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Old New Pulp: Byron Preiss’ Weird Heroes

Old New Pulp: Byron Preiss’ Weird Heroes

Weird Heroes Volume 1Weird Heroes was a series of eight books put out by Byron Preiss Visual Publications from 1975 through 1977, a copiously-illustrated mix of novels and short stories that aimed at creating a new kind of pulp fiction with new kinds of pulp heroes. The series had a specific set of ideals for its heroes, linked with an appreciative but not uncritical love of pulp fiction from the 1920s through 40s. Well-known creators from comics and science fiction contributed to the books, and one character would spawn a six-volume series of his own. And yet Preiss’ long-term plans for Weird Heroes were cut short with the eighth volume, and today it’s hard to find much discussion of the books online (though they’re well-remembered when they are discussed). That absence is a little surprising, as a whole new generation of writers has come along with an interest in creating new pulps. Now that we’re separated from Weird Heroes by about the amount of time it was separated from the original pulps, it’s well worth a look back at its truncated run.

Editor Byron Preiss was only 21 years old when he founded Byron Preiss Visual Publications in 1974, and the company began putting out two series of illustrated paperbacks the next year, Weird Heroes and Fiction Illustrated (which ran for four volumes with a fifth issued under a different name). Both were packaged by BPVP to be published by Pyramid Books. Weird Heroes started its run with two anthologies of short fiction that, according to Preiss’ introductions to both books, were conceived as a single volume but divided up due to length constraints. Over the course of the series’ run, it published work by Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Harlan Ellison, and Michael Moorcock, alongside art by Jim Steranko, Alex Niño, Neal Adams, and P. Craig Russell.

In the editorial matter within the first book, Preiss laid out what he hoped to do with the series. Across a general introduction, a historical discussion of “old American pulp,” and an interview with Fritz Leiber later on in the book, Preiss articulated a specific sense of what old pulps did well, what they did poorly, what he wanted to take from them, and what he wanted to improve on. He also wrote about presenting an alternative to the heroes that had emerged up to that point in 1970s popular culture. Broadly, he wanted to recapture the storytelling thrills of pulp fiction and its sense of wonder, while avoiding its misogyny and racism — and unlike what he saw in both the pulps and much 1970s hero fiction, he wanted to find a way to resolve stories and conflicts without the use of violence and murder.

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The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 5

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 5

-SSoC-Vol5This series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag launched in the mid-70s. Previous installments: Vol 1 / Vol 2 / Vol 3 / Vol 4

Volume 5 collects issues #49 – 60 (1980 -’81), and it begins with the proverbial bang. Reigning art champs John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga return for a 4-issue adaptation of the L. Sprague DeCamp/Lin Carter novel CONAN THE LIBERATOR. These four issues are gorgeous–the Buscema/DeZuniga team is firing on all cylinders.

Story-wise this adaptation succeeds far better than the previous DeCamp/Carter adaptation, CONAN THE BUCCANEER (collected in Volume 4). Whereas BUCCANEER tended to meander and lack proper pacing, LIBERATOR moves at a brisk pace and gives us more classic Conan time.

LIBERATOR is basically a military fantasy with bit of sorcery thrown in to complicate the saga of Conan’s revolt against a mad tyrant. We have a beautiful spy, a scheming wizard, and a truly insane king who butchers his own subjects in a futile quest for immortality. Here is the story untold by Conan creator Robert E. Howard: The story of exactly how Conan became King of Aquilonia.

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Voracious Volume One: Diners, Dinosaurs & Dives

Voracious Volume One: Diners, Dinosaurs & Dives

Voracious volume 1Kill Hitler. Obviously.

But what’s the second thing you’d do if you had access to a time machine? And keep in mind, I mean “had access to a time machine” and not “built a time machine.” Because if you built a time machine, then you’d be super-aware of not stepping on any butterflies and the bootstrap paradox and causal loops. And then you’d know that the best thing to do with a time machine is nothing because the ramifications are potentially universe-destroying.

But I digress. The second thing you’d do if you had access to a time machine is go see dinosaurs. At least, that’s what you’d do if you were a guy. Most boys were fascinated by dinosaurs when they were young and, even when we’re all grown up, there’s some primitive part of our brains that thinks, “I gotta see a dinosaur some time.” It’s a really primitive part of the brain, of course. The reptile part.

Voracious deals with the Hitler in the room quite easily. When Nate Willner inherits a fortune from his mysterious dead uncle, he also inherits his secret time machine. And the time machine has only pre-set coordinates, so Nate can’t go Nazi-hunting. Instead, he gets sent directly to the age of dinosaurs.

