Tagged: Star Wars

INTERVIEW WITH WRITER ROBERT KENNEDY!!!

  • News
  • November 9, 2010
ROBERT KENNEDY –  Soldier/Writer/Editor
Zorro bested by Robert Kennedy!
AP –  Hi Bob, and thanks for joining us here at All Pulp HQ.  I know you’ve got a fine military background and have done lots of writing in the pulp action field.  Let’s get started with your telling us a little about yourself, background history, education etc.  Where do you call home these days?
RK –I was born an Army Brat, but became a Charter Air Force Brat about six months later. At the time I was five my family settled in the St. Louis area. But, after college and the military, I ended up living here in Kansas City, Missouri for the past thrity-five years.
I got started loving adventures stories, and their heroes, even before I reached the Show-Me state. I listened to the radio versions of the Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston, and Sky King in the evenings. Plus Big John & Sparky and Space Patrol on Saturday morning. The first movie I can remember seeing is Disney’s live-action Robin Hood staring Richard Todd. And the heroes weren’t all human. The first comic I really remember is my sister’s copy of Uncle Scrooge #1. Still love those Ducks! My family read to me things like Kipling’s The Jungle Books and Just So Stories and Swiss Family Robinson, and so much else.
I hold degrees in old fashioned paper drafting and Communication Studies.
About 1979 I got involved with Mystery Forum, a mystery book review group trying to get newspaper syndication. When that didn’t work out we produced a TV version on the Kansas City Public Access cable channel. Later some of us started the show Entertainment Spectrum that ran over 500 episodes. Until about 1997 all my creative energy and time went into those productions. When that dried up I got back into writing via Tom & Ginger Johnson’s Fading Shadows publications.
My wife and I are empty nesters who just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. We have two grown children, but no grandchildren, yet. Just a grand-cat.
AP –  Before anything else, let me thank you for your service to your country.  Tell us, when and how did you first get the writing bug? 
RK –Like a large number of college gads of the late 1960’s I joined the Army at Draft-Point. (In fact I used my very negative experiences with my local Draft Board as the background for a Green Hornet story I have pending at Moonstone.) I don’t like to make all that much of my service. After all, in twenty-four years of full and part-time duty, I never spent a day in a combat zone. You (Ron Fortier) only did three years, but that included a tour in Viet Nam. At about the same time I spent a year twiddling my thumbs in Korea.
I’ve always leaned toward the creative side of things. Back in grade school I used old drop cloths and planks to turn the backyard swing set into a two level spaceship.
The ideas came easy. Getting the material on paper was a huge struggle. I tend to tweak and rearrange. Only since word processing came along have I been really comfortable writing. (And I just restructured that last paragraph.  ;^} )
AP – Now some AP investigating has turned up an interesting fact.  You have an alias. Who exactly is Erwin K. Roberts and how did he appear on the scene.
RK –Just imagine: You are twelve years old. You live in a town that is composed of over 85% rabid Democratic Party families. You don’t fit in too well because you don’t like what “everybody” likes. And your name is George W. Bush.
Well, that’s sort of what happened to me. My given name is Robert Kennedy. And I was about twelve when JFK started running for the Presidency. Even then I was thinking about writing. Comic books, mostly. I decided I needed a pen-name. Erwin was my grandfather’s first name. So Erwin K. Roberts appeared. (Later, when RFK died I didn’t want to be seen as exploiting his name.)
I’ve used Erwin’s name on some letters-of-comment, in print for fact and fiction, and on cable TV here in the Kansas City area. The one place I was not allowed to use it was in Starlog. They had a no pen-name policy so I was credited as R. Erwin Kennedy.
When our family needed a second phone line I had it put under Erwin’s name. And he began to get credit card offers and other junk mail.
The second of my two “cousins” is Major A. D. Venture. The Major hosted the Action Theater movie show on the very short lived WBE-TV network.
AP – What was the first fiction you ever had published and where?
RK- Like most comics fans I had my own pantheon of super-hero creations. I wrote a couple of origin stories and shopped them to a fanzine or three. No luck there. I even entered a barely half decent Captain Atom script in the Charlton contest that Roy Thomas won.
I went to college at what is now called the University of Central Missouri. There was an off-campus magazine that wanted to break up all the very serious civil rights, Viet Nam, and students’ rights material. The editor liked the origin story of a super martial artist I’d written. He decided to run it as a serial. The first part appeared in about spring 1967. Then the magazine changed editors between issues and I never even got my copy of the manuscript back.
AP –In your career, you’ve created multiple pulp style heroes.  Who are they and where did they appear?
RK –I picked up some hero pulps in high school and college. The Phantom Detective, The Masked Rider, a couple of Doc Savage digests early on. Then I began to buy first The Shadow, then The Spider and Captain Future at conventions. Plus the paperbacks featuring Doc, Secret Agent X, Operator 5, and The Phantom Detective. My own characters began to reflect those influences.
The Voice grew out of this. I first called him the Veil for the sniper’s veil combat mask he sometimes wears. He sort of floated around my head only partly formed. Then one day I sat in front of a desk with a nameplate. The name was very similar to that of an existing character. Suddenly things fell into place. That’s the instant the Voice became the son of a retired pulp hero. After I came up with his vocal implant that gives him Twilight Zone sounding speech I renamed him The Voice.
In 1979 my wife was pregnant with our second child. Most nights she went to bed very early. I used the late evenings to write the Voice novel “Plutonium Nightmare.” This was the time of the second wave of “let’s clone Mack Bolan” paperbacks. I wanted to break into that market. Didn’t happen. In 2003 the story was serialized in three issues of Fading Shadows’ “Double Danger Tales.” A few years back I self-published the book with a cover I created using Lightwave 3D.
Before this century I only wrote one short story of the Voice. Grand Opening – Under Fire first appeared in “Mystery Forum Magazine” in 1992. A slightly different version was in Double Danger Tales #57 in 2002.  You can read the story at: http://www.planetarystories.com/VoiceGrand.htm
Two more Voice shorts appeared in Double Danger Tales before the title folded. One can be read at: http://www.planetarystories.com/voice.htm Recently new stories of the Voice have begun appearing in Pro Se’s “Masked Gun Mystery.” All together I’ve written nearly 100,000 words about him.
My other pulpish series is called The Journey of Freedom’s Spirit & Samuel. I’d been thinking about the old Quality Comics character Uncle Sam. Back around 1940 he was even more powerful than the Superman of that day. But the only non-white WASP characters were the Japanese villains. I decided there needed to be an inclusive series. Where every race/color/creed played a part.
I used the name of the man first referred to as Uncle Sam: Samuel Wilson. Then I decided that my Samuel -Adams- Wilson would just happen to look like a hardhat version of Uncle Sam. I gave him all white hair and van dyke beard. He generally wears blue jeans, with a red and white checked shirt, and a stars and stripes hard hat. And travels the country with a Bald Eagle. He is not a “crime fighter,” or even an adventure seeker. But he will not turn away when people need help.
The events of September 11th, 2001, catalyzed my ideas into final form. But Samuel does not go after the terrorists. He races to Ground Zero to be a part of the rescue effort. When he moves on from that his adventures really begin.
