Adding to the New Year’s ‘Twilight Zone’ Marathon…
…we present to you a little story written by Mark Pellegrini and drawn by Timothy Lim.
The Mix : What are people talking about today?
A HOLIDAY TALE TO CLOSE OUT THE HOLIDAY SEASON IN FOUR PARTS-FROM MARK HALEGUA
The Night Before Christmas
by Mark S. Halegua
Part 1
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house –
One creature was stirring. It was a louse.
An apartment in an apartment building. A railroad flat, and it was the front room. This apartment building was unusual as all the apartments had fireplaces. The fireplace in this one was dark and the flu wouldn’t completely close, so the room was colder than the others. The doors to the hall and the next room were closed to keep the cold in it.
A couch on the left wall, the fabric threadbare, between two round topped side tables, scratched and dull, each with an old lamp. Across the room from the couch the front wall with two large windows looking out onto the street, street lamps barely keeping away the dark, and the sidewalks covered with a thin layer of snow, a brisk wind blowing wisps of snow around.
Looking around the room, faded wall paper. A tree in one corner on the side of the room away from the fireplace, festooned with tinsel, strings of popcorn, and colored buttons. At the top an angel, old and cracked. Under the tree a few boxes, wrapped with newspaper and tied with string.
On the fireplace mantel five stockings, different colors with a narrow strip of white faux fur at their top. Each stocking holding a solitary candy cane and a small wrapped chocolate. To the side of the fireplace a table stood with a glass half full of milk and a plate with two cookies.
A man quietly moved towards the mantel, removing the candy from the stockings and placing them in a sack in his hand. Dressed in a watch cap, brown leather jacket, dark pants and work boots, he silently moved towards the tree and starts to pick up one box and place it in the sack …
“Ho ho ho,” he hears. “I think I see a naughty boy here. Taking the presents and the candy from this poor family I see.”
The man in the watch cap turns towards the voice, standing by the chimney, light from the street lamps dimly coming in the windows and showing a man with a white beard and mustache, dressed in a red suit and fur lined tassled cap, black boots and wide black belt.
“Who are youse old man? What are youse doing here?”
“What am I doing here? The better question would be what are you doing here? But, I already know that, just as I’ve had you on my naughty list for many years, Caine Marko.”
“How do you know who I am? And, who do you think you’re fooling dressed like that? You tryin’ to make me think youse is Santa Claus?”
“I know everyone who is naughty and nice. Now put those presents and candy back and leave here. Now.”
“And, if I don’t? What you gonna do, sic Rudolph on me?”
A sigh escapes the lips of the man in red, “I was truly hoping for once you could do a nice thing. No Caine, I won’t call Rudolph in on you. But, do you remember what naughty boys get in their stockings for Christmas?”
“Uh, I uh think … oh, yeah, Santa puts coal in my stocking. Ha, is that what youse is gonna give me, a lump of coal? Huh, ‘Santa’.”
“In a manner of speaking Caine, yes,” And the man in red whips his hand forward and Caine Marko is struck on the forehead by a hard lump of coal.
Groaning, Marko falls to the floor. The man in red takes the sack and replaces the presents under the tree and the candy in the stockings.
He walks over to the small table and takes one cookie and eats it, then taking a swallow of the milk. He walks over to the dazed Marko, swings him over his shoulder, opens a window, and climbs down the fire escape to the street below. Marko is placed on the ground and when he wakes up he realizes he can’t move his arms. Looking down he sees he is inside a giant red Christmas stocking.
“Hey, youse can’t keep me tied up like this. Let me out!”
“Ho ho ho. I think this is the perfect place for you. Now, why don’t you tell me who you’re working for? Is it for Tony Minetti? He’s another on my naughty list.”
“I ain’t working for anybody. I work for myself. I ain’t tellin’ youse nuttin.”
“So, you aren’t working for Minetti, but you’re too stupid to be doing this on your own. You aren’t bright enough to think about this yourself. And, you don’t work alone. Who’s helping you on this Caine? Are Joey Kuzincski and Al Browning in on this with you?”
Struggling inside the giant stocking, Kaine answered, “I don’t know what youse is talkin’ about. Let me outta this ting!”
