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Amazon Slashes Black Bat Mystery Price!

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  • November 2, 2011

Airship 27 Productions’ Black Bat Mystery Vol. One is now on SALE for $9.67 at Amazon.com, a whopping 61% off the cover price. “You are not going to find this book for a better price and just in time for Christmas,” says Airship 27 head honcho Ron Fortier. “Would make the perfect gift for the pulp fan in your life.”
For more information on Black Bat Mystery Vol. One, visit http://www.amazon.com/Black-Bat-Mystery-Andrew-Salmon/dp/1934935719/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320246151&sr=1-1

FROM ALTUS PRESS-THE GREEN LAMA VOLUME 2

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  • November 2, 2011

The Green Lama: The Complete Pulp Adventures Volume 2
Authored by Kendell Foster Crossen, Illustrated by V.E. Pyles,
Introduction by Michelle Nolan


Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum! The first of its kind, the complete adventures of the Green Lama follows the adventures of Buddhist Jethro Dumont and his aides as they battle the forces of evil in the western world.

Written by Kendell Foster Crossen, it’s non-stop action in the vein of The Shadow!

Never completely reprinted before, the series is collected in three volumes. Each volume contains an all-new introduction, focusing on a different aspect of the character’s life across several forms of popular media. Volume 2 contains an introduction by comics historian
Michelle Nolan and features the next five stories: “The Case of the Death’s-Head Face,” “The Case of the Clown Who Laughed,” “The Case of the Invisible Enemy,” “The Case of the Mad Magi,” and “The Case of the Vanishing Ships.”

GREEN LAMA is a trademark controlled by, and licensed from, Argosy Communications, Inc.

List Price: $34.95 softcover, $44.95 hardcover
6″ x 9″ 512 pages


Video Game Review: “Ace Combat: Assault Horizon”

  • News
  • November 2, 2011

I’ve never been very good at playing flight simulators. Invariably, I always end up crashing into the ground or a mountain as I’m trying to swing the camera around to follow the bogey on my six. However, the most recent entry in the Ace Combat series has made me a fan all over again, and its new cinematic approach is a good reason as to why. Taking cues from the Call of Duty series, as well as listening to critic and fan reviews of previous titles, [[[Ace Combat: Assault Horizon]]] is the most diverse and fun title I’ve played in the series yet.

The game starts you off in a dream sequence taking out enemy planes over Miami. It’s here that you’ll first utilize the game’s star feature, DFM, or Dog Fight Mode. When tailing an enemy, pressing both shoulder buttons locks you onto your target and gives you a cinematic behind-the-plane view with a focused targeting reticule on the ship in front of you. Since most enemies are fairly adept at maneuvering out of missile locks, this is the ideal way to lock-on to foes to take them out. While in a lock, you also have to watch out for foes putting a lock on you, and the dogfights can get pretty harried in the skies above. Luckily, there are awesome-looking counter attacks you can perform if locked on to, which has your plane looping around after lining up arrows on screen and pressing the appropriate buttons on the controller. However, there tends to be a LOT going on on screen, so attention to details is a must.

(more…)

MIKE GOLD: For Whom The Bell Tolls

  • News
  • November 2, 2011

There are few songwriters – few writers – I respect more than Pete Townshend. Were this a music column I’d go into detail why I hold this belief, but today in this venue he’s a means to an end.

Last week, Pete (okay, we’re not on a first name basis; the only time we were within 10 feet was when he bashed my boss in the back of his head with his guitar) accused Apple’s iTunes online retail store of being a “digital vampire.” His analysis was fraught with mistakes and revealed a genuine lack of knowledge of the situation. He was defending a system that treated him and his band, The Who, very, very well – a system that no longer exists as a creative outlet for newcomers going back at least a full generation. He also mistook iTunes for a label and not what it actually is: a retail outlet. A very successful one, but then again Pete’s net worth is in the neighborhood of $75,000,000 – a true one-percenter – so success isn’t the issue here.

What does this have to do with the wonderful world of comics? Hang on. I’ll get there.

Pete also said “It would be better if music lovers treated music like food, and paid for every helping, rather than only when it suited them … Why can’t music lovers just pay for music rather than steal it?” That’s the heart of my diatribe today: people who sort of steal artists’ works instead of paying for it.

Bootlegging is a serious issue, but more a moral one than financial. Sure, Disney and Warners will bitch about all the milions they’re losing but that’s because they see every bootlegged item as a lost sale. Few are.

