The Spider And The Monster Makers

A few years back, I contributed a short story to The Spider Chronicles, a prose fiction anthology from Moonstone Books spotlighting the legendary pulpmagazine character created by Norvell Page. The book was fully licensed and featured a stellar line-up of talent: Steve Englehart, Martin Powell, Bill Crider, Mort Castle, Chuck Dixon, C.J. Henderson, Howard Hopkins, John Jakes, and many others. I'm still not sure how I rated inclusion in such august company. My story, "The Spider And The Monster Makers," was my humble attempt to emulate Page's breathless, vivid prose, and although I don't think I quite accomplished that goal, I'm still quite proud of how the story turned out, and feel honored to have been asked to participate.

A week or so ago, artist Tom Floyd (creator of Captain Spectre) posted a scan of this great illustration, which accompanied my story in the aforementioned anthology, over on Facebook. We exchanged a few e-mails about it, and he graciously gifted me the original artwork, which will soon be in a frame adorning my office wall. It's a terrific piece, and evocatively illustrates the action-packed climax of my tale.

If you missed the book when it came out, I believe that it is now out of print and commanding "collectible" prices. However, I have discovered that Moonstone does have a Kindle e-book edition available that can be purchased through Amazon here: The Spider Chronicles

Wednesday Cover: The Spider

One of my favorite pulp magazine covers, featuring one of my all-time favorite pulp heroes. One of the things I'm most proud of in my so-called "career" is being allowed to contribute a story to Moonstone's authorized Spider anthology a couple years back.

Back @ Home

I'm back from my trip, and back to work, trying to get a couple of scripts written before the end of the month, and starting to ramp up a few new projects.

I'm finally getting around to the Captain Midnight project that's been gestating for several years now. I think Moonstone and I have finally gotten our heads together on a format and a plan, and I'm shooting to get my end of it done by the end of the year. I'm also talking to them about some other interesting projects including possible returns to the worlds of Kolchak and The Spider. Keep your fingers crossed.

Progress continues to be made, albeit slowly, on Perils on Planet X and the new Gravedigger graphic novel, both for Ape Entertainment. I'm hopeful that both projects will finally see the light of day in 2009. I'm also working on further adventures of Femme Noir, beginning with a double-sized Annual, Supernatural Crime, tentatively planned for next Summer.

Speaking of Femme Noir, I'm told that Issue #4 of The Dark City Diaries will be out in about a month.

Another project I'm excited about is "The Name On The Poster," an 8-page Western story that I've written, which will appear in next year's Outlaw Territory anthology from Image Comics. The story is being drawn by my Femme Noir co-creator, Joe Staton, and will be inked by my Gravedigger accomplice, Rick Burchett. I've included the first page of pencils here. It's my first pro work in the Western genre, and it's a real joy having my two favorite collaborators team up on the art.

I finally saw Hellboy II on DVD and thought it was great.. Guillermo Del Toro is just an astounding visual stylist, and I truly hope he returns to the property to finish up a trilogy. Of course, he's got The Hobbit film(s) to do first, and at least a half-dozen other projects on his plate, so we'll have to see how it works out.

I also saw Get Smart, which I didn't hate, but I wish it had hewed closer to the tone of the old television show and that Steve Carrell and the scriptwriters had made Maxwell Smart at least slightly resemble Don Adams' character. The cast was good, for the most part, and Anne Hathaway was gorgeous, but it was ultimately a bit disappointing.

Hoping to see Quantum Of Solace before the end of the week, probably Thursday. So far, I'm hearing very mixed reports, so i'm trying to keep my expectations low. I had very mixed feelings about Casino Royale, and although I liked it overall, there were things about it that I didn't care for... and it sounds like Quantum is made up primarily of those same things.

Oh well, I'll know for sure in a few days.

Hope you guys enjoyed the "Joe Walker" stories. There wasn't much feedback, so I don't think I'll be posting any more fiction pieces here – unless I go out of town again, anyway!

Aren't Ninjas About Due For A Comeback?

