Sunday Funnies: Where Did It Go?!

Reese Unlimited Anounces Grimalkin!

REESE UNLIMITED is proud to present an exciting new adventure set within our ever-expanding pulp adventure universe!

She was one of America’s greatest heroes in its darkest days… She is now the world’s most powerful and alluring sorceress…. And She is working her magic in prose in the debut of her first novel -- GRIMALKIN!

A mystery spanning decades rears its head in the modern day, plunging Grimalkin onto a globetrotting adventure that poses a threat not only to her immortal soul but to all life on planet Earth! Will her magic be enough to save the world again? Find out in GRIMALKIN by award-winning author Barry Reese!

Cover artwork is by Gilbert Monsanto with interior art pieces by Lee Gaston!

The e-book version of the book retails for $2.99 and can be purchased at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF63FKZN

The novel is also available in print for $12.99 and can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFB9L9XV

Part of the Reese Unlimited Universe!

Sunday Funnies: Pockets!!! It has pockets!!

Bubba's Back!

It's finally time for Bubba the Monster Hunter to face his most terrifying challenge yet - marriage!

That's right, Bubba's back and more ridiculous than ever, and this one ends with wedding bells! But you know Bubba, and that means you know something's going to go sideways before all is said and done. But before he gets hitched, he's got to get all up in a swamp, get lost on a mountain, get an involuntary haircut (yep, I said what I said - Bubba's getting a haircut!), and deal with the most ridiculous bachelor party in the history of bar fights!

Old, New, Borrowed, & Blue collects the following novellas -

• Swing Low
• Unholy Ground
• Wampus Rumpus
• Church on Time

Available from Falstaff Books and on Amazon.

Sunday Funnies: That's Not a Book

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS SINBAD : THE NEW VOYAGES VOL 8

Airship 27 Production is thrilled to announce the release of their latest Sinbad the Sailor anthology. Sail once again aboard the Blue Nymph along with her captain, the legendary Sinbad the Sailor. Along with his colorful crew of Henri, the archer from Gaul, Rolf, the mighty Viking and Tishimi, the beautiful samurai, they battle their way through four hair raising adventures. From a living mermaid to the Old Man of the Sea and bizarre mythological monsters, Sinbad and company embrace their seafaring adventures with courage, loyalty and a good deal of ale.

Writers Erik Franklin, Carson Demmans, Terry Wijesuriya and J. Walt Layne supply the tales that will have readers cheering with delight. Artist Gary Kato provides the black and white interior illustrations, with Michael Youngblood the colorful cover. All assembled by Award Winning Art Director Rob Davis.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION! 

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.

Motivational Monday: How To Write

Sunday Funnies: Signs a Writer Is Working

[Link] Establish characters’ intentions in every scene

by Rob Bignell

Every time you start a story, you want to quickly establish a problem for the main character to solve and their intention of solving it. Maybe a hacked up dead body is found, and a detective intends to bring the murderer to justice. Possibly a divorced woman who’s been by her herself for the past five years sees a man she’s interested in and decides to meet him. Perhaps a starship captain finds a far-flung colony where his brother lived has been destroyed by some unknown force.

Regardless of the genre, as the story progresses, the main characters’ intentions must be established at the beginning of each scene and then played out. In fact, that’s true of every significant character in your tale.

Characters’ intentions drive your plot. When they are the focus of your writing, your story has action, tension and suspense because some characters will oppose and even temporarily thwart your story’s protagonist. The consequences of that action sets up the next scene. When those intentions aren’t the focus, the story drifts with irrelevant scenes, and character development suffers.

Read the full article: https://inventingrealityediting.com/2017/08/27/establish-characters-intentions-in-every-scene/

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS DAN FOWLER G-MAN Vol 5

Airship 27 Production is thrilled to present another brand-new volume of action-packed adventures featuring America’s top cop. A clever gang of killers breaks into the Treasury building and gets away with several money plates, leaving behind several bodies. The FBI’s top agent, Dan Fowler, is put on the case. The Director’s orders are to find those responsible and recover the plates. As he and fellow agents, Larry Kendall and Sally Vane, take up the case, more bodies are uncovered, and soon the agents themselves become targets.

