Writer Janet Hetherington and artist Ronn Sutton, the creative team on the Moonstone comic book Kolchak and Honey West, visit the Book Cave to talk about their new comic, as well as others, and creating comics.
Listen to The Book Cave Episode 216: Janet Hetherington and Ronn Sutton – Kolchak and Honey West now at http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/the-book-cave-episode-216-janet-hetherington-and-ronn-sutton-kolchak-and-honey-west
The Shadow Fan podcast returns for his 17th episode! This time, New Pulp Author Barry Reese takes a look at The Shadow Strikes — the 1937 feature film, the Belmont novel of the same name and the 1989 DC Comics’ series! Which Shadow Strikes is the one that’s stood the test of time? Listen to find out! Also: Doc Savage’s crossover novel is announced, Chris Roberson’s interview on The Word Balloon is discussed and we look at three predecessors to The Shadow!
If you love pulp and/or The Shadow, then this podcast is for you!
Join the conversation about pulp’s greatest hero today at http://theshadowfan.libsyn.com/the-shadow-strikes
New Pulp author, Don Gates has announced Episode 8 of “Challenger Storm: The Valley of Fear”, in which he admits that his years of playing “Tomb Raider” have finally paid off creatively.
Read all about it here.
We aren’t trying to be cute in saying that NBC’s CHICAGO FIRE seems be be heating up the network’s Wednesday nights. Series star Eaamon Williams and creator Derek Haas talk about how the series keeps it real – and safe – plus the comeback trail is getting crowded with new material on TOMB RAIDER, Ralph Bakshi and The Thunderbirds!
Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
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| #3 This Week on All Pulp’s New Pulp Bestseller List |
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| #7 This Week On All Pulp’s New Pulp Bestseller List! |
No, this is not a column about that. Get your minds out of the gutter, people!
I was working in the Special Projects department at Marvel Comics as an assistant editor when my boss, Executive Editor Bob Budiansky, called me into his office.
“I have something for you that will be absolutely perfect,” he said, “because you’re the only one in the department who will really appreciate it. I talked about it with Tom (DeFalco) and he agrees with me.”
“Okay,” I said, a bit apprehensive and yes, curious.
“The NFL approached us about doing a magazine aimed at kids who love football.”
“Okay,” I said, getting excited.
“It’s going to be like Sports Illustrated For Kids, only concentrating on football, of course.”
“Okay,” I said, trying stay dignified and professional.
“Each issue will also feature a full comic, plus news, articles and tidbits about Marvel.” “Okay,” I said, really trying to stay dignified.
“You’re going to be the editor.”
“O-KAY!!!!” I said, totally forgetting about dignity and professionalism and giving Bob a hug.
NFL Pro Action had its debut at Super Bowl XXVIII, January 30, 1993, where the Dallas Cowboys met the Buffalo Bills in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome for the right to claim the Vince Lombardi Trophy (Dallas won, 30 – 13). More than 71,000 fans found a copy of the magazine waiting for them in their gift seat cushions packs. Wolverine and Cyclops also distributed copies of NFL Pro Action at the inaugural NFL Experience, a celebration of football that has now become an annual four-day event, starting on the Thursday before the game and ending after the game on Super Bowl Sunday.
It was a true labor of love for me, for, as regular readers of this column know, I am a die-hard Big Blue fan and lover of football, having grown up in a family in which every Sunday during the season revolved around going to the game. My Dad got tickets to the Giants from a buddy of his who worked at the now-defunct Jersey City Herald-Tribune newspaper when he returned stateside from World War II.
The magazine had a broad mix of pop culture, trends, NFL and Marvel-related topics, including a comic. The kick-off issue of NFL Pro Action featured Troy Aikman about to get sacked by Wolverine, who was tearing through the cover. (Yeah, Wolvie hates the ‘Boys, like any good Giants fan.) In addition to an Aikman profile and trading card inserts of NFL superstars and Marvel’s super heroes, the magazine also included a look at the “little people” (5’9” and under) of the NFL, including the great Cowboy running back Emmit Smith at 5’9” and Barry Saunders of the Detroit Lions at 5’8”, an article about the Punt, Pass & Kick program which had been recently revived and spotlighted NFL players who had participated in PP&K as kids, an opening day photo shoot of Niners rookie Ted Kelly and – especially poignant yesterday – strength tips from the late, great, 10-time All-Pro, 12-time Pro-Bowler and member of the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team Junior Seau – yes, I met him, too, and he was also a wonderful, wonderful man.
Each issue of NFL Pro Action also included a 16-page custom comic and the premier issue starred the X-Men and Howie Long – who held up a copy of NFL Pro Action on FOX NFL Sunday, got a ribbing from Terry Bradshaw, and said that his kids were more impressed with his appearing with the X-Men than anything else he had done. The story, by Ralph Macchio, Chris Maarinin, and Keith Williams, with lettering by Dave Sharpe and colors by Ed Lazzerlli, featured Wolverine getting his ass whooped by Long in the Danger Room – the X-Men’s holographic “gym” – and then, humbled yet inspired by this encounter with the NFL star, Wolverine used what he learned from Long against the evil mutants called Morlocks, who live beneath New York City in forgotten subway tunnels.