The Johnsons accepted the first two stories of the series, but only managed to publish one. Samuel appeared in Double Danger Tales #58, January 2003.
From that story came Argus – the Blue Eagle, a masked horseman from around 1860. The spirit of Argus now roams a region of southern California. His most recently recorded adventure can be found at: http://www.planetarystories.com/talons.htm
AP –  It’s obvious with characters like the Voice and the others, you were heavily influenced by the pulps?  Were you a pulp fan before you started reading and when did you first discover pulps?
RK –I think I covered the hero/character pulps above. But I read a lot of Burroughs and some other adventure writers and a ton of science fiction, plus many mysteries series, growing up. Being the type of person who reads copyright pages I understood that much/most of what I read first appeared in magazines.
Early comic fanzines would sometimes mention the pulps. And the first convention I went to, an S-F con with some comics, I was offered a copy of Captain Hazard #1 for the huge sum of five dollars. I opted instead for Ed April’s first volume of Buck Rogers strip reprints.
AP –What is it about writing pulps that appeals to you?
RK –While the pulps, as newsstand magazines, have vanished, the breakneck story telling of the pulps never does. It just finds other venues. Certain movies, TV shows, comics, and books are the pulp’s successors. How many out there read Clive Cussler? Or love Indiana Jones? While some of Indy’s roots are in movie serials, he is definitely very pulp.
Those are the kind of stories I like to watch and read. And they are generally the kind I want to write. Stories with heroes of one kind, or another. A hero doesn’t have to look like Jim Anthony. Or even Bruce Willis. Sometimes a hero doesn’t even realize he is a hero. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t. When my first child was born heroes were in very short supply. In film real heroes seemed limited to John Wayne and James Bond movies. Was I ever glad that things like Star Wars, the Dukes of Hazard, Knight Rider, and Duck Tales came along to entertain my kids. I like to hope that my adventure stories entertain. And just maybe help keep the idea of  the hero in front of folks. If pulp can be said to have a mission, that’s it.
AP –Have you ever written established pulp characters and where did these stories appear?
RK –Earlier in this century I joined an on-line role playing game set in December 1939. For that I played MLJ Comics’ Bob Phantom. The only super-hero ever named Bob. I wrote him more pulp than costumed hero. That was the first time I wrote about somebody else’s character. That game gave me connections that helped get me on with Airship-27. (And got me the gig of writing up Bob Phantom’s history for the Mighty Crusader’s website.)
For Airship-27 I’ve written two stories of Jim Anthony. One appeared in the anthology Jim Anthony – Super Detective vol.1 The second will probably be in vol. 3. I’m also working with artist Pedro Cruz on the first ever Jim Anthony comic strip. Stories starring the Moon Man and the Masked Rider are also in the hopper at Airship-27.  To fill what I humorously call my free time I’ve written the first ever solo story of the Masked Rider’s partner, Blue Hawk. Read it at: http://www.planetarystories.com/bluehawk.htm – And I put George Chance on a case before he ever became the Green Ghost.
http://www.planetarystories.com/unionStation.htm
AP – What else do you have coming out in the future?
RK –What’s got me on pins and needles waiting is “Dr. Watson’s American Adventure.” This short novel is due out in the near future from Airship-27. There the good doctor shares the action with Theodore Roosevelt.
AP –  You recently became the editor of an e-pulp mag originally conceived by pulp fan supreme, Shelby Vick.  Tell us about this gig and where can fans find it on-line?
RK – That’s overstating it a bit. I recently became an Assistant Editor to Shelby and longtime editor, anthologist, and writer Jerry Page. Those two were running the on-line pulps Planetary Stories and Wonderlust when I came across the site. http://www.planetarystories.com
Planetary Stories is a recreation, or homage, or something, to the old time space opera pulps like Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Wonderlust is a home for fantasy of all kinds.  Planetary had a feature called Pulp Spirit. For it they ran a single story of some other pulp  genre. About the time I happened by stories for Wonderlust were getting scarce. Who knows why. So they decided to make Wonderlust a department of Planetary and launch Pulp Spirit as a new e-zine title covering any other kind of genre fiction. So long as there some action to it.
I offered them the Voice’s origin story that had appeared in Double Danger Tales. They liked it. Long story short, (no pun extended) various stories of mine have been in every issue of Pulp Spirit except #2. And I’ve appeared on Planetary once. Some stories were from deep in the Culture Vault(tm). And some I’d written with other venues in mind. Others have been shameless self-promotion. Like the self-contained excerpt from “Dr. Watson’s American Adventure.” ( http://www.planetarystories.com/watson.htm )
Anyway, Shelby and Jerry asked me to help out with proofing, checking how the HTML looks on different platforms and browsers, and giving my opinion on some of the stories. (BTW, Wonderlust now is sometimes a full blown magazine again, if enough good stories come in.)
AP –  Have you any plans for attending any pulp cons next year?
RK –I’m signed up for Pulp-Ark. That’s a relatively easy drive. (Major Venture might just pop up there, too.) Depending on what gets into print, I’m looking at Kansas City’s Planet Comicon. Especially if Pedro Cruz’s & my Jim Anthony strip is out. Rob Davis usually makes that show, too. And, I’m open to suggestions.
AP –Last question.  What major writing goal have you set for yourself in the coming year.  Feel free to promote anything else you might have in the works as well.
RK –Goal? To finish things! I’ve got four projects I want to finish up.
In 2010 I completed two stories involving the Voice for Pro Se Productions. One of them had been gathering electronic dust for most of a decade. I currently have no unfinished Voice stories. But if you’ve read the Voice’s origin in Pulp Spirit you know there are three to five more tall tales to be spun to his nurse while he convalesces. One of those stories will feature a haunted house and an elderly Ravenwood. (Plot originally intended for Charlton Bulleye, just like Mr. Jigsaw was.) Another story will finally present the very first idea I ever had for the character that evolved into the Voice. It involves something halfway between a Burroughs planet adventure and flat out sword and sorcery. And a disbelieving Voice caught up in the action.  Those stories will sit at the back of the cue.
For Airship-27 I need to get going on a 30,000 word story to fill out a Moon Man anthology. I’ve outlined the story a lot more thoroughly than I generally do. Some key scenes are done. Now I need to fill in the blanks. About 24,000 words to go.
Next I need to complete what has become something of a Frankin-Novel. Meaning built out of parts. Actually, it’s sort of a villain pulp. Various heroes all take on the same organization. “Sons Of Thor” features stories of 2nd Lieutenant Richard Curtis Van Loan fighting in the skies of World War One and as the Phantom Detective. Jim Anthony spans the 48 states to prevent germ warfare. Plus Jim and the Phantom join with the Black Bat for the rousing finale. All the stories have guest stars including a British pulp hero never before seen on this side of the pond. One set of guest stars were very real: The Men of Bronze. “Sons of Thor” looks like it will have about 75,000 words. That’s less than 10K to go.
Finally comes my 21st century series The Journey of Freedom’s Spirit & Samuel.  With the finished third story I’ll have 60,000 words. Then I’ll try shopping it around to some of the new pulp publishers.  Stuffed in the cracks should be something for the three new issues of Pulp Spirit.
AP –Thanks ever for your time.  It was great getting to know you better and continued success in all your future pulp projects.
RK – Thanks. This was a bit different. For almost thirty years I’ve been on the other side of the interviews.

