Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: DON GATES

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Don Gates?

Don Gates: Don Gates is a 40 year-old guy who has spent way too much time in his own little world and now it’s finally spilling out of his head onto paper.  I’m married to the sweetest and gutsiest girl I’ve ever known and we have some crazy pets and a fairly quiet, happy life together.  I’m a geek from the old-school who grew up in the 80’s and has a head full of movie quotes and useless trivia.  I’m a casual gamer and former casual musician (I once played the bass, although probably not that good).

DF: Where do you live and what do you do to keep the bill collectors away?

DG: In 2012 we relocated from Florida, where I was born and lived all my life, to Canada to be near my Mom after my Dad passed away.  I am a dual-citizen of both the US and Canada.  My day job is doing network tech-support for a Canadian cell-phone provider: I’m lucky enough to work from home, so I usually spend my workday in my pajamas.  It’s not always as nice as it sounds though: cabin fever can be a bitch sometimes, and sitting at home around all of my distractions can make the workday feel like it’s dragging on.  The job isn’t the most creatively-rewarding but I usually end my day feeling good that I’ve been able to help somebody fix their problems, so that’s something.

DF: Tell us something about your background

DG: Born in 1974.  Dad was a cop who got injured on the job and retired early, Mom was a stay-at-home housewife.  I was an only child, so I was probably spoiled.  I was (and am) an introvert so I spent lots of time reading or drawing or daydreaming.

DF: How long have you been writing?

DG: I had been creating for years – superheroes and sci-fi tales – but was always limited to my own headspace for that stuff.  I’d be pushing carts at Pic N Save or working in the electronics department at Toys R Us or whatever menial job I had at the time but I’d constantly be coming up with stuff in my head.  I never thought any of those ideas could be turned into anything worth writing, so I’d never develop them to the point of committing them to paper.

In 2007 I began to come up with my own pulp characters, ones that I felt I actually could expand upon and maybe even start writing and maybe – just maybe – get published.  I tossed my ideas around with a few online friends who gave me some invaluable feedback, and I went from there.

DF: What's your philosophy of writing?

DG: I don’t know if I really have one.  I try to entertain but to also make the characters human and believable, if not relatable.  The best reading experiences to me are always the ones where you can see the main characters as whole people, and so I try to do that a little bit without making them so complex that it bogs the story down.  This is pulp, after all, so it’s gotta move fast.

I also don’t have an exact plan of attack when I write: I try to outline everything but I usually end up with a beginning, an end, and a few points between and then flesh it out and connect the dots.  I have yet to write a rough draft or a second draft or whatever.  I usually write and edit as I go, and let the story evolve while making sure to hit those specific points along the way.  I guess I’m a plotter and a pantser… a pants-plotter?

DF: What audience are you trying to reach with your work? Is there an audience for Don Gates?

DG: I want to reach anybody that wants to read an adventure.  I’m sure that when it comes to my Challenger Storm stuff, part of me wants to reach the Doc Savage pastiche fans, although I really don’t think of Storm as a pastiche.  He’s influenced by Doc Savage a bit, yes, but I’m certainly not trying to write Doc stories with the names of the cast changed or anything.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with pastiches, mind you, they just aren’t what I want to do.)

Is there an audience for Don Gates?  I hope so.  So far I haven’t gotten fan comments from strangers who say “I love your stuff!” or anything, but I can tell there’s a few people out there who do like what I’m doing.  I kinda hope there will be an audience one day, actual “Don Gates fans”.  That’d be cool.

DF: Why New Pulp?

DG: because it’s so damned fun!  Ever since I was introduced to The Shadow when I was twelve years-old or so I’ve had pulp on the brain, because it’s just pure excitement.  Adventure in far off lands, devious villains, heroes of action, beautiful dames… there’s such a feeling of glamour and romance to it (not the “lovey dovey” kind of romance but that great “lost golden era” kind).  It’s nice that in this day and age there’s a place to escape to where dreams could come true, where there were still places on the map that were blank and unexplored.

And New Pulp as a concept is terrific because it throws in “post-pulp” influences and sensibilities and opens up new grounds for pulp to tread.  It keeps it from getting stale but also keeps the familiar and comfortable tropes.  Before “New Pulp” became a phrase, I liked to think of it as “pulp remixed."

DF: What writers have influenced you?

DG: I’m pretty sure that anyone that I’ve ever read and enjoyed has influenced me in one way or the other.  My first big reading experience was Jules Verne’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, I’m pretty sure that stayed with me.  William Gibson in his prime (the “Sprawl Trilogy” that began with NEUROMANCER) was very important to me, and I loved his prose: “J.G. Ballard meets Raymond Chandler in cyberspace”.  I love Lovecraft and periodically go on Lovecraft reading-binges.  And I love the greats from the hero pulps: Walter Gibson for his genius, Lester Dent for his inventiveness, and Norvell Page for his visceral energy.

Probably the biggest influence on my writing has probably been Dave Stevens’ THE ROCKETEER.  That comic changed my life and showed me that you can create “new old adventures”.  I read a magazine article about the series when I was thirteen and before I was finished reading it I knew that I couldn’t rest until I’d tracked down every Rocketeer appearance I could find.  It even influenced me in ways I didn’t realize until after I’d been writing a while: the similarity of the name Clifton Storm to Cliff Secord was entirely subconscious, for example.  That’d be a crossover I’d love to write, though.  A dream project.

DF: What's your career plan as a writer?

DG: There’s supposed to be a plan?!

Seriously, I don’t know if I have one.  I want to write stuff that I’ll enjoy writing and to write as much as I can crank out… which isn’t really that much.  I’m a pretty slow writer which is something I need to work on.  And should my path somehow take me to “the big leagues” then I’d be cool with that. (REALLY cool, actually)

DF: Do you think it's desirable for us as New Pulp Writers to chase Mainstream audiences or is that just a dream always out of reach?

