Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: JOEL JENKINS

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Joel Jenkins?

Joel Jenkins: I'm a husband, father, ordained elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, writer, musician, and firearm enthusiast.

DF: Where do you live and what do you tell the IRS you do for a living?

JJ: I am a resident of the heron-haunted and misty-mountained Great Northwest.

The IRS doesn't much care what I do for a living, they just want their increasingly exorbitant cut, to support an unwieldy central government that has unconstitutionally usurped authority over welfare, health care, and education. According to the Constitution, these are powers which are NOT designated to the Federal government and reserved for the states, if they so choose to exercise them. By usurping these powers the federal government becomes unduly influential over the states, and the citizen has less ability to effect change—not to mention the fact that the federal government absorbs much of those tax dollars just to support its corpulent bureaucracy, and a relatively small portion actually returns to the people for which those dollars are designated.

DF: How long have you been writing?

JJ: I started writing shortly after I learned to read. At age eight I sent my first manuscript into Highlights for Children. It was a story of time travel and dinosaurs. I received a kind and encouraging letter back from the editor explaining that manuscripts should be typed instead of handwritten.

DF: What’s your philosophy of writing?

JJ: First, I want to tell an imaginative, rousing and vivid story that entertains. Second, even if the protagonist has few or no redeeming qualities, I want to illustrate that good will triumph over evil. Sometimes this may be illustrated by showing the long term consequences of evil actions, even though it may seem that evil has temporarily won the day. I hope to inspire people to good and selfless action through my writing.

DF: When it comes to genre there’s no way to pin you down. You’ve written westerns, blood-n-bullets action adventure, children’s books, heroic fantasy…is that a conscious choice or do you just write what you like?

JJ: I've made a conscious decision not to limit myself to any specific genre. Other than that, I write where my muse takes me, and she takes me in any number of odd directions—some of which I never anticipated.

DF: You wear several hats; small press publisher, writer, editor…which one brings you the greatest satisfaction?

JJ: The hats of small press publisher and editor stem from, or facilitate, writing.  I enjoy these other hats, but if they take too much time I start to resent that they are stealing away from time I could be writing something.

DF: You were writing New Pulp long before there was a New Pulp Movement. How does it feel seeing the explosion of pulp influenced writing and characters springing up in recent years?

JJ: It used to be that a reader who enjoyed highly imaginative fast-paced, and action packed stories had limited options in modern fiction. Now, we are seeing a wealth of options, and a lot of great fiction is coming out. I think it's a great thing.

DF: The organizational structure of Pulpwork Press is somewhat unique. Can you describe it and how it works?

JJ: I can't describe it great detail because some of the shadowy figures behind Pulpwork Press are actually members of the Twelve Unknown Men, who for reasons known to them alternately work for nefarious and noble purposes.

DF: There are plenty of New Pulp publishers out there now but Pulpwork Press was around long before some of them were even thought of. Do you feel that sometimes Pulpwork Press gets overlooked by the community and readers?

JJ: The New Pulp community is an awesome group of creative individuals, but there's little point in getting competitive or jealous about getting the lion's share of attention within a relatively small community. The key is to attract readers from the market as a whole and the New Pulp community, including Pulpwork Press, has a lot to learn as to how to accomplish this.

DF: Where do you see Pulpwork Press in five years?

JJ: On the run from the law and uploading our latest manuscripts via encrypted connections.

DF: Let’s talk about your work now…in particular, Lone Crow who has been showing up quite a bit in recent years. Who is Lone Crow and why the fascination with him?

JJ: Lone Crow is an infamous Native American gunfighter who roamed the wild west earning respect with his pistols. In my stories, he tends to encounter the weird, strange and supernatural, and he's been one of those characters who I haven't been able to stop writing stories about. Next year we'll see a book called Lone Crow Collected, which is a collection of quite a number of those stories which have been published elsewhere, and a good chunk of them which have have never been seen before.

DF: Tell us about STRANGE TRAILS.

JJ: Strange Trails is the brainchild of James Palmer, the head editor at Mechanoid Press. He decided to gather a group of weird west adventures and asked me to contribute a story. I wrote The Steam Devil, where Lone Crow finds himself in the company of the much-feared lawman Bass Reeves. They explore the wreckage of a derailed train and find more than they bargained for.

DF: Tell us about THE WEIRD WORLDS OF JOEL JENKINS

JJ: This is my most recent book and is a collection of short stories and novellas that range over nearly a 25 year period of my published writings. We've got western gunfights, vampire hunters, ghost impersonators, the rock vocalist Matthias Gantlet taking on the heavyweight champion of the world, the assassin Monica Killingsworth doing an interview, and even an audacious sequel to a post-apocalyptic romance story that you wrote. Before each story, I provide a bit of background information, just in case the readers might find it of interest.

DF: There have been PULPWORK CHRISTMAS SPECIALS for the past two years. Are we going to see one for 2013? And is this going to be an annual event we can look forward to?

JJ: Since we give away the Pulpwork Christmas Specials for free, we depend upon the charity of talented and in-demand writers. They have to be willing to contribute work that normally they would be getting paid for doing. Thus far, in the tradition of Christmas, they've been very magnanimous and have offered top-notch Christmas fiction.  I've completed a quite lengthy Monica Killingsworth tale for this year's Christmas Special, and I hope to be receiving some further contributions soon.

DF: ONE FOOT IN MY GRAVE is a book you’ve lived with for a long time. Tell us about the background of the September Peterson character and why this novel is so important to you.