• The cover of Femme Noir #1 made the front page of the Bangor Daily News (Maine) newspaper's "Lifestyle" section today, accompanying an article about the city's upcoming comic con, BangPop.

The article can be read on their website here.

I'm eagerly anticipating Saturday's show. It will be my first convention appearance in several years, and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the other genre creators who live in Maine. Here's hoping that BangPop has a decent turn-out, and becomes an annual event. I'd like to see Maine have its own, quality pop culture con.

• Over the weekend, Brandi and I went camping in Cobbscook Bay State Park. Unfortunately, we had to cut our trip short by a day when the weather turned bad, but we did have a pleasant Friday afternoon, evening and Saturday morning in the woods.

On the way home, I also got a chance to stop by one of my favorite used book stores and pick up a few vintage Men's Adventure paperbacks.

My big "find" was a copy of the mid-Seventies Spider paperback, Death Reign of the Vampire King. What's so cool about this item is that Pocket Books updated the 30's pulp hero to make him an Executioner clone! Check out that cover painting – the handsome, blond secret agent look is a far cry from the black-cloaked and masked original! I've been looking for these editions for years, and was thrilled to finally find one.

I also scored a couple of Black Samurai novels by Marc Olden. I've read good things about this blaxploitation/martial arts paperback series in the past, and am looking forward to checking them out.

• Speaking of martial arts, I've been revisiting a bunch of 80's Cannon Films ninja flicks lately. I've been watching Sho Kosugi in Return of the Ninja, and Michael Dudikoff and the late, great Steve James, in the American Ninja series. I don't know what it is, but I genuinely love these movies. Maybe it's just simple nostalgia, but I really get a kick out of these flicks, with their clumsy choreography and potboiler plots... and not in a cynical, ironic way, either. Maybe it's because they're so crude by today's standards, without the slick fighting moves and CGI effects, but something about them really appeals to me.

• Getting back to the Men's Adventure paperbacks for a minute, I'm also in the midst of re-reading the Omega Sub series from the very early 90's. It's essentially a post-Apocalyptic take on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It chronicles the adventures of the crew of an American super submarine, The Liberator, which survives World War III because it was on a mission under the Polar Ice Cap when the nukes started flying. Now, they sail around the world trying to aid survivors while battling radioactive mutants and a mysterious sub that appears to be a twin of their own.

I bought them when they came out about 15 years ago, and enjoyed them. I'm re-reading them now because a month or so ago, I received a nice fan letter about my work on the Kolchak Tales: Night Stalker of the Living Dead miniseries. It turned out to be from author David Robbins, who wrote the majority of the Omega Sub series. Remembering how much I liked the books, I recently dug them out and started re-reading them. Fun stuff.

I guess maybe my taste in entertainment did peak when I was fifteen....

Death to the Dealers of Death!

I had a nice surprise this week.

A Spider fan named Jack Maxwell picked up a few extra replica Spider "premium" rings (issued as a promotional item by Baen Books for their new Spider pulp reprints) in San Diego and kindly sent me one. Apparently, he thought I handled the Master of Men with some degree of competence in my short story, "The Spider and the Monster Makers," which appeared in Moonstone Books' Spider Chronicles anthology.

I've had very little feedback on that particular tale, so receiving this neat gift and Jack's gracious letter was very gratifying. I tried very hard to capture the flavor of the original pulps and do justice to the character with that story. It's nice to know that someone thought I succeeded.

Thanks, Jack!

Hey, Kids! Comics!

After Seventeen years toiling away in the comics industry, struggling to make my mark as a writer, it's beginning to look like 2008 might be my biggest year yet in the biz.

Yeah, I know we're not even halfway through 2007 yet, but making indy comics takes a long time. As it stands, though, I have a bunch of projects moving along that should be out next year.

Of course, there are more than a few projects I've been involved with that I thought would be out long ago that never made it to the stands. And some of the projects I have on tap for '08 were originally intended to be finished years ago. But I'm reasonably confident that most of the projects I'm listing here will be out and in comic shops before the end of '08. They're all well-along, production-wise, and have strongly committed, established publishers – publishers that I have confidence will actually still be around when the books are ready to go next year.

