Author: Tommy Hancock

ALL PULP’S SITE SPOTLIGHT- POST MODERN PULPS!

  • News
  • February 4, 2011

http://postmodernpulps.blogspot.com/

This insightful, fun blog site is the home of Jack Badelaire, author, fan, and overall armchair philosopher and expert on Pulp in a post modern age, including publishing, movies, and just pulp in concept as general.   Posted below is an example of thought, theories, and general ramblings from Jack that make this blog a fantastic place to postulate on Pulp pretty much daily!

Embracing Indie eBook Publishing

As of this week, I’ve made the decision that when (not if) I finish the book I’m currently writing, I will publish it as an eBook through Amazon and B/N’s self publishing portals.

I’ve come to this decision for four reasons.

1. I’m tiring out. Writing part-time while there are a million other things vying for my attention drags this process out to an intolerable degree, and once it’s done, I simply don’t have the stamina to then spend months – hell, years – finding an agent and a publisher who’ll take my novel. I just can’t wait that long. The way I see it, writing for publication is like gambling; you can play the short odds and be careful and amass a small but tidy sum cautiously, or you can keep throwing money on the long odds and hope that someday – someday! You will win it big. I see Indie ePublishing as the short odds, and traditional publishing as trying to win the lottery. And for the record, I don’t play the lottery.

2. Electronic Self-Publishing is here to stay, and I want to ride the wave while it’s still growing. What was considered a “vanity press” idea ten or fifteen years ago is now becoming a viable alternative to finding a publisher. This is something indie game publishers have know for a while now, but non-game book publishing is taking a while to catch onto the idea that someone being able to publish their own work != the downfall of the literary world. This was the case of all the Web 2.0 technologies as they came along, taking the ability to “publish to the world” out of the hands of certain gatekeeping individuals and giving that power to the masses. Yes, it’s given us some stupid crap on the internet (okay, a LOT of stupid crap), but it’s also created some truly amazing things as well. If you’re one of those “All People Are Idiots!” folks, the ability for just anyone to write a novel and potentially have someone pay to read it is anathema to you. But on the other hand, five years ago, I thought “blogging” was stupid, and here I am. A year ago I thought Twitter was stupid, and yet, I’m on it, Tweeting away. People make money blogging and Tweeting, too. People even make a living teaching others how to blog and Tweet, shockingly enough. Journalism, Film (see: Youtube et al), and now Fiction publishing is all shifting to a Web 2.0 paradigm; it’s Publishing 2.0, and it is only going to get bigger.

3. Indie ePublishing suits what I want to write. Quality aside, I honestly do not think there is a viable market for what I want to write in today’s dead-tree publishing paradigm; the short serial action thriller as was popular back in the 60’s – 80’s in titles like The Executioner, The Death Merchant, Able Team, Longarm, The Ninja Master, The Survivalist, the Richard Blade series, Casca the Eternal Warrior, and so on. There have been dozens of these titles over the years, cheap “post-modern pulp” paperback novels out of those few decades selling for $2-3, averaging less than two hundred pages and 50-80K word lengths. These books were enormously popular at the time, and I think the sort of serial fiction they provided is still viable, but no one is going to see the profit in that kind of publishing in today’s print fiction market, at least not outside of Young Adult fiction (which I don’t write…yeah no). On the other hand, a short novel format would be perfectly acceptable – even preferable, on an eReader, and the price point hasn’t changed much, either.

And finally, one last big reason. I want to be paid to write. I’ve been writing fiction since grade school. I might not be a great writer – I might not even be a “pretty good” writer, but I am a passable writer, and the more I write, the better I get. I’ve got ideas, I have some modicum of talent, and if properly motivated, I can produce copy quickly. But the motivation is the key, and my motivation right now, as I close in on my mid-30’s, is income. I’m not satisfied with my current job, but it pays better than some, and that keeps me locked in. If I could supplement my income with a small but steady stream of royalty payments, it would be both encouraging and pleasing to the pocketbook, and I could consider a less stressful job even if it meant a pay cut, in order to put myself into a better frame of mind for writing. And Indie ePub money – that’s money now, as in within a year, not fantasy dream lottery money that I might get if I’m one that one single writer out of every ten thousand potential new fiction writers that gets picked up for distribution by one of the Big Six, and then waits another year to eighteen months before my book hits the shelves. There are fiction writers out there in the hot genres – not a lot of writers, but a fair few – who have seen real, I-can-do-something-with-this amounts of money within just a few months of putting their eBooks up for sale, and we are talking rookie authors who are doing it all by the skin of their teeth and the sweat of their brows.