JJ: September was a friend of mine since my youth. He suffered from a lung condition called cystic fibrosis, which makes life hard and generally short. On his death bed he requested I write his life story … and he had quite an action-packed story to tell.  So bringing this project to fruition had a very personal meaning to me.

DF: Tell us about THE GANTLET BROTHERS: SOLD OUT.

Sold Out will be published later this year and is the third in the Gantlet Brothers series: the first being The Nuclear Suitcase, and the second The Gantlet Brothers Greatest Hits. The Gantlet Brothers escaped across the Berlin wall in the 1980's and proceeded to become one of the world's premiere metal bands, but they also had a penchant for violence and it seemed that trouble often crossed their path … either that or they went looking for it. My regular readers know that I've never shied away from killing major characters, and they'll likely see at least one major character meet a grisly end in this thriller.

DF: What’s a typical Day In The Life of Joel Jenkins like?

JJ: I like to get up early, eat, write, hit the punching bag and lift weights before heading to work. This summer we've had particularly good weather and a few mornings I've been able to write while enjoying the sunshine on the balcony.  Things have been slow at the day job, so I've had extra time in the morning, making it a particularly lazy summer. As a result my writing output has more than doubled.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we need to know?

Joel Jenkins: I've already divulged far too much for my own safety.

THE VAULTS OF CALADREX

PULPWORK PRESS

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: H.H. NEVILLE

Derrick Ferguson: Who is H.H. Neville?

H.H. Neville: I am a Seattle native that refuses to leave (except for routine trips to Yokohama), a volleyball-playing fiend and an Earl Grey enthusiast. I run a makeshift book orphanage where books just tend to show up, and I take good care of them. Sometimes I even write words, but am a bit uncomfortable with the term “writer.” I tend to prefer “fictionista.”

DF: What do you do to keep yourself in cheese and crackers?

HHN: I am a web and graphic designer. You have probably received an email with something I’ve done. Or at least your spam folder did. We’re tight like that.

DF: In the interest of full disclosure we should inform the good folks reading this that we’ve known each other for a while. Would you care to elaborate?

HHN: Heh, yes we have. This might seem a little creepier for you than me, but you’ve known me since I was fourteen. That’s when I crawled onto the internet, sheepishly posting fiction to a website that by some stroke of good fortune you stumbled across. You graciously reviewed some fiction on that website. Eventually you got around to something I wrote. You weren’t that impressed. You said it was more a history lesson than a story. You were, of course, right, and to this day (some fourteen years later) I still remember that!

DF: How long have you been writing?

HHN: It will sound rote, or trite, but forever? I remember being in early grade school and folding notebook paper into little books where I wrote stories about sword-fighting foxes that I would then illustrate. I’ve always had a pretty intense imagination, and writing seemed like the best way to relieve some of that pressure.

Seriously writing? Even though I got published once in my preteens, I never really started taking it seriously until a little bit a go. It was just something I did because I enjoyed it. I had no goals other than share things I’d written. Sharing is big for me.

DF: What writers have influenced you?

HHN: Above all else, Lewis Carroll. Without him, I’d have no imagination at all. I warn you that as a book snob, this list will get long: Verne, Frank L. Baum, ERB, Chabon, Raymond Chandler, Dostoevesky, William Gibson, Huxley, Ishiguro, Jacques, Melville, Millhauser, Murakami (Haruki and Ryu), Orwell, Christopher Priest, Salinger, Steinbeck, Wilde, Vonnegut (and all the Beat Generation), and, yeah, give me the hook already!

I’m a literary guy. I read everything from pulps, to alt. lit., YA to classic, and even though I write a lot of superheroes, I tend not to be influenced by too many comic book writers. Almost none, actually (except Japanese dudes like Shirow, Otomo, Tezuka, etc.). I try to take a very literary approach to capes and cowls.

DF: You were very active in what we called the Heroes Community of fan fiction. What would you say was your major contributions during that period?

HHN: Strife and consternation? I don’t know, really. A majority of my works have been wiped away. I think above all else, I challenged the status quo. A lot of the guys who are comic book guys didn’t get a lot of what I was trying to do. I never wanted to tell a story that left a character in a holding pattern; if I couldn’t push the characters to uncomfortable places, I didn’t want to do it.

Beyond that, I’m known for my stylistic prose; it’s dense and florid, and a lot of the times, very abstract. You can thank my love of The Beat Generation for that.

What I’m most proud of though, is as I got older, I tried to turn around and give advice to the younger generation like so many did for me. I loved to help spitball and world build, which I guess makes sense now that I’m doing that with The Generation Project.

DF: Why fan fiction at all? Why not just start out writing your own original superhero characters?

HHN: There’s a real beautiful agility with fan fiction. The people reading your work already have a pretty vast knowledge of the characters, their motivations, physical appearance, what have you. It allows you to work with that; skimp on certain aspects of storytelling that are usually necessary, and focus on the things you want to, either because you enjoy them, or because you want to get better. It’s the quickest way to write (especially when you’re learning), because you can just do it, almost reflexively, and the audience will follow. The readers will also be able to pick out weak spots in your skill sets because they know how things should be. There’s no guesswork.

You can’t do that when every bit of a character and the stories they’re in are new. You’ve got responsibilities as a writer to tell a story as completely as you can, and when readers don’t have that existing knowledge, it requires a lot more maturity and effort.