“I believe you do know, Caine. So, what say you tell Santa?”
“I don’t know nuttin. Youse are crazy.”
“Hmmm. I know, it’s Christmas Eve and you haven’t had your candy cane. Here you are.”
The white bearded man in the red suit sticks a candy cane in Marko Caine’s mouth.
“I don’t want no cand … mfff.”I don’t want no cand … mfff.”
“You’ll like this one. It has a … special flavor.”
Caine tries to spit the candy out, but a red glove covers his mouth. After a couple of minutes, the crook’s head is lolling around.
“Now, Caine, where’d you get the idea to steal these family’s presents on Christmas Eve?”
“In … bar. Hoid some guys at the booth behind me … hoid them talk ’bout a caper tonight, takin’ presents from some … rich family … and maybe more. Hoid one of … ’em call anudder … Tony. Dats all. Figgered I could do same … around here.”
“Ah, I see. And what bar were you in, Marko?”
“M, M, Maxie’s. On … River.”
“I know of the place. Full of nothing but naughty boys and girls. They’re all on my naughty list. What say you go to sleep Caine.”
“What ya … mean sleep …,” and the last thing he saw was a giant candy cane swung at his head.”
“Huh, Caine was caned.”
A window sash opened from one of the apartments and a man looks out on the street, awakened by some noises he heard. He looks around and spots a huge red Christmas stocking, hung with care from one of the streetlights, stuffed with what looked like a man.
“What the …”What the …”
From down the street he hears, “on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen, dash away dash away all we have naughty boys to talk to before the night is last call.”
To Be Continued
ALL PULP RINGS IN 2011 WITH THE YEAR IN PREVIEW!!!
FROM TOM JOHNSON-
EXCITING PULP TALES by Tom Johnson: Being proofed now, and coming soon from Altus Press. This sequel to 2010’s PULP DETECTIVES contains ten exciting pulp tales with the feel of the original writers of the 1930s and ‘40s. Many of the original characters return for the first time. The Angel returns in “A Devil of A Case”; The Green Ghost returns in “The Case of The Blind Soldier”; The Cobra returns in “Curse of The Viper”; The Crimson Mask returns in “The Mask of Anubis”; Gentle Jones in “Nazis Over Washington”; The Purple Scar in “The Skull Killer”; Funny Face in “The Star of Africa”; and Alias Mr. Death in “Coffins of Death”. Next is a new jungle girl adventure, featuring the Jungle Queen in “Jungle Terror”, and Ki-Gor returns in a 30,000 word story, titled “Lost Valley of Ja Far”, which was previously written as a 15,000 word story for another publication. This volume comes in just under 400 pages. If you want your pulps original, these stories will fill the bill.
FROM WILLIAM PATRICK MAYNARD-
THE DESTINY OF FU MANCHU is pencilled in for December 2011 publication by Black Coat Press.
Michael Knox is the brash and arrogant assistant of renowned archaeologist Dr. Spiridon Simos. A chance encounter with a beautiful Egyptian woman at Dr. Simos’ wedding in Corfu leads the young man on a whirlwind journey to Cairo where he barely survives the terrifying reincarnation of the ancient Pharaoh Khunum-Khufu.
A chain of events quickly unfold that embroils Knox with obsessive British agent, Sir Denis Nayland Smith and his pursuit of the master criminal, Dr. Fu Manchu. Slowly, the young man begins to piece together the threat posed to the world as Fu Manchu and his seductive, but sadistic daughter Koreani tear the dread secret society, the Si-Fan apart.
Before Michael Knox can act on the intelligence in his possession, he must first survive death in a myriad of strange guises from a savage gorilla trained to crush a man’s spine to the unrelenting pursuit of Margarita, the disarming dwarf assassin who brings terror to the Orient Express to one thousand poisonous butterflies unleashed at the Munich Conference as Europe teeters on the brink of a Second World War.
As madness sweeps the globe, one hedonistic young man must examine his own life as he realizes the world’s future hangs in the balance. The action moves swiftly from Greece to Egypt to Africa to Europe in a breathtaking battle of ideologies as Sax Rohmer‘s infamous creation seeks to realize THE DESTINY OF FU MANCHU.