I’ll conclude this little soapboxing session with the link to the blog that’s turned me around on this idea: J.A. Konrath’s “A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing“. I read an anthology of hitman stories edited by Konrath a few months ago, “These Guns For Hire“, and having looked him up, I now see that he is a very big proponent of “Indie Publishing” as he likes to put it (sound familiar, gamers?), and his blog has become a rallying point for Indie authors who have started to make a living publishing their own eBooks. Anyone who’s interested in self-publishing fiction – or anything, really – should read through his blog.

And with that, back to the typewriter…

Posted by Jack Badelaire at 9:00 AM

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO THE DAMNED THING!

  • News
  • February 4, 2011

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Pulp Reviews by Tommy Hancock

THE DAMNED THING
by Barry Reese
Wild Cat Books

For those of you who have read my reviews since starting ALL PULP, you know that I tend to like to say a little something in the opening and even though I’m usually very positive, I’m not full of accolades and purple prose…until now. Get ready…

This is the best work by Barry Reese I have ever read.  Simply.  Period.

Reese has shown through his various works, including 5 volumes of THE ROOK, a book about Ki-Gor, the LAZARUS GRAY stories for Pro Se Productions, RABBIT HEART, his novel from 2010, and other stories and tales, that he can handle multiple genres and knows how to build characters and tell a story.   After reading THE DAMNED THING, I now know that those other books and tales were just wonderful steps to the masterpiece this book is.

The story of THE DAMNED THING centers around Violet Cambridge, a Private Detective in the late 1930s who runs an office with her dead husband’s former partner.  The story starts like many detective tales, a comely young woman walks in and wants her sister found.  Of course there’s twists right from the beginning, the case becomes focused on a relic, and Violet ends up having to avenge her partner’s death.  If you think I’ve spoiled anything, I’ve only given away information in the first twenty or so pages.  

Reese seamlessly blends good old fashioned mystery, private eyes, supernatural hoodoo, mafiosos, asylums, and even Alistair Crowley.   The action does not let up, every aspect of this story, from violence to sex to exposition, is used just enough and is dead on at every turn.   It’s a short read which is good in that you can’t put it down anyway but is bad in that you want more, even though the story is tied up pretty well.  Throw in a fan favorite character from Reese’s THE ROOK and you have a pulp burner here that cannot miss.

And I didn’t even go into the fact that this is possibly one of the best tributes to THE MALTESE FALCON I have ever seen that didn’t drift into parody, but maintained its own identity while still nodding respectfully to that classic.

FIVE OUT FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-The best Reese and one of the best Pulps I’ve read in a while.

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND BULLDOG EDITION 2/4/11

  • News
  • February 4, 2011
ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
BULLDOG EDITION
2/4/11
PRO SE AND HANCOCK TAKE US BACK TO
YESTERYEAR WITH DEBUT NOVEL
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!

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND-NIGHTHAWK EDITION FOR TODAY!

  • News
  • February 4, 2011
ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
 
NIGHTHAWK EDITION
2/3/11
 
Now Available as an E-book from Smashwords!
 
DIAMONDBACK: IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME
 
When a gunman calling himself Diamondback Vogel arrives in Denbrook offering his services to the highest bidder, the crimelords who have a stranglehold on the city have some questions to ask: Is this the same Diamondback who was reputed to have been killed in a bloody Foreman City shootout or is he an imposter, and why does his arrival coincide with an impending weapons shipment?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/40452

GUEST REVIEW OF THE WEEK-CONSTANTINE ON FERGUSON

  • News
  • February 3, 2011

Diamondback: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

2 02 2011

Ever since I read Derrick’s first book, Dillon and the Voice of Odin, I’ve been sold on his work. Derrick has a knack for intriguing characters, snappy dialogue, and some of the best action I’ve had the privilege of reading.

Whereas Derrick’s Dillon series (as of this writing composed of Dillon and the Voice of Odin and the follow-up Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell) is a love letter to Doc Savage and the classic adventure story, Diamondback is a true spaghetti western. But like with Dillon, Derrick mixes his love of the classics with a modern sensibility. Derrick has frequently referred to this story as an urban western and that’s the most apt description I can think of.

Although this story could have been set in the Old West out on the frontier, it fits perfectly in the fictional city of Denbrook, which could easily give Gotham a run for its money.

