated with Airship 27 Productions? Was this the first pulp illustrating you had ever done?

PC – My friend writer Aaron Smith came up with a story featuring Doctor Watson and Doctor Seward for a possible graphic novel for me to illustrate. Then he started to work for Airship27 and pitched the same idea as a novel to Ron Fortier, presenting the possibility of me working as an illustrator for the novel. Ron liked my art and asked if I was also interested in contributing illustrations for Jim Anthony Super-Detective, another of their series. Naturally, I jumped at the chance of illustrating pulp adventures. After all, many of the comic book heroes which I’d enjoyed so much as a kid had their roots on the pulps. I’d never done it before, but I’ve loved the experience so far. Ron Fortier and Rob Davis have been incredibly easy and friendly to work with. Their role as mentors behind this project can’t be over-emphasized and I hope our collaboration continue for many years to come.

AP – You’ve illustrated a Doctor Watson book and two featuring pulp hero Jim Anthony. Do you prefer one character over the other and do you have a different approach when doing the art for these two diverse characters?

PC – I like them both for different reasons. As far as the drawing goes, Jim Anthony comes easier because he’s just such an archetype, with his muscled physique, the strong jaw line and the defying attitude, so there’s really no way I could miss him other than on purpose. Doctor Watson, on the other hand, is much more of a challenge because not only is he closer to one of us common mortals, everybody knows him, which makes it intimidating. Drawing him is like sketching an impression of an old friend from back when you were a kid… only he is very famous, so you better make sure you draw him correctly!

AP –Is there a particular pulp or comic book character you would like to work on?

Why those characters?

PC – There’s a bunch of comic book characters I’d like to work on. Problem is they no longer have much character in them; they’re just properties. So, while I don’t rule out the possibility of working on pre-existing comic book characters – never say never – at this point in time, on that level, I’m much more interested in developing my own worlds, characters and stories, even if they are inspired by what came before. Which is basically the advice Jack Kirby gave young, new creators: if you want to follow on his footsteps, do your own thing. As far as pulp go, I think things are different as the characters I’ve been drawing for Airship 27 fall within public domain and aren’t owned by any one particular corporation whose sole intent is exploiting them and the authors involved for maximum profit at the least expense, with little care or regard for the original vision of the characters or their creators. With Airship27, there is a desire of respecting the characters and their original authors’ intentions as much as possible and everybody retains full rights to their own work, which is nicer. Beyond that, I’d like to have the opportunity of spreading my horizons and work on other genres like science-fiction and high fantasy.

AP –Here’s a tricky one. Of all the work you’ve ever done, which are you the most proud of?

PC – Oh, I won’t fall for that one, that’s like picking a favorite out of your sons. They all have their charming qualities and their faults too. Usually, the next project, the one that’s still floating in my mind’s eye, not yet materialized, that’s the one that excites me the most.

AP – Finally, is there anything you would like to plug here? Some project you want to let your fans know is coming soon? Feel free to promote away.

PC – I have my own blog www.pedro-cruz.blogspot.com where I regularly post. Again, as with drawing and making comics it is a way of communicating, of reaching out to people through my posts. Sometimes, it’s a funny video I come across on youtube, other times it’s just some rambling I have to put off my chest, often it’ll be some sketch or a comic. Currently, I’m serializing METANOIA, an experimental wordless comic, quite different from my pulp illustrations, in which I get to work with color. Once that’s finished I’ll probably take some months off to make the switch to producing fully digital artwork. For the last few years I’ve been using hybrid methods of creating art, but now it’s time to make the definitive change hoping it’ll improve my productivity while helping save some trees. If all goes well, you should all be seeing the results of that sometime in 2011. In the meantime, in terms of pulp fiction, I’m currently illustrating a new book featuring a couple of stories with Dr. Watson and Hound Dog Harker, and also a comic short story with none other than Jim Anthony Super-Detective.

