I’ve seen a lot of dissatisfaction online with Joe Straczynski’s Superman storyline, the one where he ambles across the nation. Well, that’s show business; I rather like it, at least thus far. I think if JMS were to have done this story as a
graphic novel, say around 120 pages, it would have gone over better with the
bloggers. The basic idea worked for Thornton Wilder in his play Our Town, and taking this energy into
the superhero myth is a clever idea. But watching it unfold in monthly
installments – with fill-ins – does not do this concept justice.
However, Joe’s story reveals the major, overwhelming problem with today’s mainstream comics. It simply takes too damn long to tell a story.
Whereas I enjoyed Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man, it’s convenient for me to point out that the initial origin story only took Stan Lee and Steve Ditko 11 pages to pull off and Brian and Mark took five full issues. Different times, different storytelling techniques, but still we’re talking about a ten-fold increase in story length.
For me, this makes most “Big Event” stunts unreadable. I liked Marvel’s Shadowland, but my interest waned with each successive tie-in and mini-series. Same thing with Marvel’s Civil War / Dark Reign stunt, only multiplied by Warp Factor Four.
DC iced me with their Crisis on Infinite Final Crises event. What did they publish, about four thousand issues there? As for Brightest Day, I got burned out early on during Blackest Night so I never sampled the sequel. I don’t know who these characters are; DC keeps on changing its mind with each Big Event.
Yes, I understand – these Big Events do “quite well” in the marketplace. I respond, “Oh yeah? Compared to what?” Big-name comics publishers with big-name characters with big-time movie support are selling only to a small circle of friends in numbers so inadequate that 1960s Marvel publisher Martin Goodman and 1960s DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld would drop dead at the sales reports, if they weren’t dead already. Several years ago, I told Donenfeld – whose office was about a mile from my house – what Superman was selling, and he refused to believe it. “It’s Superman!” he said, shaking his head.
The sad fact is, the American comic book medium is no longer a mass medium. Nor is the rest of the publishing world. Readers are part of an ever-shrinking elite.
Will the Internet change that? Maybe. Will tablet computers with auto-subscriptions change that? I sure hope so. Otherwise, we’re in the buggy whip business.
There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on in comics today.
There’s a lot of solid writing from publishers both mainstream and otherwise.
Some great art, although with so many titles the great stuff is buried beneath
a ton of crap. There’s some wonderful concepts and some illuminating, even
inspirational stories. Sadly, very little of that is coming from the two
publishers who dominate what little market we’ve got left; the so-called
independent publishers (traditionally defined as “not Marvel or DC”) have
limited promotional resources, and direct sales comics shops can’t afford to
take much of a risk. They’ve got to order the Big Events, and as these stunts
get even bigger and segue directly into other Big Events, retailers have very
little money left over to take a chance on these independents.
That’s a shame. I go to conventions and I see more hopeful
wannabes than ever. I see more new kids with real talent, proportionately
speaking, than ever before. The interesting stuff that goes on at the larger
conventions isn’t at the major publishers’ showbooths, it’s in Artists Alley
and people you have never heard of are producing it.
So I gaze at the rapidly encroaching new year and I hope. I’d rather read good comic books, but at least I have hope.
The actor who starred in such movies as Ruthless People, Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, Spaceballs, Casper, and, of course, Independence Day has joined the cast of the Doctor Who adult spin-off, Torchwood.
Pullman will be playing Oswald Jones, a psychotic murderer and pedophile. Oddly, he’s not a nice guy, defined by the BBC as “repentant yet boiling with lust and rage.”
He should fit in nicely.
The fourth season of Torchwood will be broadcast in the United States on the Starz cable network beginning this summer.
In this column from the esoteric Sarge Portera, he will endeavor to give us the basic ‘just-the-facts’ approach on whatever pulpy goodness tweaks his fancy…. and we kick this off with…
THE AVENGER
“The Avenger” was published as a magazine by Street & Smith for 2 years from September 1939 to September 1942. All twenty-four cover stories in “The Avenger” were written by Paul Ernst under the house name of Kenneth Robeson. Most issues of “The Avenger” even sported a byline that read “Complete mystery novel by the Creator of Doc Savage” or something like it on their covers.
“Justice, Inc.” was the cover story for Volume 1, Number 1, September 1939 issue of “The Avenger.” This was the issue where Richard Benson was transformed into The Avenger, met Mac & Smitty, and established Justice, Inc. as his crimefighting organization.
“The Yellow Horde” was the feature story in Vol. 1, No. 2, October 1939 issue. It was in this issue that Nellie Gray joined Justice, Inc. This edition’s cover carried a byline which read “Presenting a sensational New Character by the Creator of Doc Savage.”
“The Skywalker” was the lead story in Vol. 1, No. 3, November 1939 issue.
“The Devil’s Horns” the featured mystery in Vol. 1, No. 4, December 1939 issue.
“Frosted Death” was the lead mystery in Vol. 1, No. 5, January 1940 issue.
“The GlassMountain” was the cover feature in Vol. 1, No. 6, February 1940 issue.
“The Blood Ring” was the lead feature in Vol. 2, No. 1, March 1940 issue.
“Stockholders in Death” was feature story in Vol. 2, No. 2, April 1940 issue.
“Tuned for Murder” was the featured mystery in Vol. 2, No. 3, May 1940 issue.
“The Smiling Dogs” was the leading mystery in Vol. 2, No. 4, June 1940 issue.
“The River of Ice” was the lead story in Vol. 2, No. 5, July 1940 issue.
“The Flame Breathers” was the cover story in Vol. 2, No. 6, September 1940 issue.
“Murder on Wheels” was the cover mystery in Vol. 3, No. 1, November 1940 issue.
“The Three Gold Crowns” was the featured story in Vol. 3, No. 2, January 1941 issue.
“House of Death” was the lead feature in Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1941 issue.
“The Hate Master” was the cover story in Vol. 3, No. 4, May 1941 issue.
“Nevlo” was the feature story in Vol. 3, No. 5, July 1941 issue.
“Death in Slow Motion” was the lead story in Vol. 3, No. 6, September 1941 issue.