When one of Denbrook’s biggest crime lords is planning to bring in a shipment of hi-tech weapons, it just so happens to coincide with the arrival of gun-for-hire Diamondback Vogel. And this is one mercenary who is the best there is at what he does and what he does is fill his enemies with lead and leave a trail of destruction in his wake. Crime lords, crooked cops, and secret societies are all involved and all interested in Diamondback’s role in this tale. However, Diamondback supposedly died in a shootout in another town, so one of the ongoing questions is just who is this guy? It’s a question that plays no small role in this story and I’m not going to say anything more about that, because you’re better off reading it for yourself.

What I will tell you is this is a great read that won’t suck up a lot of your time. Not only because it’s a short book, but also because Derrick wastes no words. He knows you’re here for the action and he gives it to you in abundance. The action sequences are crafted with both bloody intensity and a flawless grace that would make even John Woo envious. And by the time you reach the last page, you’ll want to track this Ferguson guy down and find out when the sequel is coming, because he leaves you with a cliffhanger ending that will put you on the edge of your seat.

ALL PULP’S A BOOK A DAY GETS THIN!

  • News
  • February 3, 2011
http://www.bearmanormedia.com/ 

THE FILMS OF THE THIN MAN

thinmancover.jpg
spacer-3982074

The Thin Man films are one of the most highly regarded and successful series of films from Hollywood’s classic era.  This book looks at the people who populated the films, including full chapter profiles of its stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy, whose chemistry together was a huge reason for the success of the films. As Nick and Nora Charles they knocked the stereotypes of on-screen marriage out of the park and replaced the stiff and formal with fun and sexy. But not to be forgotten are the great character actors who added their own special magic to each and every film.  Each chapter includes profiles of these actors as well as the creative teams behind the films.  The book offers up detailed synopses of each of the films as well as behind-the-scenes anecdotes and trivia.  If you love The Thin Man then this is the book for you! 
 
 

ALL PULP INTERVIEWS BEST SELLING AUTHOR AND DOC SCRIBE PAUL MALMONT!

