Wednesday Cover: QUARRY IN THE BLACK

Here's the cover for the upcoming Max Allan Collins "Quarry" novel, Quarry In The Black, from Hard Case Crime books. The stunning illustration is by the late Glen Orbik, a true pulp art master who passed away last May. Reportedly, it was his last completed cover painting. Quarry In The Black is the 12th(!) "Quarry" novel, and is due to be published in October, to tie-in with the Quarry television series on Cinemax.

Wednesday Cover: The Wrong Quarry

The "Quarry" series, chronicling the life of a Vietnam vet-turned-hired killer, is my favorite of author Max Allan Collins' various crime fiction series. Originally published in the 70s, the series got a new lease on life in recent years at neo-pulp publishing house Hard Case Crime, for which Collins has written five new Quarry novels. The latest, The Wrong Quarry, will be out next year under this gorgeous cover painting by Tyler Jacobson.

I've neglected this blog of late, while I concentrated on wrapping up a couple of projects, but I'm back and should be posting about comics, B-movies and other pop culture goofiness fairly regularly again... for a while, anyway. Stay tuned.

Monday Afternoon Miscellany

• This is cool. Pulp writer Lester Dent, the creator and primary author of the legendary Doc Savage novels, has a new book coming out!

Actually, as the pulps were dying out, Dent turned his talents toward the growing paperback market, and actually sold a crime novel to Gold Medal Books. Now, Charles Ardai of Gold Medal's modern counterpart, Hard Case Crime, has uncovered another, previously unpublished, crime novel by Dent. I don't know how that guy keeps coming up with these treasures, but I'm grateful that he does.

Here's what HCC has to say bout the book: If you were small-time grifter Walter Harsh, recovering in a hospital with a broken arm, you’d listen to a proposition that could net you a cool $50,000 for impersonating the South American strongman you resemble. You'd pay attention when the dictator’s sultry mistress started putting the moves on you. And in the dead of night, when no one was watching, you might just hatch a plot to get it all for yourself: the money, the girl, and the stash of stolen loot she’s conspiring to spirit out of the country...

Dent's Honey in His Mouth will be published by HCC in October with a very nice cover by Ron Lesser. For more info and a sample chapter, click here.

• Over the weekend I watched Roland Emmerlich's 10,000 B.C. Normally, I'm not a fan of Emmerlich's movies, which generally seem to be constructed on the contemporary theory that if you have enough special effects, you don't need a story – or at least one that makes sense. But when my pal Martin Powell gave me the key to enjoying the director's recent cinematic caveman saga, I decided to put it in the Netflix queue.

According to Martin, the movie reminded him of an Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure story... and after watching it myself, I agree. Like Pathfinder – another generally panned fantasy that I enjoyed – the negativity that followed its release seemed to be based on the movie's clear disregard for historical accuracy in favor of pumping up the adventure story, and the perceived "corny-ness" of certain story points. But, you know, I just finished reading two classic Burroughs stories, and if held their corny-ness and cliche's against them, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the blood & thunder fun of the tales. And really, it's much the same with 10,000 B.C.

The story is somewhat simple and ultimately predictable – in fact, it follows a classic ERB template: the hero's beautiful princess is kidnapped, and he sets out on a quest through a dangerous world of prehistoric beasts and human savages to rescue his true love from a technologically advanced society, ultimately uniting warring factions and leading a rebellion against a possibly-alien tyrant. Deep? No. But satisfyingly pulpy, and quite well-executed.

The cast is made up entirely of athletic unknowns (but the script really doesn't demand much thespic heavy-lifting), and the CGI effects work is really quite good. Personally, I got a kick out of seeing thundering herds of mastodons and a flock of ferocious, giant, flightless birds, as well as the spectacle of the climactic scenes.

And really, it's a caveman movie. What do you want?

• It's still a ways off, but it looks good that artist Joe Staton and I will be sharing a table at the Maine Comics Festival in mid-May. It's being held at the Ocean Gateway Building in Portland, Maine, and it's being put on by my good pals at Casablanca Comics.