“Pictures of Death” was the featured mystery in Vol. 4, No. 1, November 1941 issue.
“The Green Killer” was the lead mystery in Vol. 4, No. 2, January 1942 issue.
“The Happy Killers” was the cover mystery in Vol. 4, No. 3, March 1942 issue.
“The Black Death” was the leading story in Vol. 4, No. 4, May 1942 issue.
“The Wilder Curse” was the cover feature in Vol. 4, No. 5, July 1942 issue.
“Midnight Murder” was the featured mystery in Vol. 4, No. 6, September 1942 issue.
Here’s some questions for the trivia buffs who are reading this:
1. What Avenger mystery introduced Josh & Rosabel Newton?
2. Six short stories featuring The Avenger appeared in “Clues Detective” & “The Shadow” after his character pulp folded. Who wrote them?
3. Who reprinted The Avenger’s original twenty-four stories?
4. Who wrote twelve new Avenger paperback novels for this publisher?
5. Who published The Avenger anthology in 2008?
(Here’s the answers: 1. The Skywalker, 2. Emile C. Tepperman, 3. Warner Paperback Library, 4. Ron Goulart, 5. Joe Gentile’s Moonstone Books)
AP: Ali, ALL PULP really appreciates you taking a few minutes downtime to answer a few questions. First, can you introduce yourself, some personal background and such?
Ali: I could go with the classic Dr. Evil line, “The details of my life are quite inconsequential”, but that’s a heck of a spot to leave an interviewer in so let’s see if I can cliff note it. By day I labor quietly at a wonderfully dead end job I’m going leave as soon as politicians quit playing football with the economy and people’s lives; by night I’m a working graphic designer who happily gets a chance to do what he loves. If I’m really lucky I occasionally get paid at one profession or the other. So far the dead end day job’s in the lead on stable payments, but I live in hope for the rest.
I’ve been fortunate to be a working designer for the better part of two decades, I’ve been involved in the print business for the better part of three and have a practical working knowledge of prepress and print related workflows. I’ve worn a few hats and if pressed can actually take a project from concept to design, to production and finishing before I have to turn it over to another set of hands. I’m basically a one man digital print shop and I’m also an illustrator to boot when I get a second to actually sit down at a drafting table and sketch. The only thing I don’t have any major experience to be effective on is web work, building sites and whatnot; I’d kill, okay maybe maim, alright seriously annoy someone to get versed on that stuff.
I’ve freelanced and spent a decade doing event and convention graphics where I worked for practically every type of client imaginable. In case you’re curious, worst convention/client/group? a tie between a convention of Christians and Catholics and the X Games; best convention/client/group? an international convention of Coroners. Coroners are some of the best people on the planet and given the nature of their jobs, they’re pretty fun to be around. They have a great sense of humor as a group, bar none.
But I digress…
I usually pull off miracles of design and prepress in the wilder side of the San Francisco Bay Area, known to locals as Oakland, California, which is generally a nicer place to live than our press clippings would lead you to believe. At least once a month, usually while waiting for a bus headed home for a quiet weekend, someone tosses a bag over my head, tosses me onto the bus I was waiting for and insures I’m locked up in my own home for roughly three days to produce whatever Pro Se magazine is due on the stands. My only companion during those periods is Miles, their mighty watch cat. Apparently he’s underpaid because Miles naps the bulk of the time and insists I feed him when he’s not asleep. I think he’s the waterboarding workaround. So during my captivity, they usually run DVDs to keep me from calling Amnesty International. I’m hoping for Inception this month, I missed that one at the movies…
…oh, and a note to my Pro Se abductors: could we get the Mint Milano cookies? I’d like some to dip in my milk, thanks.
Should I say that I tend to be pretty tongue in cheek, or is that obscured by my sparkling wit and obvious modesty?
Okay I’ll try to be more serious from here on out, next question!
AP: As far as pulp is concerned, let’s talk about you as a fan first. Are you a fan of the pulp genre and, if so, what are your interests pulpwise and some of the bigger influences on you, both character and author wise?
Ali: Well I sort walked into pulp at an early age and was a fan and didn’t know it. I was encouraged to read at an early age and books were generally given to me more than toys so while other kids were struggling to get to the “See Dick run” stage I was reading the Gold Bug, Murders in the Rue Morgue, the Three Musketeers and Robin Hood. I was basically that strange quiet kid you’d find on the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits who has this spooky maturity thing going on who’s reading Conan Doyle and understanding world news situations at the age of three. I was also a fan of golden age comic book characters and a huge Batman fan. It was a good time, you got the Justice Society teaming up with their modern day counterparts in the Justice League, Denny O’Neil, Irv Novick, Neal Adams and others were doing some fine work over in the Batman books and it was there that I first encountered Maxwell Grant’s (or Walter Gibson’s if you prefer) signature character, the Shadow. That was my first encounter with the character and it was a DC Comics interpretation so there was some modification on the character, but it was good enough to follow the guy over to his own book by O’Neil and the amazing work of Mike Kaluta and I was hooked on the Shadow.
At that same time I was reading Conan and Doc Savage and the Avenger over in Justice, Inc. but didn’t even realize they were considered pulp fiction because they were all tied to comics I had been reading. I looked at Dash Hammett as mystery and crime fiction which is where the Shadow and the Avenger fell in my estimation. Doc and Conan were riding shotgun with the high adventure tales of guys like Jack London or Howard Pyle. For me, pulp was never really something that was concrete as a specific style of literature, it was just another form of fiction.
I can’t say if I’m really influenced as much as an appreciative fan of certain writers. The older I get, the less purple the prose gets. I have a healthy love for science fiction, espionage and crime fiction and a great respect for the works of Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett, Rex Stout, Ray Bradbury, Poe, Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Isaac Asimov, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Matt Wagner, Robert B. Parker, Rod Serling and Harlan Ellison to name more than a few.