AP – Thanks so much, Pedro. This has been most informative. Continued success in all your future endeavors.

PC – My pleasure.

FEATURED ARTIST-PEDRO CRUZ

INTERVIEW WITH WRITER ROBERT KENNEDY!!!

  • News
  • November 9, 2010
ROBERT KENNEDY –  Soldier/Writer/Editor
Zorro bested by Robert Kennedy!
AP –  Hi Bob, and thanks for joining us here at All Pulp HQ.  I know you’ve got a fine military background and have done lots of writing in the pulp action field.  Let’s get started with your telling us a little about yourself, background history, education etc.  Where do you call home these days?
RK –I was born an Army Brat, but became a Charter Air Force Brat about six months later. At the time I was five my family settled in the St. Louis area. But, after college and the military, I ended up living here in Kansas City, Missouri for the past thrity-five years.
I got started loving adventures stories, and their heroes, even before I reached the Show-Me state. I listened to the radio versions of the Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston, and Sky King in the evenings. Plus Big John & Sparky and Space Patrol on Saturday morning. The first movie I can remember seeing is Disney’s live-action Robin Hood staring Richard Todd. And the heroes weren’t all human. The first comic I really remember is my sister’s copy of Uncle Scrooge #1. Still love those Ducks! My family read to me things like Kipling’s The Jungle Books and Just So Stories and Swiss Family Robinson, and so much else.
I hold degrees in old fashioned paper drafting and Communication Studies.
About 1979 I got involved with Mystery Forum, a mystery book review group trying to get newspaper syndication. When that didn’t work out we produced a TV version on the Kansas City Public Access cable channel. Later some of us started the show Entertainment Spectrum that ran over 500 episodes. Until about 1997 all my creative energy and time went into those productions. When that dried up I got back into writing via Tom & Ginger Johnson’s Fading Shadows publications.
My wife and I are empty nesters who just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. We have two grown children, but no grandchildren, yet. Just a grand-cat.
AP –  Before anything else, let me thank you for your service to your country.  Tell us, when and how did you first get the writing bug? 
RK –Like a large number of college gads of the late 1960’s I joined the Army at Draft-Point. (In fact I used my very negative experiences with my local Draft Board as the background for a Green Hornet story I have pending at Moonstone.) I don’t like to make all that much of my service. After all, in twenty-four years of full and part-time duty, I never spent a day in a combat zone. You (Ron Fortier) only did three years, but that included a tour in Viet Nam. At about the same time I spent a year twiddling my thumbs in Korea.
I’ve always leaned toward the creative side of things. Back in grade school I used old drop cloths and planks to turn the backyard swing set into a two level spaceship.
The ideas came easy. Getting the material on paper was a huge struggle. I tend to tweak and rearrange. Only since word processing came along have I been really comfortable writing. (And I just restructured that last paragraph.  ;^} )
AP – Now some AP investigating has turned up an interesting fact.  You have an alias. Who exactly is Erwin K. Roberts and how did he appear on the scene.
RK –Just imagine: You are twelve years old. You live in a town that is composed of over 85% rabid Democratic Party families. You don’t fit in too well because you don’t like what “everybody” likes. And your name is George W. Bush.
Well, that’s sort of what happened to me. My given name is Robert Kennedy. And I was about twelve when JFK started running for the Presidency. Even then I was thinking about writing. Comic books, mostly. I decided I needed a pen-name. Erwin was my grandfather’s first name. So Erwin K. Roberts appeared. (Later, when RFK died I didn’t want to be seen as exploiting his name.)
I’ve used Erwin’s name on some letters-of-comment, in print for fact and fiction, and on cable TV here in the Kansas City area. The one place I was not allowed to use it was in Starlog. They had a no pen-name policy so I was credited as R. Erwin Kennedy.