  • News
  • February 3, 2011
ALL PULP INTERVIEW-Paul Malmont-Writer
AP:  Paul, it’s indeed a great pleasure to have you sit across the ALL PULP table today for this interview.  Would you mind to share a little bit about yourself?
PM:  Thanks.  I’m a copy director at an advertising agency in New York.  I live in New Jersey with my wife and two little boys.  My new novel about the birth of the science fiction pulps, THE ASTOUNDING, THE AMAZING, AND THE UNKNOWN, comes out in July. 
AP:  You’ve definitely done a bit of work that falls within the realm of pulp and taking the concept of pulp a couple of different directions.   What about pulp appeals to you as a fan and as a writer?
PM: What I’ve tried to do is take some of the conventions of pulp (the freedom of heightened realistic fantasy, outrageous topics taken for granted, outlandish characters, crazy plot devices) and apply them to the sensibilities of literature.  I think literature is flagging because books aren’t fun to read anymore, I’m trying to borrow from the pulps, the things that might make a big book fun.
AP:  Let’s get to the meat.   Your name first became known to many readers with the release of your novel THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL.  First, can you sum up the book for our readers, including who your main protagonists are?
PM: DEATH CLOUD takes two real writers from the hero pulp era, Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and Lester (Doc Savage) Dent and casts them in an a story that hopefully captured some of the elements they used to write about.  It’s also a top-to-bottom overview of the pulp industry at that time, introducing the reader to everyone from H.P. Lovecraft to L. Ron Hubbard.
AP:  What inspired you to take the best writers of pulp fiction and turn them into pulp heroes in their own right?
PM: I always like that time period and the pulp atmosphere and it always influenced my work.  Then I read an Isaac Asimov biography and he mentioned hanging out with Hubbard.  I realized I knew so much about the era, but Hubbard would be that little something extra that really pushed the story over the top.  It all kind of fell into place after that. 
AP:  You’ve talked about a follow up, maybe not so much a sequel, to PERIL.  What can you share about that?
PM: My new novel THE ASTOUNDING, THE AMAZING, AND THE UNKNOWN takes places in 1943 and focused on a couple of DEATH CLOUD characters, Robert Heinlein, Hubbard, and adds Isaac Asimov and Sprague de Camp.  It really is about how the industry and world had changed so quickly from the events in 1937.  The hero pulps were doing a fast fade and sci fi was in ascendency.  It’s less atmospheric and more straight-forward, as suits that style of story-telling.  Gibson and Dent do appear again.  But it’s different.  Whereas DEATH CLOUD was about the redemptive powers of the imagination, and JACK LONDON was about the destructive powers, this one is about whether there are any limits to imagination. 
AP:  Your latest novel, JACK LONDON IN PARADISE, deals with an author that many would say wrote works that fall within the pulp genre and he definitely influenced many pulp writers and literature as a whole.  Can you tell us about this book and then discuss why you focused on the particular point in his life that you did?
PM: Jack London inspired most of the writers who were writing pulps by the ‘30s.  If not in style then they modeled their careers on him—he was the first writer to figure out how to make a living writing for magazines.  And his writing was so transformative that all the magazines wanted his type of stories, so they started giving opportunities to other writers, and before you know, you had an industry.  His life itself was so incredible, and he lived it so hard, that it just lent itself to a novel.  Add to that the fact that there was an incredibly romantic center and some mystery to his very young death, and it became a very satisfying challenge to take on.  In a lot of ways, it’s a spiritual prequel to DEATH CLOUD and ASTOUNDING. 
AP:  You also were the initial writer of the DOC SAVAGE comic in the FIRST WAVE line from DC.   First, what was it like going from writing novels to having your stories translated into images on the page?
PM:  Writing a DC comic was something I was able to cross off my bucket list. Who doesn’t want to see their name on a DC comics?  Having said that, writing for comics is a very different medium than for literature, or even film—it has rules I’d never even thought of.  So it was difficult, but rewarding. 
AP:  What sort of editorial restrictions or pressures were you under while writing DOC SAVAGE at DC?  Did Editorial have a specific direction in mind and if so, did that agree or conflict with where you felt the book should go?
PM:  There was a bible to follow, of course, but within that I was given a lot of freedom.  But they rejected my first draft outline and went for the second.  I wanted to get more into Doc’s head and background a little more than I was ultimately able to. 
AP:  There’s obviously been a lot of negative fan response to the FIRST WAVE line, particularly from fans of the characters in their original forms.   What are your thoughts on this reaction, primarily being that DC is not remaining true to the concepts as they were conceived and is even going beyond tweaking them, outright changing some of them?
PM:  I think one of the inalienable rights of a fan, be it sports, movies, comics or something else, is that of complaining about how things weren’t done right and should have been done better.  I do it myself all the time.  I would have liked the fans to get behind it more, but what can you do?  I don’t want to make it seem like it’s all on the fans, or on me—I think there is some design inconsistencies throughout the various First Wave books that are confusing.  I remember pointing out that I didn’t think the cars in my first issue looked like the cars in the FW debut issue, and was told not to worry about it.  There’s perhaps more editorial consistency in the writing than maybe there is in the visual direction.  I can tell you that, as a Doc fan, I’m pleased with what I wrote and that by issue 3 it was really clicking along and there were big things ahead. 
AP:  What other pulp characters would you like to get a shot at, if any, in comics?  What about prose, any interest in penning any particular classic pulp hero in a short story or novel?
PM:   I love magic so I’d love to get my hands on Captain Marvel or Doctor Strange. 
AP:  Anything in the near future you want to make sure our readers look out for?
PM:  THE ASTOUNDING, THE AMAZING, AND THE UNKNOWN is available in July.  My collected run of DOC will be out in trade paperback in April and hopefully fans will take a second look. I’ll be at Comic Con in San Diego.  I can be found on twitter- @pmalmont.  And my Facebook book page is http://on.fb.me/f8q7zw – please join.  We’ll be giving away advance copies and making other announcements soon. 
AP:  Paul, please come back anytime and visit with ALL PULP!
PM:  Thanks! 

ALL PULP’S A BOOK A DAY-Two books today!!!

  • News
  • February 3, 2011

comicbookcover-3054599

http://www.bearmanormedia.com/

Comic Strips and Comic Books of Radio’s Golden Age
by Ron Lackmann
spacer-6786094

From Archie Andrews to Tom Mix, all radio characters and programs that ever stemmed from a comic book or comic strip in radio’s golden age are collected here, for the first time, in an easy-to-read, A through Z book!
 
From Ron’s introduction:
“The wonderful thing about Radio as it used to be in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, is that whoever or whatever you were hearing over the airwaves was your very own visual creation. It was your imagination that supplied the images of what the people, places and situations you heard looked like. The “pretty” girl was your version of what “pretty” was… and the “handsome” hero was your visualization of what constituted “handsome.” During the memorable years when Radio was America’s favorite home entertainment medium, the airwaves were permeated with all sorts of programming.