I think because my inclination is more visual and the artists from the comics I grew up with, and graphic novels and such I still follow, I’m a fan of great artists from back in the day like Wally Wood, Alex Raymond, Gil Kane Alex Toth, Mike Kaluta, Marshall Rogers, Mac Raboy, Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, Steranko, Frank Robbins, Ditko, Frazetta, Brent Anderson, Dave Stevens, Neal Adams, Will Eisner, Don Newton and Kirby and some of the modern guys who are bringing back the pulp style with their work like Darwyn Cooke, Michael Lark, Mitch Breitweiser, Francesco Francavilla, Keiron Dwyer, Paul Smith and Athena Voltaire’s Steve Bryant.
I like the trend away from the whole anime/manga and fusion style. It’s nice to see people that look like people and not some Sailor Moon variation. It would be nice to see art trend back into what it was before the cookie cutter anime era or the all flash gimmick days of Image where you had illustrators delivering solid storytelling which works in concert with strong writing as opposed to serving as an eye candy distraction. I know I sound like one of those crabby old guys who complain about change, but that’s not it at all, I just want artists who strive to be unique in such a way that when you see their work you know the story’s going to be that much stronger because the artist isn’t riding their ego, they are practicing their craft and enjoying every minute of it. In an age where any bloke with a laptop and a drawing tablet can call themselves an artist, I’d like to see a person who really knows what they’re doing and makes it work without a ton of fanfare.
I’m also an avid fan of audio dramas which started, oddly enough, with the Shadow and Sherlock Holmes. There was a great radio station that ran the old time radio shows on Saturdays and around the age of eleven, I noticed them as something other than background noise. My dad would occasionally listen to CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s, but I got hooked directly on a Shadow and Sherlock Holmes broadcast. The Shadow show was “the House that Death Built”, involving a crazy hanging judge type who rigged his house with all these execution gimmicks and was killing people who either escaped him or turned against him. The Holmes show was probably one of the best of Conan Doyle’s stories, the Speckled Band. It began a love affair with audio dramas that I have to this day and I follow the BBC regularly when I’m not sitting through a Johnny Dollar marathon or something…
AP: As far as your current involvement in Pulp, you are the designer/formatter/guru for Pro Se Productions. How did that association come to be?
Ali: Bus Stop. Bag over the head. I guess that’s not enough? Okay, I guess I can expand my answer a bit.
There was a fad online sometime ago called fan fiction, it’s not as heavy as it once was but it allowed a lot of writers (good, bad and needs their hands chopped off) a forum to express themselves by writing adventures of their favorite characters that probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day any other way. Among these groups was a little band called DC Futures headed by Erik Burnham. It was sort of DC Comics, the Next Generation, without the annoying android guy. At any rate it was there that I found a piece written by Tommy Hancock that dealt with the new generation of my Golden Age heroes and it was some really great writing. Somehow we got together in a conversation, I think I sent him an email praising him as the next best thing to sliced bread or something and we traded emails back and forth and found we had quite a bit in common. When he started a fan fic group of his own dealing specifically with those great old heroes, I pitched a couple of ideas and eventually did some very forgettable (in my humble opinion) writing on a few pieces. One of them, Gotham Knights, featuring Batman and other guys that were working Gotham City in the 30s and 40s was basically my War & Peace, and put the two of us on a path that’s led to a great friendship and creative collaboration.
We trod through a few trenches creatively, mostly with Tommy starting with “I’ve got this idea…” or “Got a sec?” which usually means a few hours later we’ve hammered out points, brainstormed and refined things first thought he had and he runs off six to ten alternate thoughts in the process. Most guys get one, maybe two brilliant ideas a week, Tommy gets something like a dozen in about an hour, every hour, all day, every day. I’ve been pretty fortunate to watch the writer Tommy is develop from the writer Tommy was. He was exceptional then and he’s only gotten better since. So he and I have always had a venture on the backburner where he’d eventually get around to doing something where my contribution would be more in my field of design like a magazine or something. During the fan fic days, I made the mistake of doing an ebook for one thing and it led to a sort of one off set of ebooks which didn’t really go anywhere. That might have been a good thing at the time, neither one of us were exactly where we needed to be in our respective skill sets.
As time went on, I’d do the occasional logo or comp together a piece of art for Tommy, but one day he came online in usual Tommy mode with “I’ve got this idea AND I want you to be a part of it.” Since he altered the script, I asked what he needed and he laid out the concept for what is now Pro Se Productions. Initially I had a small part in the thing, he needed logos for what was to be a series of audio dramas so I said, “Sure, no problem.” Confident he had me hooked, our hero moved on to the next phase of his plan which was a damn sight more ambitious, he springs on me that Pro Se is going to also have a print/publishing branch. So of course he asks, yours truly to lend a hand.
So of course with no guarantee of payment any time in my immediate future, and the knowledge that every month was going to be a grinder of pulling together all the disparate elements that make up the layout of an anthology book, I asked myself what any sane man would say to such a prospect…
…then I said yes anyway.
I’m a horrible businessman where my friends are concerned, so Pro Se’s my pro bono gig. I don’t take a check for it so the talent gets paid for their work. To be honest, Pro Se is the kind of seat of the pants design on the fly project that makes life fun, so I just enjoy the ride and add the credit to the resume. In another life I’d be Scotty on the Enterprise, doing wild things at the last minute just to see if I can pull it off before the Klingons blow us out of space…
AP: What exactly do you do as a formatter and designer? Walk us through the process of putting together one of the Pro Se magazines, if you would.
Ali: Well to be honest and in all seriousness, there’s not really a good way to answer that one.
I could be lightly technical and tell you that I use the Adobe Creative Suite software programs to get my job done. I work in Photoshop to process and format the images properly for what we do. some need to be tweaked more than others, occasionally I add something to an image or take it away, but it’s basic image prep work and file conversion since my images show up in any form from a jpeg to multiple page pdfs I have to pull apart and make separate images. In Illustrator, I create logos, cover layouts, and set up most of the ads I create on the fly. The actual book layout is set up as a template in InDesign where I do all the typesetting for the stories sent to Tommy, add in the visual elements and plug up major white spaces with house ads if we don’t have other folks plugging their products. We stir, say a few kind words and pray as I set up proof copies in pdf form for Tommy to review and note corrections, and we go back and forth until he says it’s good.