DF: Tell us about THE GENERATION PROJECT

HHN: The Generation Project is a shared-continuity superhero universe. It will span the website, and print and e-book anthologies and individual novels. All the characters on the website are free for any writer to pick up and write. I have about 200+ characters ready to insert into the continuity (with about fifty bios on the site) currently. Writers are of course allowed to introduce their own.

However, some writers struggle with world-building, which I certainly do not. Anyone who has seen one of my 100+ page character or plot bibles knows this. So, I can take care of that part for them.

Sharing is also really important to me. I like writers to share ideas, concepts, characters. I love co-writing. So this was key to doing The Generation. Sharing can be rough though, so we’ve installed some great tools to make it easier, like the bios, the world bible and a sliding scale timeline where anyone can pick up a character at any time in their life and write a story. That character might get introduced by one writer one week and the next, killed by another writer. Ownership is democratic in the purest sense.

DF: Name your three favorite characters and tell us why they are your favorites.

HHN: That’s like picking favorite kids, man! Which, by the way, if anyone tells you they can’t: they’re lying.

Paper Tiger (Page Turner) easily at the top. She’s somewhat autobiographical. She’s freakishly in love with books. Nothing else really matters to her. She’s got this Marlowe meets Thoroughly Modern Millie demeanor; she’s intelligent yet aloof, totally self-confident, despite glaring flaws her mother loves to point and just really complex. Plus, her powers are only limited by her vast imagination, and making sure she has enough paper to transmute!

The Ouroboros because he’s the kind of self-indulgent I think a lot of us would be if we were hanging out with the world’s greatest Capes. He’s the ultimate self-promoter, and showman and actually won’t help anybody unless there’s either a news reporter or a movie starlet within an earshot. He fancies himself a ladie’s man, even if he’s kind of repulsive. He’s Houdini meets Chaplin and a whole bunch of Snidely Whiplash. Plus, I just love escapists. That’s not a “superpower” per se, but it’s certainly superhuman.

Man From Mars. It’s a shameless ode to Blondie. He’s the quintessential stuck in the 80s guy. I know a lot of people like that; they just won’t let that decade go. He was a fixture at CBGBs and isn’t quite willing to move on. He’s part of the main team after The Generation destroys itself, and he’s clinging to nostalgia like a lot of folks are. He’ll be a good cipher for readers even if his nostalgia has nothing to do with The Generation. His power set is fun. Whatever he eats, he absorbs into his body. It might be a guitar, or lettuce. Who knows. Maybe something useful.

DF: Is it safe to say that superhero prose fiction has arrived and is here to stay?

HHN: Definitely. Superhero prose has always been around. I have countless of them from when I was a kid, but no slight on Greg Cox, Christopher Golden, Dean Wesley Smith and some of those guys, but it just wasn’t gonna happen for them. They weren’t going to make superhero prose a “thing.” They peaked at the wrong time. Now with a new superhero movie every two weeks, they’re part of the “pop creature” as I like to call it. Audiences crave it in all mediums, devour it. They’re not quite the new zombie (or paranormal romance), but as I spend a lot of time in bookstores, I get to see they’re right there in a comfortable third.

You’ve got the stuff by Adam Christopher, Michael Carroll, and a bunch of folks in all arenas, and even now a She-Hulk book that is one part Peter David and another Sex and the City. X-Men novels are coming back. Everybody’s doing them. When the YA shelves are saturated with a trend, it’s big. Fourteen year-olds are the ultimate tastemakers. What they want, everyone does.

It actually made me resist doing this site for a split second. Did I want to devote so much effort to a saturated market? Yeah, because it’s fun, and people are eating it up for that reason.

I think as long as we’re willing to explore what it means to put on that Cape from every angle, it’s a plenty big sandbox. That’s the goal with The Generation. I want to look at these characters from every angle, from every genre. If someone wants to do a romcom, let’s do it; if somebody wants an alt. lit. story about the collateral damage people suffer indulging these heroes, cool and of course, the old school four colour type of story doesn’t hurt either.

DF: Unlike their comic book/graphic novel cousins, superhero prose doesn’t have the benefit of artwork to help tell the story. But what can a writer do in prose that he can’t in a comic book?

HHN: I don’t think it’s a matter of what one can do over the other. I think it just takes a lot of imagination and ingenuity to do things in one over the other. Comic books are awfully kinetic. It takes a lot of work (and a lot of panels) to deliver depth, though. One well written paragraph can handle a forty-eight comic book spread a lot of the times when it comes to earnest character development. Can a novel be kinetic, though? Sure, and a lot of comic books can be deep, too.

I think the greatest advantage to prose is the investment factor: reading prose usually takes a greater investment on the reader’s behalf, so accordingly, writers will likely have to find ways to give that investment a payoff. We often think of that as a gift to the reader, but it is just as much to writer.

One of my biggest pet peeves with superhero prose writers is when they try to emulate comic books. A simple 'Dangeruss punched him, he flew across the room and hit a wall' is really just an action line in a comic script. It doesn’t make good prose. Use the medium for what it is. Color in the lines, don’t just draw ‘em.

DF: So why should people check out THE GENERATION PROJECT?

HHN: I’d say they should check it out if they like superheroes, of all different walks. We’re going to explore them every way we know how, and some we don’t just quite yet. We’re trying some exciting new things within the realm of shared-continuity universes which requires very little effort from writers, but a lot from its editors. We’re dedicated to making that work, and in turn making it a great place for readers and writers to just sit down and do what they love: create and read stories about superheroes.

