Category: News

Win a Copy of Transformers: The Japanese Collection – Headmasters

transformers_japanese-_headmasters-_product_shot-272x450-5803484Capitalizing on the popularity of Paramount Pictures’ third installment in the live action Transformers franchises, Shout! Factory is releasing the long-awaited Japanese animated series which we talked about previously. The DVD set is coming out on Tuesday and to celebrate, we have one copy to give away to a lucky fan.

All you have to do is give us your best educated guess what the total domestic box office revenue of Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be when the theaters close at the end of business on Monday, concluding the holiday weekend. We want your guess by 11:59 Monday evening and the winning tally will be based on the finals as released by our friends at Box Office Mojo on Tuesday.

Meantime, here’s a look back at The Transformers: The Japanese Collection — Headmasters. The four disc set will come complete with Original Japnese Audio, English Subtitles, and an Art Gallery.

LEADER IN SUPER HERO COSMIC PULP DOES IT AGAIN WITH ‘STELLARAX’

White Rocket Books is proud to announce the publication of the sixth novel in the critically acclaimed Sentinels Saga from Van Allen
Plexico: STELLARAX!

The situation is dire. Four vast and powerful cosmic entities stand poised to destroy the Earth, while the spaceborne nano-virus called
the Blight turns everyone–human and alien–into mindless zombies.

With the mighty Ultraa near death and powerful Vanadium a captive of the enemy, Lyn Li and Esro Brachis have no other choice. They must lead a ragtag group of heroes and villains on a desperate mission. If they’re going out, they’re going out with a bang. It’s one last hurrah– before the end of the world!

Filled with action and adventure, SENTINELS: STELLARAX sees our heroes through their greatest challenges ever–and no one is the same
afterward.

With five full-page illustrations by Chris Kohler. (Trade paperback edition.)

Says Plexico: “This volume brings to a climax the world-shaking events that have been building from the very start. Readers have patiently awaited the  answers to a number of burning questions about the heroes and their predicaments, and a whole lot of answers are to be found in this book. Keen-eyed readers will spot connections that go back as far as the first chapter of the first volume as everything comes together for the big finish of the “Rivals”story arc. It’s the biggest and most ambitious volume yet and I’m
confident longtime and new Sentinels readers will love it. Add in Chris’s awesome artwork in the paperback version and you can’t possibly go wrong.”

Trade paperback: (314 pages; 5 full-page illustrations; $15.95)
Kindle / Nook / Kobo editions: ($2.99)

http://www.whiterocketbooks.com/sentinels

In addition, White Rocket is pleased to announce that–for the first
time ever–all six SENTINELS novels are available for the Kindle,
as well as in Epub format for Nook and other e-readers, at the low
price of only $2.99 each!

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE SENTINELS SAGA:

“Nobody – not even Abnett and Lanning – is doing cosmic superheroes as
well as Van Allen Plexico is doing them. Period.” –Barry Reese,
award-winning creator of The Rook

“Wow does the fun come across to the lucky readers.” –Ron Fortier,
Pulp Fiction Reviews

“You’ll find the spirit of Stan Lee’s characters and Roy Thomas’s
plots living and breathing in Plexico’s writing.” –OnceUponAGeek.com

“Excellent reads.” –Ric Croxton, The Book Cave

“I was enthralled. I enjoyed them all and still want more. –Mark
Haleuga, Gotham Pulp Collectors Club

SENTINELS: STELLARAX by Van Allen Plexico
published June 2011 by White Rocket Books
$15.95 paperback; $2.99 Kindle
ISBN 978-0984139248

Learn more about the Sentinels, with links to order in any format, at:
http://www.whiterocketbooks.com/sentinels

Stellarax at Amazon.com in paperback or for Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Sentinels-Stellarax-Van-Allen-Plexico/dp/0984139249

Jennifer Aniston Has A Potty Mouth

 

pt0701111-1607202This weekend, HORRIBLE BOSSES takes it’s place on the big screen as the next R rated comedy of the summer. We talk to JENNIFER ANISTON on how she took a far left from FRIENDS for this character, plus more with Dedrich Bader on being the BRAVE & BOLD BATMAN.
We take Monday July 4th off – but we’ll be back on Friday the 9th and between now & then, check our website for several Pop Culture updates each day!

Check out The Point Radio for constant pop culture updates – and please check us out on Facebookright here & toss us a “like”.

Crazy 8 Press Releases Second Preview of ‘The Camelot Papers’, On Sale July 8th

c8-final-logo-300-248-2494770In a case of the shoemaker’s children going barefoot, we didn’t mention anything beyond the teaser on Monday, but: ComicMix contributors Robert Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, and Aaron Rosenberg have joined with comic book writers Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, and Howard Weinstein to form Crazy 8 Press, while we saw numerous writeups from The Beat, Bleeding Cool, and io9.

camelot_papers_100px-1006769However, we can advance the story a bit further: a second preview of the first book, The Camelot Papers by Peter David, has been added to the Crazy 8 Press Facebook page. Just go there and like the page, and you’ll get access to Chapters 2 and 3. (Chapter 1 is still available on the Crazy 8 Press website.

