I met Karen Berger around 20 years ago when Vertigo first became a DC Comics imprint. I was 5… heh. At the time I was doing work for Piranha Press, another DC imprint, which started around the same time as Vertigo.

From her start at DC, Karen was a no nonsense yet kind editor. What that means is if she did not hire you she let you down with the knowledge that you could come back.  Soon after Karen began her reign at Vertigo it became clear that you may have been welcomed back but if you sucked going back would just be a waste of everybody’s time especially Karen’s because if you sucked you would never ever work for Vertigo.

Now that did that mean just because you were a brilliant artist or writer your project would get a green light at Vertigo. Talent was just one of the factors Karen used to chose project. I pitched a project to Vertigo and Karen passed.

Hopefully it was because the project lacked something not because I sucked. Although when I saw Karen after the rejection she pretended to faint. The next time I saw her she pretended to have a heart attack and after that amnesia and so forth and on.

Karen, in my opinion is the last of the great comic book editors. That’s not to say there are not great comic book editors but Karen had a vision that was unique and her books wore that stamp.

Karen leaving Vertigo is one of the dumbest moves DC could allow. If she decided she wanted a change and I ran DC I would have told her to do whatever she wanted but just do it at DC. I like and respect Diane Nelson and I don’t know the particulars of why Karen is leaving so maybe dumb is the wrong word so I’ll say in my opinion it’s dumb to me.

Letting one of the most talented and original voices in the history of comics go is to me is just plain dumb. But for all I know Diane tried to talk Karen into staying but Karen faked a heart attack in the middle of the meeting.

Well, DC’s lost is someone else’s huge gain.

I can’t wait to see where she ends up. The moment I do I’m calling her using a fake name so she won’t have to fake amnesia. J

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

Virginia Hey as Rubavitch

The Earth Station One Podcast Proudly Presents Earth Station 007.

Earth Station 007 includes some of New Pulp’s finest as they celebrate 50 years of James Bond movies with a special episode devoted to the world’s best-known secret agent. ESO hosts Mike Faber, Mike Gordon, and Bobby Nash are joined on this mission by writer Anthony Taylor, award-winning artist Mark Maddox, Raging Bullets podcaster Sean Whelan, and Alan J. Porter, author of “James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007.” We also chat with Rich Morris and Richie Brackin about “A Time to Live, A Time to Kill,” a webcomic bringing two British icons together. Last, but certainly not least, we are honored to be joined by Virginia Hey, a Bond Girl who kisses and tells about her time on “The Living Daylights.”

Join us for this special episode of The Earth Station One Podcast we like to call: Earth Station 007: Celebrating 50 Years of James Bond on Screen at www.esopodcast.com
Direct link: http://erthstationone.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/earth-station-007-celebrating-50-years-of-james-bond-on-screen/

Follow ESO on Facebook and Twitter.

Author Geoffrey Thorne has released Better Angels, a Gray Harbor Novel as an ebook. Better Angels is currently available on mashwords in mulitple ebook formats and on Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats. iTunes and other retail locations are coming soon.

About Better Angels:
A fugitive comes home to settle old scores and gets caught in the schemes of some grifters out to rip off the local mob boss.

It was supposed to be so simple: just scam the local Russian mobster out of some money and drugs, then skip out of town before he knows he’s been fleeced. It looked good on paper. It sounded good when he talked it out but, as usual with Nicky, the minute he brought his dream grift into the real world things went straight to hell. His partner seems to have pulled a double cross, his girlfriend is totally useless, the Russians are coming for their property and all Nicky’s got to get himself out of this are his wits and his mouth. And that’s before Max showed up with his hard guy attitude and quick fists. Yeah, things are going to Hell, all right. Seems like Nicky forgot the first rule of survival on the mean streets of GRAY HARBOR: Always make sure the guy holding the gun is you.

Geoffrey Thorne is currently a writer-producer on the hit TV series, LEVERAGE as well as having written for LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT, BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN and the upcoming BEN 10; OMNIVERSE. His work has been nominated for GLYPH and GENESIS awards and he was a multiple silver medalist in the STRANGE NEW WORLDS short story contests as well as a finalist in the prestigious WRITERS OF THE FUTURE AWARD. Thorne is the co-founder and writing partner of GENRE 19, a studio he formed with visual artist Todd Harris in 2008 and the founder and EIC of THE WINTERMAN PROJECT. Learn more about him at www.geoffreythorne.com.

I met Karen Berger in 1983.

Thirty years ago.

Thirty years is a long time. A lot can happen. And a funny thing happens as the years pass. You look back and you can see how you ended up where you are today. How the chalk drawings of your life have made a graphic novel starring you. It’s a story made up of page-turners and cliffhangers, of happy endings and endings that leave you nauseous with Vertigo.

Like so many others, I was, frankly, shocked when the news broke that Karen is leaving DC this March. (I believe my words were “Holy shit!”) Is this her decision? Is she being pushed out? I’ll leave that issue to others.

This column is, simply put, a love letter to Karen Berger.