Soon, Fowler and his allies realize they are facing a sophisticated mob bent on selling the plates to a foreign government whose plans are to ruin the U.S. economy by flooding international markets with counterfeit dollars. Now the mission is a race, and the clock is ticking. Writer Fred Adams Jr. delivers a taut action thriller pulp fans will applaud, while artist Sam Salas offers the black and white interior illustrations with Michael Youngblood on the gun-blasting cover. All designed by our award-winning Art Director, Rob Davis.

 AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

 Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.

Hollis Jo McCollum: Hopeless Romance and Magic Sparkles

Hollis Jo McCullum is a fantasy author, designer, podcaster, Bookfest Bellweather, and all around silly person. She writes two different dark fantasy book series: The Raashan Series and the Lost Beacon Chronicles.

With a degree in history and specializations in the ancient Etruscans and medieval Britain, history and mythology are continuous inspirations for her writing, so you'll even get some fun history to rattle off at parties when you read her books. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

Most recently, I published the third book in my first complete trilogy! My Raashan trilogy is epic dark fantasy with inspired romantic subplots. It opens on the world of Raashan in a state of post-apocalyptic chaos, where our heroes are striving to survive in a dying world. The first book in the Raashan trilogy, To Save a World, has won two national awards. The second book, The Queen Witch, has also won a national award and has received praise for my original take on fairies. Tear in the World, the third book in the Raashan trilogy, hasn't been entered in any contests yet, but my reader feedback has been excellent. I'm very proud. :)

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

On the romantic side, I live for a slow-burn romance and those little, sweet moments of nuance that speak of true intimacy and affection. What can I say? I'm a born hopeless romantic!

On the adventure side of things, I love to empower my characters and highlight true teamwork and friendship. Personally, I'm very sappy about how much I love my friends and family. So, I very much enjoy exploring those relationships in my writing and developing them through the characters. Also, I write fantasy so naturally I love a completely impossible, extreme situation that can be resolved by any means I can possibly imagine. Since magic is real I can pretty much do whatever I want so long as I throw magic sparkles on it. It is so much fun to do the impossible over and over again.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

Like many writers, I love to read and have been reading since an early age. However, what really prompted me to start writing was playing D&D. To Save a World is actually based on a campaign I played with my best friend. When that campaign was over, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was too awesome. So, one day I sat down and began to write To Save a World. 

Many of my books, like my current WIP, The Key, which is the first book in the Raashan Histories trilogy, are also based on D&D campaigns and characters. I've been playing since I was 11 years old. I'm 43 now and still love D&D. Never grow up. Never surrender.

Motivational Monday: Ralph Is a Writer's Super Power

Sunday Funnies: Two Kinds of Writers

[Link] What Do Creators Owe Readers (or Media Consumers?)

Hint: It's not your head-canon

by Tony Sarrecchia

Let me get this out of the way early, because I can already feel the collective Internet squinting suspiciously in my direction: Creators owe you the best story they can tell.

That’s it. That’s the whole debt. Not the one you want to hear. Not the one that keeps your head-canon intact, or revives that beloved side character who died three spin-offs ago. Just the best story they’ve got in the tank at the moment, however wild, unexpected, or off-brand it may seem to longtime fans.

Let me explain before you start sharpening your lightsabers.

The Long and Wibbly-Wobbly Road

Let’s talk Doctor Who. It’s the storytelling equivalent of a ship of Theseus. Change a plank here, a personality there, swap one floppy-haired actor for another, and somehow, it’s still the TARDIS bumping its way through space and time. Since 1963, Doctor Who has been a cultural experiment in regeneration — not just of the Doctor, but of tone, pacing, themes, and audience expectations.

Classic Who fans might pine for the slower, more cerebral serials of the ’70s. Modern fans grew up with the kinetic, emotional chaos of the Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat eras. And now? The show’s spinning its next regeneration, with new/old showrunner Russell T Davies (again!) and a shiny new Doctor. Some fans rejoice. Others lament. All of them care deeply. (And yes, I have thoughts, but that’s a topic for another post).

But here’s the rub: Doctor Who is not a static object. It never was. It regenerates. That’s the whole point.

The show doesn’t owe you your favorite version forever. Ten and Rose? Done—-we are not coming back to it. What Doctor Who owes you a story worth telling, even if that means evolving past your preferences.

Read the full article: https://www.tonysarrecchia.com/p/what-do-creators-owe-readers-or-media

BEN Books release Secret Agent X and the Tenth Circle!

