Straight from the mouth of Bill Cunningham, Mad Pulp Bastard and Publisher, Pulp 2.0 Press now has Tees of its three hottest properties available. Just follow the link http://store.rangergraphix.com/index.asp?page=1&ShirtCat=15 and buy your Brother Blood, Frankenstein, and Radio Western T-shirts!!!
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
The Scar-A Secret Agent X Thriller-Written by Sean Ellis
Available for FREE via Barnes and Noble (ebook)
59 pages. That’s how long this book/story/fictional escapade (choose your own term please) is. And I must say I have not read a more pulpy, fast paced, bullet riddled, punch filled 59 pages in a long, long time.
Ellis takes an established pulp character, Secret Agent X, and instead of updating the character for modern sensibilities, he simply plops said Agent into a story written with modern sensibilities. The action is unrelenting, beginning with the opening sentences and not stopping till the last period. There’s a mystery involved as well due to title object-a scar Secret Agent X doesn’t recall getting. The plot is tight and twists around and in on itself several times. The characters are well described and Ellis definitely shows the range of emotions even a pulp hero like Secret Agent X must go through in their dangerous lives.
Very much so something worth reading…again and again and again. When talking to new writers recently, I’ve pointed this tale out as one to read and learn from. No kiddin’.
Five out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (Five tips are reserved only for those who have channeled Dent, Gibson,Doyle, Page, or one of the long gone, but not forgotten greats.)
POWELL MAKES THE POST!!!
Martin Powell, renowned Pulp and Comic Author got a mention in the Washington Post recently for his well known work SCARLET IN GASLIGHT. The article is reposted below, with appropriate credits and links provided following!!
The Spectacled Seven of ALL PULP as well as our loyal readers from time to time come across non ALL PULP reviews that just deserve to be shown to a wider audience. From now on, if you come across such a review, send it to allpulp@yahoo.com. If it’s selected as being just too good for the pulp world to miss, then it will be posted as an upcoming GUEST REVIEW OF THE WEEK…like our first one right here…
GUEST REVIEW OF THE WEEK
from Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans (http://dr-hermes.livejournal.com/751900.html)
REVIEW OF ‘THE FRECKLED SHARK’ by Lester Dent
SPOILERS AHEAD
Just so you know.
This March 1939 adventure is best remembered for the infamous “Henry Peace” affair, but before we get into that, I’d like to discuss the story itself. THE FRECKLED SHARK is a lively, quick-moving tale about an assortment of shady characters chasing each other around over a fortune worth millions (forty or fifty), involving the lives or deaths of thirty people. No one’s version of what’s going on can really be taken at face value, not even the seemingly trustworthy folks. These people mean business, too; there are plenty of murders, torture and cruelty going on and it’s not a genteel jewel robbery caper by any means.
Despite all the suspense and action, Lester Dent throws in some genuinely funny lines almost as afterthoughts. When he was trying to write outright farce, Dent seemed uncomfortable; when he has a character make a joking remark in a tight situation, the little touch of humour strikes me as just the sort of thing a real person would say to break the tension. The narrative asides are also wry; Doc ties up a suspect, and “about the only thing he could move was his ears.” Of course, the whole hook of the story, the Henry Peace scandal, is amusing in itself and also shows some rare insight into a normally opaque character.
In the first twenty pages, Lester Dent gets the reader hooked by laying down one puzzling incident after another, all of which seem to fit together somehow. Who is this guy Jep Dee, found half-dead from exposure and vicious torture, with a knotted rope around his neck which he refuses to have removed? What’s the deal with the scrap of freckled shark hide, which he thinks is immensely crucial but which is a clue absolutely no one can figure out? Why are this gangster Horst (who looks like the Devil with muscles) or Senor Steel (the dread dictator of Blanca Grande) interested in the whole mess? Then there’s the cantankerous old soldier of fortune Tex Haven (who carries five pistols hidden on his person) or his nubile daughter Rhoda (who has degrees from four universities and is expert in medicine, archaeology and government administration as well as being a mercenary with a reward on her head). They’re in it up to their chins but they won’t explain anything either.