Another goal of mine is to make this a safe place for all writers of all walks. I’ve got submissions being worked on by screenwriters, English professors, and aspiring writers. People who want so desperately to write a fun superhero story, even if they never have. We’re dedicated to equipping people to have fun both reading and writing. If you’re a screenwriter and hammer out a great screenplay, I’m a prose monster and we’ll work it out. If you’re a solid writer, but not a world builder, just plug in some of the characters from the site. I’m all about massaging something until the writer and reader have a product they can both be proud of.

DF: Where do you see THE GENERATION PROJECT in five years?

HHN: The definitive stop for superhero prose, and I mean that, earnestly. I want to be a force to be reckoned with, getting not just huge numbers of fans, but releases: individual novels, anthologies, continual free content on the website. I want to release YA books where the proceeds go to help Autism research. Perhaps that doesn’t mean we rival those comic book guys with their summer blockbusters, but I want to be at the forefront when people think about great superhero prose.

DF: What’s a typical Day In The Life Of H.H. Neville?

HHN: Wake up. Drink tea. Shower. Drink tea. Design some stuff. Drink tea. Make amazing food. Drink tea. Read. Drink tea. Write. Drink Tea. Sleep. Yeah, sounds about right.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we should know?

H.H. Neville: That Derrick Ferguson is a great, great man. Seriously, and not because of this interview. You’ve helped nudge me along to be a real-boy writer so many times, even if you never intended. So, cheers.

Oh, and that The Generation Project would love to have you all, both readers and writers, so come check us out, you hear? 

GENERATIONS OF CAPES

H.H. Neville

Calling H.H. Neville a real writer–like his genre of choice–would be fiction. At the rare points that he does manage to write, he fashions his work with visceral visuals, razorblade sharp style and shotgun brutality. He draws equal inspiration from Victorian Era literature, classic fables, Japanese pop-violence, steampunk, anime, grindhouse genres, hip-hop, neon-flavored pop culture, fashion-trends and really cool sneakers. He is, if anything a proponent of style over substance. Who needs plot if it’s pretty?

NEVILLE, NEVILLELAND, Home of The Beat Bastards

Black Pulp Gets PULPED! Featuring Walter Mosley!

In the latest episode of PULPED! THE OFFICIAL NEW PULP PODCAST, Tommy Hancock rides herd on the contributors to the historic best selling BLACK PULP from Pro Se Productions! This collection contains stories running the gamut of genre fiction that feature Black Lead Characters!  Westerns, Mysteries, Supernatural, Folklore, Pirate tales, Jungle stories and so much more fill the pages of BLACK PULP! Some of the most noted writers working today fill the volume as well!  Hear from Gary Phillips, Idea Originator and Co-editor as well as contributor to the project, as he discusses where the concept came from and reasons for it as well as his story.  Also, PULPED! co hosts Ron Fortier and Derick Ferguson appear as guests, each talking about their tales in this tome!  Authors Michael A. Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, Christopher Chambers, Kimberly Richardson, D. Alan Lewis, and Mel Odom join in to discuss their stories as well as their viewpoints on the concept and the comments BLACK PULP has received, both negative and positive! This fantastic episode closes with Best Selling Author Walter Mosley contributing his thoughts on Pulp in general, BLACK PULP in specific, and what this thing we call Pulp, this style of writing, truly is and should mean to all of us.  The largest, best episode of PULPED! ever!  Listen, enjoy, and even learn as Pro Se's BLACK PULP gets PULPED!

Derrick Ferguson Takes The Train To GRAND CENTRAL NOIR

Compiled by Terrence P. McCauley

File Size: 349 KB

Print Length: 155 pages

Publisher: Metropolitan Crime Publishing (June 14, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00DFA32KM

Okay, just bear with me for a few minutes, I cry your pardon. Those of you who have been good enough and indulgent enough to read my previous reviews both book and movie know that at times I can be somewhat long winded. But I assure you I do so for a reason and not because I’m in love with my own prose. And I’m trying to make a point here about GRAND CENTRAL NOIR that I think will illustrate exactly what I’m trying to get at when describing the feel of this anthology.

Most of you are familiar with Will Eisner and “The Spirit,” correct? Remember how every once in a while Mr. Eisner would tell stories that had nothing to do with The Spirit or maybe he would show up in the last panel or two simply because since the strip was titled after him he had to show up somewhere. In those standalone, Day In The Life stories, Mr. Eisner would tell short stories full of suspense, mystery, pathos, comedy, horror, crime or romance. Some of those stories were really very memorable. Well, at its best GRAND CENTRAL NOIR evokes the feel of some of those Will Eisner stories. And even when it’s not at its best, it reminded me of the “Naked City” TV show. Which also ain’t bad.

The concept behind GRAND CENTRAL NOIR is simple: all of the stories are set in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, the largest train station in the world celebrating its 100^th birthday this year. I’ve been in Grand Central Terminal many times and it is truly one of the most magnificent structures in New York City. Thousands of people use The Terminal every day and just like they used to say on “Naked City,” they all have stories.

The stories in GRAND CENTRAL NOIR are crime stories but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for other elements to enter into these stories so that while crime is the driving force behind them, they certainly don’t all read the same. And that’s a testament to the talented writers that Terrence McCauley has compiled for this volume.

