Every week (ish) New Pulp Heroes sits down with an artist or author creating new heroic fiction works in order to pull back the curtain and give you, our faithful readers, a look into the mind of new pulp fiction’s best and brightest creators.
With 23 suspect- err, creator questionings in the can, it’s time to roll out #24 in the secret files of New Pulp Authors and Artists known in these back alleyways as 5 Questions With…
This week, shine the bright light into the eyes of author Brian K. Lowe.
Read on Pulpsters!
Question One: Thinking of the first pulp story that grabbed you, what was it and what about it hooked you?
BKL: The first pulp story I ever read was Captain Future’s “The Magician of Mars.” My mother bought the paperback for me when I was sick. I was so taken by the action and the world building that I reread it as soon as I was done. I’ve never done that before or since. I thought about writing to the author to tell him I thought it should be a series, then checked the copyright date… I hadn’t heard of “the pulps” then; that wasn’t until I discovered Doc Savage a couple of years later.
Question Two: When did you first hear about the resurgence of pulp storytelling and why did you feel compelled to contribute to it?
BKL: I’ve wanted to write pulp stories for a long time; I remember thinking that there might be a resurgence when “The Shadow” came out with Alec Baldwin and how that would prime the pump, but of course it didn’t happen. Eventually, I did start writing what would become “Nemesis,” and only after that did I become aware that the renaissance I wanted to see had actually begun.
Question Three: Recommend three new pulp properties you really dig and why you think other people would enjoy them also.
BKL: First, and most obviously, the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage. Doc was a direct inspiration for Superman, but without Superman’s incredible powers; he has to do everything on his own, and though it seems superhuman, it isn’t. And Doc’s aides…they are the best.
Second would be Allen Steele’s reinterpretation of Captain Future. For a purist like me, it was a bit hard to swallow at first, but I think this is exactly what Edmond Hamilton would have done with the characters if he had today’s scientific knowledge. It’s science fiction and superhero adventure in one. I love it.
Third, the Talera Cycle, from Charles Allen Gramlich, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian novels. I’ve only begun the series, but I have the feeling that that this is going to be the kind of all-out pulpy interplanetary adventure series that made ERB so famous. I can’t wait to get deeper into them.
Question Four: Here’s the cheesy ask: If you could spend 24 hours with any old or new pulp character, who would it be and what would you do?
BKL: Well, it certainly won’t be Richard Wentworth! I’d have to go with Josh Newton. We’d sit down and have a maple-nut sundae-eating contest. I think I’d give him a good run for his money.
Question Five: Which of your upcoming projects excites you the most and why should people get excited about it with you?
BKL: I’m working on a new Nemesis book. Nemesis is a … well, that would spoil it. Nemesis and his aides go all over the world to foil criminal schemes, but in the next one (Marauders from the Moon), he will stay in Los Angeles, investigating strange and deadly events at a movie set. It’s exciting for me because I get to research movie-making in the 1930s (my favorite era), and for the readers because the books’ central conceit is that when Nemesis goes on a case, he goes undercover so deep that not even his aides know who he is–and neither does the reader. In the cast of characters I create, not only do you have to deduce the identity of the villain, but the hero, as well. It’s a lot of work, and sometimes even I don’t know who Nemesis will end up being.
NewPulpHeroes.com wants to thank Brian for all he’s contributed to the new pulp multi-verse. You can grab up some of his work here.
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Now it’s time for the 23rd episode of 5 Questions With…
This week, we head off into new worlds of adventure with author John J. French!
Read on Pulpsters!
Question One: Thinking of the first pulp story that grabbed you, what was it and what about it hooked you?
JF: On Sunday afternoon, my father and I used to listen to the rebroadcasts of the old Shadow, Green Hornet, and Sherlock Holmes radio shows that he had grown up with. This was my first exposure to the world of pulp. Then one day he gave me a battered copy of Walter Gibson’s Return of the Shadow. Up until then I had not known that there were stories about the Shadow. When the paperback reprints came out I bought them all, hooked on the combination of action and detection. Since becoming a writer, I’ve created two Shadow-like characters – The Nightmare, who is a contemporary of The Shadow, the Spider, and the others, and the Grey Monk, who operates in more modern times.
Question Two: When did you first hear about the resurgence of pulp storytelling and why did you feel compelled to contribute to it?
JF: Blame if all on Tom and Ginger Johnson and their Fading Shadows publications . I forget what magazine it was where I read about their Behind the Mask fanzine but I subscribed to it and later to Weird Stories and Double Danger Tales, both of which featured new stories done in the old pulp style. I was a writer by then having had some of my stories printed in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I had also just discovered Carroll John Daly’s Race Williams and Satan Hall. All this lead to my creating my first pulp character – Frank Devlin, the Devil of Harbor City, who was grealty inspired by Daly’s Satan Hall. After that came The Grey Monk, The Nightmare ad most recently, Simon Tombs, a gentlemen adventurer inspired by The Saint.
Question Three: Recommend three new pulp properties you really dig and why you think other people would enjoy them also.