When Rhoda goes to enlist Doc Savage’s aid, she pours out lies (she starts with, “My name is Mary Morse”) but because she is sitting in a chair with a built-in lie detector, it gets her nowhere. Doc doesn’t show himself, but he sends her off with Johnny to recruit Monk and Ham, and the pulp rollercoaster ride takes off. After that, there is much violence, intrigue, running back and forth, sneaking through the Florida mangroves at night, aerial dogfights, double-crosses and deception, until gradually it all becomes clear. Even Doc finds himself surprised at a few of the plot twists, and is shocked to think he has been duped..
Johnny is along for the ride, and he is (as usual) the most likeable of the aides. He makes conscious efforts to use understandable language, although he keeps backsliding into the frankly irritating habit. Just once, I would like for someone to remind him that one sign of an educated person is the ability to communicate clearly. As it is, one goon says, “Oh. One of them guys, eh? I don’t see why these foreigners who come over here can’t speak English.”
Even so, Johnny is the most thoughtful and considerate of the regular cast, and Doc (as he does in other stories) seems to appreciate Johnny’s opinions the most. Here, he takes the bony archaeologist away from the other two aides to ask him what he should do in a delicate situation. Monk and Ham tend to bulldoze over people, either physically or through verbal manipulation but Johnny is concerned with other peoples’ feelings. Doc trusts only him to give sound advice; I always got the impression Johnny was the oldest of the gang, maybe even one of Doc’s teachers. This is still pulp characterization, of course with broad strokes and bright colors, but Dent always manages to add little human touches to his cast.
Monk and Ham are their usual selves, carrying on their schizoid love affair where they can’t stop insulting each other but fret when the other is in trouble. I know they’re straight (c’mon), but honestly they remind me of several married couples I know. We can note here that Chemistry barely comes up past Monk’s knees (pretty tiny for a chimp and he can’t really be a baboon because he doesn’t have a muzzle or tail). Alan Hathaway and Harold A Davis somehow got the idea that Chemistry was five feet tall, able to wear adult clothing or drive an ambulance (!), but Dent’s original concept was that he was not much bigger than a monkey. Maybe Doc tried some growth hormones on the ape.
I do like the way that, when trapped in an underground room with a gang, Monk yells to lock the door so they can’t escape (“There were at least a dozen men in the room. Monk, the optimist, didn’t want any of THEM to get away.”).
The main appeal of THE FRECKLED SHARK, of course, is that Doc spends most of it disguised as a rude, insolent ruffin with bright red hair and a larcenous streak. This is Henry Peace, and it’s not really giving much away by revealing the pose because Lester Dent lays on some heavy hints from the start and quickly makes it obvious. As Henry, Doc gets to laugh loud and often, propose marriage to a beautiful girl as soon as he meets her, and insult Monk and Ham. He tells Monk,”If you had kept that nose out of other people’s business, it might not look so funny.” Then he goes over to Ham (the “dandy”) and yanks up the tails of the fashion-obsessed lawyer’s coat, splitting it up the back. He also knocks both of them on their backs with a single punch each, then chases them off by throwing bricks (“Irish confetti”) at them.
Gee. Do you think Doc might be acting out impulses toward these two guys he had kept bottled up for years? Not to mention then acting on the powerful attraction to women he felt but could barely admit, even to himself. The price for Doc’s superhuman abilities and knowledge was lifelong discipline and self-sacrifice, being a scientific Puritan. As much as we might like a quick glimpse of Doc up in the Fortress of Solitude, unshaven and reading SPICY ROMANCES in his underwear, while working on a six-pack, it would never happen. It took a few years of World War II and a nearly fatal head trauma before his emotional repression began to crack and he could open up. Doc was never quite the invincible demi-god again after his feelings started coming out, but I sort of think he started enjoying life more and not living every moment for his noble mission.
