Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Wayne Reinagel

Wayne received a 2011 Pulp Ark Award Nomination in the following categories:

“Best Book”

Pulp Heroes-Khan Dynasty -Wayne Reinagel (Knightraven Studios)

“Best Cover Art”

Pulp Heroes: Khan Dynasty-Wayne Reinagel (Knightraven Studios)

“Best Interior Art”

Pulp Heroes: Khan Dynasty-Wayne Reinagel (Knightraven Studios)

“Best Author”

Wayne Reinagel

Wayne, share a bit of background about yourself, if you would. I grew up in rural Illinois, one of four brothers. Started reading at age seven, with the novel Dracula. From there I read all the Victorian classics including Frankenstein, War or the Worlds, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Lost World, Three Musketeers, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Time Machine, and so on. I had a library of over 100 books by age ten, when my father bought The Pirate’s Ghost, my first Doc Savage novel. I was immediately hooked. For the first time, I was reading adventures that took place within the last century. From there, I quickly discovered the Avenger, the Shadow, and other pulp heroes. All of these books would have a major influence on my future storytelling. Exactly how much will be revealed with question number five.

  

Your novel, Khan Dynasty, is up for best novel. Just what is this novel and the trilogy it's a part of, PULP HEROES, all about? To best explain the story Pulp Heroes - Khan Dynasty, I need to provide a little background on my concept of Infinite Horizons.  

In 1863, author Jules Verne began writing a series of scientific adventures, known as the Voyages Extraordinaires. These works included Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, Around the World in Eighty Days, and fifty more. Infinite Horizons follows a similar vein, exploring the secret lives, and revealing the extraordinary, unrecorded exploits and adventures, of the greatest heroes and villains to ever walk the Earth. So if you combined Warren Ellis’ Planetary, Alan Moore’s LXG, Marvel’s What If?, and DC’s Elseworlds, blended them together and poured the concoction into a mold, you’d have Infinite Horizons. In sheer size, scope, and potential, Infinite Worlds is an endless, bottomless, literary Sargasso. And the ultimate crossover universe. The first series of Infinite Horizons novels are entitled Pulp Heroes. The titles in this trilogy include More Than Mortal, Khan Dynasty and Sanctuary Falls.

Pulp Heroes is an epic adventure, spanning two centuries in time, and features all-new stories involving famous (and infamous) fictional characters from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s Frankenstein, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger’s Lost World, Chester Hawks’ Captain Hazzard, H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain, J.H. Rosny’s Ironcastle, John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?/Thing from Another World, James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, James Clavell’s Tai-Pan, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game, Philip Wylie’s Savage Gentleman and Gladiator, and many more.

And so, Khan Dynasty would best be described as a multifaceted story involving two generations of heroes racing to stop a diabolical duo from unleashing a devastating wave of death and destruction. The villains are the Victorian man-monster Edward Hyde and the insidious devil-doctor Hunan Sun, who is my take on the Yellow Peril characters like Fu Manchu. Khan Dynasty is a standalone story, filled to overflowing with a combination of speculative science fiction, and blazing action, but involves all of the same Pulp Heroes characters and historical background as More Than Mortal.

 

You're not simply the writer of this trilogy?  What other duties do you take care of?  What sort of process do you use as a creator to come up with your ideas? I’m the writer, illustrator, publisher, and chief bottle washer. Knightraven Studios is a one-man shop where I get to explore a variety of talents. Using Photoshop, a digitizer pen and tablet, I’ve painted all the covers and interior illustrations, bookmarks, and even posters. Completely self-taught, I’ve even created my own website. I’ve built a studio on the back of my house where I can hide away from the world and completely immerse my brain in the Infinite Horizons universe.

Usually, the ideas are a constant flood into my brain. The only way I can keep everything organized is to have tablets and posty notes all around the house so I can jot down various ideas, questions, and concepts as they come to me. These are eventually sorted and compiled into a series of Word documents, until I’m ready to start writing the novel. I currently have five novels plotted that I haven’t started writing.

