10/14/10
THIS WEEK ON THE BOOK CAVE! James Sutter joins Art and Ric as they talk about the September Book of the Month, BEFORE THEY WERE GIANTS. Then, Tommy Hancock delivers the ALL PULP news this week, including major PULP ARK announcements and a tease or two.
Check out ALL PULP’S official podcast, THE BOOK CAVE here-
http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/
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I came up with the character some years ago. He was originally a familiar of a vampire that kept his master chained and weakened in his coffin. Something to use as a food source and the familiar didn’t have to do any labor for his master, he could be his own man. I don’t recall how he made the jump from familiar to lazarus hitman but the original idea must have gotten tired to me and things built on one another and just evolved.
For some reason, the idea of something other than a bear mauling him before showing up in Rock Creek hit me. What if it was a werewolf? The idea had merit, I thought. Wild Bill versus a werewolf? What isn’t fun about that? Seems like a fine way to test the gunslinger. Other elements were added later like the Philosopher’s Stone and a vampire but the wolf and Hickok were the nuggets that got my attention. I think werewolves are a natural fit for the old west. Vampires not so much as they have to hide from the sunlight. The Native Americans called the lupines skinwalkers so it’s built right into the time period. It was great fun to write and way out of my comfort zone. Liking western movies doesn’t mean you know how to write a western. It allowed me to stretch some muscles I didn’t know I had.
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| Ron Fortier (on left) and Rob Davis |
AP: Ron, ALL PULP really appreciates you putting all those irons you have in the fire down for a bit to answer some questions for us. First, tell us about yourself.
RF: I’ll be 64 born on Guy Fawkes Day, Nov.5th. A post war baby who grew up reading comics in the 50s and 60s and fell in love with them. Enough to want to pursue a career as a comics writer, while at the same time working for a local GE Plant in New Hampshire and raising a family of five (three boys and two girls) who in turn gave us six wonderful grand kids (four girls and two boys). Retired from the day job with a full pension almost eight years ago now and devote most of my time to the family and my writing. We recently sold the home in N.H. and moved to west to Fort Collins, Colorado where I am just now setting up my new office.
AP: Now, although this is an interview about your work in the pulp genre, you also have a background in writing in other fields, both past and present. Briefly, tell us what other mediums you’ve written and work in?
RF: Well, I mentioned the 30 yr. comics writing career which had me writing such diverse licensed characters as Popeye, Peter Pan and Rambo and my own inventions like the every popular Mr.Jigsaw Man of a Thousand Parts. I’m most known for my work on the Green Hornet for Now Comics and having written the first comic script ever illustrated by Alex Ross; Terminator – Burning Earth. About ten years ago I started writing pulp fiction and with Texas fantasy writer, Ardath Mayhar, wrote three paperback fantasy adventures. About the same time I wrote a play; a romantic comedy called Where Love Takes You that was performed by a local theater company. So I’ve dabbled in lots of various venues with this writing thing.
AP: How and when did your heavy involvement with pulp start? Were you a diehard fan like so many writers and artists in the genre now or did this interest and obsession come to you later in life?
RF: I’d always been aware of the pulps as having been genre of fantastic literature that spawned the comics. As my comics career grew, I kept learning more and more about those amazing magazines that entertained an entire generation during the Great Depression and that fascination led to my studying pulps and quickly becoming a devoted fan. So although I came to them late, my interest and passion for them has grown steadily over the years.
AP: You are one of the men behind Airship 27 Productions. What are the origins of Airship 27?
RF: Five years ago only a very few publishers were actively publishing new pulp adventures. Most outfits were content with reprinting the old originals over and over and over again. Wild Cat Books was one of these and I suggested to Ron Hanna the idea of publishing new material. He agreed to take a stab at it and I created Airship 27 Productions as a label for those all new books to be released under the Wild Cat book imprint. I wanted them set apart from his reprints. Hanna saw that these titles were selling extremely well and opted to do more of them himself. Whereas that would have meant we’d be competing against each other under one banner, we both agreed Airship 27 should divorce itself from Wild Cat Books and go it alone as an entirely new pulp publisher. Now along this journey, my old comic pal, artist Rob Davis, had joined me as Art Director and when we launched, he agreed to stay on as my partner in the venture wherever it took us.