DG: No, I don’t think it’s out of reach.  The other day Annie and I were at Wal-Mart and we came across a display stand filled with those “Hard Case Crime” novels.  She hadn’t seen them before and was kinda surprised to see all these books with pulpy covers and big name writers.  She said something like “I can see this as a sign; maybe pulp is coming back into mainstream popularity.”  This was only a day or so before the news of the Bradley Cooper EXECUTIONER movie and the Shane Black DESTROYER movie news, so maybe she’s right.  And that’d be fine with all of us, I’m sure.

DF: Who is Challenger Storm?

DG: Clifton “Challenger” Storm is a guy of incredible potential, a hero who does what he does not only because it’s the right thing to do but because of a burning need for redemption.  He was brought up wealthy (because all pulp heroes like him need a big bank account), but while his parents were philanthropic with their wealth he was arrogant, cruel and cold and extremely self-centered and spoiled.  At around age nineteen his parents died in a car accident, and while he was returning home to take over their fortunes the passenger plane he was travelling in crashed in the mountains during a freak blizzard.  Although the accident left him with three long scars on the left side of his face, he was otherwise unharmed while everyone else aboard the plane was killed.  He was left alone to survive in the mountains and he experienced an epiphany, the same kind of soul-searching I imagine a lot of sole survivors go through: “Why was I left alive?  Why me?” etc.

The answer comes to him that he’s still around to become the opposite of who he was, to help build the world instead of bleeding it.  He throws away his old ways and leaps into a rabid self-improvement regimen to try and become as skilled as he can both mentally and physically.  After graduating college at the top of his class and with numerous extracurricular activity achievements, he disappears and travels the world, learning as much martial and esoteric skills as he can manage.  When he returns home to the US, he sets up the Miami Aerodrome Research and Development Laboratories (MARDL for short), a collective think-tank of designers, scientists, engineers…  All are like-minded individuals who want to make the world a better place through science and technology. 

MARDL also has a “troubleshooting” arm, a ragtag group of adventurers and thrill-seekers who join Storm on his missions against the human predators of the world.  If someone needs aid and they can’t get it elsewhere, Storm and his troubleshooters will help.

Storm is not as infallible as guys like The Shadow or Doc Savage.  When creating him, I always used the mantra “He’s not Doc Savage, but he’s trying to be.”  Storm screws up, he gets emotional, he feels guilt or second guesses himself, he has self-doubt.  He may know arcane martial arts, can design and build revolutionary aircraft & equipment, and runs a gigantic utopian-minded organization, but he’s also messy and has no idea how many people are on his payroll.  His secretary, Marie, is indispensable to him and MARDL because she helps keep everything in check.

DF: Tell us about THE ISLE OF BLOOD.

DG: THE ISLE OF BLOOD is the first Challenger Storm novel and winner of the 2012 Pulp Factory Awards for Best Cover Art and Best Interior Art, both of which were handled by the legendary comic artist and illustrator Michael Wm. Kaluta.

In the novel Storm and his team are asked for help by an aviation tycoon whose daughter, a teacher on the tiny impoverished island-nation of La Isla de Sangre, has been kidnapped by a vicious group of guerilla warlords known as the Villalobos Brothers.  They’re holding his daughter ransom, but soon after the team begins the rescue mission they discover there’s more to the story than they thought.  Meanwhile, the Villalobos Brothers begin to unleash a mysterious super-weapon called “the Goddess of Death” upon their enemies and start to set their sights on taking over the island itself.

There’s also a framing device in the book in the form of a mysterious secret agent on his way to Florida to meet Storm to offer him the chance to work for his agency, the Eye, in exchange for government sanctioning of MARDL’s vigilante activities.  During the “intermission” chapters we see the agent learning about Storm’s past, and through these scenes the reader also experiences Storm’s “origin”.

The print edition of the book is out of print right now, but there are plans for a newly edited and tweaked edition: while I fix some bugs inside the book, Michael Kaluta is doing some cover touch ups that have been bugging him (what exactly they are, I couldn’t say because that cover is terrific).

DF: Tell us about THE CURSE OF POSEIDON.

DG: THE CURSE OF POSEIDON is the second Storm novel.  Ships and their crews are mysteriously disappearing without a trace in the Aegean Sea near Greece, the victims of a rumored “curse” of the ancient sea-god Poseidon.  Meanwhile, freak tsunamis are striking coastal villages and weird black-armored beings are spotted at the scene afterward.  Storm becomes embroiled in these events through one of his troubleshooters, Diana St. Clair (who Storm has an unrequited crush on).  Diana’s ex-lover – a former MARDL scientist – is among those missing aboard the disappearing ships.  Storm and his team join the hunt and eventually confront a villain who can use water itself as a weapon and can make mindless slaves out of free men.

The cover and interiors are again supplied by Michael Kaluta, who has done some astounding artwork once more.  The response to the art – especially the cover – has been extraordinary.

DF: Okay, so let's get to the question that I'm sure you get asked many times and here's your chance to have it in print so that when you're asked in the future you can just refer them to this interview: How did you get Michael Kaluta do to the covers and interior illustrations for your Challenger Storm novels?

DG: By reading aloud from the Necronomicon while standing in an ancient and powerful magic circle of stones, pledging my eternal soul to the Outer Gods in exchange for Kaluta’s participation.

Actually, what happened was this:

I’ve been a huge fanboy of Kaluta’s art since I discovered his work on The Shadow (through the very same issue of COMICS SCENE magazine that introduced me to the Rocketeer and Doc Savage, I may add… it was a landmark moment for me, and I still have the issue).  For years my wife heard me go on and on about his artwork, and eventually she did what I didn’t have the balls to do: she sent him an email to tell him how much of a fan I was, etc.  Michael is a very personable guy and he and Annie struck up a friendly email acquaintanceship.  She eventually mentioned to him that I had written a New Pulp novel and jokingly asked if he wanted to do the artwork for it.  To our surprise, he said something to the effect of “let me see what I can do”.  Next thing you know, he signed on and soon he and I were trading emails and shooting the breeze about classic warplanes and art nouveau illustrators.

I’m still not sure exactly what made Michael agree to do the artwork.  Perhaps it’s because he has an affinity for the subject matter, or maybe it gave him an excuse to draw classic airplanes (an interest that I didn’t know we shared until he started working on THE ISLE OF BLOOD).  One thing’s for certain: he has never “phoned the artwork in”.  He has approached every illustration and cover with a thorough, professional attitude and has never settled for anything that he feels is sub-par.  Mike is a true craftsman.  It may sound biased, but some of his work on Challenger Storm is some of my favorite Kaluta art ever.

And it’s also very cool that one of my idols is now someone I can call a friend.  I owe it all to my wife, who I’m sure has voodoo powers now because she was able to somehow bring this all to pass.

DF: You've got prestigious names such as Ron Fortier and Michael Kaluta attached to your books. How does that make you feel?

DG: Bluntly, I’m living the dream.  I grew up reading Ron’s terrific work in THE GREEN HORNET and looking at Michael’s awesome and intricate artwork, so to have these guys participating in my project is an incredible feeling.  I’m honored to be working with them, and I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.

DF: How many Challenger Storm novels do you have planned?

DG: Approximately 14.  Now, it sounds like I’ve got an awesome lineup in the works, but some of these are fleshed out into plot germs while others are just a line or two in a notepad file that I want to expand upon further.

After THE CURSE OF POSEIDON comes WHITE HELL, currently “in production”.  Anyone who has read the epilogue in CURSE… can probably tell where WHITE HELL will be going.  After that I definitely know the next 2 books I want to do but beyond those I’ll need to do more expanding of my plot ideas.  I also have some ideas of where the world of Challenger Storm will be headed into the modern era.  There’s a heroic legacy brewing slowly here…

Keep in mind too that I’m a super-slow writer and have other projects going at the same time, so whether I ever hit my goals or not depends on how well I can beat my procrastination and laziness.

DF: What's a Day in the Life of Don Gates like?

DG: I get up about an hour before my workday starts and begin drinking my requisite dosage of coffee.  I work my shift, the length of which can vary, and when I’m done I usually relax with the Missus and the dogs & cats and watch something on TV.  If any writing is gonna get done, I either need to force myself to do it during this time or wait until I have no distractions whatsoever.  I usually end my night watching Japanese tokusatsu shows for a while in bed before going to sleep and probably getting less shut-eye than I should be.

DF: Recommend a movie, a book and a TV show.

DG: Oh damn… see, I suck at this kind of thing because I’m really behind and I’m constantly catching up.  We started watching BREAKING BAD a night or two after the series finale.  Okay, I’ll try to recommend stuff that isn’t the norm and that folks might’ve missed.

For a movie, I’d recommend BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW.  It’s a very oddly-paced sci fi film from Canada involving an esoteric clinic and institute gone wrong.  There are psychics, sinister New Age stuff gone awry, and a weird ALTERED STATES-esque sequence in which something comes back from the “other side” with an acid tripper who took it too far.  It looks and feels like it was made in the 80’s, and not the fun-time 80’s either but a weird technophobic underbelly of the era instead.  I’d probably throw it in the same loony bin that VIDEODROME came from.

For a recommended book, I’d say to check out THE ARCANUM by Thomas Wheeler.  It brings together Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, HP Lovecraft, and Marie Laveau in an epic fictional crossover.  Folk who enjoyed Paul Malmont’s fictionalized pulp writers’ adventures will probably dig this.  It was a lot of fun.

And for a TV show, folks who’ve never seen THE PRISONER should watch it (and stay away from the AMC remake).  Hell, folks who’ve already seen it a million times should watch it again.  It’s not just entertainment, it’s thought-provoking televisual art.

Derrick Ferguson: What can we look forward to from you in 2015?

DG: Hopefully a lot more than what I’ve been able to crank out so far.  I’ve got a short story in Airship 27’s upcoming 2nd volume of TALES OF THE HANGING MONKEY, which was a blast to write and led me to creating a heroine who’ll probably show up again elsewhere.  I’ve also just completed a short story for another publisher that’s unlike anything I’ve written yet.  Not only is it a modern-day story, it’s also in a genre that doesn’t really have a lot of prose material out there.  Beyond that I’ve got another short story slot in one of Airship 27’s future volumes of MYSTERY MEN & WOMEN, a tale featuring a character I’ve wanted to do for a long time and only recently was able to flesh out.  And another short story slot in an anthology I can’t talk about yet: very top secret right now.

Apart from all this short story stuff (which is proving to be really fun and liberating), I’d also like to get around to finishing the Challenger Storm web serial I started on my blog a long time ago: that’s been really neglected.  I’m still cooking up Storm #3, WHITE HELL while making sure it hits the right notes it needs to hit.  There’s also a dream novel I’m working on that focuses on a favorite public domain superhero of mine.  And I’d love to go ahead with plans of the “Storm legacy” novel, where we catch up with his grandchildren as they find their own way into adventure.

Yikes, that’s a lot.  As long as I can kick myself in the butt hard enough, I can deliver on all of that.  Wish me luck: I’ll need it!  And thanks for this interview: it’s been fun!

Don's Amazon Page

The Adventures of Challenger Storm

Three Examples Of Today's New Pulp

I’m gonna tell you the main problem us New Pulp writers have when we’re trying to explain New Pulp to folks who have no idea what Pulp is. Much less New Pulp. See, we go on and on with our explanations of Pulp and what it means to us as writers and what it is as a genre…

…and then we’ll get the Classic Pulp crowd chiming in with; “Pulp isn’t a genre! It’s the paper the original magazines were printed on!”

Well, you Classic Pulp guys just hold on. I’ll get to you another time. Believe me. But right now I’ve got more interesting fish to sauté.

Anyway, we try to explain to The Average Reader Who Is Just Looking For Something Good To Read what New Pulp is. And they will listen most earnestly and patiently and attentively and they will then say; “Okay, I get what you’re saying…but why and how is New Pulp different from just plain ol’ Action Adventure? Or Horror? Or Science Fiction? Why can’t you guys just label what you do as that and get it over with?”

And The Average Reader Who Is Just Looking For Something Good To Read does have a valid point. And before you start with that tired old felgercarb about how you don’t like labels and you don’t see why anything has to be labeled…

…tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re going to take all the labels off the canned foods in your local supermarket and let you guess what’s inside those cans the next time you go shopping. Because much as you would like to think otherwise, labelling does have its place. And one reason why it’s so hard to label New Pulp is because over the years there have been so many TV shows, comic books and movies that have adopted the tropes of Classic Pulp that it’s become so ingrained in Pop Culture that most folks don’t even realize they’re watching Pulp. Still don’t believe me? Sit back while I hit you with three examples of New Pulp you watched and enjoyed and didn’t even know was New Pulp.

24 (2001-2010): For 8 Seasons we watched Counter Terrorist Unit Special Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) defend Our Country against supervillains, terrorist attacks and shadow government conspiracies. Each Season followed Jack Bauer on a Really Bad Day, each episode taking place in Real Time over the course of one hour. Before each commercial break, a clock would appear on screen to show us how much time had passed and each episode would end with Jack Bauer or another member of the cast in dire peril. You had to come back next week to find out how Jack or whoever got out of whatever death trap they had gotten into.

24 is one of the primary examples of New Pulp I love to hold up as it’s the Ultimate Saturday Morning Serial. A Serial was extended movies broken up into chapter plays that enjoyed their major popularity in the 1930’s and 1940’s. The chapters were shown in movie theaters in 10 or 15 minutes segments before the main double feature.  They ended with a Cliffhanger in which the hero or another member of the cast found themselves in dire peril. Sound familiar? 24 quite successfully adapted the Saturday Morning Serial in an innovative way. Sure, the episodes were now an hour long instead of 15 minutes but thanks to terrific writing and acting, they kept us on the end of our seats. And as a character, Jack Bauer has a whole lot in common with both Jimmy Christopher aka Operator #5 and The Spider.

Hudson Hawk: Is the most blatantly Pulp of my three examples and maybe that’s why it was the least successful. I dunno. All I know is that the very first time I saw it in the theater, I knew what director Michael Lehmann and screenplay writers Steven E. de Souza and Daniel Waters (based on a story by Bruce Willis and Robert Kraft) were going for. Eddie Hawkins is a master thief known professionally as Hudson Hawk. 

Upon being released from prison he attempts to go straight but is blackmailed by the CIA, The Mafia, the psychotic Mayflower twins ( Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard) and even his own partner-in-crime Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello) into a complicated series of heists to steal the components of the La Machinnia dell’Oro, the greatest invention of Leonardo da Vinci, a machine that can convert lead into gold. The scene where Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello pull off a heist that is perfectly timed to their singing “Swinging On A Star” is one of my favorites in the movie.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004): Wes Anderson is not a director that anybody by any stretch of the imagination would associate with Pulp New or Classic. But I’ve watched The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou three times now and the more I see it, the more I’m convinced it’s a New Pulp Adventure. Bill Murray plays Steve Zissou, an oceanographer/adventurer who sees his best friend and partner eater by a Jaguar Shark, a species of shark that had been previously considered to be mythical. Steve Zissou vows to hunt down and destroy the shark.

Aboard his massive research vessel/home, The Belafonte, Zissou and his eccentric crew, which includes a Brazilian musician who sings David Bowie songs in Portuguese, Anne-Marie Sakowitz who insists on walking around topless and a bunch of college interns from the University of North Alaska he sets out on what may be his last and greatest adventure. The adventure is flavored by Steve having to deal with Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) who just may be his illegitimate son and the tagalong reporter Jane-Winslette Richardson (Cate Blanchett) who is attracted to both Steve and Ned.

It’s a movie that I consider New Pulp because of Steve Zissou, an aging adventurer who is trying to hold onto his life of adventure even though everybody and everything is telling him he has to conform to the modern world. But Steve believes in a different world. Halfway through the movie it turns into an almost straight out action adventure where Steve and his crew have to dig back into the day when they were badasses in order to track down and take out a band of pirates that have attacked  The Belafonte and taken some of the interns hostages.

Steve Zissou’s crew are just as talented, skilled and eccentric as Doc Savage’s Iron Crew or Buckaroo Banzai’s Hong Kong Cavaliers. And if you have any more doubts about the intention of this movie, check out the end credit scene where Steve Zissou and his crew march to their boat. Wes Anderson himself has said that is a deliberate homage to the Banzai Strut done during the closing credits of “Buckaroo Banzai”

The thing all these movies (and TV show) have in common is that there are various elements of Classic Pulp that the creators adapted successfully for modern audiences. Matter of fact, they did them so well that modern audiences have no idea that they’re watching Pulp.

And don’t get me started on how Scandal is a modern day version of The Avenger and Justice, Inc…we’ll leave that for next time…

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: TOMMY HANCOCK

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Tommy Hancock?

Tommy Hancock: It might be easier to answer with who I’m not, but we’ll leave that for another interview.  I am a father of three kids I dearly love (Braeden, Alex, and Kailee), husband to Lisa, who is overdue for her mental evaluation because she is still putting up with me, and an avid idea guy.  By that I mean I have ideas for stories and projects and events and…and…well, stuff all the time.   I’ve always been that way and it’s driven me into a whole lot of interesting directions.  Probably defined me more than anything else has, that urge to create, to get ideas out. It’s definitely shown me my strengths and weaknesses.

DF: Where do you reside and what do you do for a living?

TH: I live in Melbourne, Arkansas, a little town north of Batesville, Arkansas, which is a slightly bigger town about 90 miles north of Little Rock.

I am currently an investigator for an Attorney.  Not necessarily Pulp material, but sometimes it gets really interesting. And definitely inspires stories.

DF: Tell us something about your background.

TH: Grew up that kid who wrote his first story in third grade and used his friends as the heroes.  Never stopped writing after that.  By eighth grade, turned the stories into a script that we used to talk our English Teacher, Mrs. Sifford, into letting us act out.  Moved into theater that way, into audio drama from there, and somewhere along the way I collected comics, old time radio, books, and Pulps.  My parents and little sister didn’t really understand how I was a part of the foursome they called a family because my interests didn’t fit any of theirs.  So, I sort of got on a kick of searching out similar minds.  Took a while, but found a whole passle of ‘em in 1997 in the world of Fan Fiction.  From there, while I built a pretty neat family of my own, worked on my own original stuff until Pro Se happened.

DF: What are your influences?

TH: As eclectic as my interests. I am a huge Mystery/Detective fan and a writing influence is most definitely Robert B. Parker.  But I draw a lot from Hammett, from L’amour, Stuart Kaminsky, Steven J. Cannell (his television work), and a handful of Pulp types as well. 

Also, my writing is heavily influenced by my love of old TV and radio shows.  There’s something about the economy of 23 minute shows that I love and has given me the ability to tell a story in short form tightly and succinctly.

I also have three major influences, believe it or not, that are musical in nature.  The body of works of Jimmy Buffett, Johnny Cash, and Meatloaf hugely impact my storytelling.  All three have different ways to tell a story, but they share one things-the almost cinematic way the stories they tell unfold.

DF: Which do you like better: writing, editing or publishing?

TH: That’s a hard question to ask simply because, to be honest, they’re the same for me.  Not that that they are the same activity, but what I derive from each is the same.  The concept of contributing to new stories, to being part of a creative process, to putting even just a little bit of me into a tale…I can do that as an author, editor, and publisher.  So, really, they’re all equal with me.

I’ve got a huge focus now on all aspects of creating, not just putting words on the page.  I am a major part of the storytelling process in publishing and even as an editor.  Also, my creativity has taken on a life of its own, evolving through conventions, events, and such.  I’ve learned that I am as much a part of the story as the stories we publish and I write.  So, being in panels, joining in discussions about writing and such, and coming up with special events is a new thing creatively for me in the writing sense.  Although, to be honest, I’ve always made room for the creative stuff I wanted to do.

DF: What is your philosophy of writing?

TH: It’s pretty simple.  Have the idea first.  Don’t write until You have the idea.  And even then, don’t write until the idea has You.  I am not a believer in the concept that stories go where they want to once the writing process starts.  The writer is the driver at that point.  But I firmly feel like while the idea is still just that, an abstract construct teasing one’s mind, then that is the moment where anything can happen.  And when it does, when the idea has you enough, then You write.  And You write until it’s done, even if that takes five years and you do other stories in between.  I have several ideas in progress and some that are just pieces…that I will write, that will end up in something I do.  Because the ideas had me before I started writing them down.

DF: What writing projects are you working on now?

TH: A lot that I’m really behind on.  One of the curses of doing a ton of things is that other things get left behind.  But that’s part of growing and I’ve tackled the ‘No, this can wait’ philosophy that anyone who is overwhelmed sort of slides into.   I’m working at this moment on a few things, including The Rook Volume 7, ‘Nomorrow (the follow up to my first novel, Yesteryear), The Adventures of Nicholas Saint, all for Pro Se.  Then I’m working on a Fight Card novella as well as a comic book and a couple of other things I can’t reveal for Moonstone.  I also have a two book deal with Dark Oak Press, one being a hard-boiled detective novel, which I am working on currently. 

DF: What’s the best thing you’ve written so far?

TH: Either “Lucky”, a story based on the Nightbeat radio show for a collection this past year from Radio Archives or my first published story, “Crossing Contention”, a western short featuring Virgil Earp, a story published by Airship 27.

DF: Where did your love affair with Pulp begin?

TH: Standing in an Kmart looking up at a spinner rack that had books on it and pulling a Doc Savage omnibus off of it.   Started like blazes right then and didn’t stop.

DF: What’s the best advice you can give an aspiring writer who wants to venture into the wild and wooly world of New Pulp?

TH: Read. Read what it is You think You want to write.  Then, when You decide to write for a Publisher, read what they publish.  That is a must, as far as I’m concerned.  A question I always ask new writers who approach Pro Se is ‘What of ours have You read?’

DF: How has New Pulp grown from where it was to where it is now?

TH: I think the readership has grown, although not where any of us want it to be.  I also think, and this may irritate a few people, that New Pulp has sort of reached its capacity in the way most companies have approached it.  We feed a niche and that niche has plenty to eat with Pro Se and other companies out there, not to mention what is out that really is New Pulp even though it doesn’t call itself such.  If Pro Se and others want to continue on, want to leave a mark outside our little circle, then we have to consider different ways of doing that without compromising what we want to produce.

Part of that means, at least for Pro Se, using the wide brush that I’ve always painted what Pulp is with.  To appeal to readers who wouldn’t think to pick up a book that someone says is a super hero book or a mystery book, to find writers, artists, and stories that fit what we do, but also to widen the reach of our work, New Pulp has to push beyond itself.

DF: What is the fascination that we as writers and readers have for the Classic Pulp Heroes?

TH: I can tell you what it is for me.  It’s to make sure their stories go on.  When I love a character, the two words I hate the most are ‘The End’.  So I enjoy reading new stories of established characters, even bad ones, because at least I know the story goes on. They keep on living.