FROM BARRY REESE-
The Damned Thing, my occult noir novel set in 1939 Atlanta, comes out from WCB, as does The Rook V6.
I’ll be at Pulp Ark
I’m gonna be a part of The Ninth Circle project.
I’m writing a Crimson Mask story for Airship 27.
Working on Turn the Page with Tommy Hancock.
Lazarus Gray V 1 from Pro Se.
MORE YEAR IN PREVIEW COMING LATER TODAY FROM ALL PULP!
The Point Radio: Laura Vandervoort On V’s Return
In a few days (January 4th to be exact), ABC lauches the second season of V with a lot of new cast members and a few surprises as well. Cast member Laura Vandervoort talks about what we can expect in the next run, plus a bit on the future of her role as Supergirl. Plus a bad week(month?) for poor ol’ Spider-Man.
And be sure to stay on The Point via 
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Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net – plus there is a great round of new programs on the air including classic radio each night at 12mid (Eastern) on RETRO RADIO COMICMIX’s Mark Wheatley hitting the FREQUENCY every Saturday at 9pm and even the Editor-In-Chief of COMICMIX, Mike Gold, with his daily WEIRD SCENES and two full hours of insanity every Sunday (7pm ET) with WEIRD SOUNDS!
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ALL PULP 2011-THE YEAR IN PREVIEW!!!
As the old year draws to a close, ALL PULP wants to know what you as publishers, writers, and artists have coming up for Pulp in 2011!!!! Send us a snippet, a release, heck, a manifesto telling us about what you’ve got coming up for the next year! Send us images, works in progess, whatever and we’ll post it on the first day of the New Year along with a special recently written holiday Pulp story from Mark Halegua!! Send all your 2011 stuff to allpulp@yahoo.com
ComicMMX: 2010 in Review
So, that’s it for 2010. And what have we learned tonight, Craig?
Digital is coming, hard and fast. Comixology just announced (via press release) that at the moment there are more than five thousand comics in its store, and that that application has been downloaded over one million times from iTunes. You know what they aren’t saying? How many comics they’re actually selling. Heck, it’d be interesting to find out how many comics they’ve been giving away for free.
We do have some industry numbers: while graphic novel sales fell an estimated 20%, digital comics sales increased over 1000%. And it’s not just comics, either; Amazon announced that the Kindle has now outsold Harry Potter at their site– best guesses say they’ve sold 5.4 million to date. Barnes & Noble has announced that the Nook line of eReaders has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in almost 40 years. And the iPad was the most wished for and most given (in dollar volume) Christmas gift this year, adding to a total of over 10 million sold in less than a year since its debut.
Archie’s polyamorous. Betty, Veronica, and Valerie? Daaaaaaaamn.
It seems there’s actually a price point at which the fan base will say, en masse, “Holy cow, that’s just too expensive for me to buy.” DC says that’s $3.99. Marvel says that’s for DC Comics, their readers will gladly pay $3.99. We’ll see.
We all wondered what would happen when the best selling comics dipped below 100,000 a month. Now we’re wondering what will happen when the best selling comics dip below 50,000, the industry-leading Life With Archie magazine notwithstanding.
That’s the story of the year. Life With Archie goes magazine-sized, gets distributed to WalMart and Toys R Us and Target and such,and rapidly becomes the best-selling comic in America!
We also used to wonder when the manga boom would end or the market would become oversaturated. That would be “2010.”
DC President Paul Levitz may be too young to retire, even after having been in the industry for four decades. But he only quit his day job, as the legion of Legion readers are gladly aware.
America still loves zombies. We guess they’re deathless.
Nothing, apparently, can kill Batman – short of Joel Schumacher, of course. Nevertheless, he feels he now needs backups of himself all over the world.
Conventions are still going strong, and can make a huge impact. NYCC is hitting San Diego attendance numbers of three years ago, and Chicago’s one year-old C2E2 is hitting numbers of NYCC two years ago.
If superhero themed porno movies is all the rage, how come no one’s made one for Iron Man? You would think it’s just waaaay too easy to do. And let’s not even get started on Captain Hammer. Heck, Nathan Fillion might even reprise the role himself– <a target=”_blank” href=”
done porn before. Kinda.
What’s the biggest story of 2011? Ha! Watch this space.