AP: How would you define the mission and purpose of your publishing company. What are Airship 27’s plans and intentions?
RF: Airship 27 Productions’s mission is a simple one, to keep the pulp genre alive and healthy by publishing the best new pulp fiction and art available on the market today.
Over the past two years we’ve broadened our line up to include classic characters like Sherlock Holmes and Dr.Watson. We are bringing out brand new 30s pulp heroes created by our stable of talented writers and at the same time still shining the light on the classic heroes ala the Green Lama, Jim Anthony and Black Bat. In the coming years we hope to continue this diversity of books across an even wider spectrum of pulp titles.
AP: Airship 27 is partnered with Cornerstone Publishers. How did that come about and exactly what is the arrangement between the two companies?
RF: Initially Rob and I were going to self-publish our titles via print-on-demand like Wild Cat and all the others out there. Cornerstone Book Publishers is a traditional book publisher out of New Orleans run by Michael Poll. Michael learned what we had in mind with Airship 27 and offered to become our “real” publisher. Ergo, Rob and I produce the books and Cornerstone publishes them. Note they do so traditionally through their printer and get them out to all reputable book distributors while at the same time, they also offer print-on-demand edition on all our titles for those fans looking to save some pennies via an Airship 27 Lulu store. This is our way of thanking of pulp fans by allowing them to get our books through several different options.
AP: Airship 27 publishes pulp novels. What sort of properties are you currently working with, both of the public domain and original variety?
RF: Well I mentioned several of our classic public domain series such as Jim Anthony Super Detective and Green Lama. To date we’ve done books featuring these characters and have lots more on the way. At the same time we released B.C Bell’s Tales of the Bagman, a pulp hero he created in the classic mold of 30s adventures. Bell puts a nice spin on an old style of writing. At the moment we are gearing up to do another Secret Agent X, which will be our fourth in that series at the same time looking to debut several new heroes and a brand new anthology of such called Mystery Men now in production.
AP: What does it take to be a writer or artist at Airship 27? What are you looking for in staff members?
RF: There is no staff per se, just yours truly and Rob. As for how does one get to work for Airship 27, that’s an easy question to answer. All creators need do is send me a sample of their work. With writers I ask to see two pages of fiction focusing on high speed action, whereas artists have to impress me with their level of skill and understanding of what it means to illustrate a scene. It is not comic drawing and many artists really can’t do it. The same applies to those artists wanting to do our covers. They need to understand the differences between a comic cover and a fully painted pulp cover.
AP: Are there any long term plans for Airship 27 that go beyond publishing quality pulp collections and novels or are you and company just pleased to be doing what you’re doing?
RF: I don’t really see us expanding the books department. Being basically a two man operation, we’d like to continue releasing between 10 and 12 books a year. But at the same time we have also started putting together pulp themed comic books that will tie in with our prose books. We’ve a Captain Hazzard graphic novel in the works and another starring Secret Agent X. So in that regards, Airship 27 will expand to some degree.
AP: You are a publisher, but you came into this field a writer. What are some of your writing credits in the pulp field?
RF: Hmmm, okay. I created and wrote the Brother Bones character/anthology. Co-wrote the Hounds of Hell with Gordon Linzner wherein the Moon Man battles Doctor Satan and of course my four Captain Hazzard novels. I’ve also contributed shorts stories to many of Moonstone’s Chronicles series to include the Spider, the Phantom, Domino Lady, Green Hornet and the Avenger. I am also writing a comic strip pulp series for their Return of the Original lines starring I.V. Frost with art by Jake Minor.
AP: Captain Hazzard is one of your credits. You’ve written one novel and have another in the works. But Captain Hazzard’s original lifetime in the pulp lasted all of one issue of one magazine. What appeals to you about this character so much that you breathe life into him again in the modern era?
RF: I’ve actually written four Captain Hazzard novels, starting with my re-write of the one and only 1938 magazine adventure, Python Men of the Lost City. Then with Martin Powell, co-wrote Citadel of Fear, followed by Curse of the Red Maggot and finally Cavemen of New York. And yes, I am currently writing Captain Hazzard # 5 which I hope to have finished by the end of the year. Hazzard appealed to me because he very much a clean slate. Having only appeared in that one story, most of the potential inherent in the concept was never realized and I saw an opportunity to do that. To take the series in whatever direction I wanted to and make it mine. Something that would have been impossible doing pastiches of licenses stars like the Shadow and Doc Savage. Apparently the fans like what I’ve done with Captain Hazzard and want to seem more. I’m only happy to oblige them.