  

The Book of Green - Number 3

A trolley car slowly burned by as he dropped his cigarette to the ground and made the move across the Street. As Cole split the passing cars, his carcass pained with the coiling molten winds they fashioned.  He would have been glad to be uptown because most of the buildings had air, but not down here. Not down in the slums. Somebody once said that the coldest winter they ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, but that logic didn’t apply to the slums—they were a separate hell.

          The door to the building was copper and burned Cole’s hand when he reached for the knob. He quickly jerked away his hand and then angrily kicked the damn thing loose and walked in. “Everyone needs a lesson,” he thought and then he kicked the door again.

          Looking at the building registry, Red was either on the third or fourth floor, but she was upstairs for sure.  Cole began walking up the stairs, wondering just where the two women were at this point in their adventures with each other. He smiled and walked a little faster.    

At the top of the stairs, Cole looked at the doors to the apartments; they were all wide open to let in the breeze except for one. Any fool would have known the closed door was hiding the girls, but Cole felt especially clever for putting ‘two and two together’ anyway.

As he got closer to the door, the heat began to grow around him. Sweat fell from his brow, and his stomach began to turn a little. What should he say? Should he knock? Should he just kick the door down? Should he strip down before he entered? Of course if they didn’t want him to help in their endeavor, a naked man entering an apartment with a gun strapped to his side could be seen as a less than positive experience. And the boys from the Department would probably leave him in the clink naked for days before releasing him to the State Hospital.”  “Maybe, I’ll just walk in and see what happens.”  
 

Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Joshua Reynolds's "CONSTANTINE’S WOLVES"

Joshua Reynolds's

"CONSTANTINE’S WOLVES"

was nominated for "Best Short Story"

at this year's Pulp Ark.

"CONSTANTINE’S WOLVES"

was published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Fantasy and Fear #2 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt:

The clean scent of the sea mingled with the odor of roasting flesh in the air above Constantinople. Somewhere within the city, a fire had been started and the city was in chaos. On the seaward wall, however, the Varangian Guard stood firm even as the soldiers of the Blind Doge of Venice scaled the walls like ants.

Ormr, covered in a thick sheen of sweat beneath his armor, longed to pull the chainmail mask from his face, but resisted the urge. The gulp of fresh air wouldn’t be worth the arrow he was likely to take. It had been a long siege, but he was so far unscathed, and intended to keep it that way. Besides which, there was little enough time for such relief.

“Breathe it in, lads!” a big-bellied giant roared, shaking his axe and sword over his head. Ormr grimaced as his sword-brother, Harald Hafgeir, bellowed again and clashed his weapons together. “Miklagardr burns, but we have the sea air to keep us cool!”

“Only if all that hot air you’re spewing doesn’t cancel it out,” someone shouted.

Harald mock-growled and gestured with his axe. “Who said that? I’ll have your balls for my belt!”

“Here they come!” The call came from farther down the wall, interrupting Harald’s posturing.

The top of a scaling ladder clanked against the wall and Ormr snatched up his shield just as a sword point swung for his face. He deflected the blow and sent his axe looping out in reply. The Crusader at the top of the ladder jerked backwards, his helmet split open, blood covering his face.

Dropping his axe to the parapet, Ormr seized the top of the ladder and shoved hard. His tired muscles protested, but the ladder shifted and toppled backwards, carrying its cargo of screaming men with it. Even as the ladder fell, Ormr swept up his axe and pivoted, lopping off the hands of a Crusader on another ladder nearby. The man squealed and tumbled away from the wall, crimson gushing from the stumps of his wrists.

“Well struck, boy,” Harald said. The siege had already covered his helmet in gore, and rivulets of blood carved canyons across his smoke blackened features. With a grunt the fat Varangian struck the ladder with the length of his axe handle and sent it shivering away from the wall. Men fell and screamed as Harald laughed. “I would have had him though.”

“Maybe.” Ormr tightened his grip on his axe. His mask felt too tight and his skull ached beneath his bowl shaped helmet. There was an itch somewhere under his cuirass and his mail hauberk that he longed to scratch. ‘Phantom arrows’ his father had called those. The ghosts of wounds yet to come. Ormr shivered and slapped the flat of his axe against his shield.

“Don’t sound so grim, boy.” Harald slapped him on the back. “They’re only Venetians.”

“Venetians, Sicilians, Medes, matters not. They’re all capable of separating my head from my shoulders if they get close enough.”

“Pah,” Harald said, gesturing rudely. “Why fear the inevitable?”

“Now who’s being grim?”

“Not me! This is wonderful!” Harald’s eyes twinkled behind his mask. Ormr could imagine Harald’s gap-toothed grin and shook his head. “This is what I joined the Guard for!”

“Arrows!” someone shouted. Ormr jerked his shield up over his head and felt the thump of steelheaded shafts against its surface. Another scaling ladder swung towards the parapet as a man in a red splashed tabard, riding it like a horse, appeared with a spear clutched in his hands.

“Ho!” Harald barked, dropping his axe onto the shaft of the spear, splintering it. Ormr thrust his shield forward, crashing it into the face of the ladder-rider and sent him tumbling back.

Another swarm of arrows peppered the parapet. Varangians screamed as crossbow bolts sprouted from armored limbs, the broad, serrated tips puncturing armor like butter. Crusaders crested the wall seconds later. Shields crashed together in a furious symphony as Venetian swords chopped against Danish axes.

Harald drove his axe into a Crusader’s gut two-handed, lifting the man up and shoving him backwards into his fellows. He looked at Ormr. “Bugger! This for a game of fools, eh?”

“What?”

“They’re on the walls, lad,” Harald said, pointing with his gore-covered axe. “Miklagardr is burning lad. All of it. They’re already in the city!”

Ormr looked out over the center of the world and cursed at seeing nothing but flames. On the wall, the Varangians continued to fight, but what had been a defense was becoming a retreat. Not a rout, never a rout, but they were falling back nonetheless.

Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Ken Janssens's "Studyin‘ Scarlett"

Ken Janssens's

"Studyin‘ Scarlett"

was nominated for "Best Short Story"

at this year's Pulp Ark.

"Studyin‘ Scarlett"

was published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Fantasy and Fear #2 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt:

My name is Paul Anyogu. I was born in the Anambra state of Nigeria. My dark complexion and Igbo accent will attest to that. Having lived in my downtrodden, but happy, Roman Catholic community for thirtyfour years, I decided to move to the United States. Frankly, I can no longer remember the reason I left Nigeria. I can, however, say why I stayed. I had met a young man named Sherringford Bell, but my interests in him are not for the reasons one might suspect in these modern times. At our first encounter, he was a forensic psychologist. It was through this seemingly miserable yet always curious fellow that I found my true calling—a calling that brought us to Rance-Beeton Dynamics.

The buzzing electronics and blinking lights of the security office couldn’t distract me from what I was seeing on the ten-by-seventeen monitor. The screen was replaying footage taped by a security camera from the night before. The main focus was a figure in the middle of a laboratory of some sort, his body covered completely by a dark red cloak. All around him on the floor was a spanning pentagram etched in chalk, with a burning candle in the center. Though the footage was not accompanied by sound, the flailing hand movements of the individual suggested some kind of performance, possibly an incantation. Funnelling out of his over-sized sleeves came two sprays of sand that sprinkled over the candle, causing a great plume of smoke. The cloud billowed in on itself then rose up toward the camera. At the last second before it disappeared, I could have sworn I saw a disfigured face in the smoke.

“If I’m truly seeing what I believe I am,” I said as the recording stopped abruptly, “I’d say our services are quite needed, Sherringford.”