Doc is a trained psychologist, of course, and he has just enough self-awareness to realize this Henry Peace role could easily get out of hand. Sort of like Catholic high school girls getting drunk for the first time when their folks are away — once you uncork the bottle, it’s tough to get the djinn back in; if Doc started enjoying being Henry for too long, it might be tempting to start skipping those two-hour daily exercises and long hours sweating over hot test tubes or dull 1200-page textbooks. He is also understandably tempted when the gorgeous Rhoda starts to tumble for Henry and there is every sign he could easily be getting somewhere with her. What a pickle for the severely repressed bronze man.
Personally, I would have liked to see Henry come back as a recurring character whenever the situation allowed it. He could be Doc’s secret identity, a boisterous and fun-loving Mr Hyde offering much-needed chances to blow off steam. Since Monk immediately and strongly dislikes the guy, there could be some fresh comic relief to replace the tired bickering with Ham. Dent could even have pulled the old amnesia gag where Doc is struck on the head while in the disguise and thinks he really IS Henry Peace. Only Doc himself can come up with a defense against the shrivelling Purple Fog or whatever, and this Henry guy is just getting in the way of the search for him. (Fan fiction writers out there, these ideas are free.)
As it is, although he will occasionally impersonate other uncouth galoots, Doc puts Henry away and never goes back. By the end of the story, Ham and Johnny have learned about the impersonation, but since Henry has treated him so rough and easily won Rhoda over despite Monk’s efforts, Doc sternly tells them never to let the lecherous chemist know. “The bronze man sounded so deathly serious that Johnny and Ham doubled over laughing. It was the first time they had ever laughed AT Doc Savage” (actually, there was the earlier case where Doc somehow found himself engaged without knowing how in METEOR MENACE….)
Even when his hero was at his most stoic and poker-faced, Lester Dent usually dropped hints that Doc felt normal emotions like fear or doubt and even sexual attraction, but just kept them pushed below the surface. Here is the clearest instance of the writer letting us in on what is actually going on behind those swirling gold-flecked eyes, and it makes this book a lot of fun. THE FRECKLED SHARK is one of the top dozen or so Doc novels I’d recommend every fan should be sure to read.
ALL PULP lifted this from the News Section of the Moonstone website (http://www.moonstonebooks.com/)
Headline: MOONSTONE nabs Tommy Hancock!
Date: 11/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
News:
We welcome Tommy Hancock to the Moonstone family this week, as he brings a heavy dose of enthusiasm and can-do mentality to the challenging position of Marketing and Promotions Coordinator!…He will be chained to the computer until further notice.
And Hancock’s comments when asked by ALL PULP-
I’m of two minds on this. One is the fanboy in me who remembers seeing JOHNNY DOLLAR and BOSTON BLACKIE comics on a bookshelf side by side and being amazed at this company named Moonstone writing two of my favorite characters. Then there’s the Marketing and Promotions guy in me who is ready to help Moonstone take all of its work (comics, pulp, and whatever) to the next level. Both of those minds are still excited, humbled, and ready to give Moonstone the best I have to give.
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
Savage Beauty #1-The Prologue
Written by Mike Bullock
Interiors by Jose Massaroli
Moonstone Books
 |
| Cover by Thomas Yeates |
OK, before the hat even comes off, let me state this will not be a typical review…as it is only the opening salvo of the first issue of SAVAGE BEAUTY. Mike Bullock, the writer of said series, sent the prologue essentially of the first issue to ALL PULP to share the excitement he is feeling about the great work that will debut in February.
Consider it shared, Mike.
The prologue introduces us to our protagonists, the lovely sisters that have an integral part in who we will know as Savage Beauty. In a very short time, just a handful of panels, Bullock and Massaroli firmly establish who these women are and effectively set up the character of…these characters. A wonderful contrast is struck when Bullock and Masseroli shift the scene from a photo safari to a village overrun with modern day pirate types and arms dealers. Again, Bullock establishes the good and the bad very quickly and Massaroli’s art shows the fiercenenss of the fierce and the fear of the afraid aptly. If a prologue is meant to wet your whistle, consider mine ready to blow.