I'm hoping that we'll have the Femme Noir trade paperback available for sale by then, but even if it's not, we'll have plenty of copies of the individual issues. I'll also have copies of some of my other books, and I'm sure that Joe will be doing sketches and selling art.

This is the second new comics show in Maine in the last couple of years (after last Fall's BangPop show), and I'll be very interested to see how well it goes, especially in this economy.

• And, following up on my other recent Buck Rogers posts, here's a Buck fan-film that also riffs on Kerry Conran's Sky Captain And the World of Tomorrow. It's pretty cute.

Recent Reading

Still on a spy kick. In the past couple of weeks, I've read the second Alex Rider teen spy book by Anthony Horowitz, Point Blanc, which I found to be a huge improvement over the first book in the series, Stormbreaker. Although it homages Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service (as Stormbreaker did with Fleming's Moonraker), the villain's plot is friggin' ingenious and original, and the use of a 14 year-old-agent makes a lot more narrative sense in Point Blanc than in the first book.

I liked it so much that I picked up the third novel, Skeleton Key, yesterday, and intend to read it just as soon as I finish the third – and latest – Young Bond novel, Double Or Die, by Charlie Higson... which I bought at the same time.

Sticking with the spy genre, last week I read the second "Mallory & Morse" spy novel by Forrest Devoe Jr (Max Phillips), Eye Of The Archangel, and found it too to be an improvement over the first in the series, Into The Volcano. I believe there's only these two M&M novels so far, but I hope Phillips writes at least one more and makes it a trilogy.

Other recent reads include Luck Be A Lady, Don't Die, the second "Rat Pack" mystery by Robert J. Randisi, and the excellent Hard Case Crime paperback original, Money Shot by Christa Faust. Speaking of Hard Case Crime, I've also got the Double Novel, Spiderweb and Shooting Star, by Robert Bloch, on hand to read soon.

I also read two Conan comics trade paperbacks from Dark Horse Comics, The Blood-Stained Crown & Other Stories, a collection of Conan stand-alone adventures, and Rogues In The House & Other Stories, writer Tim Truman's adaptation and expansion of the titular tale by Robert E. Howard. The first collection is mixed bag, story-wise, but has some really gorgeous art by veterans like John Severin, Rafael Kaynan and the aforementioned Truman, while Rogues was a solid adaptation with decent – if under-detailed – art by Cary Nord & Tomas Giorello.

It's been a while since I've managed this much recreational reading, and it's nice.

The Reading Stack

I've been trying to read more prose fiction lately, and to that end, I've recently picked up a fair number of new books. Most of them have been in the crime/mystery genre, but there's been some sci-fi and spy-fi stuff in there, too.

I already mentioned Into The Volcano, a 60's spy novel by Forrest DeVoe Jr (Max Phillips), which I finished last week, and really enjoyed. I'll definitely be ordering the sequel novel as soon as I can.

In the past month, I also finally read Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. I knew the story so well through comics and reading the later novels in the series that I was sure I'd read it before, but upon getting a new hardcover omnibus of the first three Barsoom novels, I discovered that I'd never actually sat down and read the original book before. That was kinda embarrassing, but at least I got to finally experience it firsthand at age 42 – almost 30 years after I discovered the series on the bookmobile with with Swords of Mars.

After that, I read two "historical mysteries" – Robert J. Randisi's Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime, the first of two mystery novels set in early-60's Vegas and featuring Sinatra's Rat Pack as supporting characters, and Max Allan Collins' A Killing In Comics, set during the Golden Age of comics, right after WW II. I loved the Randisi book, and even re-watched the original Ocean's 11, after I finished it. I'll definitely be ordering the sequel. Killing was a lot of fun, too.

Still to be read are two Hard Case Crime paperbacks – Christa Faust's Money Shot and Lawrence Block's A Diet of Treacle, Greg Rucka's latest (and long-awaited) Atticus Kodiak novel, Patriot Acts, and the new space opera by Gary Wolfe and his pal, the Archbishop John Myers, Space Vulture. Looks promising.

