Authors: Control Your IPs

Authors: Control Your IPs

Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch hammers home the importance of intellectual property rights and observes how decades of tradpub conditioning has left most authors woefully inept at controlling their IPs. I wrote the following sentence to someone who wanted to take my entire IP in a series for a pittance: I’ve…
September 21, 201716 Comments
Japanese Pulp Influence on Cinema

Japanese Pulp Influence on Cinema

Author M.T. White joined me on the latest episode of Geek Gab: On the Books to discuss the major influence that Japanese pulp novels have had on the world of film. We also speculate on how the pulp ethos survived in Japan while being almost totally memory-holed in the West.…
September 20, 20174 Comments
War Demons

War Demons

War Demons, the new urban fantasy/military adventure novel from author Russell Newquist, is here! Driven by vengeance, Michael Alexander enlisted in the Army the day after 9/11. Five years later, disillusioned and broken by the horrors he witnessed in Afghanistan, Michael returns home to Georgia seeking to begin a new…
September 19, 20172 Comments
Marvel’s War on Beauty

Marvel’s War on Beauty

The original plan this week was to discuss American Assassin, and Daddy Warpig did give a quick and dirty review, but then he launched into a patented Warpig rant on the comics industry's open hatred of beauty. In particular, DW singled out Marvel as the most egregious offender. When they've…
September 18, 20176 Comments
Alt or Not?

Alt or Not?

Imagine my surprise to find that the redoubtable Injustice Gamer independently contributed to the ongoing conversation about alternative cultural institutions that others such as JD Cowan and I are wading into. Here's IG's Alfred Genesson: Vox Day put up a post responding to yet another article on building another culture.…
September 15, 201719 Comments
Losing the Plot

Losing the Plot

JD Cowan addresses how the corporatists in charge of every major entertainment medium have enthusiastically lost touch with the comic book reading, video game playing, and TV watching public. My thesis is simple; we've lost the plot. Not only have we lost the plot, we're proud of having done so.…
September 14, 201711 Comments
Casting Call: The Secret Kings

Casting Call: The Secret Kings

Every author daydreams about casting hypothetical movie versions of his books. Today I present to you my preferred cast for 2017 Dragon Award finalist The Secret Kings. Note: this list will only cover characters who are new to this book or who haven't been cast before. Actors already chosen for…
September 13, 2017
The Thinking Man

The Thinking Man

Bradford Walker contrasts the thinking man's pulp hero with the more familiar Man of Action over at PulpRev.com. The Fighting-Man is the default protagonist, but there are other archetypes. They arose out of defining themselves against the Fighting-Man, often in the form of a tradeoff: he's really good at (X)…
September 12, 20175 Comments
IT (2017)

IT (2017)

Art by Rabbittooth My low opinion of Hollywood, particularly their creative bankruptcy, is a matter of public record. Having exhausted the reserves of creative capital amassed by better men, the high priests of our culture are reduced to churning out one bland carbon copy sequel, remake, reboot, re-imagining, etc. after…
September 11, 201714 Comments
A Consistent Theme

A Consistent Theme

Having listened to the latest episode of Geek Gab: On the Books, blogger Bradford Walker notes a common theme running through my podcast episodes and blog posts. If there is one consistent theme to a lot of Brian's posts at his blog, and his episodes of this podcast, is that…
September 8, 20179 Comments