AP: Tell us a bit about your original characters you’ve created for pulp. Can you give us five or so sentences on any Fortier original pulp characters?
RF: Brother Bones is a former mob assassin who is sent back from the dead to atone for his sins by avenging the innocent victims of crime in the dark city of Cape Fear. He’s a zombie avenger and his stories deal with the supernatural. Whereas John Lazarus is the leader of the Ghost Squad that I created with a writer Andrew Salmon. He appeared in their debut novel, Rise of the Black Legion. He is the Lazarus from the bible and is immortal. He has led various teams throughout history in combating Satan’s legions and in this new pulp series, he puts together another team in the late 1930s to fight Hitler and the Nazis. Andrew and I hope to get a second book done in the near future.
AP: You’re also a reviewer of pulp fiction. Do you have a particular process you go through when doing a review? Do you just read the material, then write your opinion or do you have a checklist that you use when you read something, looking for certain things, or any other techniques you use in doing reviews?
RF: I have no set formula for writing my reviews. I merely read the book, allow my reactions to settle in and then write my honest thoughts about what I’ve read. Obviously for me to label anything pulp, be it a western, crime novel or sci-fi, it has to meet certain requirements ala fast pacing, exotic locales and heroic characters. If those are present, then I feel justified in reviewing the book as a pulp. Currently my Pulp Fiction Reviews are being posted on four different websites beside my original blog page. Guess you could say I’m net syndicated. Ha.
AP: You are founder and a member of the Pulp Factory? Just what is the Pulp Factory and what are the Pulp Factory awards?
RF: The Pulp Factory began as just another Yahoo Web Group for pulp fans. Thing is it just got bigger with more and more members. Two years ago, two of them suggested we create some kind of award to support and promote “new” pulp art and fiction. That year, at the Windy City Pulp Con, ten of us from the PF got together over breakfast one morning and hashed out the creation of the Pulp Factory Awards. Rob designed an actual statue and proceeded to find a sculpture to get them made. I, in turn, worked up the nomination and voting process and we created four categories to include Best Pulp Novel, Best Pulp Short Story, Best Pulp Cover and Best Pulp Interior Art. These to be awarded for material published the previous year. There were other parameters which we explained to the membership. Only members of the PF can nominate and vote on the final ballot awards. Then we contacted Doug Ellis, one of the promoters of Windy City and asked if we could make our first every presentation at their show this past Spring.
Thus we awarded the first ever Pulp Factory Awards for works done in 2009. They were a huge success and got us lots of great publicity and tons of new members, almost swelling our ranks to twice their size. Come Jan. 2011, nominations for the 2010 PFA will begin and by April, we will be giving out four more very cool statues at Windy City.
Note, any pulp fan reading this who would like to join the Pulp Factory and participate just needs to drop me a line. Membership is by invitation only.
AP: Any future projects you want to promote? Your own work? Anything on the horizon from Airship 27?
RF: Our most successful Airship 27 series to date has been our Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective which went to number 45 on the Amazon Mystery Anthology list. Bloody amazing. Volume Two sold just as well. I want to let all our SH fans know that we are indeed releasing a Volume Three in Jan. 2011 and the stories are as ever top notch, old fashion Holmes and Watson winners. Don Gates has created a new pulp hero called Challenger Storm and his first novel will soon be coming out and features interior art by one of the finest graphic artist in the history of American illustrations. His identity will surprise lots of people. And writer R.A. Jones has signed on to write a new series of adventure fantasy books for us that I can only describe as the exploits of a Native American Conan in a world where there were no Europeans to invade these shores. It has the potential to be something truly unique and pure pulp magic. Tentative title, Deathwalker. Look for that also in 2011. That and of course lots and lots of other cool pulp stuff.
AP: Ron, it’s been a genuine pleasure sitting down with you!
RF : Pleasure was all mine, thanks a million!
This call for creators is taken from http://www.thelibraryofthelivingdead.com/
“Greetings one and all,
I spoke to the good doctor about Deaf Mute Press and The Library putting out a joint venture. What made the most sense would be “These Terrible Times” an anthology featuring the dead.
