Author: Tommy Hancock

PULP ARK 2013- NOTED CRIME/MYSTERY/NOIR WRITER ADDED AS GUEST!

  • News
  • October 29, 2012

Pulp Ark 2013, the official New Pulp Creators’ Conference and Convention, created and sponsored by Pro Se Productions, a Publisher of Heroic Fiction, tales of multiple genres, and New Pulp, announced today one of its many fantastic guests already making plans to attend the third annual event in its new location, Springdale, Arkansas, April 26-28th!

“It’s a big year for us,” Tommy Hancock, Founder and Organizer of Pulp Ark stated.  “We’re moving, expanding, bringing in old friends and new favorites, so we want any and all news we have to go out as often as it can, to keep Pulp Ark in the forefront of everyone’s mind.  And this guest is definitely news.”

Crime fiction and New Pulp writer Gary Phillips has written short stories for Moonstone’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook, the Avenger Chronicles and the Green Hornet Casefiles.  His most current novel is Warlord of Willow Ridgewhich Booklist said of the work, “Phillips is a veteran crime novelist who creates a plausible postapocalyptic scenario in which the safety of middle-class America can dissolve in a moment. Exciting, violent, and entertaining.”  He has also written essays for the Robert B. Parker tribute book, In Pursuit of Spenser and for The Wire: Race, Class, and Genre, as well is the creator behind the popular detective character Nate Hollis, first seen at Vertigo and most recently in the Moonstone collection Angeltown.  Currently with Tommy Hancock and Pro Se Press, Philips is co-editing and contributing to Black Pulp, pulp stories featuring black main characters, and editing and contributing to a themed linked anthology of short stories, Night of the Insurgents, showcasing America’s super spy before Bauer and Bourne, Jimmy Christopher, Operator 5, for Moonstone. 


Phillips will be a guest at Pulp Ark 2013, participating in Panels as well as visiting with fans, interacting with other creators, and finding all the action there is to be had at Pulp Ark 2013!

For more information on Pulp Ark 2013, go to http://www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com/p/pulp-ark.html ! Stay tuned to that page for early registration, guest and vendor applications, and more!

HALLOWEEN HORRORS BEWARE-MONSTER ACES DEBUTS FROM PRO SE!

  • News
  • October 26, 2012

Pro Se Productions, a cutting edge Publisher of Heroic Fiction and New Pulp, introduces a concept that plunges a Team of Adventurers headlong into cataclysmic conflict with classic horror creatures!  They don’t just hunt Monsters… They Destroy Them! They are the MONSTER ACES!

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 Having selflessly abandoned their identities, their pasts and their futures, the Monster Aces are all that stand between humanity and the fell creatures that lurk in the shadows. Four men and one woman use their amazing abilities as a team to scour the globe for monsters and bring an end to their unholy existence – whatever the danger, whatever the cost. Through five thrilling tales crafted by some of Heroic Fiction’s most engaging authors you will ride alongside the Aces on the trail of monsters both classic and new. No environment is too severe nor too remote for these adventurers to seek their prey and destroy them forever. The team, lead by a mysterious military veteran, uncover evil in mysterious European villages, in dark forests and fetid swamps, in ancient rivers and on the high seas…monsters are everywhere, but so too are the Monster Aces. Concept creator Jim Beard is joined by writers Ron Fortier, Barry Reese, and Van Plexico for a new twist on the classic monster stories of yore, a unique melding of horror and driving pulp action that will thrill and chill you.

Featuring appropriately creepy and stunning cover art by Terry Pavlet and the always exemplary design and logo work of Sean Ali, MONSTER ACES is equal parts action, horror, and mayhem as Man versus Monster in five titanic tales of terror!


MONSTER ACES is available at Pro Se’s Createspace store by clicking HERE!
Get your copy of MONSTER ACES at Amazon by clicking HERE!
Ebook coming SOON!
And join Creator Jim Beard and Contributor Barry Reese at Pro Se’s Promotional Party for MONSTER ACES via Shindig on Saturday, October 27, 2012 from 2 to 3:30 PM at http://www.shindig.com/event/prose2 .  RSVP Today!

