Barry Reese

Today we see another page from the Lazarus Gray “origins” project. Each member of the Assistance Unlimited group gets a page that basically summarizes who they are and why they’re a part of the group — and then there’s a “group” origin, as well. We saw the Lazarus page the other day and this time around we get to see Samantha Grace’s. This is, of course, just rough layouts but it gives you an idea of what we’re going for — the slightly cowboy looking guy in panel two is actually Eobard Grace (the star of my old Conquerors of Shadow book and one of Samantha’s relatives). You’ll learn more about their connection, along with all the other members of the Grace family, in an upcoming project called (appropriately enough) The Family Grace: An Extraordinary History.

Anyway, I think Anthony Castrillo continues to amaze!

I was going to write a lengthy column about DC’s announcement of more Watchmen projects but then I saw that one of the writers (JM Straczynski) had summed up my feelings already:

“The perception that these characters shouldn’t be touched by anyone other than Alan is both absolutely understandable and deeply flawed. As good as these characters are – and they are very good indeed – one could make the argument, based on durability and recognition, that Superman is the greatest comics character ever created. But I don’t hear Alan or anyone else suggesting that no one other than Shuster and Siegel should have been allowed to write Superman. Certainly Alan himself did this when he was brought on to write Swamp Thing, a seminal comics character created by Len Wein.

Leaving aside the fact that the Watchmen characters were variations on pre-existing characters created for the Charleton Comics universe, it should be pointed out that Alan has spent most of the last decade writing very good stories about characters created by other writers, including Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), Dorothy (from Wizard of normal”>Oz), Wendy (from Peter Pan), as well as Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, Jekyll and Hyde, and Professor Moriarty (used in the successful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). I think one loses a little of the moral high ground to say, “I can write characters created by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and Frank Baum, but it’s wrong for anyone else to write my characters.”

The whole point of having great characters is the opportunity to explore them more deeply with time, re-interpreting them for each new age. That DC allowed these characters to sit on a shelf for over two decades as a show of respect is salutary, but there comes a time when good characters have to re-enter the world to teach us something about ourselves in the present.”

We’re taking a break from previewing Anthony Castrillo’s Lazarus Gray comic t0 focus on the release of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT! I have a story included in this one and it was a fun project to work on. This is kicking off Pulp Obscura!

Press Release

Pro Se Productions, a leading Publisher in the New Pulp Movement, announces today the release of the first collection from its PULP OBSCURA line. Pro Se, in conjunction with Altus Press, noted Publisher of Pulp reprints as well as the home of Will Murray’s new Doc Savage novels, developed the PULP OBSCURA line to spotlight characters from the classic days of Pulp Fiction that are considered unknown or rare in the modern era.

“This concept,” stated Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se, “is really the brainchild of Altus Press’ founder and publisher, Matt Moring. He saw the potential in many of the characters he plans to reprint the original adventures of via Altus Press to be used in new stories by modern day writers. The characters he and I discussed are in the Public Domain and therefore free writers to tackle and publishers to print. Out of that rose PULP OBSCURA, a name I’d come up with a year or so ago out of my own thoughts of one day focusing on rare characters that most people, even the hardcore Pulp fans, don’t know exist.”

The first PULP OBSCURA volume is THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT. The title character originally appeared in FLYING ACES Magazine in the 1930s and was written by Donald E. Keyhoe, an author known later in his career for his writing on UFOs. Appearing in numerous tales into the 1940s, Knight was considered a flying detective type, an agent of the government who used the cover of millionaire flyboy to investigate plots, usually those involving things such as lost valleys or other oddities, against America.

As stated on the book itself-
From the past flies new tales of one of Pulp’s forgotten heroes! Pro Se Productions in conjunction with Altus Press presents the first volume in its PULP OBSCURA line! Bringing adventures and heroes lost in yesterday blazing to life in new pulp tales today! Six high flying, wild and weird adventures from I.A. Watson, Barry Reese, Frank Schildiner, Joshua Reynolds, Terry Alexander, and Adam Lance Garcia!

Come fly with this hero of the airways as he battles threats to America from the common to the extraordinary! The first new stories since 1942!

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT is available now from Pro Se Press as a Kick Off Special for PULP OBSCURA. Altus Press’ volume which this New Pulp book is a companion to, THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT, VOLUME ONE, will be out within days. In the future, Hancock explained, Altus’ reprint volume and Pro Se’s New Pulp companion volume will be released on the same day. “We did this,” Hancock said, “as a special gift to those who have been following the development of PULP OBSCURA and readers eager to see what we’re doing. There’s been a lot of buzz about this project, which we all greatly appreciate, and we wanted to reward that.”

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT features a spectacular cover by Mike Fyles and the cover design work of Sean Ali. Interior Format and Design is the work of Matt Moring and the ebook design is by Russ Anderson. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT is now available via Pro Se’s Createspace store at https://www.createspace.com/3783368 and will be available via Amazon in print within the week, $12.00 in print. It is also available for $2.99 for the Kindle on Amazon and in various formats at www.smashwords.com and coming soon to Barnes & Noble for the Nook.

What you’re looking at is a rough layout for page one of the Lazarus Gray “Origins” story, drawn by Anthony Castrillo. Please ignore the misspelling of Gray’s name in panel one — it’s gonna be corrected, don’t worry. This is just a quick layout to show how Anthony’s handling the script I sent him, but it gives you a good idea of what the final version will look like.

Is this hot or what?!