INTERVIEW WITH PULP WRITER AARON SMITH!!!

  • News
  • October 26, 2010
AARON SMITH -Author
AP – First of all, thanks for dropping by All Pulp HQ, Aaron and agreeing to sit in the hot seat for us.  Let’s get cracking with some personal information. Who exactly is Aaron Smith, where do you reside and what’s your day job?
AS –Well, I’m 33 years old, so I seem to be one of the younger writers in the recent pulp revival. I live in Ringwood, New Jersey which is a nice mountainous town away from the noise of the cities that I lived in for most of the earlier part of my life, a great place to get the peace and quiet that I like. For my day job, I run a produce department for a large supermarket chain. I’ve been with the company for 17 years now and it’s not a bad job, although my goal would be to write full-time or, failing that, to make enough writing that I could just supplement my income with a part-time job. Actually, even if I was making a ton of money writing, I’d probably still have some kind of day job, just to keep myself from becoming a total hermit! After all, everybody needs some kind of interaction with other human beings to keep the inspiration coming. I also have to mention my absolutely wonderful wife who somehow…and I wonder if this qualifies as a superpower…manages to put up with all my eccentricities, my curmudgeonly moods, my mad rants about things that annoy me, and all my crazy mood swings that go from high-as-a-kite to the deepest bowels of crankiness. Really, she’s marvelous and I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s also been incredibly supportive and motivating over the two years or so that I’ve really seriously been doing pulp writing work.      
AP – Where in all that background did you first get the idea you wanted to be a writer?  And was the transition from dream to reality an easy or difficult one for you?
AS –Becoming a writer was, in my case, a long process that evolved slowly over the entire first thirty years of my life. I suppose I always had a writer inside of me but it took a long time for that egg to really hatch and for me to really start doing what I do now. It started, I guess, with the things that really jumpstarted my imagination as a kid. My earliest memories of things really shaking up my mind include Star Wars which was probably the thing that did it for a lot of people of my generation. George Lucas created the great epic of our generation, I suppose. It’s too bad he dropped the ball with the prequels. Then there was my grandmother, who used to tell me bedtime stories about Jack the Ripper! Somehow, I didn’t grow up to be a serial killer, but I did become a writer. Some people might say that’s equally scary, but I think I turned out okay. I always made up stories as a kid, but they were mostly in my head and not on paper, but I was writing internally from an early age. Imagination was vital to my sanity in grammar school. I was a skinny little kid and considered a nerd. I didn’t have much self-confidence and sometimes the only thing that got me through those long days of being picked on and laughed at was pretending I was somebody else and that the school was part of an adventure, like James Bond infiltrating a base full of Spectre agents or Captain Kirk in disguise on a hostile alien world. Imagination was a defense mechanism for me and maybe that’s where the writer came from! But for some reason it took me forever to really decide to just write. Somehow I managed to try almost every other creative endeavor first. I wanted to be a comic book artist at one time and I could actually draw really well for a while there, but I just don’t have the discipline it takes to draw for hours on end, day after day. Writing comes easier to me because it’s so internal and mental. I can “write” all day and put ideas together, but I only have to sit and actually type for a short portion of the time that the creative process is actually taking place. When I was a little older, I got into music and played guitar for a few years, but I eventually realized that I liked being a guitar player more than I liked playing the guitar, if that makes any sense. In other words, I liked the feeling of being the character more than the act of playing. When I realized that, I decided to try acting. I studied it for awhile and did theatre for several years, did some Shakespeare and some other stuff, worked with some great people who are still good friends of mine now and even had a part in a movie that, unfortunately, was never released (but I got together with my wife during the filming of that movie so, in that sense, I was better paid than any Oscar winner ever was!). The acting was fun, but it’s impossible to pursue that type of work and have a regular life. When you have to work a full-time job, you can’t just drop things on the spur of the moment and go chasing after audition opportunities. So I stopped acting eventually. After that, I just kind of lived for the remainder of my twenties. I wrote a little but never anything too serious, never tried to publish anything. Then, two years ago, I was floating around on the internet and I saw this little ad on some site about some editor looking for pulp writers and I inquired and suddenly I was writing every day and things were actually getting published! Was the transition an easy one? Yes, once I got started it was, but it was a long road that I travelled to get there. But had the road been shorter I might not have had all the experiences that inspire my work now, so I guess it worked out perfectly.      
AP –What was your first published work?  Describe the feeling of seeing your work in print for the first time.
AS –My first published story was “The Massachusetts Affair” in SHERLOCK HOLMES CONSULTING DETECTIVE Volume One from Airship 27 Productions. It’s been almost 2 years and I still get a feeling of amazement thinking about the fact that my career as a writer began with the chance to write a Holmes story! What a great privilege to be able to work with the most famous character in all of detective literature! Seeing that story in print, on real pages, wrapped in that great cover by Mark Maddox was one of the greatest thrills of my life. And after the book came out, it only got better when several people told me that I had succeeded in capturing the essence of the world that Conan Doyle had created. I can’t really say that it was difficult though, and I can’t give myself the credit, because Doyle gave us such a great set of toys to play with. When you have characters as real and alive as Holmes and Watson and their supporting cast, they do tend to write themselves once you get your mind to Baker Street and the right mood is there.    
AP –How did you become affiliated with Airship 27 Productions?  What was the first work you did for them?
AS –That little ad I came across on the internet, the ad I mentioned before, was what led me to Airship 27. I wrote to Ron Fortier about his need for pulp writers and he replied asking me to send him a short sample of my prose writing. I sent him this short piece I had concocted about Adolph Hitler interviewing a vampire for a job in the SS. Ron liked it and asked me to work for Airship 27. It was only after the first few emails went back and forth that I realized that I was communicating with the guy who had written the great Green Hornet comics that I’d read nearly twenty years before! That just blew me away that a writer whose work I’d loved so much thought my stuff was good enough to publish! And Ron has been just incredible ever since. He brought me into the world of pulp writing and he’s a great editor and a great friend and the Obi-Wan Kenobi of my writing career. The first work he gave me to do for Airship 27 was a Black Bat story. I started on that but before I finished it Ron wrote me back and asked if I’d be willing to put the Bat on hold to do a Holmes story first and I jumped at the chance. I’ve had stuff coming out from Airship 27 pretty steadily ever since and it’s been a pleasure to have my stories published alongside work by great writers like my friends Andrew Salmon and Van Allen Plexico and Tommy Hancock and so many others and to see my stories illustrated by artists like Rob Davis and Pedro Cruz.  
AP –Were you always a pulp fan?  If not, how did you ultimately become one?
AS –I guess I could say that I met and was inspired by all of pulp’s cousins before meeting pure pulp. I’ve always been heavily into serialized adventure fiction, but not necessarily the actual pulp magazine characters. For most of my life I’ve been a fan of comics, especially the classics of the superhero genre, stuff by Stan Lee and all his collaborators like Buscema and Kirby and Gene Colan and Steve Ditko and also the DC side of things done by people like Gardner Fox and Dennis O’Neill and the great Joe Kubert who just doesn’t stop producing incredible work even now in his eighties! Every title that guy worked on in the 80s and 90s turned to gold  I was reading Sherlock Holmes when I was 7 or 8 and I got into Ian Fleming’s Bond books not long after that. Then of course there’s the two great science fiction franchises of Star Trek and Star Wars and the classic science fiction authors who sort of sprang out of the pulps, guys like Asimov and Bradbury and Roger Zelazny. And there’s Bram Stoker who certainly solidified the whole vampire genre and probably influenced almost every horror writer who came after him. So I was into all these fictional worlds that have a pulp essence to them, but my interest in the actual pulps only came along after I started to write some of the classic pulp characters.     
AP-What is it about pulp that you enjoy that can’t be found in other genres?
AS – Pulp strikes fast and hits hard and is all about telling the story with as much impact as possible. Pulp is, I think, perfect for me because I’m a pure storyteller. I don’t try to do anything except tell my stories. In other words, I don’t consciously try to create a style or be too artistic or fancy with how I do things. Sure, there are moments when I look back at something I’ve written and realize that I’ve done something or connected words in a certain way that surprises me, but all that happens subconsciously. I have a story to tell and I try to tell it as well as I can but I also work very quickly and hammer it out before the initial impact and whatever it was that appealed to me about the story is lost. That’s what makes pulp unique. It has an urgency to it that, I suspect, came from the old time pulp writers needing to bang this stuff out in a fast and furious manner in order to put food on the table! I recently read a novel which was very good and so I went online to see what else the author had written and there was nothing because she had apparently taken 10 years to write the book I’d just read! That would be like torture to me, to spend a decade on one story! I have way too many ideas to be stuck on one thing for so long. By the time I’m halfway through one story, I have the next one formulating in my head already. I like to fire all my bullets rapidly and reload right away and find another target to shoot at. Pulp is pure creative instinct and that may be one of the reasons why certain writers who came out of the pulps were so unique; they didn’t worry about stylistic choices as much as they just shot from the hip and their real, natural styles and ideas came out because of that. I mean, look at guys like Robert E. Howard and HP Lovecraft! Those guys weren’t intentionally planning out those incredible worlds that they managed to put on paper. Their universes are too real for that. That stuff came straight from their guts and that’s why it’s so effective and so influential even today. The best pulp writers dragged the lakes of their souls and put what they found out there for the world to see. Pulp doesn’t compromise.    
AP – Give us a list of the classic pulp heroes you’ve written and which was/is your favorite?
AS – I’ve written the Black Bat, three stories, though only one has been published so far. I’ve done a couple stories with Dan Fowler, G-Man. I have two short stories out there about the Three Mosquitoes, who were World War I fighter pilots. I did a Wild Bill Hickok story for the Masked Rider anthology. I’ve also done a few other classic pulp hero stories with others, but those books aren’t out yet, so I’ll leave them for a future interview. Out of the ones I’ve just listed, I guess I’d have to say that Dan Fowler beats out the Black Bat by just a slight margin as my favorite. The reason for that is that because Fowler is an FBI man he sort of falls right on the borders of two great genres. A Fowler story can kind of straddle the line between a detective story and a spy story. Fowler investigates crimes like a Dick Tracy, but the whole United States can be his playground because he’s Federal and not tied to one particular city like a police detective would be. So a Fowler story can put him pretty much anywhere in the USA and be a detective story at the same time. In the two Fowler stories I’ve done so far, he’s been in a whole bunch of different cities, faced some twisted, exotic villains, and I’ve had a lot of fun writing about him. There are cases where I know I have one story to tell about a character and then the well runs dry, and there are those characters who I feel like I could write about over and over and over again. Dan Fowler falls into the second category.