Secret Agent X and the Tenth Circle

An all-new pulpy action thriller

From author Bobby Nash and BEN books

You know his name.

A hero reimagined for a new century. 

His alias is legendary. Secret Agent X.

His true name is a mystery. A closely guarded secret known only to himself and his handler, Agent K-9, Secret Agent X works in the shadows to weed out crime, corruption, and terror. A master of disguise, X works undercover, switching between identities to carry out his missions. He could be anyone Look to your left. See that person? That could be X.

X could be anyone.

When K-9 learns that a dangerous criminal terrorist organization that has been looking war-torn locations, stealing precious antiquities, and using the proceeds to fund their war on peaceful loving people everywhere.

Join the action as the newly instituted Man of a Thousand Faces faces off against the mysterious Tenth Circle. Can X thwart their plans before a new attack begins?

Pulp Fiction’s long-running hero returns in an all-new action/thriller from award-winning pulp novelist, Bobby Nash.

• BEN Books
• Amazon

Motivational Monday: Sing the Truth

Sunday Funnies: 49th Time's the Charm

[Link] Why It’s So Hard To Find Small Press Books (And what you can do about it)

by Melanie Jennings and Elizabeth Kaye Cook

In December, we wrote an essay about how small presses still fight the good fight for risky literary fiction, even as the conglomerated Big Five publishers abandon it. In a time when companies like Meta steal books to build generative AI, then claim that individual books “are no different from noise” in terms of their contribution to AI, defending wild fiction matters more than ever. Many readers reached out to us: after too-often plunking down $30 for a well-reviewed but ultimately disappointing new release, they were clamoring for better options. If small and independent presses offered fresher, more challenging books, how could they find and read them?

It’s a more difficult question to answer than you might expect.

Books navigate a long, complex journey before they appear on bookstore shelves, if they ever do. Most people still read books as physical objects, meaning they have to be warehoused and shipped. The Big Five have their own distribution centers, but most small presses are distributed by Ingram, a conglomerate superpower in its own right. (One small press editor we spoke to described it as “The Death Star.”) Ingram’s only other real competitor is Independent Publishers Group (IPG), a distributor for small and independent presses.

There’s a romantic vision that a book becomes a hit when readers stumble upon it, en masse, and fall in love. But in the real world, most readers hear about a book from a friend, social media, or a book review, then search for it at their local bookstore or Barnes & Noble or Amazon. If it’s not there, they’re not reading it.

Read the full article: https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-its-so-hard-to-find-small-press

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTON PRESENTS QUATERMANIN AND CHALLENGER’S 13.5 BILLION-YEAR DETOUR

Adventure 27 Production is thrilled to release a truly unique pulp adventure written by Thomas Kent Miller.  Several years ago Kent wrote “Allan Quatermain and the Star of Wonder,” wherein H. Rider Haggard’s hero encountered evidence of alien incursions on our planet, specifically the African coast of Sierra Leone. This story takes place in 1873 and though Quatermain survives to tell the tale, it’s ending is not complete.

 Then, Kent changes course and offers up “Challenger and the Ancient Nova in Aquila,” which transpires 42 years after the Quatermain tale. In this adventure, Conan Doyle’s eccentric Prof. George Challenger discovers, in the South American state of Ecuador a similar ruins whose origins and purposes he can only guess at. Both facilities, though separated by an ocean, are identical in construction.

 Now, we’ve reprinted both back to back as Kent always intended in this new Kindle-only edition. It contains the original interior illustrations by Clayton Hinkle and a new cover by Rob Davis.  Originally released on Kindle, it is now available in paperback as well.

 AIRSHIP 27 – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

 Available now on Amazon in paperback as well as Kindle.

Gordon Dymowski: Ideas Three for a Dollar

As a New Pulp writer, Gordon Dymowski has written many short stories, including the 2019 Pulp Factory Award-winning tale “Knights of the Silver Cross.” He has also crafted non-fiction essays for Crazy 8 Press, ATB Publishing and the DePaul Pop Culture Celebration. He also regularly contributes to I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere and the National Institute of Social Media. He has published with Pro Se Productions, Pilot Studios, Airship 27 Productions, and Space Buggy Press.