When our family needed a second phone line I had it put under Erwin’s name. And he began to get credit card offers and other junk mail.
The second of my two “cousins” is Major A. D. Venture. The Major hosted the Action Theater movie show on the very short lived WBE-TV network.
AP – What was the first fiction you ever had published and where?
RK- Like most comics fans I had my own pantheon of super-hero creations. I wrote a couple of origin stories and shopped them to a fanzine or three. No luck there. I even entered a barely half decent Captain Atom script in the Charlton contest that Roy Thomas won.
I went to college at what is now called the University of Central Missouri. There was an off-campus magazine that wanted to break up all the very serious civil rights, Viet Nam, and students’ rights material. The editor liked the origin story of a super martial artist I’d written. He decided to run it as a serial. The first part appeared in about spring 1967. Then the magazine changed editors between issues and I never even got my copy of the manuscript back.
AP –In your career, you’ve created multiple pulp style heroes.  Who are they and where did they appear?
RK –I picked up some hero pulps in high school and college. The Phantom Detective, The Masked Rider, a couple of Doc Savage digests early on. Then I began to buy first The Shadow, then The Spider and Captain Future at conventions. Plus the paperbacks featuring Doc, Secret Agent X, Operator 5, and The Phantom Detective. My own characters began to reflect those influences.
The Voice grew out of this. I first called him the Veil for the sniper’s veil combat mask he sometimes wears. He sort of floated around my head only partly formed. Then one day I sat in front of a desk with a nameplate. The name was very similar to that of an existing character. Suddenly things fell into place. That’s the instant the Voice became the son of a retired pulp hero. After I came up with his vocal implant that gives him Twilight Zone sounding speech I renamed him The Voice.
In 1979 my wife was pregnant with our second child. Most nights she went to bed very early. I used the late evenings to write the Voice novel “Plutonium Nightmare.” This was the time of the second wave of “let’s clone Mack Bolan” paperbacks. I wanted to break into that market. Didn’t happen. In 2003 the story was serialized in three issues of Fading Shadows’ “Double Danger Tales.” A few years back I self-published the book with a cover I created using Lightwave 3D.
Before this century I only wrote one short story of the Voice. Grand Opening – Under Fire first appeared in “Mystery Forum Magazine” in 1992. A slightly different version was in Double Danger Tales #57 in 2002.  You can read the story at: http://www.planetarystories.com/VoiceGrand.htm
Two more Voice shorts appeared in Double Danger Tales before the title folded. One can be read at: http://www.planetarystories.com/voice.htm Recently new stories of the Voice have begun appearing in Pro Se’s “Masked Gun Mystery.” All together I’ve written nearly 100,000 words about him.
My other pulpish series is called The Journey of Freedom’s Spirit & Samuel. I’d been thinking about the old Quality Comics character Uncle Sam. Back around 1940 he was even more powerful than the Superman of that day. But the only non-white WASP characters were the Japanese villains. I decided there needed to be an inclusive series. Where every race/color/creed played a part.
I used the name of the man first referred to as Uncle Sam: Samuel Wilson. Then I decided that my Samuel -Adams- Wilson would just happen to look like a hardhat version of Uncle Sam. I gave him all white hair and van dyke beard. He generally wears blue jeans, with a red and white checked shirt, and a stars and stripes hard hat. And travels the country with a Bald Eagle. He is not a “crime fighter,” or even an adventure seeker. But he will not turn away when people need help.
The events of September 11th, 2001, catalyzed my ideas into final form. But Samuel does not go after the terrorists. He races to Ground Zero to be a part of the rescue effort. When he moves on from that his adventures really begin.