AP – You wrote a short novel starring Sherlock Holmes’s friend, Dr.Watson. Tell us about this book and how it came about.
AS – SEASON OF MADNESS came about because I usually have several books that I’m reading at any given time. I like to alternate books. It had been years since I’d originally read the Sherlock Holmes stories, still not knowing I’d be asked to write one. At the same time, I was reading Stoker’s DRACULA, a book I’d started to read earlier and never quite finished. So I was reading Holmes and Dracula simultaneously and something clicked. I was thinking about the characters of Dr. John Watson from the Holmes stories and Dr. John Seward from Dracula and I realized that there are a lot of similarities between these two men. Both were medical doctors; both had a habit of recording their experiences, Watson in his written records of his adventures with Holmes and Seward in his phonograph journals; and both were “sidekicks” to their brilliant and eccentric mentors, Holmes and Van Helsing. They both lived in London at the same time too, so I decided that they should meet. I wanted to do a crossover between the worlds of Holmes and Dracula without either of those main characters appearing. With Dracula, I decided I wouldn’t use him because he’s dead. Stoker killed him off at the end of his book and who am I to resurrect him? I also wanted to use Watson without Holmes because I have this thing about defending Watson. One thing that’s always bothered me, and this came mostly from the Basil Rathbone /Nigel Bruce movies, is Watson’s reputation (among those who haven’t read Doyle’s original stories) as a bumbling idiot. Watson is NOT a stupid man! Sherlock Holmes would not associate with a moron! John Watson is a very intelligent, very courageous man in the medical field who is a trusted companion to an absolute genius. Watson is us. It is through his eyes that we see Holmes. Doyle used Watson as narrator so that we could see the genius of Holmes in a way that we could understand. There is nothing weak or inferior about Watson and I wanted to show that by placing him in the role of a man who could solve a mystery without Holmes being around and step into the lead role with Seward as the junior partner of this new crime-solving duo. My original idea was to do SEASON OF MADNESS as a graphic novel or maybe a comic book mini-series. I pitched the idea to my friend Pedro Cruz who is an excellent artist from Portugal. He liked it and I began to write a script. Halfway through that, I began my association with Airship 27 Productions and wound up doing my Sherlock Holmes story. The success of the Holmes book made me consider doing SEASON OF MADNESS as a prose novel instead. I pitched the idea to Ron Fortier and he liked it and I sent him some samples of Pedro’s work and he agreed to have Pedro illustrate the novel and also gave Pedro some other illustration work for other Airship books. It worked out great for all of us and SEASON OF MADNESS became a sort of sequel to that first Holmes volume. I’d like to say one more thing about this. Whenever someone asks me about SEASON OF MADNESS, I try to see if they’re familiar with the original sources of both main characters. I’ve been finding that almost everyone has read some Holmes, but there are a lot of people who have never read DRACULA. If anyone who’s reading this hasn’t read Stoker’s book, don’t be fooled into thinking you know the story already because of all the supposed adaptations and pastiches out here. It’s a great horror novel that climbs to far greater heights of creepiness and mood and atmosphere than anything that drew from it. You’re missing a great experience if you haven’t read it.            
AP – Who is Hound Dog Harker?  Where did he first appear and will we be seeing any more of his adventures in the future?
AS –Hound Dog Harker is my own original pulp character, but I can really only claim about a third of the credit for his existence. Not long after I began writing pulp, I discovered a series of movies from the 1930s starring John Howard as the character Bulldog Drummond. I loved those movies, sort of a cross between James Bond and Will Eisner’s THE SPIRIT. Drummond was created, in a series of novels, by Herman Cyril McNeile. The films came later. I immediately did some searching to see if the character was in the public domain to see if I could use the character in new stories. I learned two things. First, the character is still owned and unavailable. Second, the Drummond of the novels is quite different from the character in the movies and not in a way I’d be interested in working on anyway. So I put that idea down for awhile. Meanwhile, I was working on SEASON OF MADNESS. As I got to the end of that book, I began to realize that it just wasn’t going to be long enough to fill a whole novel. I had told the story I’d set out to tell and I wasn’t going to stuff it with filler just to get to a certain word count. I had to come up with another solution. I decided to make it a two-story book with SEASON OF MADNESS as a short novel, and a short backup story to fill up the remainder of the volume. I started to think about ideas for that second story and I decided it should somehow connect to either Holmes or Dracula. I thought about the various other characters I could use. I didn’t want to use Holmes or Van Helsing because I didn’t want their popularity to overshadow the main story. I thought about Lestrade, but he already had a major part in the Watson/Seward story. Then I thought about the various characters in DRACULA and I remembered the very end of the book where Mina Harker mentions that she and Jonathan, several years after the events with Dracula, have a son who they call Quincy after the one member of their group who died in the final battle with the vampire. That was when I realized I had the perfect idea to fill that book up. Hound Dog Harker is little Quincy all grown up. He’s raised by Jonathan and Mina, growing up with this feeling that his parents are hiding some dark secret about their past, but never really learning about the whole Dracula business. As a young man, he fights in World War I, rising to the rank of Captain and earning his nickname of Hound Dog. By the 1930s, he works for British intelligence as a character that is very much like the Bulldog Drummond that John Howard portrayed in those movies. He’s sort of a pulp-era James Bond with a knack for finding himself assigned to cases that have some sort of connection to strange or seemingly supernatural or super-scientific events. His first adventure, “Attack of the Electric Shark,” appears in SEASON OF MADNESS. There will be a new Hound Dog Harker story out soon, once again as the backup feature in another Airship 27 book, a book with a main story by one of my fellow Airship writers. I do have an idea for a third Harker story too, but I haven’t started to work on it yet.                
AP -Who is Red Veil and where will she be appearing?
AS – The Red Veil is my other brand new pulp character to come out from Airship 27. She’s my first attempt at writing a pulp story with a female hero. She’ll be appearing in a new anthology called MYSTERY MEN. When I learned that Airship 27 would be putting out a book with new original pulp heroes, I of course wanted to be involved. Ron told me that he wanted a new female pulp character, so I came up with Red Veil. Her story is basically a tale of the American Dream coming true and then being snatched away, and how one woman deals with such a thing happening to her. The Red Veil is Alice Carter, a young woman who survived a rough childhood in England, made her way to America, married a handsome young police officer, and then had her heart broken when her husband was killed in the line of duty. Without saying too much, because I want people to actually read the story before they know the story, Alice reacts to this tragedy by taking the law into her own hands. It’s a pretty dark story and she’s a pretty dark character once she really gets going. I created her and I’m not even really sure if she’s sane or not! She’s got a little of the Shadow in her, a pinch of the Spider, and a lot of the terrible wrath that comes when a woman gets really, really pissed off at the world and its injustices.      
AP –Besides your pulp work, what else do you have coming from other publishers?
AS – The main thing that I’m waiting to see the release of is my science-fantasy novel GODS AND GALAXIES. It’s been attached to a certain small publisher for quite a while now. There seem to be ongoing delays to its release, but I hope that will all be sorted out sooner rather than later. It starts out as a love story about a man who meets a woman who is quite different than any woman he’s ever encountered before. Eventually, he finds out just what makes her so different. The book eventually turns from that quiet beginning into a full-out, fast-paced, brutal space adventure. Somebody compared it to a modern variation on John Carter of Mars. All I can really say is that it’s among my most personal works so far. There are big parts of me in that main character and there are a few people I know who might recognize themselves in the story too, although the names have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty writer! I really hope that whatever the publisher is going through gets resolved soon so that I can see that book available. It will be my first full-length novel and I hope it has enough cross-genre appeal for a lot of different people to give it a shot. That’s the only thing I have definitely coming out that’s not really pulp work, but I always have other stuff in progress. I have a long horror novel that’s not far from completion, but it’s on hold at the moment. I actually dug a little too deep into the pits of my own soul for that one and had to take a break!    
AP –Is there anything you would like to plug here?  Feel free to give our readers a sneak-peek at what’s coming from Aaron Smith in the year ahead.
AS –I have plenty of new stuff coming out in the next few months. From Airship 27 Productions, there’s the second Hound Dog Harker story, there’s the Red Veil debut in the MYSTERY MEN book, and there’s SHERLOCK HOLMES CONSULTING DETECTIVE Volume 3 in which I have two short stories. Then there’s the line of magazines being published by Pro Se Productions. Tommy Hancock was kind enough to offer me a position as a staff writer for his magazines and he’s done an amazing job of getting pulp stuff coming out on a monthly basis again. I have the first stories of two different series out there already. In MASKED GUN MYSTERY # 1 we have the first of my stories with my character Lieutenant Marcel Picard, a former NHL hockey player who retires from the game to become a homicide detective. I’ve already written the second Picard story and I’m working on a third. Picard was inspired by a conversation I overheard in a restaurant one evening, so ideas can come from anywhere. Also, just last week Pro Se released FANTASY AND FEAR # 2 which includes my “100,000 Midnights,” which is the first in my new series of vampire stories. This is a series that just grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go and it’s going to be a series of eight stories which I eventually hope to see collected into one volume after they’ve run in the magazines. It’s partially inspired by all the vampire material that’s come from Stoker and others and it’s also my own take on vampires and other supernatural lore. So I’m trying to pay homage to what’s come before while still infusing it with my own unique point of view. In addition to those two series, there are also a few standalone stories in the adventure and fantasy genres that I hope to see included in the Pro Se magazines in coming months.            
AP – Aaron, this had been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for joining us here at All Pulp.
AS –Thank you for having me and I hope I’ve been an interesting enough subject that some of the people reading this will want to check out my work.

