Moonstone Books has released their solicitation information for their pulp titles appearing in bookstores and comic book shops March 2013. These titles are available now for pre-order through your favorite bookseller.

Cover Art: Mark Maddox

THE RED MENACE
Written by James Mullaney, cover by Mark Maddox.

By the author of The New Destroyer, the Adventures of Remo Williams! Who is the Red Menace? In the 1950s, the mysterious masked figure was a shadow and a whisper in Cold War corridors from Moscow to Beijing. Where walked the Red Menace, America’s enemies knew fear. And death. Then in 1960 the whisper grew silent. Twelve years later, Patrick “Podge” Becket thinks he’s escaped the spy game for good, but into his restless retirement steps a ghost from his past; a bitter Russian colonel with nothing to lose and the means to wreak worldwide destruction. Aided by brilliant inventor and physician Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright, the Red Menace is reborn for a new generation. But it’s a whole new world out there, and if he doesn’t watch his step the swingin’ Seventies might just find him red and buried!
256 pages, $6.99.

THE AVENGER: ROARING HEART OF THE CRUCIBLE HC & SC
Edited by Nancy Holder, Joe Gentile, written by Matthew Baugh, James Chambers, Greg Cox, Win Scott Eckert, CJ Henderson, Michael May, Matthew Mayo, Will Murray, Bobby Nash, Mel Odom, Barry Reese, Chris Sequeira, John Small, David White, softcover cover by E.M. Gist, hardcover cover by Jay Piscopo.

The greatest crime-fighter of the 40’s returns in a third thrilling collection of original action-packed tales of adventure, intrigue, and revenge. Life was bliss for millionaire adventurer Richard Henry Benson until that fateful day crime and greed took away his wife and young daughter…and turned him into something more than human.

Driven by loss, compelled by grief, he becomes a chilled impersonal force of justice, more machine than man, dedicated to the destruction of evildoers everywhere. A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both, Benson has been forged into an avatar of vengeance, possessed of superhuman genius supernormal power. His frozen face and pale eyes, like a polar dawn, only hint at the terrible force the underworld heedlessly invoked upon itself the day they created…The Avenger!
Softcover, 314 pages, $18.95.
Hardcover, 330 pages, $32.95.

Cover Art: Paul Gulacy

SAVAGE BEAUTY TPB
Written by Mike Bullock, art by Jose Massaroli, cover by Paul Gulacy.

Collecting issue #1 and the only-available-in-hardcover issues #2 and #3! Ripped from today’s world news comes a re-imagining of the classic jungle girl genre debuting a new hero for the modern age! Join the Rae sisters, recent UCLA grads, as they travel across modern-day Africa finding their place and making a difference. Guided by the mysterious Mr. Eden, they assume the identity of a mythical goddess and reveal their Savage Beauty. Mike Bullock presents a fresh new spin on the genre, featuring real-world conflicts in Africa and beyond.
74 pages, $11.99.

Learn more about Moonstone Books at www.moonstonebooks.com.

New Pulp Author/Publisher Ron Fortier announced today that Airship 27 Productions and Fight Card Books will be teaming up to deliver a one-two punch starring Terrence McCauley’s character, Terry Quinn, who will appear in “Prohibition,” from Airship 27 Productions and in “Fight Card: Against The Ropes” from Fight Card Books. Look for both books in the coming months.

PRESS RELEASE:

NEW PULP PUBLISHERS TEAM UP

Terry Quinn was an enforcer for the Irish Mob in New York during the 1930s.  One of the toughest and the best.  But before he donned a trench-coat and fedora, before his life took the deadly detour leading him deep into the underworld, Quinn was an up and coming heavy weight boxer with a good chance at the title.

Created by author Terrence McCauley, Quinn’s story is about to unfold from two of today’s most popular pulp publishers, Airship 27 Productions and Fight Card.

Initially McCauley submitted his full length crime novel, “Prohibition,” to Airship 27 Productions’ Managing Editor Ron Fortier.  “It’s a tough, gritty fast paced gangster book,” related Fortier, “that reminded me of those classic black and white Warner Brothers movies of the 30s and 40s.  After reading the first few chapters, it was a done deal that we were going to publish this.”

“Prohibition,” by Terrence McCauley will be released by Airship 27 Productions in December.  The book will feature a cover and nine interior illustrations by artist Rob Moran, a creator noted for his noir inspired art with book design by Art Director Rob Davis.

