I Get PULPED! Part Two

Continuing the adventures of Derrick Ferguson from the previous episode (sorry about the gap between, avid listeners), Tommy, Barry, and Ron discuss all the goodness Derrick has coming in the future, including several Dillon related projects!


Check out PULPED! and the New Pulp Movement and at the New Pulp Forum hosted by Comic Related  under NEW PULP! Also, like New Pulp on Facebook!

Ron Fortier Airship 27

Tommy Hancock  Pulp Machine

Barry Reese

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All music used in this podcast is either in the Public Domain or used under an appropriate Creative Commons license. The opening and closing themes were performed and recorded by The Red Hook Ramblers.

The Trail of Sebastian Red #2

I love it when I can economize and knock off two subjects in one post and this indeed is going to be one of those posts.  I’ll be able to let you in on the background of some of the artwork in the title banner and hopefully give a word of encouragement as well.  Here we go: 

Invariably I will be asked by other writers; “You get a lot of reviews and attention and feedback.  How come I don’t?”  Actually, it’s not that blunt but you get the idea.  My reply is usually the same: “You have no control over that.  It’s strictly up to the readers if they want to inform you about how your work made them feel.  All you can do is continue to produce the best work you can and continue to put it out there.  One day it’ll be appreciated.”

Now I realize that isn’t very helpful to writers anxious to know what others think about their writing.  I freely admit that.  And believe me; I was once in those very shoes.  I was writing in Internet Years about 10 years before anybody outside of other writers contacted me to tell me; “Hey, I really like what you’re doing.”

Yeah, you read that right.  10 mollyfoggin’ years.  I was fortunate that I had guys like Russ Anderson, Tom Deja, Tim Hartin, Barry Reese and Tommy Hancock who recognized my alleged talent and were generous enough to provide me with their criticism and feedback.  But yeah, comments from Plain Ol’ Reader Dan or Dora weren’t comin’.  And let’s be honest, every writer gets a thrill out of hearing from a total stranger who took a chance and picked up a book or read a story of theirs and was excited enough by that book or story to take the time and let that writer know.

Now, one day I get this email from somebody I’d never heard of.  A Belgian artist named Alain Valet.  This gentleman informed me that he had read my Sebastian Red story; “Of All the Plagues A Lover Bears” and was inspired by some of the imagery in the story to go ahead and create pieces of art based on the story and here they are:

The two pieces are incorporated into the title banner but they deserve to be seen in entirety so that they can properly be appreciated.  The one at the top is my favorite of the two as it’s actually from the story.  Sebastian Red needs some information from a demon and plays a game of poker with it in order to do so.  But believe me, I love and adore them both.  Mr. Valet and I communicated for a while after that and even briefly discussed the possibility of him illustrating a Sebastian Red story.  But as it happens so often on The Internet, folks fall out of touch.  I haven’t heard from him in a number of years but he has made an indelible impression on me in my development as a writer.

So I guess the point I’m trying to make is this: you just never know who’s going to read your books, your plays or look at your artwork or listen to your music and be moved enough to not only respond and reply to what you did but to create something of their own.  And isn’t that why we all strive to create?  Because somebody wrote, drew, sang or said something that ignited our own creative fire?

If you come away from this post with anything (besides my typical shameless huckstering) I hope it’s this: continue to write, paint, draw, sing, speak, and dance…whatever it is you do.  Because your own Alain Valet is out there.  But he or she can’t speak to you unless you speak to them first.

  

I Get PULPED! Part One

Our own Derrick Ferguson steps into the spotlighted hot seat up on the chopping block for this episode which is so Ferguson packed that it is a two parter!  Join Ron as he goes into the cracks and crevices of Derrick's background and then Tommy and Barry talk Derrick up about his latest Pulpwork book, FOUR BULLETS FOR DILLON!   Enjoy all the manliness one Pulp show can handle when Derrick gets PULPED

Check out PULPED! and the New Pulp Movement at www.newpulpfiction.com and at the New Pulp forum hosted by Comic Related at
http://www.comicrelated.com/forums/ under NEW PULP! Also, like New Pulp on Facebook!

Ron Fortier Airship 27  Tommy Hancock Pulp Machine
Barry Reese Barry Reese

The Trail of Sebastian Red #1

And a long trail it is.  So long that it’ll take more than one post for me to adequately cover this character but that’s all right.  I love setting things up so that there’s a sequel automatically built in.  And yes, that’s a reference to most of my writing.