LOST NOVELS OF ARNOLD HANO DEBUT!

  • News
  • October 26, 2012

3 Steps To Hell

Rediscovering the Lost Novels

of Arnold Hano

Stark House Press, in the business of reprinting some of the best mysteries and supernatural fiction of the past 100 years, is pleased to announce the publication and launch of 3 STEPS TO HELL, an omnibus of three hard-hitting novels by Arnold Hano. 

Many know Arnold’s name as the editor of noirmeister Jim Thompson at Lion books – Hano was the man who guided Thompson during his most productive period.  Others may know Arnold penned A Day in the Bleachers, the seminal book about baseball from a fan’s perspective centered around “The Catch” by Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series. But what few may not be aware of is that Hano, under his own name and several aliases, wrote novels featuring driven, flawed characters.

3 Steps to Hell reprints for the first time three of Arnold’s books.  The Big Out was his first novel and was set, appropriately, in the world of baseball.  The story features major league players, gangsters, bribes and the outlaw teams of Canada.  In So I’m a Heel, a WWII vet, with plastic for a jaw shattered by a sniper’s bullet, seeks to blackmail a rich man over his terrible secret, but the scheme goes way wrong.  And in Flint, a western inspired by Jim Thompson’s Savage Night, a tormented gunslinger takes on one more job to kill for money. 

This edition also features an introduction by crime novelist Gary Phillips (The Warlord of Willow Ridge) and a Q & A with Arnold conducted by his longtime friend, playwright Dan Duling.  3 Steps to Hell can be obtained via your local bookstore or direct from Stark House Press —http://www.starkhousepress.com/hano.html

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO VAMPIRE NOVEL ‘GALEN’

  • News
  • October 26, 2012

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT-Reviews o f All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

GALEN
by Allan Gilbreath
Published by Kerlak Publishing

It is no secret, I do not think, to anyone who follows my reviews that I am not the biggest fan of the current books produced by the wave of interest in monsters.  In no way am I a proponent of Zombie fiction, I cough up hairballs at the thought of sexy werewolves, and my blood absolutely runs cold at the thought of sparkling bloodsuckers. So a ‘modern monster’ book is a really hard sell for me.

Enter ‘Galen’ by Allan Gilbreath.

A writer known by many far and wide for his ability to essentially conquer any genre he takes a swipe at, Gilbreath is also the maniacal mind behind Kerlak Publishing, a publishing house spotlighting many up and coming works and writers of all types, including a name or three familiar to New Pulpsters and others that will be soon enough.  Gilbreath brings his tremendous talent to bear on a trope of fiction. Vampire tales, that many have believed was so tired and exhausted that it required prettying up and repackaging.

Gilbreath did just that, but not by turning vampires into eternal teenagers, but by taking the beast back to its roots in a lot of ways.  ‘Galen’ is the first book in a series about the title character, a vampire.  Almost instantaneously, Galen reminds readers of the gentlemanly vampire, popularized by Bela Lugosi, the regal bearing, the genteel trappings.   But under that refined sophistication lurks something sinister, something single minded, something hungry.  Allan Gilbreath in just a handful of pages reminds his readers that vampires are monsters.  And Galen, in all his complex dealings to live amongst humans and his meticulous planning as well as his description of potential victims as if they were cattle in front of a butcher shop, is most definitely most modern and monstrous.

‘Galen’ follows two stories essentially, of course both tying back into our title character.  One concerns a past feeding of Galen’s and, when he returns to the area several years later, the renewed interest of one of his victim’s friends in the mysterious deaths from before.  The other thread focuses squarely on Galen’s need to feed and who and what he seeks out for dinner.  

This book is filled with an eerie pulpiness that many writers don’t even attempt to reach anymore.  It’s not got explosions, ray guns, or many fist fights.  This book is all about pursuit, the hunt, prey and predator.  In that, Gilbreath builds the action at a subtle pace that ends up being breakneck before you know it.  Galen is reprehensible, yet likable.  He is thirsty, yet affable.   He is hunger made human, but you simply can’t get enough of him.

