Elfquest: A Fan Imagining
Here’s the full 4:30 trailer that we mentioned a while back. What do you think?
The Mix : What are people talking about today?
ALL PULP WINDY CITY UPDATE-WE ARE HERE!
Hello, All Pulp fans, this is Tommy Hancock and please forgive me, but these posts for the next few days will be informal as I report on all the Con that is Pulp from Windy City Con! Pro Se Press, mysaelf and my partner, are here as well as Ron and Rob from Airship 27, the guys from Black Dog Books, Adventure House, and lots and lots of dealers! The show hasn’t officially opened yet, but people are already milling around. There is so much pulpy goodness here that I may spend myself into a divorce! Arrivals expected but not yet sighted include Mark Halegua, Wayne Reinagel, Moonstone Books and more!! Stay tuned!
IDEAS LIKE BULLETS-The Family Mystery-Part Two!
 |
THE FAMILY MYSTERY-PART TWO
First, I shared the story of the world of THE FAMILY MYSTERY….If you missed that, go back a post or two and read the ILB before this. Now, let’s meet the family, shall we?
DOCTOR DILLON ‘DOC’ DENTSON-A shy retiring research scientist who works in his home laboratory for an up and coming scientific facility, Doc Dentson enjoys watering his lawn and barbecuing steaks on the weekends and has enjoyed that since the end of World War Two, a war that he participated in in some mysterious capacity. Anyone who knows Doc would say that he’s quiet, cheerful, and is happier nowhere than in his own home.
Those people don’t know Doc very well.
Twitter Updates for 2011-04-15
- RT @rachellecheri: Photo: ZATANNA!! Art by @JAMALIGLE; inks by Gerry Acerno; colored by moi! http://tumblr.com/xq324c4zcm #
A digression on comic categories
Over at Making Light, former Valiant Comics editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden started a thread on trying to explain marketing categories in publishing, and how they’re not solely determined by the content:
Say your book features a strange and powerful device, the Transnistrian Infundibulator:
If the storyline is about the inception, interim difficulties, and eventual happy resolution of the relationship between the inventor of the Transnistrian Infundibulator and some nice young woman, it’s a romance.
If he’s a scholar studying the Transnistrian Infundibulator, she’s a governess, and his best fossil specimen of T. infundibulator falls out of his pocket during a reception at Almack’s, it’s a regency.
If one or both of them is not 100% human, they meet cute while fighting off spooky badguys, and the Transnistrian Infundibulator is an ancient magical artifact they use to defeat said badguys, it’s a paranormal romance.
If she’s his lab assistant, he thinks she looks hot in goggles and a tool belt, and the Transnistrian Infundibulator is a huge rivet-intensive steam-driven mechanical wombat, it’s steampunk.
If the Transnistrian Infundibulator is magic, but instead of working like a handheld appliance, it generates profound and numinous changes that affect the world as a whole, it’s probably fantasy.
And the discussion took off from there.
Farther down the list of comments, I added:
If you actually see what the Transnistrian Infundibulator looks like in the book twice, it’s comics.
If it also has a spine, it’s a graphic novel.
But it occurs to me that we should be much more precise in trying to decide comics categories. For starters:
If the Transnistrian Infundibulator awakens a long sleeping creature the size of an elementary school that speaks perfect if grandiose English, it’s a Marvel monster comic from the late 50s.
And so I throw the floor open to you. Have at it.
It’s a Family Affair at IDEAS LIKE BULLETS!!
This is going to be one of those rapid fire Tommygun columns for ILB today. Got a lot going on, but had this idea that I know I’m not likely to get to anytime soon and that just won’t leave me alone. Now, of course, all the usual copyright stuff applies..this is my idea and all that as of today, so if you want to write it, then holler at me and we’ll discuss details. This idea has enough legs that once the deluge I’m currently suffering under passes, I will probably pick up and do something with unless someone’s already gotten me to agree to let them have it:)
THE FAMILY MYSTERY
Although the time frame for this idea could be changed, my thought right now is that this is set in the late 1940s-early to mid 1950s. It centers around a family, the Dentsons. The five members of the Dentson family are your stereotypical Father Knows Best TV Family on the surface, but they share something other than DNA and a last name.
They share a secret identity.