When it comes to comics, sometimes it’s a matter of convenience. Some people boot stuff they’ve already purchased because they prefer reading on a tablet. After all, we’re in our third generation of comics fans who go bugfuck whenever somebody folds the cover back in order to read the damn thing. Still others are sampling new wares: with literally over 300 new comics released each month and maybe a third of them brand-new titles or “reboots” (a word with unintended irony) a reader can’t afford to sample even a fraction of the new stuff.

And then there are the idiots. Stupid people who live the life of Wile E. Coyote until they finally look down.

Our buddy Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool reports of a guy named Stephen Chandler out in Glasgow, Scotland who is offering every comic book published each month by the “major” publishers (DC, Marvel, IDW, Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite, and perhaps others) in electronic form for the low price of about $27.00 a month – 20 Euros, so the price fluctuates.

His is a for-profit operation. No matter what you think of readers downloading comics illegally, this guy is taking money out of publishers’ pockets. Most publishers can’t afford that; even the big guys are responsible for delivering an acceptable bottom line to their masters.

Steve, pal… look. Maybe your heart is in the right place. Most comics readers pay more than $27 a month for a fraction of the content you’re delivering on disc. And you’re entitled to a reasonable profit for your work. But that’s only in the sense that Al Capone was entitled to a reasonable profit for his work.

Eventually, Wile E. Coyote looked down. So will you, Steve. You work and perhaps live near the All-Saints Secondary School. You might dine at the Delhi Darber. Maybe you drink at the Aushinairn Tavern and shop at Asda Robroyston. Or perhaps you go to the Food Cooperative off of Wallacewell Road.

In other words, Steve, you’re an idiot.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

GUEST REVIEW-CHARLES SAUNDERS’ DAMBALLA!

  • News
  • November 2, 2011
DAMBALLA!
A Review of Airship 27’s Damballa
by Andrew Salmon
We’ve all been thrilled and enthralled by Classic Pulp. It has influenced so much of pop culture today. However for all its ability to be of its time yet ahead of its time, there is one black mark in the history of the form – racism. Now I am of the camp that believes it is not fair to judge the work of decades past with modern sensibilities. The great pulp yarns of yesteryear were products of their time, written for their time and should be read as such regardless of their faults however offensive they may be.
The New Pulp movement, however, allows us to revisit those bygone days and tell adventurous stories based in the past yet geared for the modern reader. And, more importantly, affords us the opportunity to correct the mistakes of pulp’s forefathers.
Enter: Damballa!
All of the wondrous trappings of pulp are here in this incredible work: action, adventure, evil scheming Nazis and a hero determined to foil their plot to embarrass the United States, politically, in the boxing ring – the key component here is that Damballa is a black man.
Given the classic pulp elements present in the novel, it would have been easy for Saunders to just trot out a pulp archetype and just changed the color of hero’s skin but an author of his skill and ability would not be limited to taking the easy way out. Instead Damballa has deep, African roots and an intriguing origin and supporting cast, the surface of which has only been scratched by this first adventure.
Some of you may be thinking, ‘Okay, Damballa makes history as the first black pulp hero, so what? I read pulp to be entertained. Is the book any good?’ All right let’s get down to brass tacks and tackle some questions:
What is the book about? Is it pulp?
Let’s tackle that first one, shall we? Set in 1938, Damballa gives us a fictional retelling of the real boxing re-match between Joe Louis and Max Schmelling. The real life bout had both political and racial ramifications as the German, Schmelling, went toe to toe with African-American Louis at a time when the world was on the cusp of WW2 and the Nazis were keen on proving their racial superiority. In the novel, the fighters are Jackhammer Jackson and Wolf Krieger but the stakes are the same. Thing is, the Nazis are cheating as only they can and it’s up to Damballa to level the playing field before disaster strikes. What follows is an engaging action yarn peopled with characters of every shade of gray. One of the wonderful, telling, modern touches Saunders brings to the pulp form can be found in one scene where Damballa, no slouch in the disguise department, has to masquerade as a white man to enter certain parts of 1930s society unmolested in his quest to stop the Nazis before it’s too late.
Yeah, but is it pulp?
Damballa is a pulp novel and a very, very good one. Punctuated by short, staccato chapters, Saunders keeps the story moving while layering in wonderful historical details that recreate the time period to perfection. Within this framework he inserts memorable characters, crackling dialogue, mysteries and a compelling hero for the ages. By arming Damballa with a wealth of African lore and real science to go along with brains, brawn and physical ability, Saunders introduces us to a costumed hero bad guys do NOT want to mess with. And one adventure fans won’t be able to get enough of. The book features an atmospheric cover by Charles Fetherolf and moody interior illustrations by Clayton Hinkle – the end result is one of the best looking, best reading pulp books of the year.
Damballa is one of the shining lights in the New Pulp movement, a truly exceptional novel you cannot afford to miss.