For some history on what pulps are (or were), they were showcases for some of the greatest sci-fi and horror writers the world has ever known. Pulps were most prominent from the 1920’s through the early 1960’s as the medium died off. Not before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, R.E. Howard, H.G. Wells and many others first printed original stories and characters that have become icons.
Well, I decided to bring it back. Pulps were developed to be a cheap alternative to books and in the early years, comics.
Guidelines are as follows:
This will be published Quarterly starting in Jan/Feb 2011
There will be 3 “feature” stories each issue. They will compromise about 3-10k words each. Depending on the quality of stories, SERIALIZED stories are strongly requested but not a requirement.
The featured stories will be handpicked from the best submissions, i would like to have at least 1 serialized story in each issue.
Flash is welcome too, about 7-8 flash stories could be included in each issue. Short stories between 500-2k will have space for 3 or 4.
Cover artists are welcome, painted or fully colored line art is requested.
Payment will be .01 per word or an equal # of contributor copies, whichever the writer or artist prefers. Payment of the cover artwork will be negotiated prior to acceptance.
I will have updates weekly to let everyone know what type of story is required to fill the issue. Projected to have between 40-52 pages each issue.
Dimensions will be 6.75″ x 9.75″
The stories? Wide open, there are no types of guidelines, just have zombies in the story.
I know i am missing something but i can’ t think of it, either pm me or post whatever questions you have.
SUBMIT stories to deafmutepress (at) gmail.com starting september 10th.”
In honor of monsters, October, and the number 13 (okay, ALL PULP added all that hyperbole, but it still works!) veteran pulp writer Joshua Reynolds is giving away copies of his newest work!! From the writer’s own blog-
“…so here’s the deal: seeing as it’s the unluckiest day of the most spooktacular month, I’m offering THIRTEEN FREE electronic copies of Dracula Lives! to the first thirteen people to do a Dracula-related post on their blog, journal, facebook, tumblr or what have you which also links back to my ‘Dracula Month’ posts (just click the tag at the bottom of this post). When you’ve made your post, simply drop the link into a comment on this blog, and I’ll send you your free e-book. How much easier could it get?
MGM
1990
Directed by Simon Wincer
Produced by Stanley O’Toole and Alexandra Rose
Written by John Hill
Original Music by Basil Poledouris
I think it’s really a damn shame that Tom Selleck never became as big a movie star as I think he solidly deserved to be. He got jerked out of playing Indiana Jones and despite whatever you may have heard from that friend of yours who knows all about movies or that other friend who claims he knows the “real story” Tom Selleck was the first choice of both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for Indiana Jones.
Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck) is a cowboy/sharpshooter from
He would have been much better off just saying no and going on back home. He’s beaten half to death, taken out to the unforgiving
QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER is rarely mentioned when even western fans get together and I don’t know why. It’s got Tom Selleck who is one of the few modern actors who actually looks as if he belongs in The Old West. He’s a worthy successor to Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, both of who would have slid into this role like you slide into your favorite jeans. He’s tough when he has to be in his scenes with Alan Rickman and tender in his scenes with Laura San Giacomo. Selleck has studied his westerns and he knows that in a role like this less is more. He says only what he has to say and no more. It’s a great old school performance.
Laura San Giacomo is totally terrific. She has to carry the load of being the only comic relief in the movie and she does it by creating a character that has us constantly wondering: “is she really crazy or just playing crazy?” Even covered in dirt she’s mad sexy and she has two really great scenes: one where she softly tells Quigley what happened to make her crazy and the other is where she spends a horrifying night defending an aborigine baby from a pack of dingos.
Alan Rickman is wonderful as Elliot Marston and if you expect to see him playing Hans Gruber In A Western, think again. Rickman’s too damn good for that. Marston’s a separate bad guy and he and Quigley make for wonderfully matched opponents. It helps that Rickman and Selleck look as if they’re having just as much fun going up against each other as Rickman and Willis did.
What else can I mention? Oh, yes…the simply magnificent score by Basil Poledouris. If you don’t know the work of this master then shame on you. And for QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER he composed one the most heroic, rousing scores I’ve ever heard for a movie. The location work is beautiful and really gives you a sense of how big
So should you see QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER? I give thee a resounding “YES”. If you’re a fan of Tom Selleck in particular or westerns in general then you really ought to do yourself a favor and see this one. It’s got a solid story, some terrific action sequences and strong acting. QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER is a movie that belongs in the library of every movie fan.
