In the past, I’ve generally shied away from ongoing series on the channel now known as Syfy. Their version of The Dresden Files sucked toads (sorry, Emily, but compared to the novels by Jim Butcher, the series was execrable) and they put on a Flash Gordon with no space ships. I repeat: No. Space. Ships!

This trend was reversed with the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica and continued with such shows as Eureka, both of which I’ve enjoyed a great deal. They have several other original series now that have gained a viewership but the one that attracted me most has been Alphas. The series concerns a group of metahumans who are dubbed alphas, each with different abilities, all of which were gained at birth. Can you say X-Men? You’d be right. There’s good reasons for that.

The series was created by Michael Karnow and Zak Penn. The latter worked on story and/or script on several X-Men movies, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, and my own personal wonky fave, Incident at Loch Ness. So he has chops. And he knows what the X-Men are about.

The series centers around a team of Alphas, recruited to handle bad alphas (sound familiar?) by brilliant non-Alpha Dr. Lee Rosen, a psychiatrist, played by David Strathairn (notable in the last two Bourne movies and, in one of his best roles, Good Night and Good Luck where he played Edward R. Murrow to stunning effect). Straitharn was a large reason I decided to watch the series in the first place; he’s an excellent actor and I’ve never seen him in anything in which he wasn’t honest and believable, even when he plays bad guys. Frankly, I was surprised to see him doing a cable TV series but he has done a significant amount of TV work. In this, he’s the Professor Xavier analog without being a copy.

There are other analogs in the show. The main bad guy, Stanton Parish (played by John Pyper-Ferguson) is a Magneto type. While he doesn’t have the same powers, he’s an alpha (read mutant) who is gathering his fellow alphas and wants to save them from common humanity. He has a respect for his opponent, Dr. Rosen, and seems to be a reluctant mass murderer.

One character, Bill Harken (Malik Yoba), is sort of a Colossus analog in that he is the strongman of the group. The most original character, Gary Bell (Ryan Cartwright), can plug into and read any wavelength but the character is also autistic (on the level of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man) and his interactions with the team and the world around him are always interesting.

Do I like the series? Yes. It’s not a rip-off of the X-Men per se; it’s more a re-imagining of the core concepts of the X-Men. People are born with special powers and some of them try to save a world that fears and hates them but it’s a more realistic take on the concept (“realistic” being a relative term). No costumes, no spandex. A touch of soap opera, yes, but almost all comic book superheroes have that these days.

Above all, it has David Strathairn who I think I would watch in almost anything. His character is nuanced and fallible and shows a deep, if sometimes flawed, humanity. I’d give the whole series a B+, A-. A third season has not yet been announced but I hope it will be. You may want to catch the first two seasons before it comes back because the storyline and underlying mythology does build. Not as impenetrable as the X-Men have gotten but I’m not sure just jumping in on the third season would be the best idea.

Besides, it’s enjoyable to watch.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

Altus Press has released a new volume of Terror Trios.

Press Release:

Our newest Terror Trio is out:

Death Underground: Terror Trios Featuring Wyatt Blassingame
by Wyatt Blassingame, introduction by John Pelan

Welcome to another volume of Terror Trios from Altus Press. Each volume in this series will present three novels from the great weird menace pulps from Popular Publications. Dime Mystery Magazine, Terror Tales, and Horror Stories frequently ran lengthy pieces of 20,000 words or more that have sadly been ignored by anthologists due to their length. This series will present for the first time in book form notable works by authors such as Hugh B. Cave, Wyatt Blassingame, Wayne Rogers and others. Noted horror author and pulp scholar, John Pelan has assembled a series of books that will bring back into print some of the most notable works in the genre. Don’t miss a single volume!

179 pages, $14.95

Learn more at http://www.altuspress.com/projects/death-underground-terror-trios-featuring-wyatt-blassingame/

White Rocket Books’ newest release brings some long dormant characters back into the limelight in an all-new adventure in THE GOLDEN AGE, a novel by Jeff Deischer.

About The Golden Age:
Published from 1939-56, the Standard/Better/Nedor characters are largely forgotten by today’s comic book fans. Now, pulp author and comic aficionado Jeff Deischer brings these classic heroes back in an all-new adventure.

In 1942, the world is at war. Spies and saboteurs seem to lurk around every corner in America. But, in the shadows, real danger awaits. Following the Battle of Midway, the Dragon Society of Imperial Japan sends agents on a secret mission to knock the U.S. out of the war. And only the superheroes of the Auric Universe can stop them.