Happy 84th Birthday, Steve Ditko!

  • News
  • November 2, 2011

And those are just the characters he created for DC. We won’t even mention Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, the Question, Mr. A…

But who, you may still ask, is Steve Ditko? By a handy coincidence, there was an hour-long documentary four years ago asking that very same query…

Long may he wave.

Iron Man 3 director says that Doc Savage movie ain’t dead yet

  • Uncategorized
  • November 1, 2011

According to Blastr.com, That epic new Doc Savage movie we’ve been waiting on for eons still has some life left in it. Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout) is attached to direct the strapping hero and believes the adaptation will get his full attention once his other little comic movie, Iron Man 3, is done.

Black came aboard the project back in 2009 to co-write the screenplay, then was assigned to direct for Columbia in February of last year. It is rumored to be a period piece set in the ’30s, the era in which pulp magazines were enjoying vast popularity. Seems like a juicy gig for the pulp-loving Black’s exotic tastes.
In a chat with Comic Book Resources at last week’s Long Beach Comic Con, Black outlined the feasibility of the Man of Bronze bursting onto the big screen soon:
“If we do Doc Savage, the challenge is make it adult,” said Black. “I think that there are so few practitioners of action movies these days who are doing worthwhile stuff that it behooves me to try to weigh in and try to do the Raiders Of The Lost Ark-type stuff, to try to recapture the magic. When I stood in line for a summer movie when I was coming up at eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old, I stood in line for two and a half, three hours and you got the goods! They delivered! And if they didn’t, you went outside and said, ‘Arg, Indiana Jones 2′ wasn’t that good, I stood in line for three hours!’ Now, you don’t know what you’re getting!
“There’s just, I think, a decrease in the quality of these types of comic book action movies, and so it’s almost irresistible, sometimes, to try and shore that up a little, or weigh in at least with my opinion about what’s wrong and how it should be. It’s not the next thing I want to do. I want to do something more serious, a smaller movie at some point. I’m sure there’s a Winter’s Bone in my future. But for now, I’ve immersed myself in comics. I do want to do Doc Savage. The script is still evolving and I’m kind of busy, but I want to get it right and I want to do it.”
Doc Savage was first published in U.S. pulp magazines during the glory years of the ’30s and ’40s and was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic. Lester Dent served as the beefy action hero’s main writer. Savage was a surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, musician and martial arts master. Raised from birth to fight crime and evil, he lived in an Empire State Building-like skyscraper and kept a secret frozen lair in the Arctic. The popular bare-chested badass would go on to appear in radio serials, film and comic books, and was reprinted for modern audiences in a series of paperbacks.
In 1975, a faithful but campy version hit Hollywood, titled Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze starring ex-Tarzan actor Ron Ely. Let’s hope Black’s rendition returns to the retro rawness and adventurous spirit infused in the original comics. Old-school heroes never die, they just keep swingin’.

Knightraven Studios Reduces eBook Prices

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  • November 1, 2011

Press Release: Knightraven Studios Reduces eBook Prices

Effectively immediately, and running throughout the entire upcoming holiday season, Knightraven Studios has reduced the prices of all the ebook-format epic-sized Infinite Horizons novels from $4.95 down to $2.99. This includes the popular Pulp Heroes novels written and illustrated by Wayne Reinagel, More Than Mortal and Khan Dynasty, and Modern Marvels – Viktoriana. This limited time offer ends January 2.

These books can be purchased at the following locations.
http://www.amazon.com/shops/knightravenstudios
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/knightravenstudios
http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/InfiniteHorizonsStore.html.

About More Than Mortal:
In this completely original action story, four champions of justice, Doc Titan – The Ultimate Man, The Darkness – The Master of Shadows, Guardian – Steel and Ice Justice, and The Scorpion – The Deadliest Man Alive, are brought together for the first time to battle a deadly threat and save the Earth and mankind from absolute destruction.