“If it is, then that would be a rather obvious deduction. Thank you,” Sherringford dismissed glancing up since I was a good eight inches taller than him. Sherringford was in his usual ‘pleasant’ mood. A person didn’t even have to speak to him to know that they wouldn’t enjoy his company. Not including his nearly ever-present sour expression, Sherringford always dressed in a suit with a dark fedora; had greasy, limp, shoulder-length hair, and carried around a walking stick that he didn’t need for walking. I have heard his appearance referred to as a ‘Grunge Pimp’, though I, myself, really do not get the reference. Despite his off putting demeanor, Sherringford Bell took really good care of himself, working out constantly to attain a ‘swimmer’s body’. His physical conditioning was almost as important to him as the exercises he did for his mind.

There were two other men in the darkened room with us. The bespectacled man operating all the computers and electronics went by the name Tommy. He wore a grin on his face and constantly eyed Sherringford. The other gentleman was Mister Tambryn, who exuded an air of authority, stemming from his expensive suit to the rigidity of his posture. He was nearly bald with a tuft of hair on the top at which I couldn’t help stare. My nearly six-and-a-half foot vantage point was not helping the obsession.

“It’s a freakin’ spirit conjured up by that man,” gushed Tommy, with a sort of childish presentation that contrasted against his forty years of age.  

“Quite frankly,” Sherringford started up, “with the subpar reception, we can’t be sure exactly what that was. All your other monitors seem to have a clear picture. Why is that?”

“This is the third unauthorized entry into a secured area—after hours—that we’ve had in the last two weeks,” Mister Tambryn explained confidently. “On Tuesday, we decided to put hidden cameras inside all our laboratories to find the culprit. We still haven’t worked the static kinks out of that camera yet.”

“Of course,” Sherringford mused. “And you believe this to be…?”

“We’ve looked over it for, like, twenty times,” Tommy squealed “Clearly it is a demonic ceremony that produced an evil spirit.”

“‘Clearly’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” I retorted, instantly hating that I had assumed some of Sherringford’s curtness.

“I agree,” remarked Mister Tambryn. “That’s why you’re here. So what do you think is going on?”

The Book of Green - Number 2

My name is Cole Adams.

If you have the right money,

I’ll wear a suit.

Cole Adams sat on the corner of Nasta Ana and Browder watching the painter stencil the name of the newest tenant onto one of the Newport Building windows. As his shoes began to soften on the concrete sidewalk, he thought about his next move. Was his gun loaded?  Was the safety on? Would he even need a gun for this job?

As Jan and Dean’s new hit ‘Surf City’ echoed out of a nearby radio, Cole saw movement in the next window; she was a red head. Her silhouette swayed in the window as she poured herself out of her dress to beat the heat.  Cole was frozen with her slow moves until the yearning in his body brought him into motion.  He raised his camera and prepared to snap the scene he'd been paid to capture. 

The red head’s father ran a small hunk of the wharf and was pretty sure his daughter was messing around with the wrong sort. Cole had been sent to put proof on Polaroid and report back to her father. However if things were worse than just a little illicit dalliance, Cole was to take care of what needed taking care of and bring the girl back to Daddy.    

The breeze missed the back of Cole’s neck when he saw the wrong sort of people walk out from behind the red head. Her hair was black and her body petite. She followed Red in dropping her dress, and the two began to kiss. Her next order was to wrap her arms around Red and hold onto her hips. For such a small woman, Blackie generated a lot of power and seemed to grow in size as the two women embraced. Soon the two were in ecstatic agony in the window, as would have been the rest of the world if they had Cole's view.

It took every bit of his training and coordination to prevent the camera from hitting the ground. He had no idea that girls behaved in this sort of way, men sure, but not dames.

Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Joshua Reynolds's "Mr.Brass and the Spawn of Frankenstien"

Nominated for "Best Short Story" at this year's Pulp Ark

"Mr.Brass and the Spawn of Frankenstien" by Joshua Reynolds was published in Pro Se Presents Peculiar Adventures #2.