But McCauley was far from done with Quinn.  As a writer, he was intrigued by Quinn’s backstory- how he became the man the underworld fears.  For this early story, set in Quinn’s days in the boxing ring, McCauley believed he knew the perfect target for such a story – the Fight Card series created by Paul Bishop and Mel Odom.  Each month since January 2012, the Fight Card series has published a new novelette from some of the finest action scribes in the field of New Pulp – all writing under shared pseudonym of Jack Tunney.  Each tale in the Fight Card series features a hard-hitting melodrama centered in the world of boxing inspired by the fight pulps of the ‘30s and 40s  – such as Fight Stories Magazine and Robert E.Howard’s two-fisted boxing tales featuring Sailor Steve Costigan.

Upon receiving McCauley’s inquiry, Bishop quickly approved it.  “I have been constantly amazed at the varied stories the Fight Card series has produced,” Bishop said, “And Terrence’s story featuring the origins of his Quinn character was another completely unique take on the mythology of boxing noir.”

McCauley’s tale of Quinn’s boxing days, “Fight Card: Against The Ropes,” will be published in January or Februrary of 2013.

As for McCauley, he couldn’t be happier.  “Even before Airship 27 agreed to publish Prohibition, I’d always envisioned my Terry Quinn character to be part of a larger body of work than just one book. That’s why I was honored when Fight Card gave me the opportunity to tell of Quinn’s beginnings with Fight Card:Against The Ropes. I’m honored that Quinn has found homes with both Airship 27 and Fight Card.  He’s also been featured in earlier short stories that have appeared in a variety anthologies.”

Airship 27 Productions and Fight Card are set to deliver a solid one-two punch knock-out that will have New Pulp fans cheering!

Learn more about Airship 27 Productions at www.airship27.com.
Learn more about Fight Card Books at http://fightcardbooks.com.

All Pulp has learned that Terrence McCauley’s Terry Quinn also appears in Atomic Noir, an ebook anthology presented by Out of the Gutter Online and NoirCon 2012. You can find it here.

It starts with notes on a piano, played in the upper register, sounding like a child’s piano. We focus in on an old cigar box as a child’s voice, a girl, hums tunelessly as small hands open the box, revealing what looks like junk but is a child’s hidden treasures. The hands explore what is there, picking out a dark crayon and rubbing across a piece of paper. Letters emerge giving us the title of the film as the main theme returns, first with flute and harp and then a full orchestra. It’s a waltz, elegiac and slightly sad, evoking times past.

So begins To Kill A Mockingbird, Robert Mulligan’s 1962 film based on Harper Lee’s 1960 novel. Set in rural Alabama during the 1930s and the depths of the Depression, the story is told from the viewpoint of young Scout Finch, includes her brother Jem, and their father, the widowed lawyer Atticus Finch. It covers a year and a half during which time Atticus is called on to defend Tom Robinson, a black field worker accused of attacking and raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell.

I had the inestimable pleasure recently of seeing To Kill A Mockingbird up on the big screen as part of the film’s Fiftieth Anniversary celebration. I can’t recall if I saw it on the big screen when it first came out; I certainly haven’t seen it that way in decades. It has a force and emotional impact that I don’t feel from the small screen viewings of it. Mind you, I’m happy to watch DVD versions but I was happier to see it on the big screen.

The film brims with talent. It won a best actor Oscar for Gregory Peck who embodied Atticus Finch as well as the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, won by Horton Foote. Elmer Bernstein, drawing heavily from Aaron Copland, wrote one of the most beautiful film scores I know. Robert Duvall made his film debut here, as did Alice Ghostley and Rosemary Murphy. The two young actors playing Scout and Jem, Mary Badham and Philip Alford, are so natural and unforced that it amazes me that both had never acted before their debuts here.

Something else that strikes me in the movie is the depiction of African-Americans. There is a context for the film in its time that younger filmgoers may not know. The major Civil Rights legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 had not yet occurred. The Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama wouldn’t be until 1965. The March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, would happen a year later. In his inauguration speech as governor of Alabama on January 14, 1963, George Wallace proclaimed “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In June of 1963, he stood in the entry way of the University of Alabama in an attempt to keep two black students from entering.

That’s what the country and the South and Alabama looked like when To Kill a Mockingbird premiered. In the face of this massive refusal to see African-Americans as anything but second-class citizens (when they weren’t portrayed as subservient and altogether inferior), the movie gives us people of color, individuals, rich in humanity. It leaves no doubt that the accused, Tom Robinson, is innocent; it is Mayella Ewell’s father, Bob Ewell, who is probably the guilty one and he emerges as the vicious, racist animal. Brock Peters’ portrayal of the tragic Tom Robinson captures the fear of the doomed man. There is a dignity to all the black characters that gives the lie to the segregationist’s creed. The movie allowed white audiences to look at black characters and empathize with them, see themselves in the oppressed people, to identify with them. In Gregory Peck’s great speech at the end of the trial, we are sitting in the jury box. We, the audience, are being asked to judge. And we must confront the guilty verdict that the jury in the movie brings in and ask ourselves how we would have decided.