Six panels after a beautiful two-page spread illustration of dino-times, Nate is panicking and running for his life from some very large (and very obviously herbivorous) dinosaurs. Since the time suit he’s in is equipped with weapons, he reacts to the first dinosaur that follows him by setting it on fire. And while the implications of murdering a lifeform in the past is lost on him, Nate does notice that the burnt pterodactyl smells delicious.

Being a professional chef, Nate does the only logical thing: bring the dead dinosaur back to the present, cook it up and eat it. Once he confirms that dinosaurs are delicious, Nate decides to use the money he inherited to open a restaurant and the time machine he inherited to acquire lots of free meat that’s unlike anything his customers have ever tasted. Hi-jinks ensue.

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A Mythic Crime Story: Top Cow’s Postal

A Mythic Crime Story: Top Cow’s Postal

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Regular readers may notice that I try to sample a lot of different comic series. I like individual comics, but I also try to understand the field and its sub-genres. Crime fiction has a long history in comics. Its modern incarnations include titles like Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets, Ed Brubaker’s Gotham Central and Criminal, among many others.

Last year I heard the Nerdist Comics Panel interview Bryan Edward Hill, a TV writer working on Top Cow’s Postal.

The premise was catchy: Eden is a town entirely populated by criminals laying low or getting new identities, completely off the grid. And the main character of the story is Mark, the mayor’s son who works as Eden’s postman and who has Asperger’s.

And it’s in development for TV.

So I checked it out.

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The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 4

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 4

SSoC-Vol4-CvrThis series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag from the 1970s. Previous installments: Volume 1 / Volume 2 / Volume 3.

In volume 4 the superb team of John Buscema (pencils) and Tony DeZuniga (inks) continues to dominate the magazine’s “Golden Age” (i.e. the late 70s). However, this volume begins with John’s talented brother Sal Buscema stepping in for issue #37, ably inked by Rudy Nebres.

It’s a good issue, but things really take off when the regular (John) Buscema/DeZuniga team returns in #38 to adapt the story “Road of Eagles” by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague DeCamp. This is a landmark issue: Conan has never looked more fierce, and his world hasn’t been this fully realized since Alfredo Alcala’s hyper-detailed inks in the mag’s early days.

I’ve read that Buscema didn’t care much for DeZuniga’s inks — but he didn’t really like anyone’s inks over his pencils except his own. That’s fairly common for the Great Pencillers of comics history — yet they were usually too busy with deadlines to do their own inks.

Personal taste aside, Roy Thomas obviously realized the greatness of the Buscema/DeZuniga pairing. He made sure this team worked together as often as possible: 7 out of these 12 issues feature John Buscema pencils with DeZuniga inks. Roy even tapped DeZuniga to ink two more great issues penciled by Sal Buscema (i.e. #39 and #44).

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Future Treasures: Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag

Future Treasures: Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag

Shattered Warrior-small Shattered Warrior-back-small

Sharon Shinn is one of our favorite writers around these parts. I know, I know, we have a lot of favorite writers. But do we have fond memories of mobbing them at breakfast with the entire Black Gate staff, as we do with Sharon? No, we do not.

Sharon has published more than 25 novels over the past two decades, including the Samaria series, Twelve Houses series, and the Elemental Blessings novels. Her latest project is a graphic novel with award-winning webcomic artist Molly Knox Ostertag (Strong Female Protagonist), titled Shattered Warrior. Set on a world conquered by the alien Derichets, it tells the tale of Colleen Cavenaugh, who toils in a factory for her alien masters, until the day her home is invaded by an unlikely band of human resistance fighters.

Here’s a scan of the inside flap, and a few sample pages to showcase some of Ostertag’s colorful art and character design.

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Breaking Into Comics as a Writer: Mucho Opportunities

Breaking Into Comics as a Writer: Mucho Opportunities

Fantastic Four Ego the Living Planet-small

I knew I wanted to be a writer basically when I learned how to write in English. That might have been as young as grade two, but certainly by grade three (I was in immersion school so we learned to read and write in French first).

My mother gave me my first four comic books in the summer between grades four and five, and I remember making plans with my best friend Eric (who liked to draw) about us making comics together.