In the metropolitan city the Dentsons live in, there is a problem. A major problem. And that is crime. Crime runs rampant, everything from street level muggings to maniacal super geniuses hellbent on world domination. Although others in the past have stood against the rising tide, those myths and legends, the handful there were, hung up their masks or faded away following the Second World War. But another stepped up to fill the void. One who seemed to be everywhere at once, to know everything, to even master a variety of skills no one person could master, including changing physical size and appearance tor almost any situation. This hero, this bastion of justice and truth, wraps himself in the shadows of the city he swears to protect. Cloaked, masked, hidden from view, THE MYSTERY does all one man can do to protect the decent denizens of his city.
Of course, it’s easier when THE MYSTERY is really five people…Meet the Dentsons!
OK, looks like this will be a two part column! For character descriptions of the Dentsons and some of the other principals, tune back to ALL PULP this weekend as I’ll be finishing this up from WINDY CITY!
PULP ARK ROOM RATE DEADLINE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!
From Tommy Hancock-Pulp Ark Coordinator-
If you have not gotten your room for PULP ARK yet, today is the last day you can get it at the con rate of 79.00 a night. Rooms will still be available, but they will go up to the 100 or so nightly rate. Email here before midnight tonight! That is Debbie, the manager, and she will take your reservations!! Do it now! If you don’t, there are other hotels and rates range from 80-110 bucks, so you could get a room somewhere else, but several of us will be at Debbie’s hotel!!
ALL PULP SITE SPOTLIGHT-THE FERGUSON THEATER IS OPEN!
https://derricklferguson.wordpress.com/about/
From the site-
The Ferguson Theater is open for business
Greetings and Salutations. Welcome to The Ferguson Theater. So glad you could make it. Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Rest your coat. Hopefully you’ll stay here for a while while I give you the obligatory explanation as to why I’m taking up valuable time and space here.
You guys already know I’m into movies. Big time. On a good day I watch at least one movie, either a new one I’ve never seen before or an old favorite. On a really good day I watch four. And then every so often, usually during the summer months my wife Patricia and I will have all-night movie marathons at home. So yeah, I guess you could say I like movies. A lot.
That love of movies prompted me to start up a Live Journal where I wrote movie reviews. That proved successful enough that eventually I ended up with enough movie reviews to fill two books (which are available from Amazon.com and the handy dandy link is to your right) with a third book sitting on my hard drive giving me dirty looks because it feels neglected. It also led to my co-hosting Better In The Dark with Thomas Deja. The movie review themed podcast has also enjoyed a good bit of success. Since it’s lasted five years now, I have no choice but to accept that people actually think that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to movies.
And that leads us to The Ferguson Theater. Over the years people have emailed me asking why don’t I put all my movie reviews on one website, blog, whatever since they’ve been scattered over three or four different websites over the years. And as part of my mandate to become more organized when it comes to my online footprints, I’ve finally buckled down and put this together.
What does this mean for my Live Journal? Oh, it’ll still be there but I’ll no longer be posting movie reviews there. Anything that has to do with movies or TV will be posted right here from now on. So you won’t have to go scrambling through three or four different websites to find a review of mine. I’ll also continue posting reviews over at the Better In The Dark message board so if you don’t get ‘em there, you’ll get ‘em here. Makes it simpler all way round, I think.
So that’s the dilly-o. Thanks for listening and by all means, please feel free to come back soon and often. Rest assured that the older reviews you may have read before aren’t just copied and pasted here from other sites. Most reviews are rewritten to reflect my new views/sensibilities on the movie so you’re just not getting the same ol’ crap from me you’ve read elsewhere. I value your time just as much as I value mine. I don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours and anytime you feel that I am, call me on it.
I also urge you to check out the links on the right. Some of those sites contain content written or presented by friends of mine, some of them really excellent writers. I visit their websites on a regular basis because they know what they’re talking about, they’re entertaining and they’re simply just a whole lotta fun to read.
Okay, I’ve run my mouth enough. Time for the reviews. Thank you for coming to The Ferguson Theater. Sit back and relax, enjoy the show.
ALL PULP ON THE WAY TO WINDY CITY!
From Tommy Hancock, sorta EIC, ALL PULP-
Hello, All Pulp fans, just a quick note to let you go that ALL PULP is going to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention! I’m actually going as a partner in my production company, PRO SE PRODUCTIONS, but while there I’ll be doing double duty and will be sending out reports whenever possible on the news at WINDY CITY, including the mysterious announcement Will Murray is planning to make and The Pulp Factory Awards! Stay tuned! (Well, later tonight at least…the drive is a LONG ONE!)