Although I won’t give tips of the hat per se to an unfinished issue, I’ll say this…My hand is raised and on the fedora ready to tip away, probably multiple times.
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
“The Hound of the Baskervilles-A Sherlock Holmes Mystery”
Originally written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Graphic Novel Adaptation written by Martin Powell
Graphic Novel illustrated by Daniel Perez
Published by Stone Arch Books
Sherlock Holmes. The name conjures a very specific image. Angular nose, deerstalker cap, pipe, violin. And a stalwart companion named Watson. Now, there have been twists on the original, some fairly decent, some gut wrenchingly bad. I am a firm believer, though, that except in a couple of cases, the best way to retell a Holmes story is to keep all the tropes that Doyle gave us originally. Interpret it your own way, sure, but leave Holmes Holmes.
I, for one, am glad Powell and Perez believed that, too.
“The Hound of Baskervilles” from Stone Arch Books is a graphic novel retelling of one of the best Holmes stories ever. Equal parts mystery and horror story, “Hound” tells of an ancient curse plaguing a family on the English Moors. Watson and Holmes are brought in to hopefully save the Baskerville family line from an alleged hell hound stalking members of said family. That’s the basic concept that almost anyone familiar with when they hear the story’s title. What they get in this version, however, is that and so much more.
Powell faithfully adapts Doyle’s work, keeping the story as we know it intact. What he adds to his interpretation, by the turn of phrase, the sharp, effective dialogue, and the pacing of the tale (The whole novel is condensed into 37 pages) is a tension that keeps the reader turning the pages. We get a Holmes who is self assured, focused, and ready to tackle the issue both intellectually and physically. We also get a Watson worthy to be Holmes’ wing man. Powell sees Watson for what Doyle meant him to be. A complement, not a foil, to Holmes. And that shines through plainly in this volume.
Perez’s take on the story is simply dead on phenomenal. Although a hint of cartoon winks his eye in his work, it’s a welcome shine added to the work. There are excellent moments captured all throughout the book, but my absolute favorite is a scene of Watson firing his gun. That’s a poster moment for me.
“The Hound of Baskervilles: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” is an excellent graphic novel telling of a classic tale and is accessible by all ages. Kids will thoroughly enjoy the action and the dialogue and adults equally get a true helping of Holmes/Watson goodness.
Five out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (Five tips are reserved only for those who have channeled Dent, Gibson,Doyle, Page, or one of the long gone, but not forgotten greats.)
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
“Dracula Lives!”
Written by Joshua Reynolds
Published by Pulpwork Press
The title of this book itself will make a person pick it up off the shelf. Yes, its one in a long list of cliché sounding references to the ultimate vampire used hither and yon in books, comics, and movies, but it’s catchy. It sings. The difference between this and other tellings of the return of the worlds’ favorite undead aristocrat is a major one.
This book is in no way like anything that has come before it. Trust me. Read the first sentence of this paragraph again. It’s a true statement.
The title tells it all. This is a story of Dracula living again. The way Reynolds brings Vlad back from the grave and squarely plants him firmly in the Twenty First Century, however, is both original and nostalgic. At some points, it reads like a good ol’ fashioned heist and chase movie from the 1970s. Other parts squarely compare to some of the best Ian Fleming pages ever written. Still yet more of it smacks of Le Carre at his best. The originality comes in with the way that Reynolds takes these various types of stories, including a fantastic exploration of what makes his central character tick, and turns them into a high octane, faster than fast and well paced espionage/horror/adventure/noir novel as well as a more than proper return of one of the few villains that truly defines evil in the Pulpiest of ways.
The plot is actually fairly simple. A former government man turned mercenary is hired to procure a rare artifact. Who hires him as well as why he was really hired is a mystery for more than three quarters of the book. Almost immediately after being retained, various other parties show interest in our focal character, Jonas Cream, and the chase is on. I mean it. Chase. Literally around the world. That’s the plot, or at least as much as I’ll reveal. For hints at what remains of the plot, read the title again.