PG-13
119 minutes
OUT OF THE DARK
By David Weber
Tor Books
381 pages
The plot is direct enough. The setting is the very near future, by only a few years. A warrior race known as the Shongairi have been given the permission of a space United Nations known as the Galactic Hemegony to invade and subjugate the Earth, based on early exploratory by other races of the Hemegony. Their reports indicated the planet’s inhabitants were a savage race and as the majority of the alien council was made up of peace loving beings, the Shongairi seemed the perfect choice to handle the Earth situation. Early on in the story, the commanding officer of the invading fleet espouses his own theories on the politics behind his people having been granted this so called privilege. He full suspects the Hemegony are hoping the Earthlings will prove difficult to the point of inflicting enough damage to weaken the Shongairi thus making them easier to handle. The Hemegony are all too aware of the Shongairi’s unbridled ambitions to expand their empire.
Of course the commander and his officers consider this a ridiculous idea as their own hubris is blinding them to the fact that all their previous victories were of Class One civilizations with no technology to speak of. Whereas the Shongairi scouting probes report the Earth has developed to a Class Two status to include nuclear capabilities that suggest other technological advances, particularly in military fields. Still, having never known defeat, the Shongairi launch their invasion by bombarding the Earth’s major capitol cities and within hours decimate a quarter of the world’s population.
Weber is a skilled military writer and he describes the destruction from outer space clearly and economically. Then he begins to introduce us to several strong willed individuals throughout the world who will be the book’s protagonists. A couple of former marine survivalists living in the mountains of South Carolina, an African American Marine Sergeant trapped in Romania with a handful of soldiers, a Russian engineer from Moscow and a U.S. Navy fighter pilot who manages to shoot down the Shongairi troop shuttles within mere hours of their attack. It is his actions that set the tempo for the remainder of the book, as his effective retaliation is the first actual loss the enemy aliens have ever encountered and all too soon pockets of human resistance begin popping up everywhere, striking back at the invaders with effective armament the likes of which they had never encountered before.
Weber lays it on fast and furious all of which leads to a dead road culmination for the Shongairi. If they cannot successfully defeat the human race, then they will merely retreat and bomb the planet to oblivion.
The question then becomes, will the humans survive and is there any way they can possibly turn the tables and actual defeat the invaders? Therein lays the resolution that caught me by surprise because for the most part the book is science fiction and Weber’s solution strays afar into that other genre we alluded to earlier. In a way that some readers may not appreciate and I can sympathize with them. On the other hand, I was delighted with it and applaud Weber for having the literary bravado to pull it off, particularly in his being able to subtlety play on the book’s very title with that particular climax.
Bottom line, OUT OF THE DARK is a terrific read that had me from the first page and kept me enthralled to the very last. If you are willing to have fun with fiction of this type, then hang on and enjoy the ride. It’s a wild one.
AS: They are great characters. That’s pretty much it. They are fun, dynamic and the non-stop action pacing is too good to pass up from both a reading and writing standpoint. Also, unlike the pulp writers of the Golden Age, we have the benefit of hindsight and can explore historical themes the original pulp writers were not aware of or were unable to write about. For instance, my Dan Fowler tale (“The League of Dead Patriots”) deals with the Japanese internment camps of WW2 in a way that the pulps of the day would never have tried. And it doesn’t even have to go as far as the complete plot. Having that period be historical for us modern writers gives us great freedom to include little details here and there for attentive readers to catch. It can be something as simple as a nostalgic touch or historical name dropping. Plus with all these characters in the public domain, we can do the odd team up every now and then and really go to town! And there’s also the opportunity to grow the genre. Read the first Doc Savage and then the last novel from 1949, the characters are not the same. They have changed, evolved. Perhaps not for the better in some cases but that evolution is unmistakeable. I love all the great elements that go into a good pulp story. I wouldn’t write pulp if I didn’t. However with this new era of unprecedented pulp creation going on today, all of the modern day writers and artists are the new vanguard of the genre and it’s up to us to continue to grow the art form. That said, I feel I should stress that the classic elements have to be in place. That’s a must! But just like that subtle evolution from the 30s to the 40s, pulp needs to push the envelope a little. Being a small part of this new pulp revolution is one heck of a lot of fun. The myriad titles published in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s demonstrate that there really are no boundaries when it comes to pulp and I’m curious to see where the genre is going. I think the genre can be experimented with and yet still be authentic to pulp readers young and old. It’s a great time to be a pulp creator and I wouldn’t miss it for the world!