The Johnsons accepted the first two stories of the series, but only managed to publish one. Samuel appeared in Double Danger Tales #58, January 2003.
From that story came Argus – the Blue Eagle, a masked horseman from around 1860. The spirit of Argus now roams a region of southern California. His most recently recorded adventure can be found at: http://www.planetarystories.com/talons.htm
AP –  It’s obvious with characters like the Voice and the others, you were heavily influenced by the pulps?  Were you a pulp fan before you started reading and when did you first discover pulps?
RK –I think I covered the hero/character pulps above. But I read a lot of Burroughs and some other adventure writers and a ton of science fiction, plus many mysteries series, growing up. Being the type of person who reads copyright pages I understood that much/most of what I read first appeared in magazines.
Early comic fanzines would sometimes mention the pulps. And the first convention I went to, an S-F con with some comics, I was offered a copy of Captain Hazard #1 for the huge sum of five dollars. I opted instead for Ed April’s first volume of Buck Rogers strip reprints.
AP –What is it about writing pulps that appeals to you?
RK –While the pulps, as newsstand magazines, have vanished, the breakneck story telling of the pulps never does. It just finds other venues. Certain movies, TV shows, comics, and books are the pulp’s successors. How many out there read Clive Cussler? Or love Indiana Jones? While some of Indy’s roots are in movie serials, he is definitely very pulp.
Those are the kind of stories I like to watch and read. And they are generally the kind I want to write. Stories with heroes of one kind, or another. A hero doesn’t have to look like Jim Anthony. Or even Bruce Willis. Sometimes a hero doesn’t even realize he is a hero. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t. When my first child was born heroes were in very short supply. In film real heroes seemed limited to John Wayne and James Bond movies. Was I ever glad that things like Star Wars, the Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, and Duck Tales came along to entertain my kids. I like to hope that my adventure stories entertain. And just maybe help keep the idea of  the hero in front of folks. If pulp can be said to have a mission, that’s it.
AP –Have you ever written established pulp characters and where did these stories appear?
RK –Earlier in this century I joined an on-line role playing game set in December 1939. For that I played MLJ Comics’ Bob Phantom. The only super-hero ever named Bob. I wrote him more pulp than costumed hero. That was the first time I wrote about somebody else’s character. That game gave me connections that helped get me on with Airship-27. (And got me the gig of writing up Bob Phantom’s history for the Mighty Crusader’s website.)
For Airship-27 I’ve written two stories of Jim Anthony. One appeared in the anthology Jim Anthony – Super Detective vol.1 The second will probably be in vol. 3. I’m also working with artist Pedro Cruz on the first ever Jim Anthony comic strip. Stories starring the Moon Man and the Masked Rider are also in the hopper at Airship-27.  To fill what I humorously call my free time I’ve written the first ever solo story of the Masked Rider’s partner, Blue Hawk. Read it at: http://www.planetarystories.com/bluehawk.htm – And I put George Chance on a case before he ever became the Green Ghost.
http://www.planetarystories.com/unionStation.htm
AP – What else do you have coming out in the future?
RK –What’s got me on pins and needles waiting is “Dr. Watson’s American Adventure.” This short novel is due out in the near future from Airship-27. There the good doctor shares the action with Theodore Roosevelt.
AP –  You recently became the editor of an e-pulp mag originally conceived by pulp fan supreme, Shelby Vick.  Tell us about this gig and where can fans find it on-line?
RK – That’s overstating it a bit. I recently became an Assistant Editor to Shelby and longtime editor, anthologist, and writer Jerry Page. Those two were running the on-line pulps Planetary Stories and Wonderlust when I came across the site. http://www.planetarystories.com