 There were the daytime dramas of domestic stress, or soap operas as they were called because they were usually sponsored by soap detergent companies, that at-home moms and night-working dads could tune in to hear and sometimes their sick-at-home–with-a-cold kids also listened to “the soaps.” There were the five-day-a-week children’s adventure serials that were heard in the late afternoon when youngsters came home from school. There were prime-time mystery programs, and comedy and variety shows, game and panel programs, and even adaptations of great works of the theater and literature, as well as radio versions of well known films, for the mind’s eye to envision.”

100 Years of Broadway
bad-3320416
spacer-6786094

“Broadway After Dark is a compilation of columns, stories and never-before-published profiles by my father, Ward Morehouse, and myself. The profiles were originally intended for a book called Stars I Have Known. The columns of his are representative of those he did for the New York Sun from 1926-1950 and after for other newspapers. I started writing sporadically about show business for The Christian Science Monitor in the 1970’s and continued as a reporter and theater columnist for the New York Post, Reuters, New York Sun, and The New York Times, and The Epoch Times. It’s my hope that these columns and stories, taken together, will be a portrait, however sketchy, of some of theater for the last and current century through some of their biggest stars, including Katharine Hepburn.”

– Ward Morehouse III, from his Preface

ALL PULP NEWSSTAND NIGHTHAWK EDITION 2/2/11

  • News
  • February 2, 2011
ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
NIGHTHAWK EDITION
2/2/11
FIRST PULP ARK AWARD VOTING HAS BEGUN!
Pulp Ark Coordinator Tommy Hancock notified ALL PULP today that the nomination period for the first annual Pulp Ark Awards ended on January 31st, 2011, and the final ballot formed from 66 nominations was released today!  The awards for excellence in the Pulp field for 2010 cover nine categories and multiple authors, artists, publishers, and titles were represented in the nomination process.  Each person who made a nomination received a ballot for voting.  Hancock reported as of press time that more than half of the ballots had already been completed and returned.  Voting is open until all 66 ballots are completed or February 28, 2011 at 11:59 PM, whichever comes first.  Once the voting is complete, the winners will be announced and Hancock encourages all nominees and winners to attend PULP ARK May 13-15, 2011 in Batesville, AR.
For more information on Pulp Ark, contact Hancock at proseproductions@earthlink.net
The Nine Categories on the Ballot were Best Book, Best Short Story, Best Cover Art, Best Interior Art, Best Magazine, Best Pulp Revival, Best Comic, Best Author, Best New Writer. 


The Ballot can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pulp-Ark/102201746498123?v=app_2373072738#!/topic.php?uid=102201746498123&topic=93

ALL PULP interviews Long Time Comic Fan Turns to Pulps BILL GLADMAN

  • News
  • February 2, 2011

BILL GLADMAN-Writer/Artist

Bill Gladman, a writer/artist has been involved with comics most of his life. He recently helped form a local comics studio, Twilight Star Productions and last year they released twelve titles in their first year. Bill also ventured into the world of pulps for the first time ever when he contributed a story to RAVENWOOD – Stepson of Mystery from Airship 27 Productions. We caught up with this fellow in his home town of Springfield, Ohio and sat down to talk about his new pulp writing career.

AP – Bill, thanks for joining us today. Give us a short bio of yourself, age, where you were born, schooling, family etc.

BG –Born in Marysville, Ohio. About a half hour drive north of Springfield. In true dynamic fashion. In a middle of a thunderstorm, two minutes before midnight July 25th 1967, making me 44 years old this summer.

As far as schooling goes it seems I’ve learned all the important stuff by accident. I did graduate from Springfield North High School in 1985. I also went to Springfield Joint Vocational School during my junior and senior years of high school where I studied commercial art and girls. Unfortunately I didn’t get a certificate in art because I missed way too many days my senior year. I was sure the garage band I was in at the time was going to be world famous in six months and rock stars were too cool to go to school, right?

Currently married to my second wife and love of my life 13 years this April….between us and our previous marriages we have four kids and five grand kids.

AP – How old were you when you first became a comic book fan. What was the attraction?

BG – I was seven years old. My grandmother bought me a copy of Avengers #145 at the gift shop at one of the local hospitals. We were visiting my grandfather who had suffered the first of many strokes that would eventually claim his life a few years later and she wanted to keep my mind off things at the time so she bought me that comic. It all started then and there, so my grandmother gets all the credit, or blame. Depends on how you look at it I guess.

AP – Marvel or DC? Who was your favorite comic book superhero and why?