It’s never stated when I.A. Watson’s “Lost Property” takes place but it reads like a 1930’s screwball comedy/mystery and it’s an excellent choice to start the anthology with as it’s breezy, light and thanks to the rat-ta-tat-tat dialog a fun read with a conclusion that had me grinning from ear to ear.

“Train to Nowhere” by Charles Salzberg and Jessica Hall is set in modern day but it’s feel is very much that of classic noir. There’s a mystery to be solved here but I got the impression that the writers weren’t so much interested in the solution of the mystery as they were in evoking a certain mood and tone and they did indeed accomplish that.

For a while there I feared that Ron Fortier was telling me a shaggy dog story in “Fat Lip’s Revenge” but I should have known better. In the hands of an old pro like Ron it’s a story that at first appears to be going way out over there in the fields somewhere but once you get to the end you understand why Ron had to go out there to bring you back to here. Another story that had me grinning like an idiot by the end.

“Fortune” by S.A. Solomon ends just when it seems like it should be shifting into a higher gear. Not that it isn’t well written. It does a good job of getting into the head of the narrator but that ending is just too abrupt for me and left me feeling cheated out of a proper resolution to the story.

“Meet Me at the Clock” by R. Narvaez is a story that’s soaked in hopelessness right from the opening paragraphs. By the time Lew Conrad got on the train I knew that this story was not going to end well for him and I was right. And “Meet Me at the Clock” is one of several stories in the anthology that gave me the distinctive impression that the actual crime-related plot isn’t all that important to the writer. R. Narvaez is much more interested in exploring this day in the life of this second rater who deserves the fate he gets at the end of the story.

“Terminal Sweep Stakes” is what I like to call a Take No Prisoners Story. Amy Mars is telling a hard mean story about a hard mean man and she pulls no punches doing so. I have no idea if Grand Central Terminal has its own police force but the idea itself was fascinating enough to pull me into the story. The barbed wire and bourbon bite of the prose did the rest.

“Without a Hitch” by R.J. Westerhoff did have a couple of hitches for me. Including a time shift so abrupt and unclear that I actually wondered if somehow a chunk of story had been left out by accident. And the ending is way too anti-climactic and left me mumbling, “You mean that’s it?”

After reading J. Walt Layne’s “The Drop” you may be wondering where the crime element is as I did. I don’t think there is one and I don’t think Mr. Layne cares one bit. Again, this another story that I feel is much more interested in characterization and striving to craft a mood and atmosphere. This story feels ambitious, as if Mr. Layne was trying out a different type of storytelling from his usual style.

“A Primal Force” is a story about family and revenge that I admit I paid more attention to because I recently watched on Turner Classic Movies a really good biopic starring Ernest Borgnine about Joseph Petrosino, a New York City detective at the turn of the century who was put in charge of dealing with Italian criminal organizations such as The Black Hand. Petrosino and The Black Hand both play major roles in this story.

“Off Track” by Matt Hilton had me laughing out loud by the time I reached the end. Because it was a laugh that Mr. Hilton had truly earned as I admired the way he had me thinking one way and so smoothly turned the story completely around. The story’s like a great sleight of hand magic trick where the magician has you looking at one hand while he’s actually doing the trick with the other. One of my favorite stories in the book.

I really enjoyed W. Silas Donohue’s “Herschel’s Broom” because even though all of the stories are set in Grand Central Terminal, “Herschel’s Broom” is the one that to me was actually about Grand Central Terminal, if you get my drift and I think after reading it, you most certainly will.

“Timetable For Crime” by Marcelle Thiebaux is another story I really enjoyed as I like heist stories where whoever is pulling off the heist gets away with it. Criminals are oftentimes so inept in real life that it’s downright fun to see a smart criminal in fiction pull off the perfect crime. A great story that barrels along full tilt boogie from start to finish and never sets a foot wrong once.

“Mary Mulligan” is a story that’s safely in the middle of the road. There’s nothing about it that really makes it stand out but there’s nothing wrong with it either. The prose by Jen Conley is pleasant to read and the situation plays itself out in a fairly straightforward manner with no embellishment or surprises. I like Jen Conley’s prose and wish she’d really swung for the fences in this one. Still, this story is good enough that after reading it I made a notation to look up some of her other stories.

“Spice” by Seamus Scanlon is another story that like “Fortune” and “Without A Hitch” ends just where it was getting goood and I was looking forward to where it was going to take me.

Terrence P. McCauley serves up the piping hot action of “Grand Central: Terminal” as if fully aware his responsibility as clean-up is to leave readers wishing there were more stories to read and he does it with a razor-sharp spy vs. spy story. It isn’t a long story but it does a very good job of conveying a larger world outside the borders and I can very easily see more stories about James Hicks and I would love to know more about The University. If you were a fan of ‘24’ then you’ll get right into this story and enjoy it as much as I did.

Before wrapping up this review I know that the writers would want me to point out that when you purchase a copy of GRAND CENTRAL NOIR you’ll be helping out a wonderful cause: God’s Love We Deliver is an organization dedicated to improving the health and quality of life of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses. All proceeds from this book will be donated to God’s Love We Deliver. For more information about this organization and the amazing work that they are doing, please visit their website

So should you read GRAND CENTRAL NOIR? Sure you should. Not only will you be helping out a worthwhile cause but you’ll be getting eight stories out of fifteen that are absolutely first-rate. Call those the Will Eisner level good stories. The others are “Naked City” good which as I said earlier, still ain’t bad. Enjoy.