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

Currently, I have a short story titled “The Mists of Koramu” in CNI Classified Volume 4 from Blue Planet Press. I am also working on a Sherlock Holmes tale and a non-fiction project. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I rarely,  if ever, think about themes when I’m writing. It feels rather pretentious and can often seem rather deliberate in a “read-this-because-it-has-the-secrets-of-the-universe” way.

Looking back, however, I find myself focusing on issues around personal integrity, social justice, and complex morality.  That’s one of the reasons I consider myself a pulp writer: I can write about such issues simply and directly without feeling like I’m pandering or lecturing. Although  I’ve been more direct in my writing about such issues (see  “One Bullet Too Many” in Pilot Studios’ Always Punch Nazis Volume One), my preference is creating fictional scenarios to explore those themes. To paraphrase  Alfred Hitchcock, some stories are slices of life...mine are slices of cake. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

I grew up an only child, so I learned to entertain myself by creating stories when I was alone. My mother had given me a beat-up clipboard and used computer paper when I was six, and I remember consistently drawing and narrating stories. For a third-grade paper, I wrote a story about a boy who wanders into a “haunted” house making strange noises... and discovers a lost dog. 

But both parents fostered a love of reading: my father purchased several Dr. Seuss books right after I was born. My first “alone” trip was heading to the Brighton Park branch of the Chicago Public Library where I discovered both Sherlock Holmes and Doc Savage. In high school, I was often part of the “marketing”  team for various events, even down to writing and making announcements over the intercom. (My Joe Piscopo Sports Guy impersonation is second to none).

In college, I wrote a semi-regular column for the Loyola Phoenix, as well as various humor and music zines. That led to an online writing gig with Comic Related (which you can find via the Wayback Machine), which led to Airship 27 and Pro Se Productions, and the rest, they say, is history….

But if you want something more colorful, I was rocketed to this planet by my parents when Krypton exploded. That works. 

What inspires you to write?

There’s a store on 32nd Place and Aberdeen in Chicago, just across the street from the yellow pushcart hot dog stand. Head to the hot dog stand, and ask Mike for a “Nelson Algren special, hold the poppy seeds.” After that, I’m allowed into the store and I buy ideas three for a dollar. 

You don’t believe me, don’t you?

Inspiration comes from everywhere. It’s usually a case of me finding something or someone interesting and asking “What if?”

It also comes, on some level, from my fellow creatives. My fellow writers frequently craft stories that make me go “I wish I had thought of that”, but enable me to create something different with the same vibe. My musician/performing friends inspire me to stay in the moment, to “follow my muse” when I’m “in the zone.”

(I’m Generation X, so using “quotation marks” in that context is on-brand) 

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Let me just name names and you can draw your own conclusions: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Sara Paretsky, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, Octavia Butler, Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, Robert R. McCammon, Robert B. Parker, Jonathan Kellerman.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or is it a science continuum?" Why?

It’s both an art and a science. 

Now, the obligatory rant: two words are used when describing the creative arts that get on my nerves. They are franchise and content. 

I know franchise is used as a shortcut for “movies highlighting a character, characters, or premise”, but it makes such entities sound too clinical. It’s like characters are fast food. But content is extremely evil since it makes any kind of creative endeavor (novel, movie, book, comic, web site copy, social media posting) as equal...and they’re not. Each piece of media serves a specific purpose and has a specific set of instructions. We’re seeing too many people call it all “equal”…

Yes, I am calling out advocates of generative AI to craft “content.” It takes more time to craft the “ideal” prompt to get halfway workable prose and “tweak” it than to think through what you’re attempting to write and craft it. 

One is focusing on quantity, the other quality. 

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Finding the time to write has been challenging, since I have been busy the past few years. Caring for my mother until her passing in 2022, dealing with a less-than-professional property owner, and regaining my professional footing have been exhausting. Plus, since my day job is focused on online meetings and consultations (I work as a copywriter and affordable housing advocate), that means I would rather not face the keyboard or sit down to write. Luckily, I manage to get some writing done per day, but it can be especially challenging at times.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?  

Besides my short story, I encourage people to become a free or (preferably) paid member of my Patreon community. I’ve been working on increasing my outreach (and have been editing and writing some things), but I could really use the grassroots support. 

For more information, visit: 

Website: https://www.gordon-dymowski.com/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gordondymowski