What about you? What do you think were the big stories of 2010 in comics?
INTERVIEW WITH ‘WEEK IN HELL’ AUTHOR J. WALT LAYNE!
J WALT LAYNE-Author
ÃÂÃÂ
AP: Thanks for being with us! Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you became a writer?
JWL: First thank you for the review and the interview. It is difficult for the novice to learn marketing and you guys are great to work with.
YâÃÂÃÂknow everyone says they started writing as a kid, and I know thatâÃÂÃÂs true for me. I started telling and then writing stories as soon as I could hold a pencil. I learned to read and to write very early, and was reading a lot of classic literature late in elementary school. I used to drive my English teacher crazy with this very literary stuff when all she wanted was a theme about my weekend adventures. I wrote my first screenplay in Sixth grade, it was an episode of The A Team, it was terribleâÃÂæ Through High School I wrote a lot of Sci-Fi and combat stuff, war fiction and the super soldier stuff was big in the late 1980s. I didnâÃÂÃÂt write much when I was in the Army, but I did put on a lot of mileage.
By maybe 1999 or 2000 I was looking at taking it to the next level but I wasnâÃÂÃÂt quite sure what that wasâÃÂæ I was writing a lot of very over the top stuff, but you donâÃÂÃÂt really know how to write anything beyond a few thousand words until you do it. My first real book project was an editing and rewriting gig with an old friend who was into mythos fiction. After that I was cranking out a lot of flash fictions and short stories over at www.zoetrope.com. It was one of those flash fiction contests that prompted my first novel.
AP: Who were some of the early influences on your writing style?
JWL: Good question, because I believe in a lot of ways you are what you read. I wasnâÃÂÃÂt allowed to play sports as a kid, so I spent a lot of time in my books and in my head. I read everybody from Judy Blume to Emile Zola. I loved comics, particularly horror and detective stuff. I read my way through Burroughs, Tarzan was my favorite. Robert Heinlein was and is a favorite, matter of fact IâÃÂÃÂm reading Glory Road right now. I discovered pulp in a box of comics and detective magazines bought for a dollar at a garage sale in the mid 1980s. It was racy stuff compared to David Copperfield. I still remember reading Paul CainâÃÂÃÂs One, Two, Three for the first time. Wow.
When youâÃÂÃÂre a kid though, thereâÃÂÃÂs a certain pressure to have an eye on whatâÃÂÃÂs popular at the time, even if youâÃÂÃÂre not particularly concerned, and so I got into the fictional accounts and history of the Vietnam War. I read Platoon, Hamburger Hill, and Deadly Green, but the one that hit me hardest and still resonates is Body Count, by William Turner Huggett. He was writing a contemporary, gritty, war novel, but it was graphic in both its language, and depiction. He was a year out of Vietnam when he wrote it, the war hadnâÃÂÃÂt sat on his shelf long enough to mellow and age. In the service I read a ton of biographies about military people, all the bigger than life generals anyhow.
In the last 10 years or so it has been a mixed bag, Spider Robinson, pulp anthologies, Becky Benston, Bobby Nash, and the dystopian stuff like Fahrenheit 451.
AP: Your first book, Frank Testimony, was released in 2006. Can you tell us a bit about what it’s about and how readers can get ahold of it?
JWL: Frank Testimony is a legal thriller set in 1950s Mississippi. I didnâÃÂÃÂt even know that book was inside me until it sort of exploded. It was about this time (December 29, 2005) when I was gearing up for the weekly flash over at Zoetrope. As it turned out there was no regular contest because of the holiday weekend. Another regular poster who hosted a site called The Redrum Tavern, posted a prompt, âÃÂÃÂDeathâÃÂÃÂ. The very second I started writing I knew something was up because it was just pouring out on the page. 40 days and 144,000 words later I had something that I had a sense was very special, to me at least. It wasnâÃÂÃÂt until I started getting reader feedback that I realized that IâÃÂÃÂd turned a corner as a writer.
Frank Testimony is the story of jealousy gone bad. Frank Burchill is implicated in the murders of his would be sweetheart Mae Whitaker and her father. If it was up to Sheriff Cobb, the prosecutor and other good olâÃÂàboys Frank would have a one way ticket to the gas chamber. But Judge Hull smells a rat, a big one named Bobby Lee Russell who is almost genealogically predisposed to criminal mischief, Klan violence, and just being generally hateful and nasty.