What was true in the 30s in Alabama was true in 1962 when the movie premiered. I would not presume to speak to the experience of African-Americans today. I am white, male, getting older, and I am a product of my times. I have heard too many whites I know still using the “n word”. They assume its safe to do so around me; after all, I am white as well. I correct that assumption as it comes up. I have also heard whites saying that they would never vote for a black man for president. Almost three fourths of the white males who voted in the last election voted against Barack Obama. Perhaps some of it was a difference with the President’s policies but how much more of it is because the President is black?

To deny another their humanity for whatever reason is to deny our own. In context of our time as well as the time it was made, To Kill A Mockingbird remains relevant. It also remains a beautiful, heartfelt film. It makes us feel for another person different from us and with that empathy, breaks down barriers. It’s what pop culture does that nothing else can quite do. It entertains as it opens our hearts and that can change minds. That is where hope lies.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

Cover by Bobby Nash

Robert McIntyre from the A Bit Too Old For Comics? blog posted a fantastic review of New Pulp Author Bobby Nash’s novel, Evil Ways. You can read the full review here.

From the review:
“The whole story moves on at a cracking pace and no part of the plot is wasted no matter how trivial it may seems at the time of reading it, the whole book is littered with small clues throughout that take you on the same ride as the characters to the final conclusion of the book and what a conclusion it was.”

“I was hooked on the book from the first paragraph, and read the book in the space of a week which for me is a quick read; it’s also an indication for me on how good I think a book is if I read it that quickly.”

You can read the full review at http://toooldforcomics.blogspot.com/2012/11/evil-ways-by-bobby-nash.html.

For more information on Bobby Nash’s Evil Ways, visit www.bobbynash.com and http://BEN-Books.blogspot.com.

As I write this, my Bears are presently phoning in a performance so bad I’m opting to write my article instead. The game is on, yes. But, frankly, I’m not even paying attention. I guess I owe my bad-news-Bears a debt of gratitude, though. They are giving me the inspiration for a column this week.

Nothing grinds my gears more than a weak start. And this week past, a comic that should have been a touchdown upon reception was a weak three-and-out worthy of the finger wagging like no other. Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley’s relaunched Marvel Now Fantastic Four #1 was a let down of mammoth proportions. And it warrants a bit of a rant.

Generally speaking I like to keep my reviews (chock full of piss and vinegar) over at Michael Davis World. But I was too elated by Gail Simone’s Batgirl this week past to waste time setting fire the ‘Four. To be honest? I read the book, said “Meh,” and figured that I owed it to Fraction to give him some time to warm up. As I took a long and angry trip to my can in between botched Bear’s offensive drives, I flipped through the book once more. Maybe it’s the fact that my team is 20 points down and can’t move the ball more than my infant son. Maybe it’s the few pages I flipped to with glaringly awful moments that caused the rise in blood pressure. Either way, this book is bad.

Giving a favorite writer a pass because they’ve delivered solid performances in books prior is something I’ve done all the time. Hell, it’s the entire reason I still read Green Lantern. But it hit me; these are the pros. They are being given an opportunity I would literally kill for. Who or what would I kill? I dunno. An editor, probably. But I digress. Matt Fraction has written some amazing issue 1’s. His Invincible Iron Man, Defenders, and The Order all jump to mind. In each, Fraction is able to introduce his characters, set the tone of the book, and build a considerable world rich with continuity, but wholly original. In Fantastic Four #1, his dialogue is sloppy, his plotting predictable, and his tone is somewhere between “kiddie cocktail” and “phoning it in.”

For a man who likes the long game? Here he’s nearly parodying himself. Twenty pages of content, of which only two move the story in any direction forward. The rest? A wink, nod, and circle-jerk of continuity-heavy references and in-jokes. Number one indeed.

In The Order and The Defenders, Fraction proved to me he knew how to handle a team book. Moments are given to all the players, and in each tight scene he’s able to interject depth and clarity. He gave us a recovering alcoholic in Henry Hellrung. The other side of the coin to Tony Stark. He gave us a Steven Strange who was coherent of his foibles, but decidedly stubborn enough to ignore them. The key here was Fraction showing how he could take continuity and reshape it to match a new direction. That all being said… in a single issue of his Fantastic Four, he’s only able to deliver a single cliched plot direction, and a handful of watered down scenes built from scraps of Jonathan Hickman.