Sebastian Red is a character that was born out of my love for Westerns.  A love that began when my father took me to see “The Wild Bunch” during its original theatrical run in 1969.  And yes, I am that old.  Stop snickering.  From then on I was totally and absolutely in love with the genre.  Didn’t hurt that every time there was a western on TV, my dad made sure I knew it was on.  Even if he had to go to work, I would watch it and then when he came home I would tell him the story, often acting out all the parts as well.

When I finally got around to sitting down and writing an actual western I ran up a really thick and hard wall: research.  I’ll be honest with you; most of what I know about The Old West comes from movies, TV shows, Marvel Comics The Rawhide Kid (the real one…you know what I mean) and western fiction written by guys like Luke Short, Elmore Leonard, Larry McMurtry, Louis L’Amour.  Oh, I have read a few reference books on The Old West but I’ll tell you the truth: I’d rather make up a fact rather than look it up.

Which is where the idea came to me to marry up the western with heroic fantasy.  I’d set my story in The Wild West but it would be a Wild West on a parallel Earth where nobody thought it strange that elves, werewolves, demons and zombies lived right alongside gunfighters, saloon floozies, Indians, cowboys and school marms.  This way I could certainly have my cake and eat it too.  After all, who’s gonna contradict me about a Wild West I made up?  Heh.

The character of Sebastian Red himself was inspired by Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone and Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane.  A loner, all that we know about him so far is that he’s a man of superhuman skill with his sword and his midnight black seven-shooter revolver, a .45 Leone Nightmaster.  At some point in his past he was an honored member of a guild of elite warriors called The Lords of Burning Iron.  They protect a warm and golden southern land called Carrincha.

As a boy and youth, Sebastian Red was trained in The Arts of Sword and Gun, becoming extraordinarily deadly in the use of both.  At some unspecified point in his life, he committed an act of betrayal so awful that he was forced to leave his wife and two daughters behind in Carrincha while he became a landless wanderer, working as a bounty hunter for pay which he sends to his family.  He’s picked up a considerable amount of magical knowledge in his travels.  Enough to have gotten the notice of some nasty supernatural entities that mean him no good.  Neither do his former comrades in The Lords of Burning Iron.  Some of them roam the land, hunting for him to take their vengeance on his still unrevealed act of betrayal.

Intrigued?  Good, ‘cause I’m going to briefly go over something a lot of folks ask me about before I tell you where you can find the Sebastian Red stories.  Something that I think is certainly intriguing.

I describe Sebastian Red as a black man of average height and weight who wears his hair in shoulder length dreadlocks.  Old golden coins and small, pinky sized idols carved out of wood are woven into his hair, charms against evil spells and such.  Now this is almost exactly the way I describe another one of my characters: Toulon The Magician, the crimelord who rules Denbrook (patience, patience…we’ll get to that another time) which has caused readers who have read both the Sebastian Red stories and the Diamondback novel to ask: “Are Toulon and Sebastian Red the same guy?”

Well, yes…and no.  If you’ve read Michael Moorcock and know that in his Multiverse most of his characters exist in different dimensions.  Sometimes they’re the same character in many dimensions while in others, they’re not.  It’s something like that at work here. 

It gets even more complicated when I reveal that both Sebastian Red and Toulon are worshippers of Thahali, She Who Wears The Dress of Seven Sufferings.  Thahali is the one responsible for the destruction of Usimi Dero, where Dillon was born and she killed his father.  But that is also a story for another time. 

Now where can you find the stories of Sebastian Red?  Glad you asked….

The first Sebastian Red story published; “All Of The Plagues A Lover Bears” appeared in the anthology

While the second one, “The Tale Of The Baron’s Tribute” was published in

Which was originally offered as a pre-order giveaway for HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD VOL. II.  Editor Russ Anderson has informed me that in December, HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD: CAMPFIRE TALES will be available as a 99 cent ebook.  Don’t worry, I’ll let you know exactly when you can get it soon as I know.

And the third Sebastian Red story; “Storms of Blood and Snow” can be found in

And I think that’s more than enough for right now.  As we go down the trail, I’ll take each one of the Sebastian Red stories individually and pick ‘em apart and talk about why I wrote them and what makes them so much fun for me to write.  Hope this sparked your interest enough to make you want to go read the stories for yourself.  But if not, come on back any way.  I’ll change your mind sooner or later.