Planetary Stories is a recreation, or homage, or something, to the old time space opera pulps like Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Wonderlust is a home for fantasy of all kinds.  Planetary had a feature called Pulp Spirit. For it they ran a single story of some other pulp  genre. About the time I happened by stories for Wonderlust were getting scarce. Who knows why. So they decided to make Wonderlust a department of Planetary and launch Pulp Spirit as a new e-zine title covering any other kind of genre fiction. So long as there some action to it.
I offered them the Voice’s origin story that had appeared in Double Danger Tales. They liked it. Long story short, (no pun extended) various stories of mine have been in every issue of Pulp Spirit except #2. And I’ve appeared on Planetary once. Some stories were from deep in the Culture Vault(tm). And some I’d written with other venues in mind. Others have been shameless self-promotion. Like the self-contained excerpt from “Dr. Watson’s American Adventure.” ( http://www.planetarystories.com/watson.htm )
Anyway, Shelby and Jerry asked me to help out with proofing, checking how the HTML looks on different platforms and browsers, and giving my opinion on some of the stories. (BTW, Wonderlust now is sometimes a full blown magazine again, if enough good stories come in.)
AP –  Have you any plans for attending any pulp cons next year?
RK –I’m signed up for Pulp-Ark. That’s a relatively easy drive. (Major Venture might just pop up there, too.) Depending on what gets into print, I’m looking at Kansas City’s Planet Comicon. Especially if Pedro Cruz’s & my Jim Anthony strip is out. Rob Davis usually makes that show, too. And, I’m open to suggestions.
AP –Last question.  What major writing goal have you set for yourself in the coming year.  Feel free to promote anything else you might have in the works as well.
RK –Goal? To finish things! I’ve got four projects I want to finish up.
In 2010 I completed two stories involving the Voice for Pro Se Productions. One of them had been gathering electronic dust for most of a decade. I currently have no unfinished Voice stories. But if you’ve read the Voice’s origin in Pulp Spirit you know there are three to five more tall tales to be spun to his nurse while he convalesces. One of those stories will feature a haunted house and an elderly Ravenwood. (Plot originally intended for Charlton Bulleye, just like Mr. Jigsaw was.) Another story will finally present the very first idea I ever had for the character that evolved into the Voice. It involves something halfway between a Burroughs planet adventure and flat out sword and sorcery. And a disbelieving Voice caught up in the action.  Those stories will sit at the back of the cue.
For Airship-27 I need to get going on a 30,000 word story to fill out a Moon Man anthology. I’ve outlined the story a lot more thoroughly than I generally do. Some key scenes are done. Now I need to fill in the blanks. About 24,000 words to go.
Next I need to complete what has become something of a Frankin-Novel. Meaning built out of parts. Actually, it’s sort of a villain pulp. Various heroes all take on the same organization. “Sons Of Thor” features stories of 2nd Lieutenant Richard Curtis Van Loan fighting in the skies of World War One and as the Phantom Detective. Jim Anthony spans the 48 states to prevent germ warfare. Plus Jim and the Phantom join with the Black Bat for the rousing finale. All the stories have guest stars including a British pulp hero never before seen on this side of the pond. One set of guest stars were very real: The Men of Bronze. “Sons of Thor” looks like it will have about 75,000 words. That’s less than 10K to go.
Finally comes my 21st century series The Journey of Freedom’s Spirit & Samuel.  With the finished third story I’ll have 60,000 words. Then I’ll try shopping it around to some of the new pulp publishers.  Stuffed in the cracks should be something for the three new issues of Pulp Spirit.
AP –Thanks ever for your time.  It was great getting to know you better and continued success in all your future pulp projects.
RK – Thanks. This was a bit different. For almost thirty years I’ve been on the other side of the interviews.
Iron Man 3 Cometh!