WRITER/COLUMNIST WILLIAM PATRICK MAYNARD INTERVIEWED!!!

  • News
  • October 26, 2010

WILLIAM PATRICK MAYNARD -Writer/Columnist 

AP: Bill, thanks for taking some time out of your schedule to visit with All Pulp. You seem to be keeping busy, but before we get to that, would you tell us a bit about yourself?

WMP: I’m a 39 year-old husband and father. I work as a National Sourcing Manager by day. I write when my work and home schedule allow which means late nights at home and in hotels. I’m a native Clevelander and still call Northeast Ohio home when I’m not on the road for my day job.

AP: You have your hands in pulp a couple of different ways. Let’s talk about your writing? How about a quick rundown of your authored works?

WMP: My first book, THE TERROR OF FU MANCHU was published by Black Coat Press in 2009. I contributed a Sherlock Holmes story to the anthology, GASLIGHT GROTESQUE published by EDGE Publishing in 2009. I wrote a Fantomas story for 2009’s TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN anthology, GRAND GUIGNOL published by Black Coat Press. That story was also published in French earlier this year by Riviere Blanche as part of a different anthology series, LES COMPAGNONS DE L’OMBRE. I’ve also written articles for magazines like BLOOD ‘N’ THUNDER and VAN HELSING’S JOURNAL. The former was also published in French by K-LIBRE. I was a weekly columnist for THE CIMMERIAN before it closed up shop and currently I contribute articles every Friday to THE BLACK GATE. My articles for both sites are cross-posted on my blog, SETI SAYS.

AP: ‘The Terror of Fu Manchu’ highlights a character with quite an extensive background. What’s the story historically behind Manchu? Who is he? Who created him?, etc.

WMP: Dr. Fu Manchu is an alias assumed by a brilliant and honorable, but also ruthless and obsessive Chinese scientist who opposes Western imperialism in the East. He wasn’t the first criminal mastermind in fiction, but he was certainly the most infamous and influential. He was created in 1912 by a young Englishman named Arthur Ward, who wrote under the exotic pseudonym of Sax Rohmer. He continued to write about his exploits in a series of novels and stories up until his death in 1959. There were 13 novels, a novella and 3 short stories by the original author.

AP: According to your blog (setisays.blogspot.com) this is the first licensed Fu Manchu novel in 25 years. What does that mean exactly and how was the license acquired? What was your involvement in that process?

WMP: Rohmer had no children. When his widow passed away in 1979, she bequeathed the literary rights to The Society of Authors and The Authors Guild to protect the characters and control the copyrights. The Rohmers were frequently unhappy with how the character was adapted in other media and she wanted to protect the integrity of her husband’s work. Shortly after Elizabeth passed away, Cay Van Ash (who had been their friend and was Rohmer’s secretary and later his biographer) acquired a license to continue the series. He wrote two more Fu Manchu thrillers in the 1980s before he passed away in 1994. For my part, I sought out the rightsholders a number of years ago and presented a story outline and sample chapters. They liked my approach which was to fill in the gaps in the existing narrative by picking up on clues left behind by either Rohmer or Van Ash and embroidering on the established history of the character. THE TERROR OF FU MANCHU was my first one and is set on the eve of the First World War. THE DESTINY OF FU MANCHU is the one I’m working on now. That one is set on the eve of the Second World War.

AP: We’ve talked historically. Now let’s talk about your vision. Tell us how you see Fu Manchu? Is he the embodiment of evil, simply misunderstood, or something else?

WMP: I see him as Nayland Smith’s true counterpart. Not two sides of the same coin like Holmes and Moriarty, but almost twins born in opposite hemispheres. Their separation is political more than ideological. Rohmer’s characters aren’t traditional good guys and bad guys, they’re more flawed and more complex as a consequence. Fu Manchu is an honorable villain and Nayland Smith is an intolerant hero. Neither is perfect, but both are fascinating.

AP: Any other characters you’ve written about you’d like to discuss, either established or your own original creations?