Tommy
From Pro Se Press-
YESTERYEAR, the debut novel from Tommy Hancock as well as Pro Se Press’ first foray into the field of novels and anthologies, is now for sale! Printed via Createspace, YESTERYEAR, 190 pages, can be purchased for $12.00 here. In the next 1-3 weeks, it will be available via Amazon and after that available via online at other markets as well!
The following is taken from the Estore Page-
YesterYear
YesterYear by Tommy Hancock, Published by Pro Se Press. Cover Art by Jay Piscopo, Interior art by Peter Cooper, Format and Design by Sean Ali.
A world where heroes and villains existed since the day the market crashed and the world almost collapsed. Common people granted great powers and awesome responsibility. A world where one of them knew all the secrets, good and bad, and put them down in a book. A world where that man and that manuscript disappeared.
Until now.
YESTERYEAR is the first book in an epic series chronicling the adventures of Heroes and Villains, both in the Heroic Age of the 1920s-1950s and in the modern day. Centered around a missing manuscript that might hold information that could literally change history and even mean the end of the world, YESTERYEAR alternates between a fast paced modern storyline about the man who ends up with the legendary book and excerpts from the mythic tome itself. Marvel to pulp like adventures of glory and adrenaline and become engrossed in the humanity and horror of being a Hero.
YESTERYEAR by Tommy Hancock-Sometimes the Greatest Mystery of Tomorrow happened Yesterday!
As an added bonus, Pro Se is proud to share with ALL PULP readers the Introduction to YESTERYEAR, written by noted Pulp Author Derrick Ferguson! Enjoy and remember go buy YESTERYEAR TODAY!
Harlan Ellison has this classic answer he gives to people who ask the question that I suppose every writer gets asked at one time or another. Here’s how the scenario goes:
“Where do you get your ideas?”
“There’s this Idea Factory in Schenectady
It’s a lot funnier than it reads, trust me. You have to see and hear Harlan Ellison do the routine to appreciate the gag (as I did twice) but this whole set-up is just to get to the meat and potatoes of this intro.
See, I used to think that Harlan Ellison was just making up the Idea Factory, that it was just a smart-assed way to get a laugh and get out of answering a question he no doubt got tired of answering. But that was before I met Tommy Hancock.
And when I say ‘met’ I mean online. Tommy is one of at least a dozen talented writers who have become good friends of mine but have never met in person. Which makes it all the more remarkable when I realize that Tommy and I have been associated on a variety of projects for going on fifteen years now. And even when we weren’t working on something we were staying in touch by email and Instant Messaging, keeping each other up to date on our lives and our writings.
And in all that time, I’ve come to realize that Tommy Hancock IS the Idea Factory. Truly. I’ve worked with the man so I know whereof I speak. Tommy just isn’t satisfied with creating characters. He creates entire universes. Complete with history, mythology, technology. Ask Tommy how Sovereign City
Right about the time he’s telling you about that character’s great-grandmother you’ll start to get a little nervous. Because you’ll now be getting the notion that our Mr. Hancock must be talking about real people. He has to be. Nobody puts that much creativity and thought and caring into characters that don’t even exist.
Do they?
Tommy Hancock does. Because these characters do exist to him on a very real level. Because Tommy Hancock simply doesn’t know any other way to do it. For him to convince you of the reality of his characters and his universes he has to know it intimately. Right down to the very last atom.
Tommy is an inexhaustible Idea Factory. I’ve been on the receiving end of his output. The man comes up with more ideas in a day than I can in a week. And they’re GOOD ideas. That’s the frightening thing. I could easily take any one of Tommy’s ideas and get a trilogy of novels outta ‘em. That’s how good and how detailed they are.
And at last with this book you’re holding in your trembling hands, you’re going to see what Tommy does with his ideas in a novel. And I envy you if this is the first time you’re reading Tommy Hancock. YESTERYEAR is truly a marvelous work that I’ve been privileged to read bits and pieces of over the years. It’s an event that this work is at last being presented. Especially in light of the New Pulp Renaissance going on right now. Tommy has been out there on the front lines, getting the word out there about pulp and I’m delighted to see that he’s not only championing the works of others but now he’s got one of his own.
That’s enough of me running my mouth. I’ve done my warm-up bit and now it’s time for the main attraction. Dim the lights, make sure your favorite snacks and beverage of choice are within easy reach. Put on the appropriate mood music and let Tommy Hancock take you into his universe. He may call it YESTERYEAR but trust me, it’s as fresh and bright and exciting as all our unborn tomorrows.
Derrick Ferguson
February, 2011