BG –Captain America. He’s the guy for me…..guess he always has been. He played a large role in that first Avengers story and although over the years when asked this question I may have said something along the lines of Daredevil or Batman, maybe even Dr. Strange…truthfully I guess it would really have to be Cap. The amount of Captain America comics in my collection would seem to only cement that train of thought.

AP – How did you come to write a Ravenwood story? Had you ever heard of the character before?

BG – I never heard of the character at all. I ran across a post on the Comic Related website made by Ron Fortier in which he was attempting to recruit fresh blood to write pulp stories for Airship 27. I’d never wrote a pulp story before, and never really read any either but I thought it would be a nice creative challenge so I e-mailed Ron to let him know I was interested. He sent me a list of characters that was available and that Airship 27 was interested in publishing stories about. Ravenwood was one of about three characters that seemed to appeal to me and the ball got rolling from there.

AP – What’s the name of your story in the Ravenwood collection? What appealed to you about this particular pulp hero?

BG –“When Death Calls”. After I received more background information about Ravenwood I felt there were elements of Dr. Strange, Bruce Wayne (both personas of that character), and Tony Stark (Iron Man) in the Ravenwood character. That allowed me to have a safety net of sorts. Plus there was just enough background info to get me interested in the character but I wasn’t smothered with details. There was a lot of room for me to breath as writer with this character.

AP – Was writing pulp easier or harder than your comics work? Elaborate, please.

BG –It was actually easier for me. It was exciting, new, and fresh. It was a great experience for me. I’m a big history buff as well so I enjoyed the research aspects of the story as well….what was the most popular film of 1938…how much did a pack of cigarettes cost 73 years ago. That type of thing. And I’m a very wordy writer. This story allowed me to express myself in a way that writing comics do not. I get grief from the artists I work with all the time about the amount of dialog in my stories. And in the end I still went over the word count for the story requirement. Go figure. Needles to say a good portion of it ended up on the editing floor.

AP – There seems to be a real renaissance of pulps today in both prose, comics and movies. Why do you think that is?

BG –I think it’s a couple of things, and this is just the opinion of some hack in Ohio so bare with me.

I think that pulps in prose and comic formats and hopefully film caters to the mature reading audience that actually collect comics and go to the movies. They’re action packed, entertaining, suspenseful, and fun. Mature doesn’t have to mean sex and violence. Mature can mean, wow that story made me think and I liked that.

Also I think the escape level in the pulp stuff is higher than your super-hero comics or horror comics. The time period that these stories take part in for the most part was less complicated and negative. At the same time the fiction is a little more realistic. I mean nobody is finding a baby from another planet in a rocket ship in a Ravenwood story.

AP – Will you ever do another Ravenwood story?

BG –Oh yeah. I loved working with this character and the cast of characters involved with this story. I already have ideas for a second and a third story.

AP – Is there any other pulp character you’d like to write some day?

BG –Possibly. I’m quite content writing Ravenwood for now but one of the other choices that appealed to me at first was Moon Man. He sounded like a fun character to write.

AP – Finally, what’s on the horizon for Bill Gladman and Twilight Star Productions?

BG –At times there’s so much stuff going on at Twilight Star Studios I can’t see the horizon! Seriously this studio has been very productive and although I have been involved in several different studios in the past there has not been an experience like this. One a personal note I’ll be involved with several of our books including Tales From The ‘Field which is our flag ship title and an anthology comic. I usually write short stories and even sometimes ink other short stories for this title. I write short stories for our horror anthology series Pandemonium Spotlight, write and draw Prodigy an on-going cosmic super hero tale, write and draw Jack the Rabbit an action/adventure/fantasy limited series. I also write and ink the Un-Naturals and recently co-wrote Hero Of The Day featuring the character Hero Montgomery created by a good friend of mine (Chad Strohl) as well as act as Executive Editor on all of our books. I also plan to re-release my first novel The Book Of Noheim through the studio. More novels will follow.

I also write two weekly web comics for the Comic Related web site (New Comic Day and Price For The Asking-with Ron Fortier) there is a third web comic about to launch on that site as well (The Bumtastic Four) I can also be found every other Monday co-hosting the RaynMan Power Podcast on that same site with Frank Raynor.

I have comic projects in the work with Penny Dreadful Press and Studio Akumakaze and a few other bigger companies which I’m not “allowed” to talk about at the moment.

AP – This has been fun and informative, Bill. Thanks and good luck with all your many projects.

BG –Thank you! It was a blast!!! Hope I didn’t bore you to death!!!　
　

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks