Pulpster Kevin Byrne answered the call to action and submitted this report on the "Pulp Panel" at this year's New York Comic Con:
Anthony Tollin announced that he split from Nostalgia Ventures and has moved his properties to Spectrum (which I believe is his own imprint).
Attending were Joe Gentile of Moonstone Publishing, Ron Fortier of Airship 27, Steven Seagel (sic?) of Weird Tales, Anthony Tollin (formerly) of Nostalgia Ventures, author Will Murray, producer F.G. DeSanto, Charles Ardai of Hardcase Crime, and Mark Halegua of NY Pulp Club.
In talking about new projects, Joe Gentile announced new Doc Savage collection of original radio scripts (didn't know that it had been on radio), as well as a collection of new Avenger stories; Ron Fortier has new Captain Hazard, Secret Agent X and Jim Anthony stories coming soon; Steven Seagel talked about how Weird Tales in trying to bridge the comic/fiction divide in the wake of their 85th anniversary.
Anthony Tollin talked about how he just printed the 25th edition of the Shadow and the 24th edition of Doc Savage, and will be publishing a collection of Orson Welles' radio shows from when he was the Shadow, as well as new Avenger, The Whisperer and Captain Fury stories. He also spoke of how he had warned DC Comics about the tagline for The Whisperer, which is 'The Secret Life of James W.Gordon.'
Will Murray and Anthony Tollin talked about how most of the early comics were nothing more than full-blown adaptations of those adventure pulps, citing Batman and the Green Hornet as prime examples (turns out Batman's first story was a full adaptation of a Shadow story).
F.G. DeSanto spoke about the current Shadow feature he has in development with Michael Uslan and Sam Raimi, and that they're currently working on the second draft. It will be a period piece, and they're aiming to maintain a tonal consistency with the original material - it will not be an origin story and it will stay away from the previous movie.
Oh, and the Shadow may not be Lamont Cranston...
Charles Ardai spoke about how Hard Case Crime is going to expand its scope, from just pulp crime to include pulp adventure as well. He has a series planned around a character - Gabriel Hunt - and that the first book is written and the second book is being written.
The two big pieces of news were saved for last:
- Will Murray announced that he is currently writing a new Doc Savage story based on old Lester Dent notes (due to be released either next year or the year after that), and...
- Joe Gentile announced that Moonstone will be publishing new Green Hornet material later this year, and that it will be pure pulp crime fiction.
7 comments:
I actually attended this panel and got to talk to a few of them afterward. It was a lot of fun and they're all around good guys.
Hi Bill, tip of the pulp fedora to Mike Bullock for sending me to this blog. It's very, very cool and I've bookmarked as I'll be coming back often. Nice reporting on the first ever New York Comic Con Pulp Panel
It was a joy to sit on it with all those other pulp-dudes and hopefully we helped spread the gospel of pulp.
Our table did really well and we sold quite a few Airship 27 titles.
People are making a lot of that Lamont Cranston remark -- I hope what the guy meant was their approach is more like the pulps where a) The Shadow WASN'T Lamont Cranston and b) could be anyone in a given scene, like a janitor lurking in the background.
Paul,
Actually, it was C) All of the above.
Kevin
Anyone know when the new "History of the Shadow" book will come out? It is written by Martin Grams. I'm trying to find a place to buy a copy other than Amazon because they are not being exact on the release date.
Post a Comment