The only technical negative with ‘Galen’ is that the transition between the two threads was a tad wobbly at times, but that can be overlooked largely by the fantastic way that Gilbreath tied them together when it counted.  

FOUR OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-Definitely no sparkles here (Although Gilbreath will gladly tell you about how that part of being a Vampire is actually part of the original legends!).  Galen is a flat out monster book with a monster you can’t help but like. And he’d like you too.  With a pinch of salt.

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘TARGET LANCER’!

  • Uncategorized
  • October 26, 2012

ALL PULP REVIEWS- By Ron Fortier
TARGET LANCER
By Max Allan Collins
Forge Books
305 pages
Available Nov.2012

John F. Kennedy was the first American Catholic to become president back in 1960.  That was a big deal for this reviewer who was Catholic, 13 years old and entering his freshmen year at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, a parochial school in Southern New Hampshire.  Three years later, while sitting in a study hall as a junior, we were interrupted by the announcement over the public address speakers that President Kennedy had been shot while riding in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas.
As much as that news was a tragedy for the entire country, those of us too young to realize the consequences of such a murder watched the transition of power take affect just as we’d been taught in our civic classes and found comfort in that process.  Five years later, while serving in army in Vietnam, the news of Bobby Kennedy’s assignation during his own campaign for the presidency had a much deeper impact. Here we were in a strange, foreign country supposedly fighting for freedom and democracy while back home the nation’s future was being decided by an insane gunman’s bullet.  The world seemed to have gone completely mad.
The Twentieth Century certainly had its defining moments, many of them acts of violence forever imprinted on our national consciousness.  Naturally the public wanted answers and within week’s of the President’s death a government investigation was launched and came to be known as the Warren Commission.  At its conclusion, it declared that Kennedy had been slain by one lone, crazed gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.  As all of you are well aware, Oswald was gunned down in front of the Dallas jail within days of his capture and died before ever going to trial.  His killer was the owner of a local strip joint with mob connections named Jack Ruby.
Ruby swore he acted on his own until his death in prison of cancer.  Yet to many people his silencing of Oswald seemed to be a cleverly staged killing orchestrated by Machiavellian forces that wanted the truth kept hidden; the same cabal that was actually responsible for Kennedy’s death.  As years passed, many investigators, both private and public, began to uncover mountains of damning evidence that in the end turned the Warren Commission’s finding upside down and definitively proved them to be one massive cover up foisted on the American people.
When we learned that Max Allan Collins’ newest Nathan Heller historical thriller would involve the Kennedy assassination we were naturally intrigued.  What new light could the talented Collins and his phenomenal research partner, George Hagenauer, shed on one of the most overexposed criminal events in all of history?  Having just finished reading “Target Lancer,” the answer to that question provides the basis for one of the most gripping mystery plots ever put to paper.  As usual, Collins sets a historically accurate background then superimposes his own thoughts and beliefs about its scenario via his fictional hero, Nate Heller; the owner of the A-1 Detective Agency of Chicago.  At the book’s opening, Heller is recruited by the Chicago branch of the Secret Service to help with security measures for the president’s planned visit to the Windy City.  Apparently during the Fall of 1963, Kennedy’s people had begun to organize his re-election campaign via several big city visits to include Tampa, Chicago and then Dallas.  With only one year remaining in his term, it was time to start politicking once more.
Within days of agreeing to help the local authorities, Heller is sent to interview a Chicago detective who he has come in contact with an irrational ex-marine who might pose a genuine threat.  From this slim lead, Heller and his partner, a black Secret Service agent named Eben Boldt, learn of a professional hit squad made of two Americans and two Cuban refugees apparently surveying the proposed route of the president’s motorcade through the city.  As each new element is uncovered, Heller starts mentally assembling a jigsaw puzzle that perfectly defines a clandestine military operation.  By the books end, he has unraveled a murderous conspiracy made up of gangland figures and corrupted government agents to eliminate Lance; the Secret Service code name for President Kennedy.
What “Target Lancer” exposes is that the there were three identical hit squads, and their duped patsies, established in all three cities prior to that fateful November in 1963.  As with all Heller books, the historical afterward Collins provides is just as informative as his fiction is captivating.  Upon finishing the book, this reviewer couldn’t help but wonder, now that most of the real principles have all died and gone to their eternal court of judgment, what it is we, as a nation can learn from such history?  Evil men do exist and that we must be ever vigilant to assure they do not usurp the rights of the many by their insidious acts of violence. 
For both students of history and lovers of suspense mysteries, “Target Lancer” is a masterful work not to be missed. Collins just keeps getting better and better.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO LANSDALE’S ‘EDGE OF DARK WATER’