It is a big story, big characters, with a pretty good recipe for pulled pork and gatorbacks. Available at www.createspace.com/3352654
AP: A Week in Hell is your newest release and is the first in the Champion City series. What led to the development of this novel and how will future books carry the story forward?
JWL: Spade, Marlowe, and Hammer are all detectives in big cities, Gothams, Metropolises, everyone knows those places are dens of scum. Thurman Dicke is a big Slavic/German cop in a dying Midwestern blue collar city. Champion City is a big bowl of the low parts of Americana. It has a Tammany-esque political machine, restrictive ethnicity in neighborhoods, both Irish and Italian organized crime, dying industry, and dirty business. There are varying degrees of justice and as the top cop says: ThereâÃÂÃÂs a right way, a wrong way and the CCPD way.
The series will chronicle ThurmanâÃÂÃÂs rise to glory, his fall from grace, and his redemption. Thurman wonâÃÂÃÂt always be a beat cop, he wonâÃÂÃÂt always work for CCPD, and there will be points when his white hat turns a very dark gray. HeâÃÂÃÂs a bigger than life guy, and thus his highs are higher and his lows will be catastrophic. He isnâÃÂÃÂt a one man army, but he does what he has to do to get things done. I hesitate to say that each book builds on the last building up steam for the big finish, but the last book is already written, not set in stoneâÃÂæ But I pretty well have it.
AP: The language and situations in A Week in Hell are pretty mature — was there ever a point when you were writing the story where you felt you were pushing the envelope too far?
JWL: It is a bit more than edgy. I count the book as a victory, but in the future my narrative can be accomplished with much more ferocity with less explicit display. I donâÃÂÃÂt think it oversteps its bounds much more than any of the so called Neo-Pulp, but IâÃÂÃÂm trying to do something more traditional that loosing a hedonistic gorilla on an idyllic hamlet. The masters of the style got it there without the use of such devices and I should endeavor to do so.
AP: What do you think about the modern pulp revival? What role do you think the hardboiled genre has to play in its resurgence?
JWL: I think itâÃÂÃÂs about time. There was so much great stuff written that laid the ground work for people who are writing now. I think the best stuff is yet to come, and thereâÃÂÃÂs some guy or gal out there writing right now, something that will get passed on by a big house that will turn the pulp community on its ear, just like pulp did to so called polite society 70 years ago.
I think that when a lot of people think of pulp they think of the hardboiled genre. They donâÃÂÃÂt consider that it was ever about Heroes, Villains, or Characters other than those considered on the fringe. I guess I fall in that camp also because I equate the hardboiled style to a language and landscape painted in shades of noir with the good guys and the bad guys being varying shades of gray, and evil being true black.
I think that hardboiled stories are going to be an introduction to pulp for a lot of people. A resurgence or renaissance of traditional pulp is a great thing, and opened the genre for a brand new generation of readers and writers, ushering in a new era. I think that there are also some negatives, depraved things that masquerade as pulp that arenâÃÂÃÂt are where warning labels and censorship will come into play.
AP: What’s next for you?
JWL: Rewriting and editing the second book in the Champion City Series. Then I have a WWII story that I am very interested in, that came to me first as an April Fools shaggy dog in a small town newspaper. IâÃÂÃÂm a history nerd, and the story of Operation Pastorius is an excellent foil for plausible deniability, gets good mileage for the war effort, and makes great conspiracyâÃÂæ Fiction with firm foundations in real history make for very gripping storiesâÃÂæ
ThereâÃÂÃÂs also an opportunity to write another pulp horror story. A hardboiled mythos thing. Not sure of a lot of detail about that at this point its still written ona napkin with a coffee ringâÃÂæ
AP: If readers want to find out more about you and your work, where can they do so?
JWL:IâÃÂÃÂm easy to find, Author J Walt Layne on facebook. IâÃÂÃÂm being pushed to relaunch my blog at www.championcityontheweb.blogspot.com but I donâÃÂÃÂt know that I have enough going on to devote an entire blog to it.