JF: First and foremost there’s the late, great C.J. Henderson, who left us too soon in 2014. It is largely thanks to him that I am the writer I am today. Had he been alive in the Black Mask days, CJ would have more than held his own with any of its writers. He wrote hard-boiled detective fiction in his Jack Hagee books and pioneered the supernatural detective genre with his Teddy London series. He wrote extensively in the Lovecraft mythos and contributed stories to anthologies about Kolchak, The Avenger, the Domino Lady and the like.
Next is my friend and sometime writing partner Patrick Thomas. Pat’s delved deeper into pulp than he would care to admit, having created such characters as The Pink Reaper, Nemesis, Terrorbelle (The Fairy with a Gun), and the space-going Startenders (like bartenders but in space). He too has contributed to the Lovecraft mythos with his Dear Cthulhu advice columns.
Lastly, there’s Kim Newman. Some might argue against this choice, but when his alternate histories of Dracula, the Diogenes Club, the Phantom of the Opera (Agents of Music), and others are considered, yep, he’s pulp.
Question Four: Here’s the cheesy ask: If you could spend 24 hours with any old or new pulp character, who would it be and what would you do?
JF: They say you should never meet your heroes so while I’d love to say The Shadow I’m afraid I’d spend most of those 24 hours in some kind of death trap waiting for the Shadow to rescue me. Instead, being a retired crime scene investigator, I’d of course choose Sherlock Holmes. If he’s not considered “pulp enough” then Doc Savage. I could spend the day with either of them discussing forensic science and, in Doc’s case, the morality of corrective brain surgery and the efficiency and effectiveness of “mercy bullets.”
Question Five: Which of your upcoming projects excites you the most and why should people get excited about it with you?
JF: I have several projects I’m working on right now, Mortal Sins, a sequel to one of my first books Past Sins, which featured Matthew Grace, a CSI who became a private eye and is now an investigator for Baltimore’s State’s Attorney’s Office. As part of his upcoming Agents of the Abyss series Patrick Thomas will be publishing two of my novels, one about Frankenstein and the other about the world of Sherlock Holmes. But the one I’m most excited about is When the Moon Shines. It is the first in a series of books about Cryptids, creatures that are believed to exist but for which there is no proof accepted by science, like Bigfoot, Mothman, and the like. eSpec Books will publish this series in conjunction with Cyrptid Crate. This series should excite people because each book will feature a different cryptid (or maybe two) and reveal worlds and creatures they may ever have heard about. The creatures in my book, well, I’ve love to tell you about them but I’m sworn to secrecy until the book comes out in an upcoming Cryptid Crate. But they are creatures that I don’t think many people have heard about and who are the stuff of nightmares. (It is available for pre-order from Amazon but you might want to get the crate, it has lots of other goodies inside it)
NewPulpHeroes.com wants to thank John for all he’s done to advance the realms of new pulp. You can grab up some of his work here.
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Welcome to the 22nd installment of 5 Questions With… where we interrogate – err… inquire about all things… well, 5 things… New Pulp with an exciting New Pulp Creator every week(ish).
This week, we take a ride with author Martin Gately!
Having written many mystery, crime noir and action-adventure tales, from Sherlock Holmes to the Phantom, in the New Pulp realms, Martin is keenly poised to deliver fast-paced escapism.
Read on True Believer!
Question One: Thinking of the first pulp story that grabbed you, what was it and what about it hooked you?
MG: The very first story that ever grabbed me was the Doc Savage story The Sargasso Ogre in its Bantam edition. I was just a little kid, too young to read it, so it was the cover artwork that excited me – all that moody and mysterious sickly green/sea weed and Doc punting along precariously on his log boat. The book was part of a consignment of hand-me-down books from my aunt for my dad, but I claimed this one for my own and squirreled it away. A few years later, I ended up reading the Doc Savage Marvel comics in their UK reprint incarnation and that led me back to the Sargasso Ogre – I read it and the rest is history; a lifelong love of all things Pulp was born.
Question Two: When did you first hear about the resurgence of pulp storytelling and why did you feel compelled to contribute to it?
MG: For me, I’m not sure pulp ever really went away. Indiana Jones is pulp storytelling, and I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this, but if you trace the DNA/ancestry of Star Wars back through Flash Gordon to John Carter and Gullivar Jones, then it is pulp too. But getting on for a decade ago I was directed by Win Scott Eckert towards Jean-Marc Lofficier’s Tales of the Shadowmen, where I found a sort of spiritual home for the neo-pulp League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type stuff I was then writing. Like many writers, I’m driven to contribute and submit by oscillating waves of confidence and determination (sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down). But like Indy, I’m also looking for fortune and glory…
Question Three: Recommend three new pulp properties you really dig and why you think other people would enjoy them also.
MG: I would have to go first with Kim Newman, since he is one of my main inspirations. I recently purchased Anno Dracula 1999 – Daikaiju, which I am very much looking forward to reading. Newman is a consummate writer and master of the territory of where pulp meshes with literary mash-up. His prose is a delight, and he’s at the top of the tree, so we could all probably learn from him. He was writing LXG type stories before Alan Moore and Penny Dreadful-esque tales in the Anno Dracula series before the TV show was thought of.