It also featured Rogue’s Tailgating Tips. Turns out Rogue “favors baby back ribs smothered in barbecue sauce fresh from San Antonio, dim sum, shrimp dumplings, and sticky sesame rolls from Hong Kong, foot-long hot dogs smothered in ‘craut, peppers, onions, ketchup and mustard from Coney Island, and Cajun crawfish, crab legs, and roast pork from the best restaurants in N’Orleans.” Of course, it helps if you can fly to all these places on the morning of the game.
It was a fun gig, and, yeah, there were perks besides going to Super Bowl XXVIII to make any football fan drool. Going to an absolutely scrumptious 12-course dinner with the guys from NFL Properties on the Friday night before the game at a five-star Atlanta restaurant where waiters in white gloves and tuxedos stood behind you and gave you fresh silverware – and I mean sterling silver – for each new plate, and poured a fresh bottle of wine especially picked to match the new cuisine on each new plate, which included a fine champagne to go with the sherbet offered between the lobster and the filet mignon to “wash my palate” – yeah, I got drunk, and it was fun – while sitting next to and yakking with Peter King from Sports Illustrated, meeting Troy Aikman and Steve Young and Emmit Smith (again) and Sam Huff and Junior Seau (as mentioned) and Alex Karras and Dan Reeves and John Elway…
And then there were the not-so-much-fun things that happened, like missing the bus back to the hotel after the Super Bowl and getting lost in Atlanta on a Sunday night after the game…yes, and getting back to the hotel was an adventure, let me tell you. I wandered into a hotel, where a snooty hotel clerk wouldn’t let me use the phone to call a cab, for one thing. I got back to the hotel about two hours after the game, finally having hailed a cab out in front of the hotel – and a big thank you to those folks from California who let me share that cab with them.
And the big wing-ding, ultra-faaaaabulous Saturday night Super Bowl party, at which I met a member of the Atlanta’s city council, and had an interesting conversation, which went like this:
“So, how y’all like HOTlanta?”
“It’s a beautiful city.”
“Y’know, y’all think we’re a bunch of rednecks, down hyah, but let me tell, sugah, we’all treat our niggers down hyah a hell of a lot bettah than y’all do up there in Hymietown.”
“Thank you, I’ll be sure to tell my rabbi that.”
And the guy who thought I was a hooker, and followed me back to my room expecting to get action.
PRO action.
Yeah.
That kind of action.
TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
I’m going to exercise a point of personal privilege this week and write about a friend. Her name was Mary Ellen McGarry and I just received word that she died. Mary Ellen was a great soul, a giant heart, a wonderful talent, and a large personality. She filled a room three times over.
Out of all the people I’ve ever known, only my late wife, Kim Yale, had as outgoing and, at times, boisterous a personality. One of my nicknames for her was “Boom-boom” because her laughter and her voice could boom across a room and, indeed, across Lake Michigan.
And, lord, she could laugh. Loud, infectious, and riotous. I loved to make her laugh. I would get her going so hard that she would start hitting me to make me stop which, of course, only made me try harder.
In the summer of 1971 we worked as apprentices together at a summer theater, which meant we worked like dogs for very little money. It was a strange summer. The theater was located at a college so we all lived in dorms on campus. For Mary Ellen I made up a musical comedy, Tritzing to Tibet, based on the climbing of Mount Everest by Edmund Hilary. I should explain that it has less to do with historical fact than the central conceit of the movie, The Producers, in that any show that bad has to be a hit. I took all the events that happened in 1953 and, in an absurd breach of artistic license, moved them to 1937 so I could have an opposing chorus of Nazi mountain climbers.
Every night, just before curtain went up on whatever show we were doing, I got over to her in the wings and, sotto voce, sang her a new song from the show. I should also mention that in addition to not writing music I don’t even read music. The only purpose of the whole exercise was to see if I could reduce Mary Ellen to tears with laughter. Okay, so there’s a slightly sadistic side to me.
The thing is – over the years, any time we would get together, Mary Ellen insisted on hearing some or all of those godforsaken tunes. The last time was at a reunion last year for alums of the Loyola University Theater Department (where we first met). Mary Ellen had lung problems and at that point was in a wheel chair and had to constantly have oxygen. It didn’t slow her down an inch. And she wanted me to sing some of the songs from Tritzing to Tibet.
I demurred. To be honest, I was afraid that if I got her laughing too hard I might literally kill her. Boom-boom would have none of that. She knew her own limits and she knew what she wanted and, by god, I would sing. I did and she was right.
She was also incredibly brave. Her lungs were giving up on her but she was told that, with a lung transplant, she might live longer. However, she was also teaching kids at that point. She loved it but, if she got a lung transplant, she would have had to give it up. We all know kids are Petri dished for diseases and she would likely have caught those germs and her new lungs could not have taken it.
Mary Ellen and I had a long talk about it on the phone and she was clear and firm. She would not give up what she loved so much. I had to respect that. I still do.
So many people loved you, Mary Ellen. I hope you knew that.
There’s so much more to you than I can begin to recount here. I will carry your voice and your laughter and your spirit in my memory and my heart all my days. I will grieve the loss of you and that’s alright. Those we love who have died are worth the tears we shed for them. I will celebrate your life because you were so filled with it.
Thanks, Boom-Boom, for being my friend. Love you.
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
What…? I mean… WHAT?!?
You know, I never thought I’d think of the Chris Claremont days as the uncomplicated days of X-Men, but…
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
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