WMP: Well I wrote a Holmes story because the editor of the GASLIGHT anthologies, Charles Prepolec liked my Fu Manchu. I love Holmes and I’m putting together my own collection of Holmes stories now. The book is called THE OCCULT CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. I wrote a Fantomas story, but I have no ambition to do something larger with the character although I am a fan and greatly enjoyed David White’s recent FANTOMAS IN AMERICA book. I see that as more David’s territory than mine. He can certainly do it justice better than I can and probably better than anyone else since he can get right inside the mind of an anarchist and still make you enjoy the character. I am working on another licensed property, but we’re still at the proposal stage so it’s too soon to expand on that unless it comes to pass. I do have an original detective character I’m working on as well that I hope will launch in 2012. He’s a hardboiled detective who is also a devoted husband and father. The setting is America in 1960 right at the cusp of the nation losing its innocence with Kennedy’s assassination and all that followed in its wake. The book and character are called LAWHEAD and that’s something I’m really excited about getting off the ground.

AP: You’re also a columnist. Who do you write columns for and how would you define what a pulp columnist’s job is?

WMP: I started my blog out of boredom between shifts shoveling snow out of my driveway last January. I didn’t really know if I would really maintain a blog or not. At the time it just struck me as a good way to get more search engine hits with my name and work. The mercenary approach didn’t quite last because I quickly found people who enjoyed it. The first was Deuce Richardson who was an editor at THE CIMMERIAN. Deuce invited me to become a weekly columnist and cross-post from my blog. The discipline of writing a weekly column was something I was wary of, but I realized the benefits reaped in terms of exposure to people who have never heard of me outweighed any other considerations. I patterned what I did to fall between three of my favorite blogs: Ron Fortier’s PULP FICTION REVIEWS; Michael Cornett’s DUST AND CORRUPTION; and James Bojaciuk’s EXPLORERS OF THE UNKNOWN. Between the three you have pulp old and new, dark antiquarian fiction, and the Wold Newtonian perspective. That’s what I looked to for inspiration and I just decided I would try to work my way through my own library, books I borrow from the public library, and all roads in between. I jump around a lot from pulp to mystery to sci-fi to horror and there are all of these multi-part articles that start and stop along the way. It seems to have found a good home in THE BLACK GATE which is where we moved to after THE CIMMERIAN ended. John O’Neill has been a huge help in getting me over my technophobia to where I can sort of function somewhat competently now without relying on help with formatting. Obviously, I owe Deuce and John a debt of graditude for championing me and helping to bring my writing to greater attention. Thanks to them, sales of my book have remained consistent as well which is certainly a substantial advantage to blogging.

AP: How do you pick topics to cover? What are some of the topics you’ve addressed as a columnist?

WPM: Well, I start with influences and it often reflects what I’m writing or would like to write. I’ve done DRACULA to death and I’m still not finished and I’ve barely scratched the surface on hardboiled mystery. When LAWHEAD is published in a couple of years, we’ll shift gears in that direction a bit more. Now we’ve stayed close to the lineage that starts with Shelley and Stoker and turns to Rohmer and Alex Raymond. This winter I hope to dig deeper into French pulp fiction with Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain as well as Paul Feval. A year from now and I’ll look at how Rohmer approached a second Fu Manchu thriller when I’ll have done the same. It’s fair to say you can chart things in my life and work by watching what I review or discuss.

AP: Some would say that to do a column over something, your subject needs to be relevant. In your opinion, what makes pulp relevant today? Answer that both as a columnist and an author.

WPM: Pulp is such a broad term the way we tend to apply it. A purist would argue that while Doc Savage and The Shadow were true pulps, Fu Manchu was not. I tend to include any genre or specific authors whose works would be considered low-brow or undignified or contemptible by the elitists when I define pulp. Once you’ve offended the bluenoses, you’re on the right track. Political correctness is just censorship under a different guise and it’s just as creatively stifling and intellectually inbred as it was in the last century. The strange thing is pulp is usually a great barometer for what is going on politically or morally in the world, but it isn’t always evident in its own time. You need distance to gauge its ability to reflect the world around it. Of course the most important facet is it functions as a literary rollercoaster. It’s the most fun you can have in a book. That is another way of determining whether you’re reading or creating pulp.

AP: In reviewing your columns, I find you to be almost as much historian as columnist? What appeals to you about the history of pulp? What do you feel like the pulps of the past have to offer readers and creators today?

WPM: There is a certain amount of innocence in their appeal despite the heavy doses of S&M and all sorts of general nastiness. Pulp is handled with a light touch and is always enjoyable like a good scare or thrill. From a historical perspective, they are modern myths whether you’re talking Mary Shelley or Doc Savage, they function in the same way that myths did in the Classical World. Hollywood recognizes this now, it’s part of what signalled the transition from campy genre films to summer tentpoles that are expected to reinforce moral integrity and make audiences feel like cheering a hero again. George Lucas is the gentleman who claims the honor of changing that mindset with STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES, but it took a couple more decades before the rest of the industry caught up with Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi leading the pack. Now everyone wants pulp in some format. That really helped pave the way for pulp-specialty publishers and the pulp revival currently underway in comics. Now if only mainstream publishers would get on board, but the tide is turning. It is a great time to read and create pulp.

AP: Do you have anything in the works for the future pulpwise you’d like to share with ALL PULP?

WPM: I think that THE OCCULT CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES will be ready this Spring to get to print by Summer, hopefully. I really hope the proposal I have hanging out there for another property is approved by the rightsholder and publisher as I think it’s a property that is a natural fit for me. You really have to believe you can do what you do better than anyone else. You have to believe you were born to write certain characters. If you lack that confidence so will your reader. The trick with writing pulp today is appealing to the classic and modern sensibilities at once. You can do both and All Pulp is a testament to those who show you what can be done with the form. Probably the best lesson for anyone out there who wants to write, but hasn’t finished anything is to learn the dynamics of storytelling, read everything you can get your hands on and understand how it is built and what makes it work. Understanding that will help your own work and help build your confidence.

AP: It’s been great, Bill! Thanks again!

Ferguson reviews Mitchum in ‘The Wrath of God’ during THE LONG MATINEE

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  • October 17, 2010
THE LONG MATINEE -Movie Reviews by Derrick Ferguson
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THE WRATH OF GOD

1972
MGM

Produced by William S. Gilmore
Directed by Ralph Nelson
Screenplay by Ralph Nelson and James Graham
Based on a novel by James Graham

Back in the 60’s and 70’s there was a sub-genre of the western that had these elements: a group of American outlaws/mercenaries/rogues would find themselves in Mexico or South America at the turn of the century and get involved in what amounted to a suicide mission that circumstances forced them to accept. There’s usually a huge amount of money waiting for them at the end of the mission but during the course of the adventure the outlaws would find their long buried sense of justice and honor awakened and they would abandon the money to take up the cause of the downtrodden and oppressed peasantry. This is pretty much the plot of movies such as “The Wild Bunch” “The Professionals” “Duck, You Sucker” and “Vera Cruz” but I’ve never seen this plot worked in such a goofy and flat out off the wall manner as we see in THE WRATH OF GOD.