More information about More Than Mortal can be found at:
http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/

About Khan Dynasty:
Beginning in Cairo, Egypt, nearly a century in the past, a series of seemingly random events lead to danger and intrigue, as two generations of heroes race to stop a diabolical duo from unleashing a devastating wave of death and destruction. Four champions of justice, Doc Titan – The Ultimate Man, The Darkness – The Master of Shadows, Guardian – Steel and Ice Justice, and The Scorpion – The Deadliest Man Alive, race to unravel a century old mystery, and prevent the destruction of England and America, while the nations of the Earth teeter on the brink of another world war.

More information about Khan Dynasty can be found at:
http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/

About Modern Marvels – Viktoriana:

A secret fellowship of nine incredibly unique individuals.
Trapped in a deadly battle between an ancient evil and the vampire nations.
Mankind’s last hope.
† † † †
Featuring an all-star gallery of the world’s greatest Viktorian era heroes, including:
Henry Rider Haggard as the Warrior – author of Allan Quatermain & King Solomon’s Mines
† † † †
Arthur Conan Doyle as the Doctor – author of Sherlock Holmes & Professor Challenger
† † † †
Jules Verne as the Merovingian – the Father of Science Fiction & author of the Voyages Extraordinaires series
† † † †
Herbert George Wells as the Scientist – author of The Time Machine & War of the Worlds
† † † †
Mary Shelley as the Oracle – author of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus
† † † †
Harry Houdini as the Mage – the Handcuff King
† † † †
Bram Stoker as the Juggernaut – author of Dracula & The Lair of the White Worm
† † † †
Nikola Tesla as the Inventor – the Master of Electricity
† † † †
Edgar Allen Poe as the Raven – author of The Raven & The Pit and the Pendulum
† † † †
And Mark Twain as Himself – author of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn
† † † †
Also starring:
Countess Elizabeth Báthory
aka The Blood Countess
† † † †
Varney the Vampire, progenitor of the undead species
&
Aleister Crowley
† † † †
And Special Guest Star:
Count Vlad Dracula, the Prince of Darkness & Lord of the Vampires
† † † †
Paranormal investigators and adventurers.
Archaeologists of history.
Vampire slayers!!

More information about Modern Marvels – Viktoriana can be found at:
http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/

For those folks interested in buying paper versions of these books, please feel free to visit our stores at:
http://stores.ebay.com/Knightraven-Studios, http://www.amazon.com/shops/knightravenstudios,
and for best prices, check out our new online store at http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/InfiniteHorizonsStore.html

Effectively immediately, and running throughout the entire upcoming holiday season, Knightraven Studios has reduced the prices of all the ebook-format epic-sized Infinite Horizons novels from $4.95 down to $2.99. This includes the popular Pulp Heroes novels written and illustrated by Wayne Reinagel, More Than Mortal and Khan Dynasty, and Modern Marvels – Viktoriana. This limited time offer ends January 2.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season!!

Occupy Comics

  • News
  • November 1, 2011

In our continuing coverage of comics crossover with #OccupyWallStreet, we have this photo by Marcus Santos for the New York Daily News on how Zuccotti Park protestors spent their Halloween, as well as this appearance last night from Countdown With Keith Olbermann on Current TV:

Hat tip to Peter Sanderson and evil twin Torsten Adair.

 

The Lone Ranger and Kolchak: The Night Stalker Novels Debut February 2012

  • Uncategorized
  • November 1, 2011

Moonstone Books has announced that the Lone Ranger novel, “Vendetta” and the Kolchak: The Night Stalker novel, “The Lost City” will arrive in book stores and comic shops in February 2012.

KOLCHAK AND THE LOST CITY

Written by CJ Henderson, cover by Doug Klauba.

New thriller-novels from Moonstone! From the author of the Brooklyn Knights novels! After getting a serial killer to confess, Kolchak is offered an international assignment with massive coverage around the world. With fame and fortune finally within reach, Kolchak is ready to cover the story, when he’s confronted by a mysterious monk who warns him that “the seventy-two must always be.” What this means is not explained. But, before he knows it, Kolchak’s dreams are invaded by unexplainable images that let him know every step he takes toward this story is bringing him closer to death.

130 pages, $4.99.

THE LONE RANGER: VENDETTA

Written by Howard Hopkins, cover by Doug Klauba.

New thriller-novels from Moonstone! From out of the past comes a mysterious killer systematically murdering anyone with a connection to the Masked Rider of the Plains former identity. When all signs point to Butch Cavendish, a man long dead, The Ranger finds himself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the life of his faithful Indian companion hanging in the balance.

130 pages, $4.99.

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