  • News
  • October 24, 2012

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

EDGE OF DARK WATER
by Joe R. Lansdale
Published by Mulholland Books

edge-of-dark-water-6459174

There are several names that get bandied about today, and when I say names I don’t necessarily refer to those of us considered firmly under the New Pulp umbrella, but I mean writers that have some notoriety in other ways but clearly also have Pulp sensibilities in their work.   One that is coming up like that more and more frequently, and rightfully so, is Joe R. Lansdale.

Apparently able to tackle just about any genre and any character, from Tarzan to two of my favorites of his own creating (Hap and Leonard), Lansdale is not only an accomplished writer and master of the craft.  He is someone who clearly enjoys the process of creating, the firestorm of breathing life into figments and words.   That is clearly evident in EDGE OF DARK WATER.

EDGE OF DARK WATER, according to the back cover is ‘Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King.’ Although that is a good mash up comparison, I see some other qualities in this work.  

Set in East Texas, EDGE follows Sue Ellen, a teenage girl who has an abusive father, a mother who seems to care about nothing, and, as the book opens, a dead friend.  A dead friend who had aspirations to be a Hollywood starlet.   Disturbed by the fact that this dream is gone for the departed, Sue Ellen determines to dig up her friend, burn the body, and transport the ashes to Hollywood.  Teaming up with her only two friends, each having their own reasons for wanting to leave, Sue Ellen sets off downriver on a journey that will forever alter her as well as those closest…and farthest from her.

EDGE OF DARK WATER definitely harkens back to Twain’s Huck Finn and has that rural eeriness that permeates King’s early work.  But it has so much more.  This is a classic quest story, heroes off on a journey to take a friend to her final resting place.  It’s also a chase story as a Villain of sorts almost ripped from the pages of a Pulp it seems joins the journey, out to make sure Sue Ellen never finishes it.  But even beyond all that, this is a study of people, a varied wide expanse of humanity laid open and filleted for the reader to ingest, enjoy, and even be appropriately disturbed by.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-EDGE OF DARK WATER is most definitely a multifaceted story that touches every button a Pulp fan might have and goes far beyond that.

BROTHER BONES SPEAKS AGAIN ON AUDIO!

  • Uncategorized
  • October 24, 2012

PRESS RELEASE
BROTHER BONES AUDIO  #2

Airship 27 Productions and Dynamic Ram Audio are very, very happy to announce the release of the second Brother Bones audio pulp adventure as read by Mark Kalita with production by Sound Engineer Chris Barnes.
Following the successful release of the origin story, “The Bone Brothers,” this second story, of the seven that appeared in Airship 27 Productions’ book BROTHER BONES – THE UNDEAD AVENGER, is titled “Shield and Claw,” and has the grim hero of Port Noir battling a savage werewolf in a fast paced, melodramatics audio experience.
“Once again, voice actor Mark Kalita provides the chills,” Airship 27 Managing Editor Ron Fortier applauds enthusiastically.  “His reading pulls the listener along like a runaway freight train and Chris adds the proper mood music and effects to properly heighten the suspense.”
Airship 27 Production is selling each of the original stories individually for $2 each as mp3 downloads from their website.  After all seven have been produced and released individually, the entire book audio package will go on sale for $9.99, a $4 savings.
Art Director Rob Davis has provided cover images from the illustrations he drew for each story.   SHIELD AND CLAW is an audio pulp written by Ron Fortier and read by Mark Kalita is now on sale and is the perfect “treat” for this Halloween season.
We are also in the process of putting out a brand new edition of the book that will soon be available on Create Space, Amazon, Indy Planet and Kindle.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO ‘TEN-A-WEEK STEALE’