I upload files to Tommy and voila it’s soup!
We’ve gotten the process down from the first nightmare month where we actually ran through a few print houses and had to reformat files from an image based workflow to a pdf workflow. and the first month we did all three books together and it took weeks as we went back and forth with one printer then another and then we’d go somewhere else and have to redo the whole thing for those guys. I think during that whole challenge, Tommy and I were trying not to hang ourselves in an unspoken suicide pact, but it was a learning experience and there are things we know we wouldn’t do the same way again.
Now it’s a fairly quick process. The templates are streamlined, I redesigned the book so image placement is not as essential to the text and it made what used to take almost a week into a two day process. If I have everything and no interruptions, I can knock out the entire book from unrelated elements to finished product in about 12 hours. I’m competing with myself though, so I’m always trying to beat my best time and make it look better than it did before.
AP: Is your design influenced by any particular style, either derived from pulp or outside of that genre?
Ali: Not intentionally. I like the art deco look and feel of things, probably more from watching Agatha Christie’s Poirot than anything else. That look sort of played into the current direction of the Pro Se books house style. So much of the Pro Se look is supported by the way text is displayed that I’m in a constant state of refining things, so I try not to be married to anything because I may need to drop it down the road for something that might work better. There are some great font foundries out there like Nick Curtis, his fonts capture the look and feel of a bygone era while being a little more polished. He’s got great work over at My Fonts and it’s pretty reasonable. Of course my other go to font house is Nate Piekos and the wonderful folks over at Blambot, and their free fonts are so great that it makes typesetting and text design work a breeze.
In other aspects of my work, I try not to work in any particular style, that’s usually dictated by the client or the job. The more freedom I get on a project, the more I throw myself into it. Pro Se was a blank check design wise, so a lot of me is on each page.
When I’m doing my own art, I try not to follow any particular style but I’m getting back to studying artists Ilove and I’m hoping their work will continue to guide my own.
AP: Pulp seems to be having a resurgence currently. What are your thoughts on the reason for that and what part do you think design/format of material plays in that?
Ali: Everything comes back in style eventually, you just have to wait for it. I think in a world of global terrorism, political polarization and financial uncertainty we find ourselves pretty much in the same shoes as the generation who ushered in the pulp era. We’re looking for a bit of escapism where problems are solved in relatively short order, or someone plays the hero, or we enter world of high adventure that removes us from the overwhelming concerns of the world we actually live in for just a little while. Not necessarily a world of snap brim fedoras, or over the top heavies, but just something that starts out quietly enough before it hits you in the gut and catapults you to a “wow” finish. You leave feeling entertained and you want to come back for more later.
So what some are seeing as a rebirth of pulp is really just a recognition of what’s been with us the whole time. Sometimes we renamed it because the vehicle it was delivered in changed like, film noir, but pulp’s influence is in a lot of our entertainment and literature. There was pulp before pulp in penny dreadfuls and boys’ own stories across the pond, Sherlock Holmes is basically Doc Savage with a drug habit and fewer friends, Dorian Gray preceded the weird tale with a built in object lesson and morality play, heck you could look at Shakespeare and make a serious argument that he wrote a number of murder stories that would lay the framework for everything this side of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. I realize that might offend pulp purists, but we are in a constant state of change and growth as we age, why should pulp be a static thing in a specific niche? In its heyday, pulp ran the gamut in its chosen subject matter and pretty much every category of fiction you look at in Borders or Barnes & Noble has been used in pulp magazines, so to look at it now and say “Pulp is…” and you push in your view then you eliminate the possibility of it evolving into something else. Cyberpunk? It’s pulp. Steampunk? It’s pulp.. Harry Potter? It’s pulp. Twilight? Okay, maybe there are a few limits we should set, but the point is pulp fiction was simply an avenue to deliver entertainment to the masses relatively cheap and it encompassed a lot more than guys like the Shadow and Doc Savage.
It’s a trend that’s starting to return in comics where heroes are actually heroic. It’s returning to film where we are starting to see more masked avengers, or wrong men who have to clear themselves, we’ve fantasy stuff like Avatar and sci-fi thrillers like Inception. Pulp’s not just on the rise so is the concept of the heroic ideal. Some of these are executed well and you get novels like “It’s Superman!” which is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a pulp Superman novel which is one part superhero, one part pulp novel with a healthy dose of John Steinbeck thrown in. Or it’s executed awkwardly and you find an off beat version of Doc Savage or the Shadow falling short of its potential because you lose sight of the heart of the character. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we need to put those babies on the car and see where the road takes us next.
AP: You are a writer as well with a background in fan fiction. Any plans to try your hand at published pulp fiction?
Ali: I’ve been away from writing for the better part of a decade. I’ll see what happens when I shake the rust off my writer’s cap and take a stab at a new tale or two. Writing’s something I enjoy, but it requires time and a certain amount of peace and quiet for me. My life has been on the move nonstop since the fan fic days, so fact I’m even considering authoring a new story much less actually executing same is extraordinary. I’m rusty and will probably give whoever edits me the biggest headache this side of California, but Tommy has this idea I should give it a shot and it’s hard not to listen to that kind of coaxing.
I live by the motto of “Everything’s possible”, so I rule nothing out.
AP: You are a renaissance man as well. Designer/formatter, writer…and artist. What pieces have you done for Pro Se’s magazines and has your art work appeared elsewhere?
Ali: I’m also a pretty decent tenor, no one ever brings up the singing, sigh…
What pieces have I done for Pro Se’s magazines? You mean besides the magazines? This is a tough room!