Fight Card: Brooklyn Beatdown

Brooklyn – 1954. Bare knuckler brawler Levi Kimbro battles his way through the bloody backroom ghetto bars of Brooklyn in pursuit of his dream of owning his own business. It's a hard and vicious road he walks and it becomes even more complicated when he falls hard for the electrifying Dorothea McBricker.

Dorothea's brother, Teddy, has fallen under the influence of notorious gangster Duke Williamson – a powerful man who is pressuring Levi to join his stable of fighters or face off against the human killing machine, ‘Deathblow’ Ballantine.  A knock-down, drag out, Brooklyn Beatdown is brewing, and Levi will need every ounce of his fighter’s heart if he wants to save not only himself, but the woman he loves ...

Available NOW for your Kindle!

On B-Boys and Pulp Culture: An Essay by Michael A. Gonzales

The essay below was done as a promotion for the short story collection BLACK PULP edited by Gary Phillips and Tommy Hancock. Enjoy!



On B-Boys and Pulp Culture:
Black Pulp edited by Gary Phillips and Tommy Hancock
by Michael A. Gonzales
Gonzales.gonzo@gmail.com

Planet Hip-Hop has always overflowed with folks into various forms of pulp culture. Over the years, I’ve interviewed many rap artists and producers who shared their love for Star Wars, crime movies, karate flicks and the novels of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. Still, I was surprised when Queensbridge legend Nas told me in 1999 that he had once created a Black Pulp hero when he was a kid.

“I used to used to draw my own character called Sea God,” Nas told me. “I copied the body of Conan the Barbarian, but had him standing on the corner instead of in the forest.” Without a doubt, I’m sure Nas isn’t the only one with a stash of drawings and/or writings detailing the bugged adventures of urban champions.

Last year, when respected crime novelist/comic book writer Gary
Phillips invited me to contribute a short story to his latest project BLACK PULP (Pro Se, 2013), co-edited with Tommy Hancock, I immediately thought of that long ago conversation with Nas and decided I too wanted to create a hood hero.

Leaning back in my office chair, I closed my eyes and thought of my own pulp filled childhood growing-up in Harlem: of listening to old Shadow radio programs that were released on records, watching blaxploitation and kung-fu flicks every weekend, devouring the Marshall Rodgers/Steve Englehart’s version of Batman, discovering the weird worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, watching Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon serials on PBS and falling in love with the work of pulp artist supreme Howard Chaykin, the dude George Lucas requested to illustrate the first Star Wars comic book.

After an hour of drifting on those dusty memories, quicker than I could say, “Batman and Robin, Green Hornet and Kato or Easy Rawlinsand Mouse,” my own pulp heroes Jaguar and Shep were born. The lead character Coltrane (Jaguar) Jones owns a Harlem rap club called the Bassment and drives through Harlem cool as Super Fly in a fly sports car. His murderous friend Shep, who just got out of prison, becomes his badass sidekick as the two self-appointed crime fighters go in search of a music minded kidnapper.

Although I’ve never been big on constructing strict outlines for fiction, I knew that I wanted the period to be 1988, the last year Mayor Koch was in office. Crack was at its height, Public Enemy’s brilliant It Takes a Nation of Millions was rockin’ the boulevards, Dapper Dan was creating his bugged designer fashions and New York Citywas still on the verge exploding.

Recalling Fab 5 Freddy, who also appears in the story, telling me about the jazz/hip-hop shows he did with Max Roach at the Mudd Club in the 1980s, the finished story told the tale of a be-bop lover trying to rid b-boys and their music from the streets of Sugar Hill. While working on the story, I consulted with my good friend Robert (Bob) Morales, himself an accomplished comic book writer, co-creator of the black Captain America graphic novel "The Truth" and a pulp culture aficionado. Although he was working on a graphic novel about
Orson Welles at the time, he always found the time to talk. Once, when I thought the Paul Pope/John Carpenter-Escape from New York inspired climax might be too crazy, Bob reminded me, “It’s a pulp story…there’s no such thing as too wild.”

So, after several weeks of calling Bob, sometimes a few times a day,and writing, “Jaguar and the Jungleland Boogie” was finally finished. Sadly, Bob Morales died suddenly on April 17, so I’d like to dedicate the story to him.

In addition to my b-boy/be-bop tale, Black Pulp has a cool line-up of creators of color that include famed novelist Walter Mosley, who penned the introduction, Gar Anthony Heywood, Christopher Chambers, Kimberly Richardson, Mel Odom and others.

BLACK PULP

WALTER MOSLEY INTRODUCTION

BLACKADELIC POP

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: ERIK FROMME

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Erik Fromme?

Erik Fromme: In the simplest words that I can put together: Erik Fromme is highly critical, highly opinionated and passionate about the things he loves be it his family, work, entertainment or hobbies. Though, family and work tend to take the most of my time at the cost of most other things. Which, I guess, is the way it should be.

DF: Where do you live and what do you tell the IRS you do for a living?

EF: I currently, and pretty much have always, live in Buffalo, NY. Yes, that means I’m cursed to support sports teams that have done very little to earn that support in recent decades, but it is what it is.

As far as what the IRS needs to know about how I earn an income I would say that I’m a drafter for a Mechanical Contractor. What does that mean? Well, I basically design either process systems for Industrial facilities like 3M - you know, the place that made the sponge you use to clean your dishes with - or Praxair for liquid gases. Other times it’s for heating and cooling systems for Schools, Hospitals or other Commercial buildings. I mostly work in pipe, but I’ve recently expanded my talents into sheet metal.