  

BUY YOURS TODAY AT

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Excerpt:

August, 1903. Red Hook.

It was hot in New York City, and a woman was dead.

Her name had been Marietta Conklin. A forgettable, plain woman who spent five years of her life practicing to be that way. She was a Pinkerton, an agent of the United States government, and she was dead.

The heat was an ugly, muddy thing that rose from secret places and stalked upwards, strangling the weak breeze that blew in off the river. The city was quiet, all sound and movement muffled by the heat.

It was an odd sort of quiet. A hush of sorts, the way silence falls before a storm. The absence of life. But still, the breeze blew.

Mister Brass could feel neither the breeze nor the heat and so moved without lethargy or discomfort down the city streets, clad in his black pin-stripe suit and his black derby hat. Window dressing for a clockwork man.

Marietta Conklin had not been a friend, for Brass had no friends. Not these days. But she had been a Pinkerton, and he was a Pinkerton, and so he was in New York. Hunting.

He moved down Martense Street, towards the East River, looking for one particular tenement among those that lined the street on either side. The tenement that Marietta Conklin had died in; been murdered in.

People watched from the alleyways and stoops,faces somber, eyes half-shut against the heat. They had the look of wary animals, waiting to see which way the forest fire was going to roll.

Brass’ gears and copper tubes click-clicked softly, muffled by the clothes he wore. He was well-educated in the art of hiding his inhuman musculature from the curious or the repulsed among the citizenry. Most of the country knew him by sight now, at any rate. He was a minor celebrity since the Martian War, and his inhuman, artificially perfect features were emblazoned on news rags the country-round, thanks to the efforts of Fort, Clemens and other members of the Fourth Estate. These people didn’t seem to care, not that he blamed them. There were worse places than Red Hook, but Brass was hard-pressed to think of them.

Edisonade lamps sparked and squawked, blue lightning jumping between metal posts, throwing false light through the gloom caused by the skyway raillines that blocked out the sun. Brainerd bullet-trains squealed across the rails, casting down irregular rains of sparks that sent the inhabitants running for cover. Cut-rate Tesla generators growled audibly beneath buildings, adding to the ever-present tremor to the street. In this industrial hell, Brass was simply one more devil.

He was accompanied by four other men – Pinkerton men. All dressed the same as he; black on black, their plain dark neckties knotted at their throats, even as Mr. Brass’ own was. His, however, was arranged so as to hide the coiling parcel of tubes and connections that made up his throat.

His hands, skeleton-things of wire and brass plates, clenched and released, clenched and released, the only obvious sign of the agitation that gripped him.

He should have paid closer attention to the reports. He should have…

“Sir?” one of the agents behind him asked. Brass slowed and turned his head. His face was a mask made up of interlocking brass discs of alien smoothness. They were connected together in the shape of a human face, beautiful and cold, moving and flexing when he spoke. In the darkness, it looked almost natural. It was not dark now, and the agent, a young man, newly recruited to the Pinkerton Investigative Agency, flinched.

“Yes, Coppstone?” Brass asked, his voice a wasp’s rasp, mechanical and buzzing. There was a human voice lost in the noise somewhere, but it was a faint thing. An echo of a memory of a ghost of a man whose name hadn’t been Brass. “What is it?”

“Sir, is it true?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sir?” Coppstone sounded confused. Brass turned back and began walking again.

“I don’t know, Coppstone. Which is why we are here, yes?”

“Yes?”

“Coppstone, shut up,” one of the other agents, Harris, snapped. Tension added edge to his words. He was new as well. They all were. Coppstone opened his mouth, but closed it without releasing a retort. Brass glanced at them.

“Quiet. All of you.”

“But sir-” Coppstone began. Brass held up a hand.

“Quiet. Please.”