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Super Hero Fiction!!! Joe Sergi’s SKY GIRL!
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Pulp Reviews by Tommy Hancock
SKY GIRL AND THE SUPERHEROIC LEGACY
by Joe Sergi
Available in Ebook and Trade Paperback from iEnovel.com
Retail Price: $4.99 in ebook format; $11.99 for print version
ISBN:1451530137
EAN-13: 9781451530131
LCCN: 2010903747
Many writers, myself included, have pondered, thought on, and even struggled with the concept of having a comic book idea and trying to translate it into prose or the reverse.  It seems to be a thorn in many of our paws that either forces us to give up or we fight our way through and the end product isn’t what we expected.  It would be great to find a prose work that captures the colors, imagery, and description of a comic book, striking that perfect balance.
Thanks to Joe Sergi, I think I found it.
SKY GIRL AND THE SUPERHEROIC LEGACY, the first of a planned trilogy, focuses on DeDe Christopher, a young fifteen year old aspiring gymnast who lives with her widowed mother, goes to high school, has a best friend, Jason, who is the ultimate geek and proud of it. While preparing for National competition, which is being hosted at her high school, DeDe discovers she has super powers. It turns out these super powers are the exact powers of Sky Boy, a popular supposedly fictional character. As the story unfolds, DeDe and Jason deal with her issues of not wanting to do anything but be a teenager along with supervillains, intelligent apes, robotic menaces, and a strange conglomerate of aliens!
Now, that description is a thumbnail and covers it pretty well. What it didn’t cover is CHAPTER 0. Being a comic inspired novel, it has to start with 0 of course. Chapter 0 introduces us to Professor Z, Donna Dominion, and other supervillains all teamed up to stop Sky Boy. Yes, Sky Boy. The opening chapter assumes that the characters thought fictional by DeDe and her entire world are real and that chapter sets a tone for the whole book. This is, in prose, a silver age like experience like no other. Homages, pastiches, and nods aplenty to all sorts of comic, pulp, and other popular culture concepts abound.  If you’re a fanboy/girl and want to get your geek on, just finding the easter eggs that you’ll recognize in this book will keep you busy!
What is most endearing, though, about Sergi’s work is, even though some have super powers, some wear capes, and monkeys and aliens abound, these characters are very real. DeDe is not a superficial image of a girl, she is real flesh and blood with insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, and frustrations.  This goes for all the characters, even those who go through ‘changes’ as the book continues. They are not mere two dimensional contrivances to tell a super hero story. They are real people affected by all the good comic book weirdness going on around them.
The language does get a bit laborious at points, sounding a bit too comic booky, even though that is what this is, a comic book world in prose. That is a minor drawback to what in all ways is a fantastic, fun, exciting read and although aimed at younger readers, SKY GIRL AND THE SUPERHEROIC LEGACY can really be enjoyed by all ages and all level of geek.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-This is a book worth reading again to yourself and then to your family and then again to yourself. Gift this to your kids, to your library, and even to your favorite reviewer if you want!
ALL PULP NEWSSTAND NIGHTHAWK EDITION 12/30/10
ALL PULP NEWSSTAND
NIGHTHAWK EDITION
12/30/10
THE RETURN OF RAVENWOOD!
Airship 27 Productions & Cornerstone Book Publishers bring back another classic pulp hero from the 1930s in an all new collection of fast paced, macabre adventures of the supernatural. Meet Ravenwood – Stepson of Mystery!bring back another classic pulp hero from the 1930s in an all new collection of fast paced, macabre adventures of the supernatural. Meet Ravenwood – Stepson of Mystery!
He is an orphan raised by a Tibetan mystic known only as the Nameless One. As an Occult Detective he has no equal and is called upon by the authorities when they are challenged by supernatural mysteries. One of the more obscure pulp characters, Ravenwood – The Stepson of Mystery appeared as a back-up feature in the pages of Secret Agent X magazine. There were only five Ravenwood stories ever written, all by his creator, the prolific pulp veteran, Frederick C. Davis.