Wayne Skiver’s RAYGUN CAF’ gets an awesome write up spotlighting the new eatery in the St. Louis area. Check it out at http://www.stlmag.com/!
Also, RAYGUN CAFE is hosting a rather unique sci fi pulp centered exhibit. According to Wayne, “Raygun Cafe’ The ONLY Pulp/Comic/& Sci-Fi themed Restaurant in this dimension is playing host to the amazing Stained Glass work of St. Louis Artist William Mark Wallis. “Robots Under Glass” features iconic imagery drawn from movies, magazines, and imagination. On display now. Illuminated Photographs of select pieces will be posted soon on this and other related sites!”
ELIZABETH BISSETTE, Writer/Performer/Relative of Pulp Icon
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| Elizabeth Bissette, wearing Norvell Page’s fedora and holding his .22 |
Through the course of all this I’ve become an Outlaw Americana singer-songwriter and visual artist, with the official Outlaw nick-name Lonesome Liz. (Hellbilly Outlaw authority and filmmaker Cuzn Wildweed (
http://www.myspace.com/cousinwildweed) told me Outlaws had nicknames and that was bound to be mine; I figured he knew more about it than I did and have kept it ever since.) I also play a little banjo; had the good fortune of learning a little from a man in Appalachia named Bill Garvin, who played with Bill Monroe early on.There’s more to it than that, but that’s the backbone of it. Mr. Seeger died last year and my interview was the last he did. I can’t thank him in person anymore for how our talks were so pivotal for me and how other artists have told me since they’ve in a way been important for them to0. He centered a lot of his work academically so I’m putting together a Masters Thesis of Thank You – I’m going to put all the research, some done with his feedback, into a Public Folk Studies thesis. I majored in Religious studies so there’s going to be a Folk Belief track too. I’m the only person I’ve heard of who’s getting an MA in Hoodoo.
AP: Now, let’s get to that special connection to the Pulp field. You are related to a key figure in Pulp fiction. Would you elaborate on that, please?
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| One of only two existing photos of Norvell Page |
At the time, Mr. Lee was still with Marvel so I just looked at the website, found what appeared to be the right e-mail for him and wrote, “Dear Mr. Lee, I’m the Great-Niece of Norvell Page and I have heard that my Great-Uncle wrote something about Spiderman, but have no idea if it’s true or even what it was.”
Well, it may not surprise you but it sure surprised me to receive an e-mail back from Mr. Lee in I think maybe 10 minutes, saying “Great Gotham! We’ve been wondering what happened to Norvell Page since 1943!” Not in those exact words of course but it was rather overwhelming to discover that, not only had I been looking for the truth behind Norvell’s Spider but Spidey apparently had been looking for the truth behind Norvell. It was every bit as life changing as that phone call to Mike Seeger.
He grew up in an old Southern family, the Pages arrived in Virginia very early on, 1652. Their first land grant became Williamsburg eventually and they had a lot to do with the founding of some of the major sites there, William and Mary, (which he briefly attended) and Bruton Parish Church are the main ones. A long line of revolutionaries, statesmen and writers as well. The popular Ante-Bellum novelist Thomas Nelson Page, for example, was a close relative.
Norvell started out as a journalist and wound up in New York after his writing had started taking off enough to make a move there make sense. He wrote for the Times and also the World Telegram, where Varian Fry, who spearheaded the International Rescue Committee, an operation that got a number of major artists and thinkers out of occupied Europe, was an editor at the time. Family rumor has it and considering his later government career it’s certainly plausible, that he got his start in intelligence work helping Mr. Fry. I’ve not yet been able to fully substantiate it but he was right there with Varian, was later an official intelligence worker as fellow writer Ian Fleming was and maintained a lifelong friendship with Max Ernst, the husband of Peggy Guggenheim, who funded the committee.