Iron Man 3 Cometh!

  • News
  • October 18, 2010

So, what are you planning on doing May 3, 2013? On or about that day, unless I’ve gone to a preview, I’ll probably be seeing Iron Man 3.

If that seems like a long time, it’s only a year (almost to the day) after Iron Man and Tony Stark appear in The Avengers movie.

Amusingly, Disney will be distributing both movies. Whereas they own Marvel, the distribution rights on these projects is still in Paramount’s hands so, according to Box Office Mojo, Disney is coughing up at least $115 million to assume the privilege. It wasn’t too long ago that you could buy all of Marvel for that kind of money. Paramount maintains distribution rights to this year’s Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

No word about cast and villains, although Robert Downey Jr. is contractually expected to repeat in the lead.

‘The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ has an October 20 Debut

‘The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ has an October 20 Debut

  • News
  • September 21, 2010

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!, an all-new animated series featuring the best of the best in the Marvel Universe, premieres Wednesday, October 20 (8:30 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney XD. Produced by Marvel Animation, the series stars the world’s greatest heroes — Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Ant-Man/Giant Man and Wasp — who form the Avengers, a team assembled when the powers of a single hero are not enough to save the world. Thsi essentially mirrors the line up as seen in the first 15 issues of the comic, written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Jack Kirby and Don Heck.

Beginning Wednesday, Disney XD, DisneyXD.com/Avengers, Marvel.com, MarvelKids.com and Disney XD Mobile will roll out 20 micro-episodes introducing the team’s core members. Each five-and-half-minute episode focuses on the back story, allies and nemeses of the heroes before the Avengers were formed.

In the two-part series premiere, “The Breakout,” Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and Wasp have defeated some of the most dangerous super-villains on the planet. But when the super-villain prison system mysteriously shuts down, chaos is unleashed on the world. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes must now band together as the Avengers to protect the planet from the threats that no single super-hero could face alone. Their first task is to try and stop Graviton, a being whose power dwarfs anything ever seen. He’s after Nick Fury, but will destroy the world to get to him. Individually the heroes have no chance, but together they can make a difference.

The complete multiplatform rollout is:

Wednesday, September 22

Disney XD will air a special sneak peek of the first micro-series episode, “Iron Man is Born!,” at 8:30 p.m., ET/PT directly following premiere of the network’s newest series, “Pair of Kings.”

DisneyXD.com/Avengers, Marvel.com, MarvelKids.com and Disney XD Mobile will unveil a new micro-episode every day, for 20 days, leading up to the micro-episodes’ premiere on Disney XD. DisneyXD.com/Avengers will also feature a gallery of each of the Avengers and offer inside information about Kang, Loki and the rest of the “most wanted” Marvel Super Villains.

Tuesday, October 5  

Select micro-episodes will be made available as a free preview on iTunes.

Monday, October 11

Disney XD will roll out all 20 micro-episodes during “Avengers Week” from Monday, October 11 to Friday, October 15, with four micro-episodes stacked each night at 8:30 p.m., ET/PT.

The complete micro-series becomes available on Disney XD on Demand on AT&T, Verizon, Charter and Cox.

Wednesday, October 20

The highly anticipated series premiere of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! airs with two back-to-back episodes from 8:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., ET/PT. The series also launches on DisneyXD.com/Avengers, Marvel.com and Marvelkids.com.

Thursday, October 21

Full episodes launch on iTunes, Xbox Live, Sony Playstation and Disney XD Mobile VOD.

Monday, October 25

The series becomes available on Disney XD on Demand on AT&T, Verizon, Charter and Cox.

The Great Comics Flood of 2010

  • News
  • September 14, 2010

It has been reported that for the first time in 15 months no single comic book gathered more than
100,000 copies in orders in the direct sales market. Make that 93,459, to put a
point on it.

Conventional wisdom has it that sales have dropped because the average cover price has gone up, and who am I to question conventional wisdom? But there’s another reason. A big one.

Historically, whenever one of the major publishers (which means Marvel and DC; I’m talking superhero comics here) felt they were being challenged by one or more upstart publishers, that company would flood the market with crap, usually reprints or revivals of frequently cancelled titles. The other publisher would rapidly follow. Before the direct sales tail started wagging the dog, it was believed there was only so much space in the newsstands
and DC and Marvel could crowd the others out. That, of course, was nonsense: if the newsstands cared about comic books (how much profit is there in a 40 cent item?) nobody would have to crowd anybody out.

This philosophy extended to the direct sales market. When companies such as First, Eclipse and Malibu were making waves and racking up competitive sales, DC and Marvel started dumping product into the pipeline. How many times could you revive Kull The Conqueror? But retailers had to order at least a few copies because it was a Marvel Comic, and cumulatively all that sucked a lot of bucks out of retailers’ tills. Remember, they buy this stuff non-returnable.