And I still have some more Burroughs to get to, too. It should keep me busy for another month or so... and of course, I've got a bunch of graphic novels to catch up on, including a couple of 70's Justice Society reprint collections that Joe Staton sent me, and the spy comic Left On Mission, a copy of which I just won in a contest over on the Double 0 Section blog! How cool is that?

So... what are you reading?

Deadly Beloved

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Max Allan Collins was kind enough to send me an ARC of Deadly Beloved, the forthcoming Ms. Tree novel from Hard Case Crime.

It's been a busy month, so it took me a while to get around to reading it, but once I did, I breezed right through it. Collins' first-person prose is, as always, honed to a razor sharpness; terse and taut, with a relentless, driving narrative thrust that sweeps you along and makes the book difficult to put down.

The novel essentially retells – and retcons – the first two Ms. Tree comics serials, originally published in the early 80's, which means that for long-time readers like myself, some "surprises," well, aren't all that surprising.

But Collins has wisely re-arranged the particulars, added some previously-untold elements, and changed enough details that the reading experience is still fresh and exciting. All the familiar supporting characters are there – Rafe Valer, Dan Green, Roger Freemont, Dominique Muerta – and all pretty much as we remember them. There are also a few new (and intriguing) characters added to the cast, and I hope Collins gets an opportunity to sequelize this someday, so we can learn more about them.

While I enjoyed the book a great deal, and admire Collins' deftly executed updating of the 80's "origin story" to the present day, I have to confess that I was a bit put-off by the main character's apparent obsession with repeatedly name-dropping famous clothing designers, and her new propensity for foul language. I'm not offended by swearing – I can toss off vulgar expletives with the best of them – but it did seem somewhat jarring coming from Michael Tree. Maybe it's the lingering awereness of her funnybook origins, but it just "sounded" odd.

But those are really minor quibbles. It's great to have Ms. Tree back in any form, and her return is certainly a triumphant one. I highly recommend Deadly Beloved. It's a top-notch mystery thriller, with a formidible female protagonist, and I suggest that every crime fiction fan – whether they're familiar with the original comic books or not – pick up a copy when the regular edition is published in November.

Heavy Breathing & Hot Lead

Well, for those following the continuing saga of Chris and his health horrors, I'm finally on the Bi-PAP machine for my apnea.

They came and instructed me on how to use it on Friday, and so far... well, I think I'm doing okay. It does take some serious getting used to, and while I've yet to sleep a whole night straight through, I have managed some nice, long stretches with the air mask on. I also have noticed that when I do awaken, I seem somewhat less groggy, although I suspect, from the way my jaw ached yesterday morning, that I've started grinding my teeth. I may need to get a mouth guard thingy (and yes, that is the technical term).

Anyway, I'm told the first couple of weeks are the hardest, so hopefully I'll get through them okay and it will be smooth sailing thereafter.

In unrelated news, author Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition, etc.), whom I know from my years editing at Tekno•Comics – specifically, editing Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger – kindly sent me an advance reading copy of his forthcoming novel for Hard Case Crime, Deadly Beloved.

The novel is the first extended prose piece featuring Collins' long-running comic book P.I. character Ms. Tree (there have been a handful of short stories), and I'm really eager to read it. In fact, it's next on my pile, right after I finish re-reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan At The Earth's Core.

I've been a fan of both Collins and the character for God knows how long, and the comics series is one of my all time favorites – certainly in the top five. Ms. Tree's also been a big influence on Femme Noir (Joe Staton being one of the only artists other than co-creator Terry Beatty to draw the more famous lady dick), so I can't wait to see what Collins has her up to now.

Finally, I've actually got a new DVD Late Show column written – on schedule for the first time in months – and it should be up at Quick Stop on Tuesday. If you've been reading this blog for the last week, you've read a couple of the reviews already, but you won't want to miss my reactions to the new, long-awaited Flash Gordon – Saviour of the Universe Edition.

...Speaking of Flash, has the new SciFi Channel show started airing yet?

What I want for Christmas...