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The Gestation of Cape and Cowl: Thoughts On Jess Nevins’ The Evolution Of The Costumed Avenger

The Gestation of Cape and Cowl: Thoughts On Jess Nevins’ The Evolution Of The Costumed Avenger

The Evolution of the Costumed AvengerThough he’s written short stories and three self-published novels, Jess Nevins is likely best known as an excavator of fantastic fictions past: an archaeologist digging through the strata of the prose of bygone years, unearthing now pieces of story and now blackened ashes of some once-thriving genre long since consumed and built over by its lineal successor. Across annotated guides (three to Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, one to Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s Fables) and self-published encyclopedias (of Pulps and of Golden Age Superheroes with Pulp Heroes soon to come, as well as 2005’s Monkeybrain-published Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana) Nevins has reassembled old pieces of fantastika, indicating direct influences on modern writing and establishing directories of almost-forgotten story. He’s one of the people broadening the history of genre, in his books, and in articles such as his pieces for io9 on the Victorian Hugo Awards that never were.

Now he has a new book about the development of the superhero and what came before. The Evolution of the Costumed Avenger is subtitled The 4000–Year History of the Superhero, and delivers what it promises. Much that has fallen into obscurity is brought to light in this book. Precedents are unearthed. Archetypal forms are catalogued. But more than that, and perhaps more valuable, known things are recontextualised. Four thousand years of the Western heroic tradition, if not of Western literary tradition, are here imagined in a new way: as prologue to the coming of the superhero. The superhero, lately so central to popular fiction on page and screen, here finds a new apotheosis as the lens through which all preceding heroes are to be perceived. As the end-point of evolution.

And that’s fair enough. That’s what a history often does, foregrounding its subject, putting it at the centre of things. Nevins does his job well, writing in a style that’s academic in its rigour and its careful references to other scholars, while avoiding the jargon and convoluted syntax that mars much academic writing. His prose is clear, yet dense with information, moving quickly while constantly introducing new facts and new ideas. Given the vastness of his subject the book’s quite brief and indeed perhaps too brief: barely 300 pages, though those (like me) who relish discursive and tangential footnotes will appreciate the further 50 pages of endnotes. Nevins’ research is excellent throughout, particularly in the chapters covering the last two or three centuries. As is perhaps inevitable I have some questions and some doubts; most of them revolve around the way that Nevins defines the book in its opening chapter, and around the concluding chapters where Nevins presents a brief history of post–Golden Age superheroes. But The Evolution of the Costumed Avenger is clearly a success, not just an entertaining book but one vital for its field; a work that provides much food for thought to any reader with an even marginal interest in its subject.

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When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

When People Say the British Invasion of Comics, What Do They Really Mean?

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I think it’s a truism that either you have no taste as a child (The Golden Age of Science Fiction Is Ages 8-12 Effect) or that you just haven’t read enough to be discerning.

I think I’ve certainly suffered from being 12 as well as not having read enough. There are books and comics I read when younger that don’t do anything for me in my forties.

And there are good books and comics whose tropes have been so over-used that they’ve moved into the cliché.

That all being said, I think some good work was being done in American comics in the 1980s. Chris Claremont, J.M. DeMattis, George Perez, Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Peter David and many others were delivering solid, A-level work. And younger folk like Frank Miller were bringing decidedly different sensibilities and tones to American comics.

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

2000AD Free Comic Day-smallBack in December, Derek Kunsken’s enthusiastic review of Star Wars: Rogue One, “I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me,” shot up to #2 on our monthly traffic chart. Last month he claimed the #1 slot, and he didn’t need a blockbuster film to make it happen — he did it the old fashioned way, with a book review. The book in question was Thrill-Power Overload: A History of the British Comic 2000 AD, a detailed history of the legendary comic that launched Judge Dredd, Alan Moore’s D.R. and Quinch, Sláine, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog and countless others. Check it out.

Number 2 on the list for February was Mark Finn’s report on the Kickstarter for the first Skelos Press anthology, Chicken Fried Cthulhu, followed by Violette Malan’s survey of My Top Five Sword-Fight Movies, our obituary for GDW founder Loren Wiseman, and Andrew Zimmerman Jones’ interview with Paizo mastermind and Creative Director of their new Starfinder RPG, James L. Sutter.

Howard Andrew Jones’ review of one of his favorite recent games, the solitaire-suitable WWII simulation Heroes of Normandy, came in at #6 for February. At #7 was our report on the new Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast from Robert Zoltan and his talking raven — featuring a lengthy interview with Black Gate‘s own Ryan Harvey on one of his favorite topics, Edgar Rice Burroughs. And close on its heels was our announcement of the 2017 Nebula Award Nominations.

Rounding out the Top Ten were Steven Brust’s summary of Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life, and Fletcher Vredenburgh’s January Short Story Roundup.

The complete list of Top Articles for February follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

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