Coppstone closed his mouth. Brass nodded.

The American - Number 25

Paul McConnell is the American.

"The American" is a free web comic brought to you by the good people at Pro Se Press.

Written and Illustrated by Fuller Bumpers

Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Ken Janssens's "Aloha McCoy - Hello New Life, Hello Old"

 

Ken Janssens's

"Aloha McCoy - Hello New Life, Hello Old"

was nominated for "Best Short Story"

at this year's Pulp Ark.

"Aloha McCoy - Hello New Life, Hello Old"

was published in

PRO SE PRESENTS Masked Gun Mystery #1 

BUY YOURS TODAY AT

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

 Excerpt:

Getting pistol whipped ain’t fun. As I got an extremely close look at the concrete floor of the warehouse, that fact pounded into my head with blood-expanding throbs. My vision was weaving in and out of extreme blurriness. At times I could pick out the old snub nose I had brought laying a good fifty feet away. That wasn’t good. Smythe was talking, but about what I wasn’t sure anymore. It didn’t matter; he was an idiot, though not as much of an idiot as I was. I don’t know why I came back here to the center of The Core. To the core of The Core. It was stupid—part bull-headedness, part showing myself that my past didn’t matter. And, of course, it all started out with a tall blonde.

Two nights ago, I was working at the youth recreation center I owned, a modest place that I’d had for three years. In spite of the grants from the city, I’d be paying it off for another twenty. The building used to be an old boxing gym three decades back. Now in my hands, it kept the punks and the misunderstoods off the streets, hopefully holding tight long enough that they wouldn’t turn into the adults that I meant for them to stay away from in the first place. My brother and I had one of these when we were growing up in The Core. It was run by Charles Murphy. He was like a second dad; maybe even a first dad since Devin McCoy was away more than he was around. Anyway, I credited Charles for saving us, for making us the people we were today and, therefore, I modeled my place after his. Mine, however, was just on the outskirts of The Core instead of smack dab in the middle of it. That’s just where I landed. Should’ve been closer, should’ve been farther.

I was showing twelve-year-old Tricia Sinclaire the finer points of an uppercut jab on the body-length punching bag when Louis Orchid came in. He was tall and good-looking, that was for sure. My attention turned from the striking blows of the little spitfire, who reminded me a lot of me at that age, to the flute of champagne that approached me.

“Are you Aloha McCoy?” the light-haired, blue-eyed stunner asked. I was. Not too hard to pick out of this crowd of mostly Irish teens and prepubescents. I was thirty-one and had a perpetually tanned complexion, a gift from my mom’s Hawaiian heritage that rescued me from the specter skin of my father. From Devin, I got my thin but athletic frame, my short stature, and my even shorter temper. I was also gaga over anything potatoes. The reddish-brown of my wavy hair was a split down the parental middle.

“Call me Allie,” I smirked and possibly blushed. Call me anytime.

“Have you done something with my son?” he countered without a smile. I was pretty enough, I was told. I usually at least got a smile right off the hop. That was, until they got to know me. And I rarely get an accusation this soon. That kind of hostility took a couple minutes.

“On second thought, you can feckin’ call me Miss McCoy.” I didn’t like to feel small. Could be because I stood five-four. Could be because I was a real sonuvabitch. Regardless, if a person talked to me in any way to take total control of a situation and, by transitivity, me, they ought to be ready to have some sort of fight on their hands… verbal or physical.

“He’s… I need to know…” Blondie was starting to hyperventilate. He grabbed for the kinked chain that connected the top of the punching bag to the ceiling. I signaled with a head flick for Tricia to find something else to do, so she scampered toward two other girls who were working on a 3-D puzzle near the dingiest of the yellowed walls.

“Hey, you need some water?” I asked the man. He had slowed down his breathing to prevent a good, old-fashioned swoon. He put up his hand to indicate the stars weren’t coming.

