There seems to be a lot going on at the moment. For the next few weeks the ROCKETEER is going to highlight aliens in honor of the Chehalis Flying Saucer Party—a local event celebrating everything UFO. (It’s like McMenamins UFO Festival only smaller.) I’ll be discussing pulp-era and slightly later stories with the themes of invasion, alien manipulation, control, and humanity fighting back in stories ranging from the absurd to the deadly. The first in that series came out this week: “Tactical Error: This Star Shall Be Free.” The story is about aliens who interfere with the natural course of human evolution and what comes of it. You can my article here.
Next, The Pulpster #32 has just come out and I have an article in it! (If you’d like to buy a copy of Pulpster 32 featuring “100 Years of Sport Story” you can order your own copy here.) I love writing for The Pulpster, the editor is top notch and the material is just up my alley. My article is called, “The Man in the Moon Helmet” and is about Frederick C. Davis’ hero, the Moon Man. The Moon Man was most famous of the detectives to come out of Ten Detective Aces pulp magazine in the 1930’s. I adore the character and Davis’ writing. I’m sure I get just as much of a thrill from reading these stories as people did back in the 1930’s. Certainly, I’m at the edge of my seat. There are 38 original stories and I’m almost done reading all of them. At this point I’m rationing them in order to draw out the fun.
The Pulp Super Fan blog has a nice write up about this year’s Pulpster and I’m mentioned! I really do have to write to blogger, Michael, and introduce myself properly.
The character of the Moon Man has fallen into the public domain and I’ve decided to try my hand at writing a new Moon Man story. I’m not the first to do so, there have been at least two volumes of new stories put out in the last twenty years. My story takes place in 1936 which places it in the middle of the original series. I’m a real stickler for details when it comes to writing pulp. I want to get the sound and look of it just right. I was hoping to have the story completed for PulpFest this year but no luck, I just wasn’t happy with it yet. And since I’m also illustrating it with pulp-style illustrations and a story cover in color, that takes a bit more time as well. Still, I’m happy with the plot so far. I’ll keep going with it and see what happens. I have high hopes for it.
Finally, I’m doing another pulp copy practice piece. This time it’s a “Shadow Detective Monthly” magazine cover by George Rozen featuring the story, “Hidden Death.” I’m making my copy in colored pencils on colored paper this time. I don’t usually copy paintings in colored pencil but this time I felt like giving it a try. Here is the Rozen cover next to my work-in-progress. I’ll post the final one here when I’m done with it.
That’s it for the moment. A lot!
