From Pro Se Productions! In a world of Heroes and Villains, one seemingly lost book can mean the difference between order and chaos! This is the premise of Pro Se Productions’ new novel, YESTERYEAR, the debut novel written by Tommy Hancock, cover art by Jay Piscopo, Interior Art by Peter Cooper, Design by Sean Ali. Pro Se Productions partner Fuller Bumpers has created a trailer to highlight YESTERYEAR, identifying it as a well crafted suspense/super hero/pulp thriller. Check it out!
For more information on YESTERYEAR and other work from Pro Se Productions, including Barry Reese’s THE ROOK and Chuck Miller’s THE BLACK CENTIPEDE, check out http://www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com/!
Things are getting out of hand… While Debra prepares to go to the dance after the battle is over, Elsie pays an old friend a visit. Find out who and what they talk about in the latest page of “Looking for a Love Song” at www.flying-glory.com
PRO SE ANSWERS FANS’ CONCERNS
from Tommy Hancock, EIC, Pro Se Productions
I’ve received several emails in the last two weeks about Pro Se putting out my new novel YESTERYEAR as well as the status of our latest magazine, MASKED GUN MYSTERY #3 which, based on our usual schedule is due out in February. There’s been some concern and confusion about whether or not the magazines would continue or if the novel would supercede the magazine this month, and such as that. Well, although neither of those are true, there’s a couple of things that have caused a hiccup in Pro Se’s putting the monthly back in Pulp this month.
One major factor has been my health. Since I am the author of YESTERYEAR as well as the EIC of Pro Se, I’ve had a double load this month. Whatever the bug of the month is that’s going around has waylaid me but good and due to other health issues, I’ve just had a rough go. So for that I apologize and trust me, this will not become a norm for me or Pro Se.
The other factor, though, that has had greater impact is that Pro Se is making a shift. We are in the process of going from using one Print on Demand publisher to another one. Ideally this would be an easy transition, but since all of the parties involved making it happen have unusually busy lives currently, we’ve been slowed a bit in this. Pure and simple, sometimes changes to improve saleability of product and improve quality of what our fans receive just force a change in schedule. That, along with me being sick as a whatever, is what’s happened here.
So, here’s the current plan. As of now, YESTERYEAR or MGM #3 still might make it out in February. They will both for sure be out as early in March as possible and at that point Pro Se will return to its regularly monthly schedule of great pulp guaranteed! And don’t forget that we are doing pulp almost daily at http://www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com/, Pro Se’s official blogsite! Thank you for your patience, understanding, and most of all your support of Pro Se and Pulp!
Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions and author of his first novel, which is also Pro Se’s first foray into novels, YESTERYEAR, announces today that the interior artist for the novel will be Peter Cooper.
Cooper, an artist who has worked for Pro Se recently as well as others for both comics and book covers, is an excellent largely self trained artist continually pushing to improve his craft. Hancock said, “These four examples of what Pete can do are the best work I’ve seen him do in the almost ten years I’ve known him. The book will contain probably 15 illustrations, these four included, spotlighting the Heroes and Villains of YESTERYEAR’s first era of Heroes, basicallyfrom 1929-1955. There will be a mixture of styles as well as genres, including comedy, pulp, and straight super hero and Pete adjusts extremely well to the demands put upon an artist to make such transitions. The love he has for his craft comes through in his work, especially in these images.”
With the help of Cooper’s interior art, the cover art by Jay Piscopo, and the fantastic design skills of Sean Ali, Hancock endeavors to tell a satisfying complex tale with YESTERYEAR. Focused around a manuscript that has been missing for over fifty years before it finally reappeared, this novel will not only detail the chase and mystery surrounding the newly recovered artifact, but it will also dissect this particular universe’s first era of Heroes and Villains, looking at both the public perception as well as the shadowy truth behind that concept. This novel is on track to be available from Pro Se Productions in the next 4-6 weeks. For more information, contact Hancock at proseproductions@earthlink.net or check out Pro Se’s new blog site, http://www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com/.
Pro Se Productions, producers of Pulp Magazines beginning in August, 2010 and Pulp author Tommy Hancock, a nominee for Best New Writer in the First Annual Pulp Ark Awards (voting underway now), announce today that Hancock’s first full length novel which will also be Pro Se’s first novel to publish is in the final stages of editing and will debut within the next 4-6 weeks.
YESTERYEAR is Hancock’s first full length novel work, but has been a work in progress for nearly ten years. Now thanks to Pro Se Productions, this long told, but little read tale will finally be shared with the public. And it sports a fantastic cover drawn by Jay Piscopo! “The three characters,” Hancock stated to ALL PULP, “featured on the cover are sort of the crux of this whole universe while the book one of them is holding is the lynchpin that could send that world spinning into oblivion. Jay’s work brings out the contradiction of glory and darkness that these heroes go through as well very clearly illustrates character traits of each of them without a word on the cover about them! The attention to detail and the focus being on that book…that all important book…makes this cover jump out at me and this would not be the same book without Jay’s cover.”
According to Hancock, the basic concept is that the YESTERYEAR world was a fairly normal place until October 29, 1929. Not only did the world very nearly collapse under economic depression, but something seemingly more positive happened. A man flew. Without an airplane. Under his own power. And he wore a mask.
This singular incident sets off the appearance of a string of Heroes, taking their name from the name given to the first of their kind by the papers-Hero- who are more or less pulpy in nature, although some tip their hat to the super hero genre born from the pulps. These heroes enjoy a particular ‘golden age’ well into the 1950s. But in 1955, a well known author, who also happened to have been a Hero, vanishes and along with him a much rumored manuscript that, through the use of newspaper articles, letters, and stories revealed the true obsidian side of this golden age. Both author and book have been missing. Until now.
“There are really three stories,” Hancock said, “being told in YESTERYEAR. One is the modern tale, of how this book with all these alleged secrets pops back up and sets the entire world, most definitely the inheritors and keepers of the Heroes legacies, on edge. Another one is the titular manuscript itself. Pieces of it will be printed in the book and will tell stories of how the Heroes were seen in their day, the two fisted, heart of gold stories. Then other parts of the manuscript will be used as well and these are the ones that aren’t so shiny but oh so revealing. I hope with this concept I’ve pulled off something that’s not really been done extensively. Construct an universe, deconstruct it, yet allow enough of what was good about it, even if it was a ball of lies, to remain for the reconstructing that must follow.”
Hancock stated that the plan currently is to have interior art in the book as well from an up and coming artist in the Pulp field, but that this book will be available by the end of March and will not be held up by any delays. The book is being published by Pro Se Productions (http://www.proseproductions.com/, pulpmachine.blogspot.com). Hancock also pointed out that the book, including the graphics work on the awesome cover, will be designed and formatted by Sean Ali, Pro Se Design Specialist and a long time friend and supporter of Hancock’s works. Also, the book will open with an introduction by noted Pulp author Derrick Ferguson, the first writer other than Hancock to write characters from the YESTERYEAR universe almost ten years ago.
Stay tuned to ALL PULP for future information on the release of YESTERYEAR!