“Sorry, I just… my son is missing,” he exhaled out. I instantly felt bad for him and he suddenly became attractive again.

“Why don’t you slowly tell me what happened?”

“Alright,” he said with one more long breath. “His name is Jason. He buses down to your centre a few times a week. He’s thirteen. The last time I saw him he said he was coming down here. That was two days ago.”

“Jason?” I asked with an uncertain tone. “What’s his last name?”

“Orchid. I’m Louis Orchid.”

“Mr. Orchid,” I said trying to be as soothing as possible, which was entirely against my nature, “there are a lot of children who come through here. If you have a picture of your son, it might help.”

The Book of Green - Number 1

Pro Se is excited about its second free web pulp-comic

"The Book of Green"

This pulp-comic will run every night "The American" does not.

Written and Illustrated by Fuller Bumpers

Pulp Ark 2011 Spotlight - Andrew Salmon

Andrew Salmon received a 2011 Pulp Ark Award Nomination in the catagory of

"Best Short Story" for his work "Run".

"Run" was published in

Pro Se Presents Masked Gun Mystery #1 

Buy yours today at

http://stores.lulu.com/proseproductions

Andrew, Share a bit of background about yourself if you would.  Sure thing. I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada and grew up in the same neighbourhood as William Shatner although in different decades. Ha! He and my Dad went to the same school though and I’ve got the graduating yearbook with both of them in it.

I grew up flat out refusing to read prose. I spent my youth reading comics instead. Spider-Man was my favorite although I read a lot of the hero stuff from Marvel. Seeing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in June of 1982, when I was 16, changed all that. The film, literally, changed my life. It transformed me from someone who wouldn’t read a book if you paid me to someone who desperately wanted to write one. Watching the film, I could just suddenly see the elements that were making up the story. I could see behind the curtain and watch the story gears turn. So naive was I at the time that I thought story elements like pacing and foreshadowing were exclusive to Star Trek. Imagine my surprise when I later discovered they weren’t. This lead to a lifelong love of reading and writing that continues to this day.

My wife and I currently reside in Vancouver, Canada and life is good on the wild and wacky West Coast.

I discovered Doc Savage about 10 years ago and was instantly hooked and added The Shadow, Secret Agent X, The Spider and Operator #5, Max Brand and others to my list of favorites. From there I was fortunate enough to hook up with Airship 27 about four years ago and now pulp is booming. I’m just happy to be a part of it! Wahoo!

Your short story is one of the nominees for best of 2010. Just what is 'RUN' about? I’m thrilled to bits to be nominated for a Pulp Ark award! Blown away! Over the moon excited! And want to thank everyone who nominated the story. Also, win or lose, I want to thank anyone in advance who votes for the tale! Deepest thanks from the bottom of my heart!

Being nominated is a thrill that does not fade with time. My short story, “The Adventure of the Locked Room” (Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume One from Airship 27) won a Pulp Factory award last year for Best Pulp Short Story and I’m still aglow whenever I cast my eye to the trophy sitting next to my computer!

As for “Run” there’s one thing I’d like to mention right off the bat. Before we get to the plot, I’d like to throw in a little bit about how the story was written. A few years ago, “Run” was my first attempt at a pulp tale. Being new to the genre as a reader at the time, to say nothing of wanting to write pulp, I really had no idea how to go about coming up with my own stuff.

Well, pulp is all about action and pacing so I hit on the idea of writing for 15 minutes a day. With no plot, no concept, I sat down every day and wrote pulp action for 15 minutes. I used a timer and when it chimed, it was pens down. Even if I was in the middle of a sentence, I put the tale away until the next session where I’d take it up again. Eventually I had a narrative which I honed down to the version that appeared in Masked Gun Mystery #1. This is why I’m doubly excited the tale was nominated! What began as experimental scribbling fashioned itself into a story that I’m quite proud of and it’s wonderful to know that readers seem to positively respond to it.