Here's what we're looking forward to in '08:

Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries. Finally! The great folks at Ape Entertainment have picked up this long-gestating creator-owned 4-issue project, drawn by Joe Staton, based on our webcomic. Horacio Ottolini and Mark Stegbauer are slapping on the inks, while Melissa Kaercher colors.

Kolchak: Night Stalker of the Living Dead. A three-issue miniseries from Moonstone Books, based on the classic TV series. In this Tim Hamilton-drawn horror epic, I take the intrepid reporter/monster hunter and drop him down into the middle of a Dawn of the Dead/28 Days Later-styled zombie plague. Hey, everybody loves zombies, right? Covers by Dave Aikens.

Captain Midnight. Right now, this is a serialized back-up feature entitled "Assault on Midnight Mesa," made up of three 6-page installments, that I hope Moonstone will eventually collect as a one-shot. The artist is Rich Clark.

Perils on Planet X. I've just come to a verbal agreement (with contracts on the way) with a reputable publisher to bring to the market the long-in-the-works sci-fi swashbuckler illustrated by the talented Gene Gonzales. Three issues, color. Look for more details on this, soon.

And, finally, there's Gravedigger: Dangerous Prey, a new, hardboiled crime comics one-shot, pencilled by Rick Burchett and inked by Fred Harper. Of the projects on this list, it's the most tentative, but I'm hopeful that it will be out before the end of next year.

I also have a number of prose stories lined up for publication by Moonstone Books in '08, featuring characters like The Avenger, Captain Midnight and, possibly, The Spider again.

I'm the busiest I've been in years, and I'm having a blast working on these projects. Hopefully, they'll proceed without serious snags and make it to your local comics shop as planned. Keep your fingers crossed!

At Last – The Spider Returns!

My comp copies of Moonstone’s The Spider Chronicles showed up in the mail today. I'm told they'll be in comics shops on Wednesday.

This is a very big deal for me – I've had prose fiction published online and in a couple of (very) small press magazines, but this is the first appearance of a Christopher Mills short story in a bonafide, professional book; in many ways, it feels like my first real published story.

My one complaint (’cause you know I gotta have one): for some reason, someone made the decision to break 60 years of tradition and changed the traditional yellow and red logo to dark green and yellow. It just doesn't pop at all – and as far as I can tell, in the history of the character, it has NEVER been any colors other than yellow and red. Sigh.

Overall, though, it’s a very handsome volume with an impressive list of contributors (I'm in the same book as John Jakes, Bill Crider, Mort Castle, Chuck Dixon and Steve Englehart?!), and I’m proud to have been included... especially since, based on their reaction to this story, Moonstone's editors have subsequently asked me to contribute to no less than four more upcoming books! Cool, no?

In any case, it’s out now (finally!) and I encourage anyone who’s a fan of classic pulp characters – and The Spider, in particular, obviously – to pick it up.

Please, though, when you get to the sentence at the top of page 313 where I carelessly used the word "silently" twice – the second occurrence was supposed to have been changed to "soundlessly."

Had to get that off my chest. Thanks!

The Spider's Justice...

Here's an excerpt – the opening paragraphs, in fact – of my contribution to Moonstone Books' The Spider Chronicles, a charming little potboiler of pulp pastiche and purple prose that I like to call (in the tradition of original Spider author Norvell Page), "The Spider and the Monster Makers"...

As Mickey "No-Nose" Norton plunged from the 31st floor of the Belmont Towers with the crimson likeness of an eight-limbed arachnid seared on his forehead, it was not his short, sordid, and utterly misspent life of petty larceny and craven violence that flashed before his gaping, mud-brown eyes.

No, in those last scant moments of awareness before his mortal existence came to an abrupt conclusion on the concrete sidewalk that bordered bustling Broad Street, all that occupied the pitiable hood's consciousness was the grotesque, leering face of the cloaked apparition known as the Spider. The blazing demonic eyes gleaming behind a black domino mask and grinning, fang-filled maw of the Master of Men filled Norton's brief final thoughts, dominating them completely.