Now he returns in this brand new series of weird adventures, beginning with this volume in which he combats Sun Koh, a lost prince of Atlantis, battles with monstrous Yetis in Manhattan and deals with murderous ghosts and zombie assassins. Four of today’s finest pulp storytellers Frank Schildiner, B.C. Bell, Bill Gladman and Bobby Nash offer up a quartet of fast paced, bizarre thrillers that rekindle the excitement and wonder that were the pulps.
With a stunning cover by Bryan Fowler and dramatic interior illustrations by Charles Fetherolf, Ravenwood – Stepson of Mystery was designed by Rob Davis and edited by Ron Fortier. Once again Airship 27 Productions presents pulp fans with another one-of-kind quality pulp reading experience like no other on the market today.
AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – Pulp fiction for a new generation!
ISBN: 1-934935-82-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-934935-82-8
Produced by Airship 27
Published by Cornerstone Book Publishers
Release date: 31 Dec. 2010
Retail Price: $24.95
Discounted at our on-line shop. (http://www.gopulp.info/)
FROM Russ Anderson, PULPWORK PRESS
OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO
HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD 2
I am now taking pitches for stories to be published in How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2 in 2011.
What am I looking for?
I’m looking for stories that qualify as “weird westerns” – basically a western mixed with some other genre. This usually means a western with a horror or sci-fi twist, but feel free to play with the concept. I’ll consider anything that’s both a western and weird. The less obvious, the better. If you need some more coaching on what a weird western is, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_western.
Stories should be between 1K and 8K words. I’ll consider stories up to 10K, but it really better be something special if you’re going that long. Shoot for 8K.
Your deadline for the completed story is March 31, 2011. However, some time before that I’m going to need a pitch. This is just a couple of sentences or paragraphs that gives me an idea of what your story is going to be about. This is so I don’t get three stories that have essentially the same plot (zombie cowboys vs. vampire indians, for example), and you don’t spend a couple months writing a story that I then have to pass on. There is no deadline to get me your pitch, but the earlier I get it, the more likely someone isn’t already doing that sort of story.
I have no problem with you using series characters that you’ve used in other stories or books, but there are a couple of rules with that. I want a story that hasn’t been published elsewhere yet, with a gentleman’s agreement that it won’t be republished until at least a year after our book’s publication. Also, the story has to be fully understandable outside the context of your character’s other stories. Even if I’ve never read the book you introduced Robo-Sheriff Z9 in, I shouldn’t have any problem following the story you write about him for HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD.
What’s in it for you?
Unfortunately, I’m not offering any upfront pay. If the book breaks even, any profit it makes will be split evenly between the contributors on a quarterly basis, minus 10% for the publisher, Pulpwork Press. Please keep in mind that the last sentence contains a very big IF. How the West Was Weird, Vol. 1 has been out for 9 months now, and even though it continues to sell steadily every month, it hasn’t made its money back yet.
This isn’t to discourage you – I truly believe in the long-term lifespan of these books – but I don’t want anybody planning to go buy a car with the proceeds.
So with that pie in the sky stuff out of the way, what do you realistically get?
A nifty little book with your name on it, mostly. Unlike the last volume, I will also be providing a contributor copy for everybody this time around.
What else?
As with the last volume, Jim Rugg has signed on to create another cover for us. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with, and I’ll share it with the contributors as soon as I’ve got it.
For those of you who weren’t around for this last time, you can check out the first volume of HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/How-West-Was-Weird-Tales/dp/1449580572/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287249761&sr=8-1. You can also read Josh Reynolds’ contribution, Camazotz, for free at the Pulpwork Press site at http://www.pulpworkpress.com/pulpworkpresspresents.htm.
If you’re interested, or you’ve got questions not covered in this email, drop me a line at RussLee74@gmail.com and I’ll try to answer them.
ALL NEW BOOK CAVE-WRAPPING UP THE YEAR WITH RIC AND ART!
END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP ON THE BOOK CAVE
ALL PULP’S OFFICIAL PODCAST!!!!
12/30/10 ON THE BOOK CAVE!! The Book Cave Episode 107:The End of the Year
Check out ALL PULP’S official podcast, THE BOOK CAVE here-
http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/
Ric and Art review and wrap up 2010 with their thoughts, reviews, and comments on a year of THE BOOK CAVE!
Next week..and next year-The Book Cave goes to Mars!!