As you and your readers know, he became a tremendously influential and prolific Pulp writer; ‘the Batman’ first appeared in a Spider story (editor’s note-A character, different from the later, more famous one, named ‘Bat-Man’ appeared in the Spider Novel DEATH REIGN OF THE VAMPIRE KING, published approximately six years prior to the debut of DC Comics’ Batman) and he later also wrote two ‘Black Bat’ tales. He also wrote what’s considered a classic, ‘But Without Horns’, a story that explores the concept of a ‘superman’ but this time as a villain, and, of course, he created the Spider. It’s hard to imagine what comics would be like today without the vast imagination of Norvell Page playing such a heavy role in Pulp Fiction.
His career with the Government would probably be boring to read in an outline but he moved from Committee to Committee, clearly trying to make the world a better place as best he could; you can find an outline of that in his obituaries at my Norvell Page blog. He was one of the only members of these committee who remained in the Executive Offices of the President which I guess translates to real close to where all the action was. At the time of his death he was the Editor in Chief for the Atomic Energy Commission, and he was also one of the first six people appointed to that Commission. He died, unquestionably suspiciously, around the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Another tells of him rescuing all of them again from certain destruction. He was home for Christmas from college and it was back in the days when candles were still used for the trees. Well, I guess everyone had too much eggnog and someone forgot to put the candles out. The house caught on fire and Norvell somehow woke up. He didn’t panic but instead threw his mattress out his window, ran and grabbed my grandmother and my Great-Uncle Roger, then infants, shouted through the halls to wake everyone up and jumped with one of them under each arm out the window.
Last but not least, by the next Christmas he couldn’t bear to be away from Audrey, his high school sweetheart who the family didn’t approve of. He left William and Mary to elope with her. To keep his parents in the dark about what they’d done, he left letters with his room-mate describing how he was doing in college to be mailed, one a week, over the remainder of the semester. He then went to nearby Norfolk and told the editor of the paper there that he was 18 and had already been writing for the Times Dispatch in Richmond. They gave him, I believe, an editing job. And so his writing career began.
The family, however, did not approve of Pulp Fiction or consider it a worthwhile use of his writing ability; that’s part of the reason no one ever talked about it. His father had wanted him to be the next Poe (who was also from Richmond and who had worked with my Great-Great Uncle, Lawrence Page on the Southern Literary Messenger), and seems to have been disappointed. He was too close to it to realize he actually sort of was the next Poe I suppose. So, in a way, that was probably a negative.
Norvell’s Ken Carter stories were released at that time and they included my favorite tale of his, ‘Satan’s Sideshow’ and also one called ‘Hell’s Music’, which I thought touched in an odd way my connection with the Hellbillies, (and I had the good fortune of having Hellbilly artists Cuzn Wildweed and J.B. Beverley (
http://www.myspace.com/waywarddrifters) as performers). It wasn’t a play of his stories but inspired by the way both of our imaginations unwittingly went in the same direction. The play was a Southern folklore interpretation of ‘Faust’ at its core, with the ghosts of Sideshow workers and historic figures, including Norvell, playing a part in my (the ‘Faust’) damnation.There was an accompanying visual art exhibit to the Sideshow, which featured artists from all over the world, everywhere from Hazard, Kentucky to London! I was fortunate to have some amazing people participate – including Molly Crabapple (
http://www.mollycrabapple.com), a visual artist and entrepreneur who founded Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, (she’s also done some work with ‘Weird Tales’ and Marvel, the earth shattering ‘Scarlet Takes Manhattan’, for example), Katelan Foisy (http://www.katelanfoisy.com), another New York artist, painted me as ‘Faust’ for the exhibit, Wes Freed (http://www.wesfreed.com), who’s best known for his Drive by Truckers album and poster art was part of it; and many others. It was fantastic. A local sculptor contributed a giant black widow spider they hung from the ceiling with a banjo instead of a violin.All of those remarkable creative minds, and many others, joined together in what was, I think a remarkable tribute to him. What’s so lasting about Norvell isn’t just his work but his influence on other artists and what I love most about the show is that it reflected that, albeit in perhaps an unexpected way.
I’d love to write Pulp stories or comics myself, maybe something that included 5 stories in 5 genres as a tribute to him. I’ve been turning ideas over for a while. The characters are there though. There’s a Lonesome Liz Hoodoo Detective, Katelan Foisy inspired a character named Penny Dreadful, a Western based on the Dodge City Gang; I’m sure it will happen in time.
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