Join the superheroes of the Golden Age in this epic new saga that legendary pulp author and interviewer Art Sippo called “a terrific read–it doesn’t get any better than this!”

Includes an Introduction by comics and pulp historian Will Murray.

The book is available at CreateSpace and Amazon.

Thank you, Bryan Adams. See? More than one good thing has come out of Canada that isn’t Wolverine related. Add that to the Barenaked Ladies, good maple syrup, and Mike Meyers’ middle career, and you’ve got one great country! But I digress. I want to come back to a topic I’ve droned on about several times: the continuing story of Unshaven Comics by way of an increasing number of convention appearances.

This past weekend we had a delightful time at what we’d consider to be the best single day convention in the Midwest – the Kokomo Con, in mid-Indiana. And it was here, amidst the moderately sized crowd of fans making their way around the convention center we were privy to my favorite part of being in this business – fans. In the five or so years I’ve been toiling over scripts, pages, websites, and social media groups, nothing has felt better than having someone walk towards our table with an ear to ear smile. “Hey! You guys! I remember you from last year. Got anything new?” Heck, even typing that makes me a little giddy.

For some of the more legendary folks here with whom I share column space, it must be a far different feeling. To be clear, I don’t know if Dennis, John, Mike, or Michael have ever been on the side of the table as Unshaven has. I know they’ve obviously all had booths or artist alley tables, mind you. But I’d be remiss to guess if they ever were the ones chasing the tables, instead of being offered them. For Unshaven, the way into the industry is by hook or crook. We’ve got fiction to hawk, damnit. And for the time being? We’re not established. Our fans are few, but mighty. For a Dennis O’Neil or John Ostrander… they merely plop themselves into a chair and let the masses come to them, and rightfully so. In contrast, Unshaven Comics has cut its teeth with a generation of comic fans I dare say are more finicky, diverse, and uneasy to please repeatedly.

The show runner at Kokomo stopped by our table several times to make sure we were doing well. We were happy to relate every time that we were pleased as punch. By the end of the day, we’d increased our book sales by 20% over the year before. And given that attendance was slightly down from the year prior? This was an even more reassuring notion for our wee little team. To that effort, he quickly quipped “You guys could make a panel for artists to tell them how to be successful at cons!” Truth be told? I’ve detailed our crazy tactics before in my previous con-centric articles. What we do isn’t hard. It’s a bit shameless. But then again, our model for business was Stan Lee, and he certainly has made a living (or two) by never denying his inner huckster.

My greater point here though is this: Beyond any salesmanship we may employ at our table, beyond any marketing and networking we do, beyond any artistic fan-service we whore ourselves out for, what makes us successful comes down to one common denominator: a quality product that connects with fans. If we made bad books, no amount of smiling and pitching would show us increasing sales 10-20% every time we return to a convention. With the blistering amount of competition there is in artist alleys around the country, it’s a badge of pride when someone comes back time and again to see you. Especially when it’s with money-in-hand.

Thanks largely to my day job, I’ve been privy to a ton of extra-curricular reading (non-comic reading, boo) about start-ups. After careful consideration, it’s become obvious to me that my own studio is in fact just that. As a slow moving startup, we’ve done everything to keep costs down, while testing our product in the market. In layman terms? We don’t pay ourselves for the all the time we dedicate to making the books, we stay at cheap hotels, and only pay for dinner when Mark Wheatley, Mike Gold, John Ostrander or Glenn Hauman  say to. And with each subsequent release, we’ve managed our risk by truly listening to our fans. After our first book (horror) and our second (rated R super-hero fare), we tried the all ages genre. And, as you read a week or two ago, the fans responded happily. And now, after several one-shots, we’re dipping our toes into mini-series waters.

And if the fans continue to be happy, return in droves, and help define a following for our beardly wares, we just might end up going whole-hog and doing an on-going series. We do what we do because of the fans. When they react positively to what we put on the page, it tells us that we share a bond not only in collective fandom… but it cements to us that our commitment to craft leads to more than a single purchase and lament.

It leads to a relationship between a fan and a creator. It leads to us one day being invited to the convention instead of chasing after it. And rest assured, no matter how we come to the con, we’ll continue to do what we always do – earning one fan at a time, until the convention hall closes.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander’s Alphas!