As far as what I don’t tell the IRS I do to earn an income... Well, if I tell you I’d have to kill you. And I do know where you live.

DF: What writers have influenced you?

EF: Truthfully, I don’t have a good answer for that. I guess I could say that - looking back on it - I can point to authors like Peter David as being an influence, but that’s because I’ve been exposed to his work throughout all of my likes from Star Trek to comics. When I grew up I never paid attention to whose work I was reading as I cared about what I was reading, and whether it fit into what I liked. It was simply just about the story. Where the characters acting like the characters I knew? Was the universe the universe I knew? When it came to those works, I knew that authors changed every book or every few arcs so I never got attached to anybody in particular. Their names weren’t likely to draw me to other works.

Sure, in hindsight, it was probably a shitty way to deal with it, but I didn’t care as I didn’t know better. I was never that hardcore a fan. I never took it that seriously. Over the past few years, I’ve learned that quality tends to follow quality authors. Author’s like PJ Parrish whose detective novels really showed me how to structure a mystery over the long play. Not just how to develop clues, but to build them into the structure of the story to when these clues came up later as the story unfolded it was organic and not alien to the story as an afterthought or leap in logic. I was forced to think about the story as a whole and what I wanted from it.

I will go back to Peter David who has penned over dozens of titles and has managed to give individual voices to the many characters he’s either created or taken over in his time. To be able to get into the various mindsets of all those different people and understand their motivations is a strong skill to have and to do that in all of the landscapes is a very strong skill to have.

DF: Let’s get right to it: why Fan Fiction?

EF: Well, Fan Fiction was the natural evolution of the PBeM’s I was playing at the time. 13 years ago, RPG’s were all the rage. But, building on pieces of a story as they sporadically dropped into my e-mail started getting tedious with the one or two paragraphs I was responsible for at a time when all I had to work with was a lame three sentences from somebody who wasn’t putting in the effort I was. When I was presented this new option, I liked the appeal of building whole stories directly from my own mind with just my own input. It forced me to consider new factors I hadn’t before like ensemble casts and how to juggle them all. I was responsible for me and the freedom I had with that responsibility couldn’t be equaled.

The easy part to that answer is: the world was already there - in this case being Marvel - and I’ve been reading comics for years so my mind already occupied that space. I knew these characters and their universe. All I needed to do was move them like pieces in chess and focus more purely on story structure and I could let the character development follow. I guess part two to that answer was the collaboration. I didn’t have to explain my world to somebody for them to get it. It was already gotten. So the world building - which I love the most - could start immediately.

DF: How long have you been involved with Fan Fiction?

EF: I started with Marvel Anthology in ’00. It was a very young site with a handful of titles and a lot more available for proposals including the one I was interested in the most: Daredevil. Since then I’ve developed a few more titles across a few more sites, and morphed into the role of EiC for both Marvel and DC Anthology and have been in that position for about 12 years now.

DF: How long has DC Anthology and Marvel Anthology been around?

EF: Marvel Anthology started in April of ’00 and DC Anthology was launched in October of ’01. I’ve been affiliated with both sites for pretty much their entire existence. There have been some sketchy moments when I doubted the longevity of the sites, when production slowed to almost nothing or when I thought the bottom would drop out as people realized that they’re writing ‘fanfic’ and could ‘do better’. But, I’ve been blessed with some very bright and dedicated authors who wouldn’t let either site die. And right now - even through various purges and reboots - both sites boast a combined number of over 1,000 issues.

DF: What are the goals of DC Anthology and Marvel Anthology?

EF: They should be the same goal as anybody else who wants their stuff read: to put forth entertaining and quality stories that builds a cohesive world. That’s the simplest answer I can come up with. We want to be good. Which, knowing the slams that go around when people see shitty pro work and goes ‘that reads like bad fanfic’, might sound ridiculous when applied to fanfic, but I take what we write serious. Otherwise, why do it?

DF: Why should we be reading DC Anthology and Marvel Anthology?

EF: Because we have some really talented authors working for us who deserve to be read. Everybody treats their title and genre inside the universe - like horror or sci-fi titles - with genuine effort. Characters, personalities, relationships and story structure all get attention. And I like to think that DCA and MA offer a bit of a community feel. That these stories don’t just exist inside a vacuum to each other, but that you can tell the authors collaborate to not just strengthen their own books, but each other’s and they show that by crossing over with their titles and building little interconnecting circles that flow from title to title. Despite, obviously, not being paid professionals we all act like we are. These are all characters we love and it would be a disservice to treat them without respect simply because we’re ‘fanfic’.

DF: One of the criticisms about Fan Fiction is that it’s either poorly edited or not edited at all. Your response?

EF: Considering the amount of shitty Fan Fiction out there I almost can’t blame that perception, but when it comes to the Anthology’s - and a few other sites out there inside the community - that couldn’t be farther from the truth. We have a serious of checks that are in place to help insure quality. Firstly, every title on site starts with a proposal that is examined by - at our site - about a half dozen people. Any concerns that are raised in that process get addressed with the proposer and, hopefully, swiftly taken care of to help keep the acceptance process quick. It then gets voted on and it has to have a majority vote before it’s accepted.

When it comes to our monthly releases our editor has a rather thankless job of proofing every single issue before it gets posted to the site. Every issue gets checked for grammar, continuity errors or other concerns that might be raised in the story around the characters and what we might feel be a detriment to the story. Sure, we’re not perfect but we do our best to ensure that any potential reader that stumbles upon us wants to come back, or better yet, spend some of their time offering feedback on things they like and don’t like so we know how to be better.

