Inevitably, when discussing the best way to market comics to a larger, non-indoctrinated audience, someone will suggest “good writing and art” as the sure-fire remedy.

The mirror image of this is accusing publishers of employing “cheap publicity stunts.” I was on the receiving end of this charge from Gary Groth of The Comics Journal when he was questioned about the Death of Superman in USA Today. Naturally, I was miffed, because I thought my salary proved I was not cheap.

(I’m sure that’s the occasion when the most people ever thought about The Comics Journal.)

The premise, in any case, is incorrect. Or, rather, it should be. In publishing, the editorial department should decide what to acquire (or, in the case of comics and other work-for-hire situations, solicit) and the marketing departments (which include publicity) should promote this material to the people who would most enjoy it.

It never works like this. Publishers want to attract the largest possible audience, and they’ll instruct editors to jump on the latest trends, whether that’s sword and sorcery, black and white indies, steampunk, graphic novels, television and movie adaptions or whatever. You’ll notice that’s a jumble of genres and formats, not a single directive. That’s the kind of thing that makes editors lose their hair.

But wait! There’s more! Sometimes marketing people think they know more about what makes a book good than the editors. I’m thinking of one person at DC (now a vice-president) who boasted to retailers that he wouldn’t promote a book he didn’t like. I have no doubt that he thought this was the honorable thing to do, but it does a disservice to his employers and to the retailers. The marketplace is not made up of people with exactly the same taste as this vice-president. By limiting the options he offered to them, he limited their sales.

I didn’t like every book I promoted. However, I knew that there were potential readers for every book, people who would be entertained and amused and involved. I didn’t necessarily know these people, but I wanted them to be happy, so I wanted them to know about our comics.

It’s not a perfect system. At the time, DC published about 70 titles a month across all imprints. There weren’t enough mainstream media outlets to cover that much. I had to pick and choose what was most relevant to the media I was pitching. Again, trying to match the story to the potential audience was the key. I’m sure I made mistakes in my choices. I’m sure some worthy projects didn’t get their share of attention.

No one is going to argue against quality. It’s like arguing against apple pie and Mom. Maybe there’s an opposing side, but only opinionated and obnoxious people like Mike Gold and I like to argue for the sake of arguing. And because of our Talmudic tradition.

Unfortunately, when it comes to comics, quality is like obscenity – I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. And what I see as quality you may not.

Lots of people enjoyed the Death of Superman storyline and its follow-ups, and lots of comics cognoscenti sneered at them for enjoying it. A lot of these people are preemptively sneering at the New 52. I hope they’re wrong. I hope it works.

I hope it brings happiness to millions.

Martha Thomases, Dominoed Dare-Doll, will spend next week looking for Spider-Man at Walt Disney World.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

Dick Prather’s inimitable, incomparable SHELL SCOTT returns in a series of graphic novels scripted by Mark Ellis with art by his Justice Machine partner, David Enebral. Publisher Michael Hudson says, “We owe a lot to Linda Pendleton for making this a reality. I’ve been planning this for over three years and can’t wait to see what our team does with the property.”

Ellis had this to share. “Shell (Scott) is the first literary private eye I was exposed to. Dick Prather’s books were what ignited my interest in the genre. I don’t think people now realize just how enormously popular and even influential the Shell Scott series was for 20 plus years. What’s even more amazing is that the entertainment value still holds up today.”

The first three books to be adapted are Kill The Clown, Dead Man’s Walk and Pattern For Panic. The adaptations should run 44 pages in length and are expected to come out bi-annually through Sequential Pulp joint publishing partner, Dark Horse Comics.

MONOPOLY® – Star Trek Klingon Limited Edition.

Oooh! Oooh! I want to be the Bat’leth!

Mini-Komix’s first prose comic about public domain heroines from the Golden Age of comics & pulp fiction is now available in print and digital editions at http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/golden-age-good-girls/16531425.

Heroines of the Golden Age of comics and pulp magazines return in all new adventures. Thrill to tales of Amazona, Jill Trent: Science Sleuth, Moon Girl, Vivian Lachan, and Rulah the Jungle Goddess, plus all new original stories of Ms. Amazing and Steam Bunny. Written by Terry Alexander, Jason Bullock, Chuck Miller, Bobby Nash, Sean Taylor, and Gaylord Tause.

Print Edition: $7.00
Digital Download: $3.00

To learn more about Golden Age Good Girls and Mini Komix, visit them at http://minikomix.blogspot.com.

ALL PULP REVIEWS-Reviews by Ron Fortier

GETTING OFF
By Lawrence Block
(Writing as Jill Emerson)
Hard Case Crime
335 pages
Release Date 20 Sept 2011

One of the classic traits of a noire crime story is the protagonist being an unsympathetic character. The history of American literature took a sharp left turn when this new genre came into its own, evolving from the hardcore crime pulps of the 1930s. Till then, the majority of books generally portrayed the central figures as worthy of the readers’ admiration when the behaved in true heroic style, or sympathetic when they did not. But either way, one was able to identify with the characters.