Emmett Keogh (Ken Hutchinson) is a wildass Irishman stuck in South America during the 1920’s. He’s blackmailed into driving a truck north by Jennings (Victor Buono) who tells him it’s a load of whiskey that will fetch a helluva price in the United States that is suffering under Prohibition. Since Jennings was the guy who arraigned for his passport to be stolen, Emmett has no choice to agree. Along the way he meets Father Oliver Van Horn (Robert Mitchum) who is one of the strangest priests that Emmett has ever met since Father Van Horn drinks liquor like it’s lemonade, swears like a Kansas City pimp and totes a huge black valise carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun. It’s a weapon that Father Van Horn knows as well as a monkey knows his coconuts which he demonstrates when Emmett and Father Van Horn have to rescue an Indian girl named Chela (Paula Pritchett) from being gang raped by the soldiers of Colonel Santilla (John Colicos) The two men are forced to go on the run with the girl in tow but they’re caught by Colonel Santilla’s troops and Emmett discovers that the truck actually carries guns meant for the rebels. Jennings has also been captured by Santilla and the three men are made an offer they can’t refuse: in return for their lives they have to agree to kill De La Plata (Frank Langella) a local rebel warlord who is causing Santilla a great deal of trouble.

Posing as mining engineers, Jennings and Emmett infiltrate De La Plata’s fortress-like hacienda while Van Horn takes up residence in the village church, which has been desecrated. It turns out that De Le Plata hates priests and personally killed the last one himself. Del La Plata’s mother (Rita Hayworth) begs her son not to kill this priest and De La Plata agrees not to since Van Horn saves his mother’s life when the local mine caves in. You see, the mine is filled with gold and De La Plata has terrorized the villagers into digging it out for him. But the mine is horribly unsafe and he needs the expertise of mining engineers to get it out. Of course, the three outlaws have to kill De La Plata before he figures out that Jennings and Emmett know as much about mining as I do about Chinese arithmetic. The situation is complicated by Emmett’s relationship with Chela who has fallen in love with him and Van Horn’s increasing desire to live up to the trust the villagers have in him as a priest. And while the outlaws have no loyalty to Santilla, they also see that living under De La Plata’s rule isn’t any day at the beach either. So they make a decision. And that’s when the story really takes off as Father Van Horn begins to conscript the villagers to stand up for themselves against De La Plata, Chela marries Emmett and Jennings makes plans to break outta Dodge and save his own ass.

You see? I told you it was goofy. What makes THE WRATH OF GOD so much fun to watch is that you never know where this damn movie is going to take you or what’s going to happen next. There’s a plot twist every five minutes and just when you think you know what’s going to happen, it doesn’t. There are a lot of really funny one-liners thrown back and forth between the three leading men and from the amount of humor in the story you might think halfway through it that it’s a spoof of the genre. I mean, this is a movie that has Victor Buono as an action hero, for cryin’ out loud. We’re talking about a guy who’s best known role was probably as the King Tut villain on the “Batman” TV show. In this movie he has a great scene where he drives a car like a battering ram into the barricaded gates of De La Plata’s fortress while firing a Thompson sub-machine and then he jumps out to take on the chief henchman with his sword cane. And he’s totally convincing during his fight scenes of which he has several. And he has a bunch of great one liners, such as “We’re going to get along famously” which is used in this movie the same way “I have a bad feeling about this” was used in “Star Wars”

I’ve never seen Ken Hutchinson in a movie before and have no idea who he is but he’s immensely likeable as the wily Emmett who seems to tumble in and out of adventures as easily as you or I eat fried chicken. A lot of the humor in the movie comes from him as he’s constantly thrown into situations where he’s clearly way in over his head but he manages to come through with luck and sheer dogged determination that even Dirk Pitt might admire. And as for Robert Mitchum…well, he’s flat out terrific in this. For much of the movie we’re never sure what the deal with Father Van Horn is.  Not only does he carry an arsenal of machine guns and grenades in that big black valise of his but he also has $50,000 dollars that he hints he got by robbing banks. He has a great scene where he tells the villagers that he’s going to hold an all night service in the church where he performs weddings, baptizes babies and hears confessions where it made clear that he knows the rituals of The Catholic Church inside and out but he also indulges in decidedly un-priestly activities like sleeping with whores, drinking whiskey like water and cussing like crazy. He also carries a Bible that has a concealed gun inside and his cross hides a six-inch blade. Nobody in the movie really knows if this guy is actually one really badass priest or a really eccentric badass who likes to pretend he’s a priest until he spills the beans near the end of the movie.

Robert Mitchum is one of those old type movie stars I love because he looks like a man who actually looks like he’s tough enough to kick your ass with just a look, unlike a lot of the current crop of movie stars who are just too damn pretty to look like they’re as tough as the characters they’re portraying on screen. Robert Mitchum comes from the crop of actors I like to call ‘Old School Tough’. I’m talking about guys like Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Steve McQueen. You know what I’m talking about. Whenever he’s on screen in this movie you just can’t take your eyes off him, as you want to know just like the other characters what the real deal with him is.

There are a lot of great action sequences in this movie, especially when the three outlaws finally take on De La Plata’s army in a ferocious shootout in front of the church and the final showdown at the fortress. In between we’ve got a whole series of double-crosses, fistfights, staredowns and showdowns that will make your head giddy. Trust me, this isn’t a boring movie. In fact, despite having been made back in 1972, THE WRATH OF GOD seemed to me a lot more of how current action/adventure are made with it’s healthy mix of violent action, comedy and eccentric characters which is why I think it makes enjoyable watching today.

So should you see THE WRATH OF GOD? Hell yes. If you’re a big Robert Mitchum fan it’s worth seeing just for him alone as obviously he’s having a great time with his role and the material. Victor Buono and Ken Hutchinson also turn in great performances as well. Frank Langella has a wonderful time with his role as a bad guy and his scene in the church where he confronts Robert Mitchum and tells him why he hates priests and God is an example of just plain good solid acting from both of them that goes a long way to establishing both of their characters and sets up the conflict between them nicely. THE WRATH OF GOD works as a really good cinematic pulp adventure that should be enjoyed for what it is: a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with the snacks and beverages of your choice. If you get Turner Classic Movies on your satellite/cable provider you can wait for it to show up there but if you’re a dedicated pulp or Robert Mitchum fan, spring for the rental fee and give it a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I know I wasn’t.

Rated: PG
111 Minutes

National Graphic Novel Writing Month, Day 15: Plotting Your Way Out Of A Paper Bag

  • News
  • October 15, 2010

Let me give you an example of a bad plot that you’re already familiar with– the story of William Tell.

The legend has it that William Tell was known as an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the new ruler of his land raised a pole in the village’s central square, hung his hat on top of
it, demanding that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. When Tell
passed by the hat without bowing to it, he was arrested. As punishment,
he was forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son.
Otherwise, both would be executed. Tell was promised freedom if he
successfully made the shot.

Now, ladies and gentlemen– do you think there’s any doubt that he made the shot? Of course he did.

In history, this is an exciting moment, because you don’t know if a real person could do it. But in fiction? BORING.

Why? Because in fiction, you can have your characters do anything. They can be good enough or lucky enough to make the shot because the author says he’s lucky enough to make the shot. There is no suspense there.

I’ve said before that one of the things that drives me nuts about most fantasy novels, and a problem that I discovered when first writing Star Trek
stories, is that any story that you can technobabble your way into to,
or technobabble your way out of, is inherently boring. It’s make
believe. There’s absolutely no tension, the writer will wave his wand
and make everything come out. There’s nothing to resolve.

By contrast, any story with an choice – what do you do and
why? – has interest. Think about all the stories that haunt you, and
you’ll find that there’s often a choice that’s presented in the story,
and you revisit the story because the dilemma is still not fully
resolved in your own head.

This was brought home for me a few years back watching Star Wars— the real one, thank you– in a theater. The audience applauded and cheered like crazy during the final attack on the Death Star, but they surprised me by applauding the most during what I thought was the pivotal moment.

Quick now– you know the scene. What’s the pivotal moment?

The death of Biggs or Porkins? Spurs him on, sad, but no.

Blowing up the Death Star? Anticlimax. Go back earlier.

The death of Red Leader? Closer. Luke takes over command because there’s nobody else to take over at that point, and he chooses to do so, but that’s not much of a choice when every commander above him has been taken out.