DF: Detractors of Fan Fiction will claim that those who write it are wasting their time they could be better using to write original stories. What do you say to them?

EF: They might be right, and there have certainly been a lot of people in our immediate community who have moved on from Fan Fiction to pursue professional careers to the detriment of fanfic. But, for me Fan Fiction is writing for the sake of writing. It’s pure. It just is what it is: an exercise in bettering my talent and have fun doing it. Maybe it’s a cop-out on my end for not pursuing a shot to be published and not deal with the hassle that comes from it and if I did who knows, maybe I could be good at it but for me personally I like the built in knowledge that comes with Fan Fiction because you’re working with like minded people. They’re all there to share the same goal. When it comes to world-building, you don’t have to hold back ideas for fear of infringement and you don’t have to explain your work in detail for somebody to get it before you develop new ideas with them.

At the end of the day, I just like to write. I don’t need an agenda or a paycheck to motivate me. And I applaud and have given as much support as I can to my friends who have pursued a professional career. Sure, part of me might feel a little jealous of them being a professional, but I’m also jealous of the fact that I’ll never be called ‘doctor’ or ‘astronaut’ or ‘archaeologist’ as I love space and history too.

And when it comes to wasting my time I know that, ultimately, I’d rather waste my time writing if for nothing but to write than watch shitty reality tv show. If some asshole can watch ‘American Idol’ and yet point the finger at me for wasting my talent and being creative then who’s the one really wasting their time?

DF: Tell us about some of your writers. What is their motivation for writing Fan Fiction?

EF: If I had to judge their motivation for writing Fan Fiction then it would be for one thing: to tell a story about the characters they love. That maybe they want to do more with Superman than just read about him. The secondary motivation would be to share that with somebody else who loves it just the same. It’s fun.

DF: What’s the best advice you can give someone who wants to write Fan Fiction?

EF: To: Just Do It. And, no, I paid Nike no royalties for that slogan. Who gives a damn? Maybe it’s silly to somebody else, but I don’t think so.

DF: Since you’re involved with Marvel and DC Fan Fiction it can be safely assumed you’re a DC and Marvel fan?

EF: Yes. Comics were part of what introduced me to serialized story telling. Beyond that, I liked how it challenged everything. It wasn’t just GI* Joe or the A-Team doing neat things with guns, it was guys flying unprotected through space, performing incredible feats of physicality that would put most people in the hospital. It allowed for anything to be possible and it was exciting to see where a story without any real limits could go. ‘Guardian’s of the Galaxy’ - the new one that the movie will be based on - is a perfect example of that.

DF: What’s your opinion of DC and Marvel these days?

EF: I would guess its pretty low. Frankly, I haven’t read much of either just because I don’t have the money to spend on them. When I did I got very tired of the constant string of events that Marvel and DC forced themselves in. Every event was sure to ‘change things forever’ and it just got boring. There were few books that just told a story that didn’t have to blow up 9 planets and kill about 437 people to be ‘awesome’.

DF: Is Fan Fiction a viable alternative for those readers dissatisfied with DC and Marvel?

EF: I would say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Sure, we’ve all asked ourselves ‘How could I do that better?’ or ‘If I did that, I bet I would have done that this way?’ and Fan Fiction can be an answer to that question. But, if you’re there to just do DC and Marvel better than DC and Marvel then I’d think you’d run out of excitement quick because you’re not telling your own story. You’re re-hashing somebody else’s for your own satisfaction. I’d rather people come to the Anthology’s to tell a story that they’ve always wanted to read themselves, but was never written until they did it.

DF: Why not just write original superhero fiction?

EF: Maybe someday I might. I just haven’t had that strike of inspiration on an idea that really pushed its way out of my head. I’ve thought about it, but have always dropped back on Fan Fiction to scratch that itch. Maybe I find it safe. Maybe I just find things too derivative to be happy with it.

DF: Do you yourself have any aspirations for professional writing or editing?

EF: Given my position at the Anthologies I’ve been doing a lot more editing than writing lately with coordinating groups of titles together, helping flesh out ideas that authors come to me with and applying my own touches to those books with direction - when asked - to help maintain a certain vision and direction for the site as a whole. I do genuinely enjoy building whole universes.

DF: Do you enjoy editing more or writing?

EF: I enjoy writing more than editing, which might sound contradictory to the previous question. I do editing to help the health of the site as a whole, but writing allows me to creative for my own ego. I get to toss down my own ideas and build them as I see them without loaning them out for others to develop.

DF: What’s a typical Day In The Life of Erik Fromme like?

EF: Typically, I wake up every Monday thru Friday at 6:00 am and get to work by 7:00 am where I’m expected to do my duty and deal with about 30 interruptions in that day. Which, is pretty much like day at home when I roll in at about 4:30. I don’t get much time to myself and the things I wish to do as my children demand pretty much every waking moment. I’ve got about 20 or so different projects around the house to do: kitchen renovations, basement renovations, landscaping and what not that also demand my time.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we should know about Erik Fromme?

Erik Fromme: Not really, I would think everything about me is spelled out here. I appreciate the time everybody spent reading this and not closing it out after the 3rd question. And I especially appreciate Derrick’s thought for wanting to interview me for his blog. I’m always fascinated when somebody thinks they need my opinion, but I’m clearly not opposed to giving it.