I might share page two with you guys tomorrow…

Tomorrow I’ll give everyone their first peek at Anthony Castrillo’s comic book pages for the Lazarus Gray feature. They look really solid!

In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday!

The art for today is an excellent John Byrne drawing of Indiana Jones.

Woke up this morning to find two Anthony Castrillo sketches in my inbox. They’re pages from the Lazarus Gray project I announced yesterday and are things of beauty. Expect to see them here soon!

But today is about Tales of the Rook! What can you expect to find in this book? How about….

- The Rook battling to save a bevy of beauties during his Boston days, courtesy of Ron Fortier!
- A rollicking teamup between The Rook and Mike Bullock’s Xander!
- Bobby Nash’s action-packed tale of an arsonist loose in Atlanta!
- An adventure featuring The Rook of the 21st century (Ian Morris), from Percival Constantine!
- Tommy Hancock pits The Rook against a classic pulp supervillain!
- Max and Evelyn’s failed attempt at a vacation lands them on a mobile Nazi base disguised as an Island!

Great stories, great art – what more could you want?

This George Sellas pencil rough is from Tommy Hancock’s story – recognize this famous villain?

Anthony Castrillo is a no stranger to the New Pulp crowd. In recent years, he’s done the covers for The Rook Volumes 3 & 5, as well as the cover for Four Bullets for Dillon by Derrick Ferguson and The Adventures of Lazarus Gray by me. He’s also done interior art for The Rook Volumes 3, 4, 5 & 6, winning Best Interior Art in the Pulp Ark Awards for Volume Five. This year, he’s nominated for Best Cover (Lazarus Gray) and Best Interior Art (Rook v. 6).

In the comics world, Anthony has worked for Marvel, DC, Valiant and a lot more.

I’m proud to say that he’s currently collaborating with me on a short comic feature starring Lazarus Gray and the members of Assistance Unlimited. The script has been delivered and Anthony is currently hard at work on the art — it’s basically a primer for anyone who is interested in the characters, explaining who they are, how they came together, etc. Not sure if it will make its debut in Die Glocke or if you’ll have to wait a little bit longer but eventually it will be a handy resource for anyone looking to get into the series, whether they’re starting with the third volume or going back to the beginning.

The genesis of the project was Airship 27′s announcement that they were working on a second issue of All-Star Pulp Comics. I wrote a Rook story for issue one but for issue two, I wasn’t initially invited back because I didn’t have my own artist lined up (Ron Fortier was gracious enough to pair me up with someone for issue one). I approached Anthony to see if he was interested in doing something with me and then got to brainstorming: should I do another Rook adventure or something else?

When I decided that I wanted to do Lazarus Gray, I knew that my contract with Pro Se would preclude me from pitching that story to Airship — the only reason I was able to get The Rook into issue one was because I had agreed to work on it before I signed my deal with my current publisher. So that led to the current idea — a short piece that I can actually use again and again, for promotional and informational purposes.

I think you’re all going to really like seeing what Anthony and I have come up with!

All the artwork that accompanies this post is by Anthony Castrillo, showcasing his incredible skill! Look for preview images from Anthony’s Lazarus Gray pages soon!

The image accompanying this post is a rough from Tales of the Rook. It depicts The Rook of the 21st century (well, the years 2009-2012, anyway), Ian Morris. It’s going to be used with Perry Constantine’s short story. Drawn by George Sellas, it’s like ten kinds of awesome! I really dig it. Previously, Ian had only been depicted by one other artist (Storn Cook, in The Rook Volume Four).

My “big announcement” is still coming tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have some visuals to share with you. That’s out of my hands, unfortunately, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Stay tuned!

I won’t be able to attend Pulp Ark this year (very sad!) but I will be at both Dragon*Con in September 2012 and the Crossroads Writers Conference in October. If anything else develops, I’ll let you guys know.

Watched The Mummy again the other night — never get too much of that film. And, of course, Evelyn Davies (wife of The Rook) was inspired by Evie, the character in that film, so it has a special place in the hearts of Rook fans everywhere.

One of my favorite underrated movies is The Shadow (1994) with Alex Baldwin. I love that movie and the following is a fan-made “trailer” for the film. I really dig it! Check it out and let me know what you think:

So it’s Wednesday and I’m more than ready for the weekend.

Currently working on a Lazarus Gray story that’s going very well — and prepping for the Three Months of Reese that will come your way in April, May and June. That’s when we’re going to see the second Lazarus Gray book released, Tales of the Rook and a collection of mostly out-of-print material known as The Family Grace. But before all of that… will be the Richard Knight collection from Pulp Obscura. Not sure exactly when that one will be out but it should be soon.

About halfway through Horror in Gold by Will Murray. So far it’s been okay — I haven’t enjoyed it nearly as much as The Desert Demons, though. Something feels ‘off’ to me — not sure exactly what it is yet but maybe it will crystallize eventually. It’s not a bad read but it feels more like a ground rule double while Demons was a triple, I’d say.

I cast my vote for Best Writer in the Pulp Ark Awards to Wayne Reinagel. The guy’s written some true New Pulp classics and if you haven’t tried them yet, do so! My personal favorite is The Khan Dynasty.

The image with this post is by Anthony Castrillo and comes from The Rook Volume Six — Anthony won Best Interior Artwork in the 2011 Pulp Ark Awards for his work volume five of The Rook. He’s nominated this year for Best Cover (Lazarus Gray) and Best Interior Art (Rook v. 6).

Expect a big announcement from me on Friday (1/27/12). It’s gonna be coooooool.