I’ve done the bulk of the house ads that are currently in the books. I pinch hit on a couple of art pieces Let’s see in Fantasy and Fear (FnF) #1 I was lucky enough to get Ron Fortier’s “Beast of the Mountains”. It was a rush sketch, all pencil, that I had to complete in 20 minutes because we were on the absolute last day in our first month and were short one sketch. It never got inked but I played with it in Photoshop so it was close to the more finished art work we had for the other stories. In Masked Gun Mystery (MGM) #1, I got a piece of Tommy Hancock’s “Murphy’s Wake”, which was fun because it was from an earlier idea Tommy had about a book where everything was presented as newspaper clippings and diary entries and such, so the story was laid out the reflect that using fonts that changed with the material being viewed. I think I did a photo of the burning house in a newspaper clipping and an idealized appearance of the hero that was supposed to invoke the imagery of a great series of comic book stories in the 1970s featuring a ghostly hero called the Spectre. Finally over in Peculiar Advenutres (PA) #2 I contributed a piece to a story by Sean Ellis, “The Sorceror’s Ghost” which featured a scene from the story where I tried to capture this awesomely huge zeppelin in the skies over London. That was another fast sketch where inking, filters and lighting effects were done in Photoshop to cover up just how rough a piece it was.
I’m hoping to do some actual art that isn’t required five minutes after I get a story on press day, y’know just for kicks…
AP: With the myriad of talents you have, does pulp appeal to you because it can utilize all of them or is there something more that draws you to throw yourself into this sort of work?
Ali: I’m an artist and designer, so I’m always up for a project where I can exhibit and refine my skills. Pro Se covers that need in me because it’s an evolving work even with everything in place, I look at a piece and say to myself something can always be tightened or improved. The writer in me has sort of awakened cranky and hungry so I’m the process of completing a story for the first time in years which is really exciting because it’s another way to be artistic. Pro Se is open to the ideas I have, so occasionally it’s good to do favors, it opens up doors you didn’t even realize were in the building of your life. I’m even getting back to sketching so Pro Se has sort of drawn me back to skills I’ve left dormant for too long. Creatively, it’s a great place to be.
But really the appeal, the draw, the kick is to take up the challenge and see if you’re going to pull it off. It’s a rush that can’t be beat by anything when I’m in the zone and everything is falling into place. Nothing is greater than just living in that moment where you’re unstoppable and know you’ve nailed it.
AP: What about the future? What do you have in the works that might appeal to the ALL PULP audience?
Ali: Well I am constantly badgering Tommy to get some of my favorites in his bag of tricks (GIVE ME MY JOHNNY CRIMSON!) on the page…
…Oh, you mean from me specifically?
I’ve pitched a concept for Masked Gun Mystery using the magazine’s title for the story which will hopefully spawn a series of stories under that umbrella. I won’t spoil it at all other than to say it allows me to play in my favorite sandbox writing wise: crime, noir, espionage and detective fiction. I’m hoping to get the first installment into MGM’s next issue in February.
That’s the only definite thing on the horizon, though Tommy and I are constantly talking about projects. It would be nice to pull off an adventure tale or two over in PA and I have a couple of guys from some old ideas that might fit well there. So after I get my first installment in the can I’m open to more writing on top of the design work I do for Pro Se at least.
AP: Ali, without those people like you, writers and artists today would be suffering. Thanks so much for what you do for pulp fiction!
1128 South State Street Lockport, Illinois, 60441 815-834-1658 http://www.moonstonebooks.com/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- 12/15/10, Lockport Illinois-
GET DRAWN INTO MOONSTONE’S SAVAGE BEAUTY-FOR REAL!
Moonstone Entertainment, Inc., Runemaster Studios, Inc., and Captain Action Enterprises, LLC, the forces behind the upcoming comic series SAVAGE BEAUTY, announced a sweepstakes today related to the upcoming February debut of the title.
The story of two sisters who fight injustice and right wrongs as jungle heroines in Kenya has garnered positive buzz, not only for the talent involved in its production, but also due to the concept of dealing with real world issues through a comic medium. Now, with this contest, Moonstone and the creators of SAVAGE BEAUTY want to take the comic’s connection to reality one step farther!
According to Ed Catto, co-creator of SAVAGE BEAUTY, the sweestakes will work as follows- Anyone that pre-orders a copy of SAVAGE BEAUTY #1 with their local comic shop, favorite online retailer, or through the Moonstone online store is eligible to receive one entry into the “Get Savage with the Beauties” contest! The Grand Prize winner will be drawn into Savage Beauty #3 and will receive signed copies of SAVAGE BEAUTY #1 as well as a signed and numbered SAVAGE BEAUTY print, autographed by writer and co-creator Mike Bullock. Ten second prize winners will receive signed copies of Savage Beauty #1 and a Savage Beauty signed/numbered print, both autographed by co-creator/writer Mike Bullock.
To be eligible, entries must be either emailed to moonstonepr@ymail.com or posted on the Savage Beauty Facebook page no later than December 31st, 2010 at Midnight. Entries must include entrants name, address as well as the name, address, and phone number of the comic retailer the copy of SAVAGE BEAUTY #1 was ordered through. One entry per pre-order, so anyone who wants to enter multiple times need only pre-order multiple copies.
This sweepstakes is open to everyone who meets the requirement of preordering the debut issue. Winners will be selected randomly. The grand prize winner must provide Moonstone with a high quality photograph to use for reference and give Moonstone permission to use their likeness in the comic, but retaining no legal rights to the image or book.
“SAVAGE BEAUTY,” commented Bullock, “is a comic book at heart, offering escapism while shedding light on real life issues and situations plaguing our world every day. We thought it’d be interesting and fun to give one reader a chance to literally become a part of SAVAGE BEAUTY.”
AP: Tell us a little about yourself and your pulp interests.
VP: I’m a college professor living in southern Illinois but originally from Alabama.I’ve been writing and editing professionally for about six years, but I’ve been writing stories as far back as before kindergarten. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the old sword & sorcery and planetary romance tales of guys like Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Unlike probably most other pulp lovers, though, I didn’t become a big fan of the 1930s crime-fighter pulps (Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, etc.) until fairly recently, after I became a writer.Their appeal for me came as I was refining my own approach to writing.Most of what I had read growing up was lengthy science fiction in the vein of Frank Herbert and Larry Niven, and so when I tried to write, I would consciously attempt to emulate that rich, complex style—something that’s not easy for a novice writer, and something that is very difficult to pull off under any circumstances.Once I got into pulps, though, I realized there was an entirely different approach that I hadn’t tried—the approach of favoring fast-paced movement and action and vivid scenes over lengthy dissertation.