  • Uncategorized
  • October 23, 2012

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

TEN-A-WEEK STEALE
by Stephen Jared
Solstice Publishing
303 Pages

It isn’t very often that an author comes along who simultaneously truly evokes the style and temperament of classic Pulp while adding modern sensibilities and more sophisticated phrases and tricks to the package.    We all strive for it and some of us have moments of it, but very rarely does a writer show up that does it well, consistently, and every time he puts his name on a book.

Meet Stephen Jared.

Author of TEN-A-WEEK-STEALE, Jared is a creator of all sorts.  He’s a writer of course, but he’s also done a bit of time in front of television and film cameras.   He has a love affair with acting and moreso with Hollywood, not Hollywood Today, but Hollywood bygone.   The time when people dreamed in black and white and movie moguls captured those fantasies on celluloid.  And Jared’s not just a devotee of the films of Hollywood.  He’s very much a historian of sorts, fiction being his tool to ferret into fact.  In his work he shows you the hubris, the horror, and the humanity that made Classic Hollywood both the Heaven and Babylon it truly was.

Stephen’s first book, JACK AND THE JUNGLE LION, took a look at the fantasy and fallacy of the classic Matinee idol.  TEN-A-WEEK STEALE pulls the curtain even farther back on the reality behind Hollywood by inserting a no nonsense lead character into the fray.  Walter Steale, a World War 1 Veteran, works as muscle for his brother, a politician with great aspirations and appetites, in the Los Angeles of the 1920s.   Almost by accident while handling what should be a small job for his brother, Steale stumbles into a tangle of murder, conspiracy, politics, and corpses as he goes from being hired help to Most Wanted by both sides of the law.

TEN-A-WEEK STEALE has been lauded as being a fantastic work in the tradition of the old Pulp/Noir masters and it is indeed that, but it is something else entirely.  Jared infuses every single word of this book not only with the past, but with the anxiety, the falsity, the need for truth of today.  Steale isn’t just a lost soul of the Great War, he’s an everyman pulled by no fault of his own really into situations that are far beyond him.   And, unlike many such types today, Steale doesn’t blend in, fade away, or go with the flow.  He comes out fighting, shooting, punching to maintain something that many today feel they’ve lost.   Being his own man.

If you enjoy great noir, this is the book for you.  If you thirst for a novel that balances Past and Present, go get TEN-A-WEEK STEALE by Stephen Jared.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF HANCOCK’S HAT-  The best of the best here, kid.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO ‘SUPERHEROES VS. ZOMBIES’