Noire changed all that and GETTING OFF is a truly fitting example of the genre as the lead character is a female sociopath without a conscience. Early in the tale we learn that Kit Tolliver was sexually abused by her father from a very young age. But whether that abuse caused her unrelenting psychosis is not argued in the slightest, as her personal response to it is to coldly murder total strangers. Block does make it clear that Kit is in some bizarre mentally deranged way killing her father over and over again with each new man she sleeps with. What he does not do his judge her for it and therein lies the perspective that is truly unsettling.

At times the book’s heavy handedness slips into black comedy territory and the prevailing humor is twisted in its perversity. Along Kit’s journey of life, and death-dealing, she logically encounters partners who are just as sick as she is. In those scenes it is all too easy to start rooting for her as if she is somehow more worthy of survival then the other monsters she has crossed paths with. The last noire thriller to have bothered me this much was Jim Thompson’s classic THE KILLER INSIDE ME. And like that book, this one is not for the faint of heart.

In the end, GETTING OFF is a cautionary tale about the sexual mores of our times and the dangerous waters singles, and cheaters, swim in. Let them read GETTING OFF and I guarantee you they will think twice about their next plunge into those dark depths where the toothy sharks prowl.

QUARRY’S EX
By Max Allan Collins
Hard Case Crime
211 pages

Available 20 Sept.2011

Review by Ron Fortier

Max Allan Collins started writing his Quarry books back in 1976 with The Broker. It was the first time we were introduced to the Vietnam vet turned paid assassin. In that tale, we learned how Quarry, not his real name of course, came home to find his wife in bed with another man. He murders the guy by dropping a car on him and then, because of his service record as a war hero, is acquitted by jury. Shortly thereafter he is recruited by a man known only as the Broker to become a professional killer.

In the books that have appeared since that stellar debut, that opening scenario has often been retold many times to bring the new readers up to speed. Recently, since becoming affiliated with Hard Case Crime, Collins has begun filling in specific details of Quarry’s life, each more compelling than the last. In this particular book, we are told what happened to Quarry’s ex-wife after they divorced and parted. But Quarry’s personal life is, as always case, only the subplot of the story.

Quarry has come to a small Arizona town where a movie studio is shooting an action B movie. When he discovers that the director of the film is the target of a hit, Quarry approaches the man and offers his own lethal services to both eliminate the threat and discover who put out the contract in the first place. It is this neat little twist combination of mystery and crime thriller that makes this series so original and fun. Quarry is no knight-in-shining armor private eye out to save the world. He’s a killer who makes a good living taking out other killers.

Once the first part of his contract has been efficiently resolved, Quarry is a master of death-dealing, he then becomes a detective chasing down the person who put out the contract on the moviemaker. As always, there are plenty of juicy suspects from the mob boss who is financing the project to the director’s wife who inherits all if he dies. The problem is the woman is Quarry’s ex-wife. The second he lays eyes on her, old familiar feelings he thought long dead begin to resurface, complicating an already precarious situation.

Paying homage to the potboilers of the 40s and 50s, Collins laces his tale with the most outrageous sexual encounters; all done with a sly, sharp wit that is ingratiating. At the same time he balances that adult humor with explosive violence that is as mesmerizing as it is ugly. His prose falls into place with the deft touch of a contemporary poet, each line awakening a new possibility in how we see the world. Reading Quarry is an education in human psychology taught from the barrel of a silenced automatic.

(Postscript – This review was written and posted last year when the book was first published by Dorchester Press. Shortly thereafter Hard Case Crime parted company with that firm and this new edition is now being released by their new British publisher, Titan Books.)

BEHIND THE VEIL by Joshua Pantalleresco

Sean Ellis is the talented author of multiple novels, including Heaven’s Shroud and The Chessmen series.  He is also the creator of his own New Pulp character, Dodge Dalton, which has currently two books out in his series.  Dodge Dalton In The Shadow of Falcons Wings and Dodge Dalton and the Outpost of Fate are as high adventure as they sound and after talking to Sean, Dodge’s origins come Ellis’ own sense of adventure .

Sean admits, “When I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark as a kid, I fell in love with adventure stories, and I really became fascinated with the pre-World War II time period. It was a turning point for the way we saw the world in terms of exploration and technology.　 The world of the 1930’s was still pretty big and there were a lot of unexplored places.　 If you wanted to find a lost city or something like that, you couldn’t just jump on Google Earth and do satellite reconnaissance and then fly directly there in a helicopter.