No– the crowd went wild when Luke turned off his targeting computer. He chose to accept the world around him, and to take faith in his own abilities to solve the problem. No crutches, just him.

And then it’s followed up by the second great cheer, when Han Solo chooses to come back and join the fight just in time to save Luke’s hash, when Han chooses to be about something more than money.

Make your characters work for a choice, show how they change to get there– and you have a story worth telling.

So– it’s Day Fifteen. Half way through the month. How are you doing?

Remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here!

Spectacled 7 Author on Earth Station One Podcast!!!

  • News
  • October 1, 2010

Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/27uv44j

Earth Station One Episode 27 – I Think I’m A Clone Now, There’s always two of me just a hangin’ around.


This week on ESO, Mike, Dan and Mike are joined by comic book writer Bobby Nash to talk about his new trade paperback Yin Yang, and then we dive back into the world of Star Wars and talk about Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Also this week we try again at our new crew rant section “Crew Kudos“.


Join us for another fun filled podcast that we like to call Episode 27: I Think I’m A Clone Now, There’s always two of me just a hangin’ around.


Table of Contents
0:00:00 Intro / Welcome
0:02:26 Crew Kudos – Batman: The Cult / The Akinator / Superman – Batman: Apocalypse / Comic Book Prices
0:28:48 Bobby Nash Interview
0:53:32 Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
1:29:13 Show Close

BEAU SMITH JOINS LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS

  • News
  • September 24, 2010
beausmith1020-7687339

Beau Smith, marketing advisor and writer, has joined IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics imprint (which includes some pulp like comics within its vast amount of material) as its new Director of Marketing.

“We’re thrilled to have Beau onboard,” says LOAC Creative Director Dean Mullaney. “He and I go way back to the 1980s and Eclipse Comics, where I was the publisher and Beau the Marketing Director.”
A graduate of Marshall University in his native West Virginia, Beau has worked in all realms of publishing and marketing in comics. In addition to Eclipse, where he got his start, Beau was the VP of Marketing and Publishing for Image Comics, Todd McFarlane Productions and McFarlane Toys. Beau was with IDW Publishing for many years as their first Vice President of Marketing, and is the former Director of Product Information for toy maker JUN Planning USA.
As a writer, Beau has written Batman/Wildcat,  Star Wars, and Wolverine, and his stories have appeared at DC, Image, IDW, Eclipse, Dreamwave, Moonstone, Dark Horse, and many other publishers. He created several well-received series, including Wynonna Earp, Parts Unknown, Maximum Jack, Courting Fate, and Cobb.  If that wasn’t enough, he offers his opinion on pop culture in regular columns: “Busted Knuckles” at Comics Bulletin, and “From the Ranch” for Sketch Magazine, and Far From Fragile for Impact Magazine.  Beau is also the author of the most common sense business book on the comic book industry- No Guts, No Glory: How To Market Yourself In Comics published by Blue Line Pro.

Beau will be focusing on retailers, and expanding the LOAC’s presence in libraries and universities, so all retailers, librarians, professors, and teachers are encouraged to contact Beau at: beau@loacomics.com  304-453-6565

Chicago Comic Con: A Tale of Two Cons (Part One)

  • News
  • August 21, 2010

We, the true believers all have that “home show”. That convention we never miss because it’s in our backyard. We treasure the memories we build there. And for those of us who aspire to become creators (like me and my Unshaven Comics cohorts) the “home show” is also where we first took the plunge and moved to the other side of the aisle to become creators, not just conventioneers. For me, that home show has been the Chicago Comic Con. I, of course, knew it as “Wizard World Chicago” when I first walked in the doors a newly christened comic fan in 1999. Ever since, that show has been a stalwart in my calender. I’ve not missed it, now, for 11 years in a row. Suffice to say, I’ve had a ton of great memories over the years. From catching the first glimpse of The Dark Knight, sitting mere feet away from Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, and David Goyer… to sitting in a jam packed ballroom, sharing a laugh over the secrets of Wonder Woman #219… to that first year I had to give up attending Wizard School panels, in order to sell my first graphic novel.

As the years have passed, my Unshaven family and I have noticed a rising trend. What started as just ribs and pokes from snottier fans who’d long proclaimed Wizard to be unhip and “mainstream”, changed to a general malaise from many of the fans we stood shoulder to shoulder with in lines for huge attractions like Kevin Smith Q and A’s to the aforementioned Dark Knight sneak preview. It seemed many Windy City con goers where feeling a slow and steady decline in attendance, in spirits, and most importantly in quality. As I touched on it in a previous article… it would seem that at last year’s Chicago Comic Con, a keystone had crumbled. Where once mighty booths manned by the biggest publishers stood greeting con-goers as they entered the center, were now gone, and replaced with questionable replacements. In 2009, where DC’s mighty banners once hung, and the DC Direct glass where my nose was pressed with palpable envy stood a Tonner Doll booth… where porcelain cherubic faced Harry Potters and Twilight Edwards now glared at me in monotone smiles. Where the Mighty Marvel erected it’s booth where cathartic creators sat and signed piles of books now sat a blacklight-rave music pumping-psuedo ninja weapon booth, manned by people who I can assure you couldn’t tell the difference between Deadpool and Deadshot. Thus, today it was with fearful steps that I entered that large hall once more… and hours later, I sit here, truly sad to type these words: My home show is a sorry shadow of it’s former self. (more…)

Knock me over with a feather: ‘Star Wars’ in Blu-Ray in 2011

  • News
  • August 20, 2010

Wow. Who could have foreseen that George Lucas, who has skillfully exploited every single new video format to come along in the past 33 years for maximum financial gain, would release Star Wars on Blu-Ray sometime in 2011 with even more clips that we never saw before? And only as a box set for all six, so you can’t cherry pick your favorites?

Impress me, George. Put both editions of the original trilogy on there.

Star Wars Celebration V: Speed Dating

  • News
  • August 18, 2010

sw-love-3485417As deftly reported by ABC News, fans in attendance at the Star Wars Celebration V convention had an opportunity to boldly go where they probably haven’t gone before… on a date*.

This year’s Celebration gave way to the Star Wars Speed Dating Service! 34 Jedi Knights and 34 Slave Leias sat opposite each other in a room. 3 space-minutes were added to a clock, and ding… off the date goes. While not allowing the initial sharing of personal information (where you live, how to contact you, and what inter-gender species you represent on the message boards) is barred… with the common ground of 3 amazing and 3 amazingly horrendous movies and a huge universe to discuss, there’s plenty to discuss. Then after a blazing 180 seconds, fire the ion cannons… time to move to the next lad or lass and commence socialization once more! But be mindful… Darth Vader is in attendance too, to ensure you don’t get all dark-sidey with each other.

After the musical chairs ends, those droid and droidettes you found most appealing are given your preferred method of contact (you know, e-mail, cell phone, or mind-force-talking). Then it’s just a matter of whether you’d like to actually talk after that. And if things move faster than the Millennium Falcon ran the Kessel Run… well, come back to Celebration VI, and head on down to the Imperial Chapel, and make things legal before the galactic empire! Makes us wonder… do you step on the glass and say “May the Force Be With You”?

We here at ComicMix hope those kids at the Celebration had a good time… and made themselves a love connection. Lest we forget that when nerds don’t get proper affection, they get intoxicated and molest D-list celebrity models… Face it, we geeks are a minority, and the only way we’ll ever defeat the jocks and cheerleaders is to out-number them with our nerdling daemon spawn. Here’s to love!

* Yes, we know we just mixed Star Wars and Star Trek references… like you don’t love both… And yes, we know some of you have dated, are of decent build and character, and it shouldn’t be insinuated otherwise. But hey, it was funny. 

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