DF: Tell us The Secret Origin of Pro Se.

TH: Well, one secret that isn’t really is I didn’t start Pro Se.  I have a partner, Fuller Bumpers, who worked as a writer and actor in LA for several years, who came back to Arkansas to be a lawyer and have a family, but couldn’t beat the bug of wanting to create.  Fuller brought me on board as we got to know each other in our regular jobs and he found out I was a creative like him.  We started out looking at audio drama and that was fun, but not where either of our hearts really were.  So, with my learning about the New Pulp Movement (not yet named such at that point), we decided to push in that direction and resurrected the Pulp magazine, then moved on to books and the rest is what Pro Se is today.

DF: Why have your own publishing house?

TH: That’s a question that probably should be harder to answer than it is.  Because I wanted to.  I wanted to have books I’d want to read and although some companies were doing what I liked, I knew the only way I’d really get books that I’d love to have on my shelf was to have a hand in producing them.

DF: What can we expect from Pro Se in 2014?

TH: A lot. I’m pretty well known for teases, you know, hinting at what’s coming…so that’s what I’ll do in response to this. A new imprint that takes a rather unique look at Genre Fiction... Women of Fantasy (and that's all I’m allowed to say at this point)... a Crossover that will shake one Universe at home in Pro Se to its foundations...a New Pulp Novel by a Classic Pulp Author...Another new imprint that will definitely pull back the steamy underbelly of Pulp and show how raw it can be…and the launch of something that no one else in our corner of publishing is doing that we think it is high time for. And that isn’t all…have to leave people wanting more.

DF: Where do you see Pro Se five years from now?

TH: I don’t really have a clear concept of where Pro Se will be in five years.  I have a plan, one that I’ve sort of kept close to the vest.  In five years, we’ll be in the third phase of it and all I can say is, if it goes anywhere near like I plan, then Pro Se will be a little bit of everywhere.

DF: What’s a Typical Day In The Life of Tommy Hancock like?

TH: Very busy.  Literally a juggling act.  I get up, I pulp, I take care of the family, go to work, Pulp when I can get the time there, come home, do the family thing, then Pulp more.  

Although that is pretty much a day in day out sort of thing, I’ve been fortunate.  I’ve had people say, “wow, to be so focused on Pro Se and Pulp, that’s gotta be a lot of work and lonely.” It is a lot of work, but the instant it feels like work to me, I’ll walk away.  And as far as being alone, not in the least.  I’ve got a great staff at Pro Se.  Morgan Minor is the best wingwoman ever.  And then I have a circle of friends, sort of my own little Algonquin Round Table, that figuratively and at least digitally literally surround me and keep me going.  So, I’m good with a Pulp filled daily routine.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we need to know?

www.prose-press.com

www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions

www.prosepodcast.libsyn.com

www.pulped.libsyn.com

www.ideaslikebullets.blogspot.com

Tommy Hancock: That’s about it. Thanks for the opportunity

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: PERCIVAL CONSTANTINE

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Percival Constantine?

Percival Constantine: I was born in Illinois and lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago until shortly before my 25th birthday. While growing up, I subsisted on a pretty consistent diet of superhero comics, action movies, TV shows and video games, which I have to thank for warping my mind into its current state.

DF: Where do you currently reside and what do you do for a living?

PC: Currently I live in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it, most people outside of Japan haven’t. The claim to fame of this place is that it’s home to Shinmoe-Dake, which was used for the exterior shots of Blofeld’s volcano base in “You Only Live Twice”. At the moment, I teach English lessons in several elementary schools, but that will hopefully change in the near-future as I’ve been speaking with some local colleges about job prospects. I also write and edit, and I do the occasional comic book lettering job, all while pursuing my masters degree online. I’ve also started doing some cover design and book formatting, since apparently I’m not busy enough.

DF: How does it happen that a nice boy from the Midwestern U.S. finds himself teaching English in Japan?

PC: I always had an interest in Japanese culture, probably first caused by shows like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Power Rangers” that I watched while growing up, plus dubbed anime like “Dragonball Z” and video games like “Final Fantasy VII”. But what really cinched it was when I was in college, I became really interested in live-action Japanese movies—films by guys like Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Miike, Seijin Suzuki, Takeshi Kitano, Kinji Fukusaku, and others, plus the novels of Haruki Murakami. Around this same time, I discovered the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Program, which invites people from native speaking countries to work in Japan as assistant language teachers in Japanese public schools for 1-5 years. I applied for the program, hoping to end up in a bustling metropolis like Tokyo or Osaka, but instead I got sent out to Kagoshima. At first I didn’t like it, and the plan was to return to the States after my first-year contract was up, but one year turned into three, then three into five, and now I’m in my sixth year in Kagoshima.

DF: Tell us as much about your background as you’re legally able to.

PC: Well, if it’s only stuff I’m legally able to discuss, that’s going to be a short story. As a kid, I fell in love with the “X-Men” animated series, and that led me to collecting comics—first X-Men, then later Avengers, and more and more titles, primarily Marvel. When I was around 10 years old, I had a few teachers who had us write stories as assignments, and I would write superhero stories, some of them featuring characters I was a fan of, some of them featuring my friends and I becoming superheroes. And that’s really what led to my desire to be a writer.

DF: What is your philosophy of writing?

PC: Don’t bore yourself or your readers. I’m very much from the school of thought of guys like Elmore Leonard, where it’s focused on characters and dialogue over description. My favorite rule from Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing is “avoid the parts readers tend to skip.” And not boring yourself also applies to what you’re writing in addition to how you write it. Write what you enjoy, regardless of whether it’s popular or marketable, and to hell with anyone who tells you otherwise.

DF: You actually intended to be a comic book writer and not a novelist. True?