The Camelot Papers will officially go on sale on July 8, both to tie in with the “8” and the Shore Leave convention in Hunt Valley, MD, where all six founders will be in attendance– and doing a special comic related project together which we’ll tell you about when the time comes.

A Look Back at the First Captain American Feature Film

  • News
  • June 30, 2011

captainamerica_stills_1-293x450-7474526Marvel has been touting the July 22nd release of Captain America: The First Avenger, and has focused all their efforts on the latest entry in the Marvel Film Universe. What they don’t talk about are the previous screen incarnations of the Star-Spangled Avenger. Beyond the Lawrence-Gantry animated series of the 1960s, there were several telefilms on CBS featuring Reb Brown in a modified outfit that looked borrowed from Evel Keneval.

There was also, the 1990 movie that bizarrely featured the Red Skull as an Italian fascist. Poor Matt Salinger donned the chainmail but never quite looked comfortable. What’s amazing is that the screenplay by Stephen Tolin is based on a story he crafted with acclaimed crime novelist Lawrence Block. Clearly, he did it for the bucks.

Thankfully,  Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment’s “manufacturing on demand” program is making this forgotten film available just days before the new release. A part of MGM’s Limited Edition Collection, the low-budget offering stars Salinger (What Dreams May Come), Ned Beatty (Superman), Darren McGavin (The Night Stalker), Michael Nouri (Flashdance), Melinda Dillon (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and Kim Gillingham (One Big Family).  The DVD will be available for sale on online retailers everywhere. We provide you with a trailer to remind you of what the film looked like.

During World War II, a brave American soldier (Salinger) volunteers to undergo experiments to become a new super-soldier, codenamed “Captain America.”  Infiltrating Germany to sabotage Nazi rockets pointed at the U.S., Captain America faces off with Nazi superhuman warrior Red Skull (Scott Paulin, The Right Stuff) who defeats the hero, throwing him into suspended animation.  Frozen for 50 years, Captain America is found and revived only to find that Red Skull has changed identities and has targeted the President of the United States (Ronny Cox, RoboCop) for assassination.  With America on the verge of utter chaos, it is up to one man to save the day!

THE BOOK CAVE GOES TO PYTHON ISLE AND GETS PLANETARY!

  • News
  • June 30, 2011
bookcavelogo-7012229
Will Murray, Roger Ritner and Michael McConnohie join the Book Cave crew to discuss Python Isle and future audio books.
Will Murray – www.adventuresinbronze.com
On Facebook: The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage.
Radioarchives.com
Michael McConnohie
              
              
              
 
Thu, 23 June 2011
Shelby Vick of the online Pulp magazine Planetary joins the Book Cave crew to talk about his site.
http://www.planetarystories.com/
After the first one — www.planetarystories.com/wonerlust.htm — the other links are www.planetarystories.com/W2.htm — www.planetarystories.com/W3.htm — www.planetarystories.com/W4.htm — www.planetarystories.com/W5.htm — www.planetarystories.com/W6.htm
Also, I left out someone really important: Ron N Butler, of the Atlanta Radio group, turned up by Jerry Page. Ron has developed Rory Rammer, Space Marshal as, for instance, in www.planetarystories.com/rammer.htm and www.planetarystories.com/planetoid.htm for instance. Rory Rammer is PERFECT for Planetary Stories.
our Associate Editor is Robert Kennedy

FORTIER TAKES ON BLOOD OF THE REICH!!

  • News
  • June 29, 2011

ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier

BLOOD OF THE REICH
By William Dietrich
Harper Books
417 pages
Available July 2011
ISBN 13 – 978-0-06-198918-6

blood-1692004
You realize there are books reviewers are predisposed to like by the title alone.  When the good folks at the New York Journal of Books offered to send me this book, it was because I’d already reviewed an earlier book by the same author and liked it a great deal.  But being brutally honest here, I’d forgotten what that title was until they showed me the cover image to “Blood of the Reich.”  Ah, yes, William Dietrich, I thought, the fellow who created that Revolutionary version of Indiana Jones in his first book, “Napoleon’s Hero.”  Yes, I had enjoyed that historical romp and was curious as to what this new stand alone offering might contain in the way of a fun reading experience.

Once I read the marketing copy, I was hooked.  Nazis scientists racing to Tibet in hopes of finding a hidden mystical power in the lost city of Shambhala.  These plot elements scream pulp pleasure and I knew immediately this was my kind of book.  Dietrich’s background as a naturalist and historian allow him to create outlandish plots against authentic, real world settings and it is that richness of historical data that catapults “Blood of the Reich” into action from page one.