There are a couple of things about “Dracula Lives” that might have been better for me as a reader. One is the number of people pursuing Cream throughout the book just gets plain confusing At times, I thought one person was with one group, but then maybe they were associated with another interested party and…well you get the point. Now, this in part was Reynold’s intent obviously, to keep the mystery interesting and lively. But keeping things straight early on in “Dracula Lives” required a bit of re reading and took away from the experience a bit.
A second issue is a little harder to explain without giving major plot points away. Let’s just say the way a titular character reacted toward the end of the novel to a situation went against everything that had been established about said character thus far. I totally would have had the reaction I took issue with, probably one much worse, but as a reader it was jarring when….well when that happened.
Those two points, however, are minor in comparison to the pulp goodness that Reynolds has wrought with “Dracula Lives.” The action starts in the first two pages and doesn’t even really stop at the last period of the book. The characters are exciting and each one stands on their own, no cookie cutter comparisons here. The political machinations and the resultant spy hijinks are well crafted and expertly delivered. Oh, and then there’s the title character and his various children. Wow. Yeah, that says it…wow.
In a nutshell, Joshua Reynolds leaves no doubt indeed that “Dracula Lives” when you close this book. What is in doubt, though, is just how happy a life it might be for ol’ Fang Face. Obviously much more is to come as various and sundry mortals mobilize against the evil that has returned and I will definitely be on the blood splattered frontlines just to watch.
Four out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (usually reserved for heads of state, arresting officers, and little old ladies, which is pretty darn good.)
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock
“Just Another Day in Paradise”
A Collection of Short Fiction by Katherine Tomlinson Available through http://www.smashwords.com/)
Pulp comes in many shades and although most of them concern good versus evil, over the top action, and high adventure, some are more sullen, somber, and sadistic. Dark fiction has haunted Pulp since its inception, from Lovecraft forward. The combined fascination and horror at our innermost fears, things that go bump in the night, and the worst evil being within our own hearts lives on well in this collection of short dark fiction from Katherine Tomlinson.
“Just Another Day in Paradise” is a compilation of short staccato punches to the midriff and the reader’s troubled consciousness. Tomlinson moves ably from the mundane being made monstrous to the supernatural becoming the normal, each type of story causing chills and thrills. Tomlinson shows a great grasp on the voice of each of her characters, regardless of gender, disposition, or any other aspect of said creations. And when I say ‘voice’, I’m not just referring to how they are portrayed. I really mean the voices that speak to each of these people living in Tomlinson’s world, the conflicting desires and terrors that drive them all, the feral motivations wrestling with higher level morals and ethics. Tomlinson seems to crawl inside the head of each of her cast of characters and, by the time she is through, divulge them of everything dark and hidden right onto the written page.
The strongest tale by far for me was ‘Tired Blood’, which concerns a world where humans exist right beside creatures of the night. This, according to Tomlinson, is the beginning of what will one day be novel length adventures set in this universe. Instead of this type of ‘they live among us’ story being clichéd, Tomlinson writes this tale as if it were a straight ahead police procedural/mystery story, which it is. She doesn’t dumb it down for her readers, either. There is no hand holding with this story, no exposition explaining why the world is this way opening the story. You know why by the end of it, well at least some of why, but its handled with the most respect to the intellect of the reader and to the benefit of the story itself.
Other stories that stand out include the title story, ‘Tiger Bone Wine’, Sweet Tooth’, The Anticancer (a mechanic who is a real wizard…literally), The Sin Eater, among others. Actually, there’s not a bad tale in the lot on the whole. The greatest drawback to this collection of short fiction is…the fiction is too short at times. Tomlinson does an excellent job of setting up individual worlds, distinct viewpoints in each tale, but in some instances it’s just not enough. A few stories, ‘Kingdom of the Cat’ comes to mind, could have gone on a few more paragraphs and been outstanding instead of just good.
Katherine Tomlinson’s ‘Just Another Day in Paradise’ is a guaranteed delightfully disturbing diorama of darkness that haunts the human soul and even the nonhuman psyche.
Four out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (usually reserved for heads of state, arresting officers, and little old ladies, which is pretty darn good.)
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