Last week Mike Gold wrote, im-not-so-ho, a brilliant column about Karen and her lasting imprint on the comics field, in which he stated – I’m paraphrasing – that “Karen fostered and molded and taught her staff.” I can attest to that. Though I was never part of her staff per se, if it was not for Karen Berger and her nurturing of whatever talent I may possess as a writer…well, my life would have been very, very different, and I’m sure I would not be here at ComicMix now.

If you want to know the “ins-and-outs” of how Karen taught me the craft of writing comics and nurtured me and helped me expand my professional credits, look up my column dated August 8, 2011, How I Became A Comics Professional, Or, How The Fuck Did That Happen, Part Two. This is about how she helped me find myself.

In 1983 I was a single mom, and apart from the joy Alix gave me, I was a very, very unhappy and lost woman. I was lonely. I was, if not in darkness, in a fog as thick as pea soup. I could not put a finger on what was wrong, I only knew that something was lacking. There was an emptiness in my life. It was as if I was standing in the center of a compass, and I didn’t know in what direction I should walk.

Whatever possessed me to sit down that day and write a brief synopsis of what would become Jenesis, the story that got me into DC’s New Talent Showcase? Was it hope? Was it, as my therapist likes to say, a core of steel somewhere buried deep within me that enables me to always pick myself up no matter what, and to and continue to put one foot in front of the other? Was it the hand of God, or the Goddess, or Fate, or Karma, or whatever higher power is out there? Or was it pure chutzpah, born out of a need to do something to change my life? For me, and for Alix? (I tend to think that it was God giving me that hope and core of steel and the chutzpah, but that’s just me. You can decide for yourselves.)

But nobody, despite what they may boast, does it all alone.

The day I came home from my first meeting with Karen was the beginning of the end for me: the end of feeling chained down, the end of feeling mislaid and misplaced, the end of feeling alone. I had met a woman who saw something in me that I had lost the ability to see – my ability to dream. My ability to accomplish.

Karen was not only my editor. She became my friend. I was there as she and Richard fell in love, broke up, got back together, and got married in an absolutely beautiful wedding in brick townhouse in Greenwich Village. She was the first person that I ever told about my agoraphobia – we were sitting in a restaurant on Columbus Avenue.

“I’m having a panic attack,” I said.

“You are?”

“Yeah, I know it’s stupid, but I’m freaking out.”

“About what?”

“That something is going to happen to me and I’ll end up lying on the floor,” I answered.

“And what, do you think I would ignore you, that people would just walk over you getting to their tables?” she asked?

And we laughed.

And though the anxiety attacks continued – I still get them sometimes – I’ve never again let them hold me back.

Comics…and an editor and friend named Karen Berger helped me to learn to believe in myself again.

May the road always rise up to meet you, Karen.

And thank you.

From the bottom of my heart.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

Art: Jamie Chase

Cover Art: Jamie Chase

New Pulp Author Martin Powell shared Jamie Chase’s rendition of Dian The Beautiful from their upcoming graphic novel adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At The Earth’s Core for Sequential Pulp Comics/ Dark Horse Comics.

“She was quite the most superior person I had ever met–with the most convincing way of letting you know she was superior.“
— Author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ description of Dian the Beautiful in AT THE EARTH’S CORE.

Cover Art: Frederick Blakeslee

Black Dog Books has announced that Dusty Ayres– Invasion of the Black Lightning by Robert Sidney Bowen is now available in paperback and ebook formats. Invasion of the Black Lightning contains three exciting novels of America’s Battle Ace!

PRESS RELEASE:

A steel fist pounded against the gates of Paris, battering to ruin the last stronghold of freedom on the continent. For three long years all Asia and Europe has been a seething inferno of war.

The great wave of destruction makes its sweep westward. Rising up from Central Asia, the Black Lightning invaders, under the command of the mysterious Fire-Eyes, seek to annihilate the civilized world.

Now the path across the Atlantic is open. The United States will be the next to fall unless its troops can rally behind Dusty Ayres, America’s Battle Ace, and stop—the Invasion of the Black Lightning!

For the first time, the initial three novel-length adventures of Dusty Ayres are brought together in one unparalleled volume. Packed with thrills and excitement, this is sure to be the “don’t miss” item of the season!

Included are:
• Black Lightning
• Crimson Doom
• Purple Tornado
With an introduction by Tom Roberts.
Cover art by Frederick Blakeslee.

Dusty Ayres– Invasion of the Black Lightning is now available in paperback and ebook formats.
E-Book / 266 pages / Price: $4.99 US
Trade paperback / 266 pages / Price: $24.95 US

“Dusty Ayres and His Battle Birds” is a trademark
and is the property of Argosy Communications, Inc. Used with permission.

Art: Neil T. Foster

Art: Robert Brown

Airship 27 Productions has shared a sneak peek at an interior illustration from their upcoming Dan Fowler G-Man pulp anthology.

From the Airship 27 Facebook page:
Super artist Neil T.Foster is busy at work doing spot illustrations for our second DAN FOWLER G-MAN book due out early next year. Here’s a sneak peek at one of his illos.

Airship 27’s Dan Fowler G-Man Volume 1 is also available here and here.

Look for more news on this new project at All Pulp as it becomes available.