PC: Absolutely true. Ever since I started writing, the goal was always to become a comic book writer. Outside of the stuff I created as a kid, my first serious attempts at writing my own original characters and ideas were written as comic book scripts, not novels. Many of them later became novels, but comics were always my first love.

But being a poor college student when I started writing meant my options for paying artists page rates were limited. I hooked up with a number of different artists for a number of different projects, but something always got in the way. Sometimes it was as simple as the artist getting offered a paying job, which naturally is fine—if you get offered a project for money as opposed to royalty sharing, then you should take that project. But what became really frustrating were the artists who would just plain stop answering emails. After about two or three instances where that happened, I decided to focus instead on prose.

I would still love to do more comics work, particularly for Marvel or DC. Those are the characters I grew up with, so getting the chance to write them professionally would be a dream come true. Don’t get me wrong, I also love doing my own thing, but it would be a lot of fun to work on my favorite characters.

DF: You enjoyed an extensive and successful career in writing DC and Marvel fan fiction. What are the benefits of writing fan fiction and what are the drawbacks?

PC: The biggest benefit is, provided you hook up with a constructive community, it’s one of the best training grounds you could ask for. It’s a lot easier to jump into a world and characters you grew up with and know inside and out than it is to come up with your own from scratch. I would not be the writer I am today if I didn’t spend my teenage and college years writing fanfic, that much I can guarantee. In that time, I learned a lot about characterization, description, dialogue, plot, and even editing. It also gave me confidence to eventually move beyond into original fiction.

The drawback is, of course, you won’t be able to make any money off it, nor do you own these characters you’re writing about. Fanfic is still frowned upon by a lot of people as a waste of time and energy. Of course, if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can take a story that began life as fanfic and turn it into something that’s all your own creation. I did that with my second novel, Chasing The Dragon, and it’s been done by other writers as well.

DF: You’ve done work for professional comic book companies as a letterer, haven’t you?

PC: I have. When I was initially putting together Love & Bullets as a comic book, I had found an artist, but a letterer was still out of reach, until the day I found the Ninja Lettering website. I followed their tutorials for using Adobe Illustrator to letter comics, did a number of practice pages, and then began lettering the first issue of Love & Bullets. To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed lettering, and so I began seeking out work. I lettered a number of submissions that were never picked up, and also did work for a few independent companies, most notably AC Comics. While lettering stories for their Femforce anthology comic, I developed a very good relationship with Mark and Stephanie Heike, the editors on that comic. That relationship led to my first published work-for-hire in the form of a finishing off the final two parts of a three-part story featuring their character of Threeta.

I still keep an eye on the various job boards for letterers, and if there’s something that catches my interest (and I have an opening in my schedule), then I’ll apply for it. I would like to do more of it, though.

DF: You’ve also tried your hand at screenwriting and film directing, correct?

PC: Also true. Screenwriting and comic writing are very closely related in a lot of ways, so I found it pretty easy to switch between the two, and movies were and still are a huge influence on me. During my undergraduate years, my minor was in mass media with a heavy focus on film studies and it was during that period that I did some directing work on some short student films. Only one was ever completed, and that was a short film called Russian Roulette, based on a short story written by a friend of mine named Anastasia Peters. 

She had asked me to critique the story and I thought it was incredible and while reading it, I kept picturing it playing out as a film and so I asked her if she’d let me adapt it. I had several friends who were skilled in different areas of film, so we came up with a script and shot the film in three days.

The masters degree I’m pursuing involves a screenwriting concentration, and I’d love to write and/or direct another project at some point in the future. It’s just a matter of finding the right idea for a script and all the necessary elements to translate the script into a movie.

DF: Your output is diverse. You’ve written Fantasy, Espionage Thrillers, Science Fiction, Pulp Action/Adventures. Is the diversity to keep your readers from getting bored or you?

PC: More to keep me from getting bored. The nice thing about New Pulp is that we’re not restricted by genre. We don’t have to stick to Horror or Crime or Sci-Fi or Fantasy. We can play in all these different areas, sometimes all at once. If I get the inkling to write a Horror novel, I can just do it. If I want to write a Western, I can just do it. It’s a nice way to keep me from getting bored, but it’s also a great way to challenge myself. Recently, I wrote a Western story, and it was the first time I ever wrote a Western. It was just an idea that came to me one day, it coincided nicely with an anthology that was in the works, so I pitched it and was given the greenlight to write it. Even if I didn’t get the greenlight, I probably would have written it anyway and figured out something else to do with it.

DF: Tell us about The Infernum series.

Infernum began life as a film project, initially titled Codename: Black Widow, if I recall correctly. It was the brainchild of a very good friend of mine, Kyle Shire, who wanted to direct it as a student film. He came up with a basic outline and asked me if I’d be willing to write a screenplay, and of course I was more than happy to do that. The film never happened, but Kyle gave me his blessing to write it as a novel.

Infernum is an organization of assassins run by a mysterious and charming power broker known as Dante. In Codename: Black Widow, which later became Love & Bullets, the main character is named Angela Lockhart, a former operative of a government organization called the Agency. After the death of her husband, she goes rogue and gets recruited by Dante as an assassin, the deal between them being that Dante will use his resources to help her find her husband’s killer.

Love & Bullets was followed up by Outlaw Blues, which involves a lot of the same characters, but in different roles. The protagonist in Outlaw Blues is a retired hitman named Carl Flint, who gets brought out of retirement by Dante for one final job. It ties into Love & Bullets in several ways, but is also its own story—whereas Love & Bullets was more of an espionage spy vs. spy novel, Outlaw Blues is more of an urban western.

I do have plans for future books. I’ve been kicking around ideas for the next book, tentatively titled Gentleman Rogue, for a while, but have had other projects I wanted to focus on first.

DF: I’m a big fan of The Myth Hunter, Elisa Hill. Tell us about her.