That fascination for the time period, and the fact that I was making a serious bid to write for the (now mostly defunct) Indiana Jones novel series, led me to the pulps, and particularly Doc Savage.　 I had a passing familiarity with pulp fiction, but once I started doing some research, I realized that there was a lot of potential for a new pulp renaissance, not just in terms of content, but in the way books are published.　

I had the idea to launch a series where several authors would be working simultaneously to produce titles for a single series—much like Charles Ardai did with the Gabriel Hunt series a few years later—and so I enlisted some friends to help me draw up the characters and brainstorm some plots.　 My original dream didn’t quite happen as planned, but the process got the ball rolling creatively.

The concept that came out of that mix was a passing of the torch story loosely based on Doc Savage.　 The pitch went something like this: An evil force is rising and the world needs its greatest hero…but he’s been missing for years.　 A young journalist tracks down the hero’s associates in an effort to find the missing hero, battling the villains every step of the way, and eventually becomes the world’s new champion.

The desire to be an adventurer and a writer perhaps is the biggest connection between Ellis and Dalton.

“One of my favorite tropes has always been the writer as protagonist.　 I like the idea of the writer trying to imitate his literary creations, probably because my childhood dream was to be a writer/adventure hero.

In the story, Dodge is a sportswriter for a New York newspaper, who get tapped to ghostwrite stories about a war hero named　Captain Falcon, as told by one of Falcon’s purported associates, “Hurricane” Hurley.　 Dodge thinks that stories are fiction, or at the very least exaggerated from a factual account, so he writes them that way, and they become a runaway success.　 The idea of becoming an adventurer is that last thing on Dodge’s mind…at least until the bad guys show up, demanding to square off with Captain Falcon.

I suppose in that respect, I’m quite a bit different than Dodge. One of my earliest sources of inspiration as a writer was Clive Cussler.　 I still remember reading the bio in one of his early novels; it talked about how he spent his free time searching for shipwrecks and lost mines, just like his hero Dirk Pitt. When I read that, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.　 And while I haven’t found any lost cities, I have managed to have a few adventures along the way, and I’d like to think some of that comes through in my novels.”

While Sean didn’t divulge any details of his own adventures, his experiences definitely help color his action scenes.
“There are some scenes in the first Dodge Dalton novel where Dodge is underwater and trying to get back to the surface; when I write that, I try to tap in on my own memories of making some deep free dives and thinking: ‘Why is it taking so long to get to the surface? I really need to breathe…starting to panic a little.’ I like to get a little of that adrenaline rush onto the page. You don’t really get that from watching a movie, where the hero–Bond or Indy–can calmly react to whatever life-threatening situation comes along.”

Both books are available on amazon.com. 

If you make only one jingoistic 9/11 purchase this year, log on to Etsy and make it the Superman On September 11th Stainless Steel Flask. Dazzle your friends and neighbors with its callous juxtaposition of a national tragedy with a billion-dollar comic franchise!

After seeing this, I certainly need a drink.

Via Gothamist, by way of Making Light.

Wayne Reinagel’s newest novella entitled The Hunter Island Adventure is now available as a direct download eBook at http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/Infinite%20Horizons%20Online%20Store.html. It will be available for Kindle, Nook, and other devices in a few days.

The Hunter Island Adventure is a fun-filled fantastic non-stop adventure that occurs (chronologically) roughly one year before the events of the best-selling novel, Pulp Heroes – More Than Mortal. This wild tale tells the story of what happens when four kidnapped women (friends and relatives of my main pulp hero characters) prove to be much more trouble than their captors expected. This download also features a special bonus, a complete copy of The Most Dangerous Game, written by Richard Connell and originally published in 1924, and one of the original inspirations for The Hunter Island Adventure. (As was the short story Ransom of the Red Chief by O. Henry, where two men who attempt to kidnap and ransom a wealthy Alabaman’s son; eventually, the men are driven to distraction by the boy and end up having to pay the boy’s father to take him back.)

In addition, several new eBooks are also available at the Knightraven Studios store. In addition to the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson (also available in audiobook format), Wayne has posted The Vampyre written by Doctor John Polidori and a fully illustrated (by Gustave Dore) version of Edgar Allen Poe’s Gothic poem The Raven. For anyone who has not read one of Wayne’s novels, Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, and Robert Louis Stevenson are all characters in Pulp Heroes – Khan Dynasty novel, and Edgar Allan Poe and Polidori are a main characters in Modern Marvels – Viktoriana novel. (As well as Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Nikola Tesla, Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Harry Houdini, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Count Dracula, and Varney the Vampire.)

The Hunter Island Adventure is now available as a direct download eBook at http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/Infinite%20Horizons%20Online%20Store.html. It will be available for Kindle, Nook, and other devices in a few days.

For more information on Wayne Reinagel and his novels, visit http://wwwpulpheroesmorethanmortal.webs.com/