One of the few problems I had with Hickman’s run concerned the usage of ole’ blue eyes himself. The Thing was mainly sidelined due to the lack of punchable things in the very science-heavy arch. Given the pedigree of Red She-Hulk’s depiction in The Defenders gave me hope to see a Thing with a bit more depth, verve, and humor. Instead, Fraction warms up the tuba for a Yancy Street Gang joke on Ben Grimm. And when the Thing speaks? We get line after hackney’d line suitable only if he were being written for an SNL skit.

In other plot lines, we get yet-another scene of Johnny Storm showing that he’s the cocky brash ass we all know and love, and the totally mature death-defying wunderkind. He gives his cellphone number out to the gal he loves. Yippee. Sue gets to be the same invisible-to-the-fans mother role she was written to play. For a women I expect to be one of the smartest in the 616, she seems awfully daft here… not being able to read her rubber husband’s transparent motivations. And to round out the book? Franklin “Deus Ex Machina” Richards foretells of eeeeeevil afoot. It’s plot-by-the-numbers, and we deserve better.

Over in the art department, we get Mark Bagely. There was a time when I was truly enamored by his work. His work-horse attitude, and nuanced designs helped cement Ultimate Spider-Man’s first six arcs wonderfully. He was eventually poached by DC, where he was given Trinity – a series most of us would care to forget about, art included. Now back at the House of Mouse, he’s firing on all-cylanders… as a watered down John Romita Jr., delivering no memorable visual save for perhaps the last splash page.

Suffice to say, the Bears laid down and took it up the tail pipe tonight. After rereading Fantastic Four #1, I am clear in thinking Matt Fraction did much of the same. He came into the game with a crowd hungry for the next chapter. Instead, he spins his wheels, sputters trying to pick up pieces that were already left put back on the shelf neatly enough. This is not a new beginning. This is not Now. This is the a waste of my money and one I’m not likely to forget. I know the book will bounce back. But a loss is a loss. And this loss hurt something fierce.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

Linda Pendelton has announced the return of pulp author Don Pendleton‘s science fiction adventures in both paperback and Kindle formats.

Earth is being invaded by treacherous aliens and Terra 10, the earth’s only hope, is in the enemy’s power! Zach Whaleman, the Gunner of Terra 10, was moving fast, out into the darkness. A long-dormant instinct had arisen in response to his urgent need, a very human and entirely “natural” response of a life-mechanism in a survival situation. He had a weapon now! Let them catch him. Let them. He would kill them! He would do everything he had to do to save the super-secrets of Terra 10.

The Guns of Terra 10: A Space Opera originally published in 1970. Now available in paperback and Kindle formats.

The United States government’s executive intelligence gathering agency, the Inter-agency Intelligence Group, has largely supplanted the clumsy machinery of the CIA as a direct tool of the U.S. President. Patrick Honor, a top member of the Intelligence Group, is the one skilled enough to find answers to mysterious events taking place, in which the number 9 has significance. Members of a top secret psychic investigative team, the PPS, Psychic Power Sources, are in harm’s way, as is the President. Patrick Honor believes there is a Rogue God. Is he right? Do the answers to the mystery have anything to do with sex being taboo down through the ages? Who is Octavia? Will answers be found in the symbology of the Nines? Can Patrick Honor insure the safety of the President while unraveling the psychic events, all before it is too late for humanity? Intended for mature readers.

The Godmakers: Fantastic adventure into cosmic consciousness and the unknown….originally published in 1970 under pseudonym Dan Britain, soon after by Don Pendleton. Now available in paperback and Kindle formats.

Political newspaper reporter, Richard Hunter, is questioning the upcoming presidential election and the insufferable Electoral College, wondering if, for all these years, had it been some grand political game? Was billionaire Brian Donaldson buying the votes of the Electoral College? Did he believe himself to be an Olympian and hide away on a mountain top in Wyoming, while manipulating the election for his own gain? Was the United States headed to a coup attempt? Could Richard Hunter stop a coup, or was he ignoring the dangers to the country while enjoying the social and sexual activities of this isolated “Olympian” group. Who would end up in the White House as president of the United States of America, and with the power to change the world—for better—or for worse?

The Olympians: Science fiction alternative history…first published in 1969. Now available in paperback and Kindle formats.

Don Pendleton was creator of the long-running action/adventure series, The Executioner; Joe Copp Private Eye Series; Ashton Ford Psychic Detective Series; and other fiction and nonfiction books. Learn more about Don Pendelton at www.donpendelton.com.