Even the roaring wind in "No-Nose's" ears could not compete with the Spider's hellish laughter, a mirthless, soul-shattering cackle that drowned out Norton's own screams and echoed thunderingly within his skull.

The Spider perched precariously on the narrow ledge and watched with grim amusement as the flat-faced felon splattered scarlet on the sidewalk thirty-one floors below. Pulling his black cloak tightly around himself, he turned to the sheer brick face of the building and began to ascend as effortlessly as the arachnid that was his namesake, his strong, deft fingers snagging purchase in the slightest of recesses.

There was some irony, the darkling figure mused, in "No-Nose's" unfortunate plummet, as the case which currently consumed the Spider had begun with a different fatal plunge, just weeks before....

Want to read the rest? For ordering information, check out the previous post below.

Buy My Books!

So, you're thinking about picking up a copy of The Night Driver graphic novel (adapted by yours truly) or the forthcoming The Spider Chronicles (which includes my short story, "The Spider and the Monster Makers," among its varied literary riches), but don't know where to find them?

Well, in an effort to aid the curious consumer in locating (and, one hopes, purchasing) these extraordinary publications online, here are the respective Amazon.com listings (just click on the titles):

The Night Driver
A full-color, square bound graphic novel based on a story by John Cork, adapted by yours truly with art by Christopher Legasse. Published by Cinemagraphix and Moonstone Books.

The Spider Chronicles
A trade paperback prose anthology containing all new adventures of the legendary pulp hero by such authors as John Jakes, Mort Castle, Bill Crider, Shannon Denton, Chuck Dixon, Steve Englehart, Martin Powell, Joe Gentile, Rich Harvey, John Helfers, C. J. Henderson, Howard Hopkins, Anthony Kuhoric, Elizabeth Massie... and, well, me, with illustrations by my pal, Tom Floyd. Also published by Moonstone Books.

Now, I won't actually make any additional money if you buy these – I was paid a flat fee for my contributions – but hey, despite spurious rumors to the contrary, I'm a team player and want to help spread the word on these fine books. They were fun projects to work on, and will hopefully do well for all involved.

Check 'em out.

The Spider Strikes!

Solicitation Copy for January, 2007:

THE SPIDER Chronicles

The MASTER OF MEN Returns!

304pgs, 6 x 9, with illustrations
ISBN: 10 digit: 1-933076-18-6 13 digit: 978-1-933076-18-8

More just than the law, more dangerous than the Underworld... hated, feared, and wanted by both. One cloaked, fanged, border-line crazy denizen of the dark force-feeding hard justice with a pair of .45s!

Moonstone is proud to present 20 new short stories of SEARING WHITE HOT PROSE starring pulpdoms most violent and ruthless crime fighter ever: THE SPIDER!

Here you will find relentless, hard-fisted action that remains true in tone to his mythic-proportioned adventures. If you crave against-all-odds breathless thrill rides, seeing great evils smashed beyond recognition, and dangers met by true heroes at break-neck speed, then this book is the must-buy event of your entire freaking life!

Take a look at this great line up of authors: Stories by: John Jakes (North and South, Kent Family Chronicles), Mort Castle, Bill Crider, Shannon Denton, Chuck Dixon, Steve Englehart, Ron Fortier, Joe Gentile, Rich Harvey, John Helfers, CJ Henderson, Howard Hopkins, Anthony Kuhoric, Elizabeth Massie, Christopher Mills, Will Murray, Rafael Nieves, Ann Nocenti, Martin Powell, and Robert Weinberg.

Interior illustrations: Tom Floyd
Cover: Doug Klauba

Intro By Denny ONeil!

1. softcover = $16.95

2. DIAMOND EXCLUSIVE: LIMITED Hardcover edition= (limited to 300)
Comes signed by cover painter Doug Klauba and has a signed and numbered exclusive (to this edition) Spider Sketch tip sheet by Doug Klauba as well! $39.95 (signed copies limited to initial orders)