As for the plot, “Run” is, as the title implies, a chase story. Clark Logan, recently discharged, finds himself seeking escape from the horrors of WW2 in a small town where he is a stranger. Suddenly, in the dead of night, he finds himself running for his life, the peace he craved nothing but a memory, until he has to make a choice about how he wants to live his life. Short, to the point, like a punch in the face. In other words, pulp.

Some say the art of the short story is a lost one, yet it seems to thrive in the pulp genre.  Why do you think that is?  I think it comes down to the simple truth that there is not a lot of room for characterization in a short story. You’ve got to get in and get on with it. Pulp is often criticised for portraying one-dimensional characters and there’s a lot of truth to that. However, thin characterization is accepted because pulp is about the plot, more so than the people. Because of this, pulp naturally lends itself to the shorter form. My stories generally are novellas, although “Run” is not, and, believe me, there’s a lot of room for action in the limited space a short story or novella allows for when you don’t have to get bogged down in a lot of characterization. You can just let ’er rip! And good pulp will rip your guts out. If you’re lucky.   

What makes pulp a genre that even merits awards?  This is a great question. Pulp is its own unique entity with a distinct voice. There’s the pace I mentioned earlier and, even though it covers every genre you can image from Westerns to Romance to Science-Fiction and Horror, a keen-eyed reader knows when he or she is reading pulp, especially good pulp. Along with the pace comes over the top action, hair-breadth escapes and a general sense of good and evil, right and wrong.

What’s more, thanks to the internet, there are more and more talented writers and artists creating knew pulp works for a bevy of pulp publishers. Truly great work that not only entertains but carries the genre forward for readers today and in the future. All of the greats – Lester Dent, Walter Gibson, Robert E Howard, Frederick Faust and countless others – have shuffled off this mortal coil. They left us a tremendous, priceless legacy in their vast works but they are gone and a genre, any genre, in my opinion, can’t survive if it does not progress. Just look at sci-fi and how far it has come since Edgar Allan Poe first took a crack at it. What it boils down to is this: how many times can you read the same Secret Agent X or Spider story from the 30s or 40s before you get tired of it no matter how well written it is? Twenty times? A hundred?

This is what led to fan fiction. How could it not? This army of pulp characters was so great, so much fun and so inspiring that fans could not help but want to continue the heroic exploits of the timeless heroes. Now with these wonderful characters in the public domain, writers and artists are free to add a page to the great book of pulp, contribute the story they always wanted to see Jim Anthony or the Black Bat or any other of a host of characters get caught up in. They are also free to create new characters and are doing so in spades! It’s wonderful. Years ago, these stories, good or bad, would moulder away in desk drawers until they crumbled to dust. Now, thanks to the internet, pulp publishing is back with a vengeance. People have been writing stories for decades since the pulp magazines disappeared off newsstands but now these stories can be presented to long-time fans and new readers of pulp. Every year it seems the number of pulp publishers doing new pulp books and magazines as well as houses issuing reprints grows and grows. It’s a full-blown pulp revolution! It’s amazing! Now anyone with a pulp tale to tell has a chance to get that story into the hands of pulp readers and readers in general. Incredible!

Which brings up the subject of awards. I mean, why not? There have been awards like the Lamont for contributions to preserving the wonderful tradition we, as pulp fans, cherish and that’s as it should be. However, with more than a dozen publishers issuing new stuff by so many of the best writers and artists of the day, why not have awards like the Pulp Ark Awards and Pulp Factory Awards to acknowledge the current crop of creators slaving away at the genre they love? It makes perfect sense and shows not only the pulp community, but readers in general, that pulp is not an art form of the past. That it is still relevant and is ongoing. The awards are something for every pulp creator to shoot for. They can inspire and motivate and the genre benefits as a whole because of them.

Lest I forget! My sincere congratulations to all of this year’s Pulp Ark Award and Pulp Factory nominees! Good luck, everyone! It’s going to be a hell of a ride!