  • News
  • October 22, 2012

Tippin’ Hancock’s Hat- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
SUPERHEROES VS ZOMBIES
By Various
Edited by Eric S. Brown and Anthony Giangregorio
Published by Living Dead Press, 2011
superheroesvzombies-2764794
I have said this many times before and will hold this as a standard of my interest in Pulp for years to come.  Although it was not called such back in the days of the Classic Pulps and had just started its long life then, the phenomenon known as the genre mash up I think has blossomed full grown in today’s society and is a major part of New Pulp!  Seeing how writers masterfully weave two apparently disparate genres into one cohesive, knock your socks off collection always thrills me.
Except when it doesn’t.  At least not completely.
SUPERHEROES VS. ZOMBIES is a collection that mashes two things together that I feel passionately about.  One genre I am absolutely enthralled with and makes me feel like a little kid every time I read something from it.  And another that makes the bile rise in my mouth like a Baptist preacher griping because Christmas has become over commercialized and there’s just too much fat old man.  Except in this case, the fat old men are dead bodies that just won’t stay down.  Yeah, Walking Dead Fanatics, I’m not one of you.
These two genres have similarities most definitely, but at their root, there is one major difference.  Despite all of the post modern takes on the mask and cape crowd, the essence of Superheroes for me at least is that there is always one thing- The Hope that Good will overcome Evil in whatever form it takes.  Yeah, call me corny and retro or whatever, but it’s why I read comics as a kid and why I still thrill to the antics of masked types today.  Because, even in the darkest hours, they are the tiny bit that might make the difference.
Zombie stories, on the other hand, though having some of the trappings of Good overcoming Evil, tend to be more about how the World is Hell and no one’s getting out alive, except the already dead.  There’s a sense of dread, of hopeless, even in the victories.  And lately authors have gotten divided on just who should win in the end, the useless living or the rotting dead.  ‘
SUPERHEROES VS. ZOMBIES is a mix of mismatch.  The stories that fail to engage me, some of them even outright disgusting me both for content and lack of ability to blend the genres well, sadly outnumber the tales that overcome the inherent problem in blending these two.   But let’s focus on the positive.
M by Alan Spencer, Zomcomm by E. M. Maccallum, Whiz Bang by Terry Alexander, and The Heart of Heroism by Rebecca Besser are definite jewels in this book.  They portray the horror of being in a zombie-infested wasteland and balance it with the horror of being a hero, perhaps the only one in this landscape.  And don’t get me wrong; these tales don’t all end with the Zombie menace forever squashed.  What they do is balance the best parts of both genres extremely well.
Two other stories do this excellently as well, but in a very twisted way.  The Last Superhero by Anthony Giangregorio and The Detective by Kelly M. Hudson each take a well-known super hero archetype and turn it on its edge in the land of the Zombie.   Even with the way these two turn out, the basic tenets of what a Hero tries to do remains strong throughout the tale.
The others, some get close, some miss the mark for me completely.
THREE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT- If you could get the aforementioned stories as eBook singles, I’d definitely recommend them.

BREAKING NEWS!- TWO LEADING PULP COMPANIES ANNOUNCE NEGOTIATIONS AND MORE!

  • News
  • October 20, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Girasol Collectables Inc, known for top quality reprints and replicas of Classic Pulp Tales, and Radio Archives,LLC, a leader in Pulp Audiobooks, eBooks, Old Time Radio, and Pulp Reprints, revealed today results of recent negotiations.

Girasol and Radio Archives have a long standing history of doing business together.  Due to this already strong relationship, Radio Archives has purchased Girasol’s The Spider double novel product line. This line, containing double novels numbered 1 through 25, has thrilled enthusiasts with its high quality and consistent publication and introduced new fans to the exploits of the Master of Men, The Spider. Girasol will continue publishing their extremely popular The Spider Pulp Replicas product line which is the Finest reprint of the Spider ever done.

Neil and Leigh Mechem, owners of Girasol Collectables, Inc. stated, “We’re especially pleased to have Radio Archives taking over the handling of sales of our Spider Pulp Doubles. The scope of the pulp related material they have to offer, combined with their excellent customer service, make them the ideal one-stop shopping venue for pulp fans. We’re proud of the 25 issues we produced, and seeing them managed diligently helps enormously while we concentrate on the prep work required for our Pulp Replica line.”

Recognizing this and the overall quality of Girasol’s work, Radio Archives is proud to add The Spider Double Novel line to its already impressive lineup of not only Pulp, but specifically Spider related material.   “This product line,” said Tom Brown, Owner of Radio Archives, “dovetails so well into our Spider Audiobooks and eBook product lines.”  The purchase includes existing inventory, intellectual property, and substantial amounts of artwork and other material.


Radio Archives and Girasol have also formed a strategic relationship for future projects that will insure the cooperation of the two companies continues on and that top quality Pulp products will be available to fans and enthusiasts for years.

Wholesale dealer inquiries are now accepted at Radio Archives for this product line.  Email Radio Archives at Service@RadioArchives.com or call 1-800-886-0551.

Visit Girasol Collectables at www.girasolcollectables.com

Visit Radio Archives at www.radioarchives.com

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