Elisa Hill is my attempt to try my hand at a more pulpy adventure story. I came up with the character a while ago, initially as a pitch for the now-defunct original fiction website, Frontier. In initial form, Elisa was a vampire hunter, but that morphed over time into what she is now. Initially I tried to do it as a comic, but when that fell through, I decided to try it as a novel.

The basic premise is that all the various mythologies of the world are rooted in fact. Pursuing these legends are people called myth hunters. Some are mercenaries, some are knowledge-seekers, some are treasure hunters. Elisa is the daughter of two myth hunters and she initially became one of the rogue myth hunters, working with a mercenary named Lucas Davalos. But after the death of her parents, she came back to their way of thinking, attempting to continue their research with the help of their good friend and her mentor, a retired myth hunter named Max Finch.

In the first book, The Myth Hunter, Elisa and Max pursue the myth of the lost continent of Lemuria, while also trying to avoid the reach of the mysterious Order and a vicious mercenary named Seth. During the course of that book, Elisa ran into Asami, a kitsune or Japanese fox spirit, who can change between fox and human forms and possesses some degree of magical abilities.

The sequel, Dragon Kings of the Orient, has Asami seeking out Elisa’s help to protect the Dragon Kings of China from Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, a powerful demigod who sought revenge on the Dragon Kings for imprisoning him. The lives of the Dragon Kings are tied to the oceans of Asia, and so if they die, that could mean chaos for the continent. Of course, things aren’t what they seem.

There’s been another addition to the Myth Hunter series in the form of “The Wild Hunt,” a short story featured in the PulpWork Christmas Special 2013, which is now available in digital and print formats. “The Wild Hunt” has Asami traveling to Hokkaido in Japan where she runs across a yuki-onna, or snow woman. But there’s something else, something far larger at play.

DF: What are your future plans for Elisa Hill?

PC: Elisa will be back. Dragon Kings of the Orient ended on something of a cliffhanger, and that will lead into the third book. The ending of “The Wild Hunt” also hints at something else coming down the road for Elisa and her allies. At some point in the future, I’d also like to invite other writers to contribute stories about Elisa and her allies and put out an anthology of those stories, but I haven’t put that into action just yet.

Also sometime in the near-future, probably before I have the chance to write the third book, Elisa will be appearing in another story written by someone other than me and featuring her teaming up with one ofthe biggest New Pulp characters! So keep an eye out for that.

DF: You’ve got a new novel out. Tell us about SOULQUEST.

PC: SoulQuest, like almost everything I’ve done, began life as a comic book pitch. It never went anywhere and some time later, I pitched it as a serial for the Revenance original fiction site. The first chapter was posted, but Revenance went down shortly after that. I had already written several pages and continued it for a bit, but ultimately got distracted by other projects.

Then last year, I was struggling with a project for NaNoWriMo and I started looking through abandoned manuscripts (of which I have more than a few). One of those was SoulQuest. I began jotting down notes and found myself quickly sucked back into that world.

SoulQuest is basically my love letter to the Final Fantasy series, in particular Final Fantasy VII, which is my all-time favorite video game. The book focuses on Zarim, who is a pirate along with Ekala, Zarim’s lover and a consummate thief, and Swul, a hard-drinking exile of the faerie kingdom. From the airship Excalibur, they live the lives of mercenaries, traveling wherever the money is. But when the legendary Soulstones surface, they’re tasked with locating them. Also pursuing the Soulstones is Lord Vortai, a powerful sorcerer who basically controls the empire. With the Soulstones, Vortai could have the power to remake the world as he sees fit.

It’s part fantasy, part science fiction, part steampunk, with a lot of action thrown in. This book was me really pushing myself out of my comfort zone, especially after a very long dry spell when I came close to quitting writing altogether. And it’s out now in print and for Kindle.

DF: Is SOULQUEST going to be a series? And if so, what can we expect in future books?

PC: I had considered making it into a series, but for now, it’s just this one book. Given what happens in this book, I think a follow-up where the stakes are the same or even higher would be very difficult to pull off. I might consider revisiting the characters in short stories set at different points in their lives, because it is a big, ensemble cast, and there’s a lot that can be done with the different characters. But there are other projects that I really want to work on at the moment, and so I’d like to focus on those.

DF: What’s A Day In The Life of Percival Constantine like?

PC: My work schedule is kind of all over the place, so if it’s a day when I have classes, then I’ll usually get up around 6 and drive anywhere from 40-90 minutes to which of the eleven elementary schools I teach at. If I have free periods during the day, I have my laptop with me and I’ll work on whatever projects are on my docket, be it formatting, editing, lettering, studying, or writing. If I have a day off from work, I might be recording or editing episodes for the two podcasts I’m part of, working on the aforementioned projects I have to work on, or just relaxing in front of the TV or reading comics or books.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we should know?

Percival Constantine: I’m a writer for WhatCulture and a contributor and regional partner at JapanTourist. As mentioned, I also produce two podcasts. One is The Exploding Typewriter, a podcast that features me and a member of the New Pulp community discussing whatever aspect of pulp that creator wants to talk about. To date, I’ve done interviews with Tommy Hancock, Ron Fortier, Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Jim Beard, and Richard Lee Byers, with other interviews planned. It’s great fun talking with these various guys and getting their insight on the world of New Pulp.

The other podcast is called The Geek Screen, and I co-host that with one of my good friends from Chicago, Juan Bracich. We talk about geeky movies and TV shows, focusing on a different film or show each episode as the main portion and also touching on different news and whatever other tangents we might find ourselves on.

Other than that, please pick up a copy of SoulQuest and the PulpWork Christmas Special 2013. Those and all my other books are available at various places all over the net, and if you head over to my website, PercivalConstantine.com, you can find out where you can buy all those books and in what formats.

And also, thank you for the interview! It’s always a good time when you and I get to sit down and chat a little.

Percival Constantine
Writer, Editor, Letterer
pc@percivalconstantine.com
percivalconstantine.com