Yes, I know it's not even April yet, but thanks to those amazing purveyors of hardboiled pulp over at Hard Case Crime, I already know at least two things I'll be groveling for, come November: the Hard Case paperbacks of Max Allan Collins' Deadly Beloved and Mickey Spillane's Dead Street.

Of course, HCC's got a lot of great stuff coming out before then, too. In fact, 2007 looks to be their best year yet from where I'm standing, with Gil Brewer's The Vengeful Virgin next month, David Goodis' The Wounded And The Slain coming out in May, George Axelrod's Blackmailer in June, and Richard Aleas' (HCC founder Charles Ardai) second John Blake private eye novel Songs of Innocence in July... etc. etc.

But it's the Collins and Spillane books that have me the most excited.

November's Dead Street is the first posthumous Spillane novel, edited and prepared for publication by Max Collins.

As a guy who considers himself a fan of and friend to both of those fine gentlemen by virtue of having worked with them for a couple of years on the mid-90's comic book series, Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger, I'm eager to get my grubby mitts on this novel. There are no crime fiction writers I admire and enjoy more than Spillane, and from the sample chapter on the HCC website, Dead Street looks to be something special.

As for December's Deadly Beloved – well, it's a book I've been waiting for since the early 1980s. You see, that's when Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty introduced the world to Ms. Michael Tree, comics' longest-running private eye character. I won't claim to have picked up her very first appearances in the B&W Eclipse Monthly magazine, but when she got her own color comic, Ms. Tree's Thrilling Detective Mysteries, I was there. And I faithfully followed her through four publishers and more than a decade of groundbreaking comic book thrillers.

Well, now, after teasing fans with a couple of short stories over the years, Collins has finally written a Ms. Tree novel, and it's Deadly Beloved. Beatty has provided a gorgeous cover painting, and I'm desperately hoping to find the book in my Christmas stocking.

After all, isn't that what the holiday season is all about? Murder, mayhem, mystery, Ms. Tree and... Mickey Spillane?

So Good... it's Criminal.

Been meaning to write about Hard Case Crime for a while now. If you're not familiar with HCC, it's a publishing imprint that's just about to go into its third year, offering top-quality hardboiled (mostly) crime fiction – both vintage reprints of rare pulp and old school-style originals – in paperback, with brand new painted covers and graphic design that evokes the era of the great PBO publishing houses like Gold Medal.

Among the authors in their stable are such names as Max Allan Collins, Lawrence Block, David Dodge, Cornell Woolrich, Richard S. Prather, Charles Williams, Ed McBain, Richard Powell, Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, Donald E. Westlake (and Richard Stark), and Stephen King, among many others. In fact, among them are line founders Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, who have both contributed their own books to the line; Ardai writing as "Richard Aleas." Authors announced for future volumes include Gil Brewer, David Goodis... and Mickey Spillane!

The cover illustrations are gorgeous. Artists include Richard B. Farrell, Michael Koelsch, Gregory Manchess, Chuck Pyle and Glen Orbik. Hard Case Crime has even managed to coax brand new paintings out of legendary paperback illustrator Robert McGinnis... and they've been among his best!

Unfortunately, finances have prohibited me being able to buy every title the line, which generally releases a book a month, but I've got probably two-thirds of the Hard Case library, and not one has been a disappointment.

Hell, I've even been published by Hard Case! Sorta. When HCC republished Donald Hamilton's Night Walker with a quote on the back culled from the Thrilling Detective Website – the quote was from an article I wrote! Too bad they didn't attribute it to me on the cover, but hey – it's there, it's mine, and as a huge fan of Hamilton, I'm appropriately... thrilled!

Speaking of Thrilling Detective, after a long hiatus, hardboiled webmonkey Kevin Burton Smith has just posted a new "issue" of his amazing and invaluable website, with a bunch of brand new short fiction and over 300 new or updated files added to its already extensive database of private eye characters, authors and scholarship.

I've been a fan of the site for years, and long ago, I had the honor of being among the first authors to have their P.I. fiction published on the site, with stories featuring my own P.I. character Matthew Dain. Surprisingly, even after all these years, I still occasionally get e-mails from folks saying kind things about my stories there.

Maybe it's time to write some new ones?