But now comic book stores have dwindled down to a precious few and the big bookstore chains such as Barnes and Noble and Borders are coughing up blood, sales truly suck.

Which makes it real curious to see that Marvel is once again flooding the comics rack. Having finally lost the Kull license, the House of Idea has gone the Oreo Cookies route: they’re jerking their “going to the movies” properties as though they were crack fiends at a milk farm.

For example: the September Marvel Previews (books on sale November) lists no less than six Iron Man titles, eight Thor titles, and 13 Avengers books. There’s also two event series: Shadowland, which winds up with a mere four titles, and Chaos War, which boasts five.

I didn’t even mention the massive – and expanding – X-Men group. That’s old news.

27 issues featuring Thor, Iron Man, and/or The Avengers.
Boy, you’d think there was a Thor movie coming out that, oh I don’t know, tied in to the Iron Man movies, to be followed by the big The Avengers
movie.

So, why the flood? Is Marvel worried about competition from Boom, Dynamite, and IDW? I don’t think so. They started producing material
for this latest dump just about the time the Disney takeover was ratified. They are trying to impress the Mouse.

Disney doesn’t care about their comic book profits, and nor does Warner Bros. Marvel and DC, respectively, are there as R&D, fodder for movies, television and animation – and their concomitant merchandising revenues. All Marvel and DC have to do on the publishing front is show a decent
return on investment and their new masters will be content.

It’s hard for me to think of a way Marvel could better promote comic book bootlegging.

2010 Harvey Awards Announced!

2010 Harvey Awards Announced!

  • News
  • August 29, 2010

The Harvey Awards, named for famed writer/cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman, once again hit the Baltimore Comic Con in style. Emceed by PvP’s esteemed artist and writer Scott Kurtz (not only because his name is close to Harvey’s, but because he’s genuinely funny!), is held in tandem with a celebratory dinner and ceremony. Our intrepid Glenn Hauman was on scene tweeting the winners to us all, and shucks, he even joined the folks for the after-party. We here at ComicMix congratulate all this years nominees and celebrate the victories for this years winners! Did your favorite take home the ole’ Harv’? Find out below!

Best Writer:
This years nominees are:

  • Jason Aaron, Scalped, Vertigo/DC
  • Geoff Johns, Blackest Night, DC
  • Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Image Comics
  • Jeff Kiney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3, Amulet Books
  • Mark Waid, Irredeemable, Boom! Studios

And the winner: Robert “Suck it Johns, I PWN Zombies” Kirkman!

He joins other Harvey Winners like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaugn, and Neil Gaiman!

Best Artist:
This years nominees are:

  • Robert Crumb, Book of Genesis, W.W. Norton
  • Guy Davis, BPRD:Black Goddess, Dark Horse Comics
  • Brian Fies, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, Abrams ComicArts
  • David Petersen, Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, Archaia Entertainment
  • Frank Quitely, Batman and Robin, DC
  • JH Williams III, Detective Comics, DC

And the winner: Robert Crumb!

He joins other Harvey Winners like Dave Gibbons, Alex Ross, Mike Mignola, and Brian Bolland… but c’mon. He’s already had a movie about his life. Gibbons, Ross, Mignola, and Bolland should be proud they now share this award with Robert.

Best Cartoonist:
This years nominees are:

  • Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter, IDW
  • Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3, Amulet Books
  • Roger Langridge, The Muppet Show Comic Book, Boom! Studios
  • David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp, Pantheon
  • Seth, George Sprott (1894-1975), Drawn and Quarterly

And the winner: Darwyn “Now who do I fight next?” Cooke!

He joins other Harvey Winners like Paul Chadwick, Jeff Smith, Chris Ware, and Sergio Aragones!

(more…)

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