Secondly, Mike Chinn – one of the great war horses of new pulp. I am currently reading his The Paladin Mandates from Pro Se Press. Like me, Mike was a writer on DC Thomson’s Starblazer comic book, and therefore another early inspiration and influence. Mike’s work is always packed with fun and authenticity, and I heartily recommend it.
Finally, and I suppose this is a body of work rather than a property – I would have to recommend Adrian Cole – he is an unstoppable juggernaut of a writer, and again, someone I read to learn from. I am gradually tracking down all his stuff – and can recommend the Dream Lord trilogy.
Question Four: Here’s the cheesy ask: If you could spend 24 hours with any old or new pulp character, who would it be and what would you do?
MG: I would like to spend a day with the Shadow (is this really going to happen if I give this answer??). I’d like to help him out as one of his agents. I’m guessing we would be on a case here in my native city of Nottingham, probably in the caves and tunnels beneath Nottingham Castle and at some point he’d give me a starter lesson on clouding men’s minds. I’d be Nottingham’s answer to Harry Vincent!
Question Five: Which of your upcoming projects excites you the most and why should people get excited about it with you?
MG: It’s Young Robur – a series of forthcoming tales about the life of Jules Verne’s Master of the World when he was about twenty. The stories are unusual, unpredictable and action-packed. The first one – The Woodlanders in the Desert appears in the latest volume of Tales of the Shadowmen from Black Coat Press.
NewPulpHeroes.com would like to thank Martin for all he’s done to advance the realms of new pulp.
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Welcome to the 21st episode of 5 Questions With… where we go step into the new pulp minds of amazing authors and artists who passionately create some of the best new pulp works on the planet.
This week, NewPulpHeroes dives into the world of criminal justice with author and professional crime solver, Brad Mengel!
Working in the criminal justice field gives Brad unique insight into the seedy underbelly of the shadow world. Coupling that viewpoint with his incredible wordsmithing skills, Brad delivers great new pulp from Pro Se Press and others. You can read more of his thoughts on speculative fiction here: Brad’s Pulpy Blog
Question One: Thinking of the first pulp story that grabbed you, what was it and what about it hooked you?
BM: I’d read about a number of pulp heroes in “Imaginary People”by David Pringle and I was fascinated by these characters. Then I must have been about 13 when I found “The Man of Bronze” at a flea market which had the cover painted to look like Ron Ely. Doc was a amazing guy who trained himself to peak human ability to fight evil and he had a team of guys and they would fly around the world finding lost civilisations it was pretty impressive.
Question Two: When did you first hear about the resurgence of pulp storytelling and why did you feel compelled to contribute to it?
BM: I don’t think pulp storytelling ever really went away – the success of the Bantam Doc Savage reprints meant that we got very pulp-style characters like The Destroyer and The Executioner. I even wrote a book about them “Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction”
As I was writing that I started to research what were the current series being published and I found the New Pulp movement. For me it wasn’t enough to write about these characters I wanted to create my own pulp characters and create new adventures for some classic characters. I’ve been lucky enough to have a Destroyer short story published.
Question Three: Recommend three new pulp properties you really dig and why you think other people would enjoy them also.
BM: Dillon by Derrick Ferguson – I have enjoyed the hell out of this series, Dillon in such a great character.Derrick is familiar with the classic pulps and other pulp style stories and he makes the genre his own.
Jack West Jnr series by Matthew Reilly – I am a hardcore Matthew Reilly fan and his Jack West series is total pulp featuring a retired soldier who has these amazing Indiana Jones style adventures that may change the fate of the world. I’ve started a book on the train and missed my stop. Really you can’t go wrong with anything by Matthew Reilly.
The Deep by Tom Taylor and James Brouwer – This is one of my personal favourites. The Nektons are a family of explorers who live on a submarine named the Aronnax. They sail around the globe exploring the ocean, dealing with sea monsters. It started as a comic book and was adapted as an animated series, which is on Netflix. Taylor and Brouwer work on the animated series as well so it’s very faithful. It’s all ages and so much fun.
Question Four: Here’s the cheesy ask: If you could spend 24 hours with any old or new pulp character, who would it be and what would you do?
BM: I’d love to spend 24 hours with Ellen Patrick, The Domino Lady. We’d hang out in Hollywood with movie stars and celebrities. I’m sure she needs a getaway car driver.
Question Five: Which of your upcoming projects excites you the most and why should people get excited about it with you?
BM: I’ve just finished a story for an anthology that allows me to provide a different take on Dracula, I’m actually really excited by what I did with the characters from Dracula taking them in a completely different direction, I’m also keen to see what my fellow writers have been able to cook up.
I think other people will really like where I’ve gone with the concept and be surprised with the fates of classic characters.
NewPulpHeroes.com would like to thank Brad for all he’s done to advance the realms of new pulp. Buy Brad’s books here.
New Pulp Heroes 