In 1938 Kurt Raeder, a German archeologist, is given an assignment by Hitler’s personal advisor, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler.  Raeder and a handful of loyal Nazis scientists are to travel to Tibet, seek out the lost city of Shambhala and there retrieve an ancient power known as Vril.  Himmler and the members of the arcane Thule Society believe this Vril could tip the balance of the coming war in Germany’s favor and fulfill Hitler’s mad dreams of a Third Reich world conquest.

Raeder is an intellectual sadist and the temptation to achieve personal glory, maybe even immortality, through the success of such an undertaking is much too great for him to resist.  And so the mission is launched.  At the same time, American intelligence agencies discover Raeder’s purpose and recruit their own academic agent, zoologist Benjamin Hood, to go after the Nazis and beat them at their own game.  Failing that, he is to sabotage their efforts and assure Vril never becomes a German weapon.

Now this rollicking race across the world is exciting enough but Deitrich ups the ante by creating a second storyline; this one taking place today.  Rominy Pickett is a computer publicist living in Seattle when she is kidnapped by a mysterious, handsome journalist, who claims her life is in danger from Neo-Nazis.  They believe her to be the great granddaughter of Benjamin Hood.  These want-to-be Nazis have uncovered the records of Raeder’s Tibetan mission and hope Rominy will lead them to rediscover what was found in those rugged mountains back in 1938.  Thus is a smart, witty, normal young woman suddenly hurled head first into a life-or-death race around the globe accompanied by a charismatic stranger who appears to be a physical embodiment of all her romantic fantasies.  But is he really her knight-in-shining armor or someone with ulterior motives using her to achieve his own dark agenda?

“Blood of the Reich” is a barn-storming novel that sets its sights high and never fails to deliver on them.  My singular criticism is that the convoluted mystery of Rominy’s past and her evolution from frightened victim to pistol toting survivalist challenged even my willing suspension of disbelief.  Deitrich’s prose is much more accomplished when dealing with the 30s whereas his modern sequences aren’t as assured.  Still, this book has so much pulp goodness within its pages, I can’t help but recommend it enthusiastically.  It would make one hell of a great film. 

Modern "New Pulp" Classics?

  • News
  • June 29, 2011

Everyone knows what old pulp classics “should” be on everyone’s reading list but what about the New Pulp novels and stories that have been produced in the last decade or so? What titles would you present to someone new to the genre as representative of the best of New Pulp? Would you push The Khan Dynasty by Wayne Reinagel into their hands? Or The Hounds of Hell by Fortier and Linzner? What about the vast libraries of Wild Cat Books, Airship 27 or even newer publishers like Age of Adventure or Pro Se? Post your lists either here on the Comments section or on our Facebook page! We’ll try to compile a list once we’ve heard from everyone.

Scarface Comes to Blu-ray in Style

  • News
  • June 29, 2011

scarface-beauty-shot-rendering_mps_rev-300x235-4222185Coming in September is the Blu-ray debut of the classic Al Pacino film Scarface on September 6. Universal Home Entertainment is sparing nothing to make certain this becomes quite the event. There have been art contests and now there’s the imminent arrival of the Scarface-themed humidor.

For the ultimate collector and cigar enthusiast, an elegantly hand-crafted Scarface-themed humidor will be made available in an exclusive, never-before-available, limited edition, along with the new Scarface Special Limited Edition Blu-ray.

Created by the renowned Daniel Marshall, the humidor’s exterior is hand painted and polished with the Marshall’s trademark “1000 coat brilliant finish.”  The interior – made with untreated Spanish cedar – will properly condition and age approximately 100 cigars at optimal humidity levels. Limited to 1,000 worldwide, each individually numbered humidor comes embellished with custom medallions inspired by the iconic film and includes a certificate of authenticity.

As seen in the photo above, The Scarface Special Limited Edition Blu-ray also includes art cards from the “Scarface Kingpins of Design” fan art contest where fans had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design Scarface-inspired artwork using classic Tony Montana images from the film. (more…)

Jeff Bridges Wants to Adapt The Giver

  • News
  • June 28, 2011

lgiver-297x450-8849174Lois Lowry’s classic young adult novel The Giver is headed for the big screen courtesy of actor Jeff Bridges’ persistence. According to Variety, Bridges has wanted to adapt the 1993 science fiction book about a world that has been rendered average and bland.

Bridges and Nikki Silver have reacquired the rights to the novel and have hired Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog) to write the screen adaptation and nearly got to direct a version in 2006. No other hires have been announced but Bridges is now at an age where he could make a convincing title character.

The Giver is the keeper of memory, of experiences good and bad, for a society that strives for a moderate approach to all things. When young Jonas is selected as the next Giver, he forges a relationship with the far older man and both recognize that the world they inhabit is far from ideal.

Lowry won the Newbery Medal for the novel which remains a high school staple. It has appeared on many best book lists and has endured as a classic example of a dystopian society. When Bridges’ daughter read the book for school, he became intrigued and imagined it for a vehicle for his father, the great Lloyd Bridges.

Lowry loosely connected Gathering Blue and Messenger into an overall trilogy that remains a popular offering bookstores and libraries.

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