AP: What does pulp mean to you?
VP: I know there are probably a dozen (or more) different definitions and no one can really agree on it.For me, pulp is a style.It’s an approach to telling a story that, while striving to maintain quality and excellence in every traditional way, strips down the story to its bare essentials and races along at a break-neck pace the entire way.It doesn’t waste words.It’s efficient and it’s brash and bold and vivid.It gets in and gets the job done and kicks your butt and moves on.
AP: Your Sentinels novels are a mix of comic book archetypes and good old-fashioned pulp. What was your inspiration for The Sentinels books and what plans do you have for the future of the series?
VP: The Sentinels books really do represent the ultimate literary expression for me as a writer and creator.They combine the type of characters and stories I’ve always loved best—comic book-style cosmic action and character drama and humor—with the pulp approach of fast-paced action and constant forward momentum.
The characters came about years ago when my old friend, Bobby Politte, and I were brainstorming an interconnected universe of characters in the Marvel or DC style.Several years later, as I began to experiment with the pulp style of writing, I found that modern superheroes and the classic pulp style made a perfect match.I know there are some other original superheroes-in-prose projects out there, but I honestly don’t think anyone else is doing it quite this way.Our inspiration was predominantly the Avengers and X-Men comics of the 1970s and 1980s, which had such strong characterization and so many great moments of interaction among the cast—not to mention over-the-top threats, both from Earth and from outer space, other dimensions, godlike beings, and on and on.There really were almost no limits on what could be done in Marvel comics during those years, and I try to pull out all the stops to replicate that sort of feel with the Sentinels.
There’s not a lot of what I think of as the hokey tropes of so many superhero prose stories.The characters have their powers and mostly take them for granted the way a Star Trek character would have a phaser and a communicator and access to a transporter and take those things for granted in the course of a story.There’s virtually no dwelling on those tropes—they merely serve the story and the action.Readers tend to really like that.If you’re reading a story of this type, you probably already understand those basics and are wanting to get on with the action!
I have one more volume to complete to round out the current story arc, “The Rivals.”It will be called Stellarax and you can look for it next spring or summer, if all goes according to plan.That will bring the total number of books in the series so far to seven, including an anthology volume that came out in between the two trilogies.I have compiled extensive outlines and notes that should carry the overall storyline across at least two more story arcs or trilogies, and eventually I’m hoping it will round out at around twenty volumes.At that point, I can look back and feel I’ve produced at least one very solid body of work that will stand up for readers after I’m gone.
There has been talk recently of some RPG-related supplements based on the Sentinels, and I’m hoping that will move forward soon.
AP: Tell us a bit about your novel, Lucian: Dark God’s Homecoming.Are there any plans to revisit this world?
VP: Yeah, I do write other stuff besides the Sentinels!Lucian is a longer novel that I worked on for several years, pouring a lot of effort and energy and love into it.I tried to channel the sorts of attitudes and sensibilities that I loved so much in books like Nine Princes in Amber (by Roger Zelazny) into it.That includes a shady, not-terribly-sympathetic (at first) main character with godlike powers and a need to be taken down a peg or two.
In short, Lucian is the “god of evil” of a Jack Kirby-esque cosmic pantheon; think Loki or even the devil himself. He tried to take over the Golden City for himself, years ago, and was defeated and exiled to the mortal realm.While he was away, someone or something murdered dozens of the other gods—and of course everyone blames Lucian.So now he’s on the run, trying to prove that (at least in this one instance) he’s innocent!
With the whole thing written in first-person point of view, the reader lives the story from inside Lucian’s head.You experience the action from his perspective and you never know more than he knows, as the mystery unfolds.
When writing it, I tried to challenge myself to make every single scene “go to 11.”I was never satisfied with the first draft of any chapter; I added more and more visual imagery, made the language richer, and pushed myself to make the scenes as vivid and exciting as possible.
I do have three more books set in this universe roughly plotted out—one is sort of a prequel and explains where the gods actually came from; the events of the other two take place much farther in the future.A different “god” is the first-person protagonist of each—which is what Zelazny originally planned to do with his Amber books, before deciding to just go with Corwin the whole way through.If all goes well, the next one will be coming along soon.
AP: You have worked on shorter pulp tales for Airship 27’s Lance Star: Sky Ranger (vol. 2 and upcoming vol. 3), Gideon Cain – Demon Hunter, Mars McCoy – Space Ranger, and Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective vol. 1.What draws you to these shorter stories?
VP: I’m not nearly as big a fan of short stories as I am of big, epic sagas.That being said, though, short stories can be terrific if they’re done right.I like to think of a short story as “performing a trick.”Here’s what I mean:A great long novel can dwell on lots of details and lots of characters and just wallow in all the fun.But a short story, because of its brevity, is restricted to focusing very narrowly on the main point of it all.At the end, too, I think a short story needs to have a kind of kick to it—an “oomph” moment—where it “does a trick,” almost like telling a really good joke, where the end hits you and makes you go, “Wow! Cool!”
In the case of a character like Gideon Cain (the sword-and-sorcery guy I co-created as part of a group that included Kurt Busiek and Keith DeCandido, among others), the short story format really does work best, I think.Cain stumbles into a situation, encounters something weird and probably deadly, battles it, and moves on.I think it would be harder to sustain a single Cain story over the course of an entire novel, but short stories are just right for his kind of character.
AP: What, if any, existing pulp or comic book characters would you like to try your hand at writing?
VP: I always used to think I wanted to write the Avengers, but having written around 400,000 words of the Sentinels (so far), I think I’ve done many of the things with them I would have done with the Avengers—and more.Now, if Marvel suddenly handed the reins over to me, I’d like to think I could come up with a bunch of new ideas, and I’d certainly get the characters “right” after reading them for decades.But the desire doesn’t burn nearly as brightly as it once did.
Working on original characters is much more appealing to me.I can put little pieces and parts of many different existing characters I enjoy into my own creations—and just the best parts!Even working on a jointly-created character like Mars McCoy is appealing in that way, because I had a hand in his creation and I can concentrate on and emphasize the elements of that character and that world that I like the best.
AP: You’ve been referred to as “Mr. Avenger” by various sources.When did your association with The Avengers begin and what is it about this team that resonates with you?Also, tell us about the Assembled books and their charitable origins.
VP: The first Marvel comic I ever owned was a copy of Avengers #162, the Bride of Ultron, in 1977.They instantly became my favorites.The appeal was probably the combination of science fiction imagination, superhero action, and strong characterization; I loved how the members squabbled and fought each other as often as they fought the bad guys.(That’s a big part of what I’ve tried to bring to my Sentinels books.)
In 1995 I had the chance to create my first web site, and naturally I gravitated toward the Avengers, setting up AvengersAssemble.net, the first Avengers site on the Internet.(Hard to believe it’s been around for over fifteen years now, and welcomed millions of visitors!)A mailing list spun out of that site, and over the years we members there all discussed doing some kind of Avengers book.
In 2007 the opportunity finally came around to do just that, and we (the Jarvis Heads) put together Assembled!, a compilation volume of articles looking in-depth at the various “eras” of Avengers history, such as the “Stan and Jack Era,” the “Jim Shooter/George Perez Era,” and so on.We donate the profits to the HERO Initiative charity for retired comics creators.In 2009 we produced a second volume, Assembled! 2, focusing on the “Big Three” Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America) and the major villains.Both books have sold very well, and we’re hoping to publish a third (and final) volume in the months ahead, focusing on the rest of the characters and other villains.
AP: Who are some of your creative influences?
VP: In the realm of prose writing, nobody has been more influential on me than the late Roger Zelazny, the author of the Amber books and Lord of Light, among others. His writing manages to combine old-school pulpiness (and even noir!) with amazingly poetic prose work.I never get tired of studying his sentence structures and the way he incorporates so many diverse elements into a cohesive whole.
As far as superheroes and comics go, I have always loved the stuff produced by Jim Starlin (as both a writer and artist—the supreme master of the cosmic!) and also Jim Shooter’s 1970s Marvel work.While I can’t draw a lick, there’s no doubt that the art of George Perez, Steve Rude, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, and Michael Golden was all very influential on how I imagine scenes and how I try to depict action with words.
Other writers whose work strongly impacts me include Robert E. Howard, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Philip Jose Farmer, Dan Abnett, Richard Stark, James Clavell, Arthur Conan Doyle…and so many more.
AP: What does Van Plexico do when he’s not writing pulp stories and novels?
VP: Either teaching history and government courses at my college or helping take care of my daughters.I also write a weekly column on college football for an Auburn site.So I have to squeeze in the fiction writing whenever and wherever I can, and it’s not easy!
AP: Where can readers learn more about you and your work?
AP: Any upcoming projects you would like to mention?
VP: You mentioned the Lance Star story I will have in the next anthology, and that’s proving both challenging and fun to put together.It helps a lot that I have previously worked with the Griffon, another air-ace kind of hero from that era.I’ve been banging away at a big, far-future space opera trilogy for several months now—the first volume, HAWK, should be done sometime next year.Same with the concluding volume of the current Sentinels trilogy, Stellarax.If you like big, Marvel-style cosmic action with Galactus-ish and Celestials-ish characters threatening to destroy planets and battle one another, you will love Stellarax.And I contributed a long novella to the second volume of Airship 27’s upcoming Mars McCoy-Space Ranger anthologies, which I am particularly proud of and which I think readers will very much enjoy.I also co-edited the first volume, which should be along any time now.
AP: Are there any upcoming convention appearances or signings coming up where fans can meet you?
VP: Nothing in the near future.The bad economy right now is proving pretty disastrous to small press writers and publishers, and I’m no exception.I probably won’t even make DragonCon next year—ending a thirteen year run.Hopefully I will be at PulpArk (in Arkansas) and ImagiCon (in Birmingham) in the spring, depending on the financial situation at that time.
AP: You have served as a writer, editor, and publisher (White Rocket Books). Are there any creative areas you’ve not been worked in that you would like to try your hand at doing?
VP: Yeah, I’ve written for maybe six or seven different publishers now, and edited for two or three, in addition to my own White Rocket imprint. It certainly keeps me busy.A few months ago I would have said what I wanted to try next was sports writing, but now I’m getting to do that with the War Eagle Reader.Eventually I’m sure I’ll get around to writing comics scripts; I’ve done a couple in the past, but none have ever been produced or published.It’s just a matter of having the right ideas and finding a reliable artist to work with.
AP: And finally, what advice would you give to anyone wanting to be a writer?
VP: Read!Read and read and read.Read lots of stuff, including material (way) outside of your comfort zone.Especially stuff outside of your comfort zone.
When writing Lucian, I haunted bookstores and libraries, digging through volumes of Asian and European poetry, looking both for some good and fitting quotes to work into the story (Emily Bronte’s lines make a couple of appearances) and for general flavor to try to incorporate into my own prose.
When working on the Sentinels books, the last thing I want to do is read comics.That would just lead me to rehash stuff that’s already been done to death.Instead I go and read Patrick O’Brian’s “Master and Commander” series (very inspirational in terms of writing groups of characters trapped in hostile and isolated conditions) or James Clavell’s Asian Saga (books like Shogun—studying actual foreign cultures will give you lots of good ideas for writing SF!) or Richard Stark’s “Parker” novels or James Ellroy’s noir (to learn an economy of words and the impact of taut, blunt sentences and crystal-clear characterizations).
So I recommend that any beginning writer try to get as broad an exposure as possible to any and every kind of literature.The more different elements you have bumping around in your head, the more original the work you produce will be.
AP: Welcome to ALL PULP, Travis and thanks for letting us grill you unmercifully.Let’s start with the basics: who is Travis Hiltz?
TH: Wish I had something really exciting to say here, like I was rocketed from a doomed planet or something. In reality, I’m just a regular guy who has read too many comics, science fiction paperbacks, watched too many cartoons as a kid and then decided to see if I could make any money off this writing stuff. I am supported by my loving wife and tolerated by my teenage children.
AP: Where do you live and what do you do to keep the bill collectors away?
TH: I live in the quaint little town of Keene, in the wilds of New Hampshire. While I wait for the royalties to pour in, I work at Hannafords supermarket.
AP: As a writer, what influences have affected your style and interests?
TH: Pretty much everything: the ga-zillion comic books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, books I’ve read, music I’ve listened to and occasionally stuff from the real world. I’m equally influenced by stuff that I hate and think I could have done better, as well as stuff I loved and seethed with jealousy that I hadn’t written.
Specific writers that have influenced me are : Douglas Adams, Philip Jose Farmer, Lester Dent, Robert E. Howard, Alan Moore and I think I’ll stop there, as I could probably do this all day.
AP: Are you a pulp fan? If so, how has that affected you as a writer? If you aren’t a longtime fan, then why pulp? And what is your definition of Pulp?
TH: I’m a big pulp fan, got my start by discovering some old Doc Savage paperbacks at a library book sale and have never looked back. I think it’s had a big influence on my writing, as I like the larger than life feel of the heroes and adventures, as well as the exotic locals. I’m more a fan of the characters that have series, as opposed to stand alone stories. Captain Future, G-8, Doc Savage, and the Spider, guys like that.
As for a definition, I think pulp is guy literature, at its best and purest form. Its action, adventure, testosterone and very little time is wasted on romance and/or flowery language. The pulps are basically comic books, minus the pictures.
AP: Were you at all familiar with the Wold Newton Universe before you started writing stories set in that universe?
TH: I was. I’m a huge Philip Jose Farmer fan and had read several of his Wold Newton based books. I was thrilled to discover the website a couple years ago.
I was amazed that someone out there had enough free time to sort through and chart out all that info. It’s been a great resource for research for me.
AP: How did you get involved with TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN and Black Coat Press?
TH: I think I was tracking down books after visiting some website relating to Alan Moore’s ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ and one of the links was to the Blackcoat Press site. After buying a couple books and the euphoria of discovering a whole new world of characters I knew so little about, I discovered the ‘Shadowmen’ anthology and decided to finally take the big leap and pitch them a story.
Much to my happy surprise, they published it and I have now worked my way up to being listed as a ‘regular contributor’.
AP: Tell us about some of the stories you’ve written for TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN.
TH: My first, “Three Men, A Baby and A Martian” was a light hearted bit of sci-fi featuring Doctor Omega. He’s one of my favorite characters. He’s basically Doctor Who as created by Jules Verne and HG Wells.
“A Dance Of Night And Death” is a darker tale, featuring two of Blackcoat’s vilest villains fighting a duel on a rooftop in Paris.
“The Treasure Of Ubasti” is an adventure, set in the deep jungles of India and features a mix of characters on a treasure hunt. That was fun, as the setting of India was suggested by a friend of mine and I then had to hunt around and find characters that would fit the place and time period.
“The Robots of Metropolis” also features Doctor Omega. I wanted to find a mad scientist to have him face off against. I thought, if he is treated as Blackcoat’s ‘Doctor Who’ then Doctor Omega needed a ‘Master’ to fight and I thought Professor Rotwang from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis would be perfect.
Would it be bragging of me to mention that Blackcoat Press has a partner publisher in France, River Blanche, and that I have had several stories translated into French?( http://www.riviereblanche.com/compagnons2.htm) I’m a under-published cult figure in two countries.
AP: What can we expect from you in 2011?
TH: In January I will send out my next story pitch for Blackcoat as well as having several stories published in the ‘Pulp Empire’ anthology (http://pulpempire.com/mag/) series.
“The Green Pearl” is a humorous noir story. “Death Stalks The Underground” has a bit of a Blackcoat vibe, as it is a team up between several characters, but these are all original characters, but easily recognizable as classic pulp archetypes and after that is my first ever attempt at a western.
As well as working on several pitches for two other small press, pulp based publishers.
AP: What’s a typical Day In The Life of Travis Hiltz like?
TH: Again, I wish I had something more exciting to tell you I wake up at the crack of dawn, get my kids off to school and my wife to work. Then either head off to work myself, or if I have the day off, I get my coffee, check my e-mail and try to get some writing done. These days are a juggle of attempting to get some writing done, working on whatever ‘to do’ list my wife has given me and then chauffering kids wherever they need to be. We always try and have family dinner. After kids are done with homework, I catch up on either my movie/TV watching or podcast listening. I try to keep some kind of writing schedule, but it’s nothing carved in stone. I don’t stress over it, as I know at least several nights a week my insomnia will kick in and I’ll be able to catch up.
AP: Thanks again for the interview, Travis and we’ll be looking forward to reading more exciting pulp from you in the coming year!
From Chuck Miller, Creator of THE BLACK CENTIPEDE (review and interview coming soon to ALL PULP)-
I’ve been enjoying the Philip Jose Farmer tributes this weekend. I’ve been a Farmer devotee for almost longer than I can remember. His Doc Savage biography and the Riverworld series in particular had a profound influence on me, which I can still detect in my work today. One evening about 20 years ago, I rather impulsively got his home phone number in Peoria from directory assistance and gave him a call. He was very friendly and engaging and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, and the questions I asked him. I talked with him a couple more times after that, and we corresponded for a while, and he was always very encouraging about my own ambitions, which I shared with him.
I will always be indebted to him for that, and for the great body of work he produced during his lifetime. He was absolutely fearless artistically. Who else would have had both the nerve to write a Tarzan story as told by WILLIAM S. Burroughs rather than Edgar Rice (“The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod”), and the talent to pull it off?
12/9/10 THIS WEEK ON THE BOOK CAVE!! The Book Cave Episode 104: Tom Johnson Takes A Tunnel Through Space! Ric is joined by Tom and Ginger Johnson and their publisher, Barbara Custer. Art is out this week due to a meeting with fellow witchdoctors. ;-) Art joins Ric after the show to talk about the award they recently won. After that is the All Pulp news with Tommy Hancock.
Check out ALL PULP’S official podcast, THE BOOK CAVE here-
