A quick update.

You’ll see here info about my new documentary, CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP. This one’s been in the works for several years, and will start making a few select festival appearances. We have not begun shopping it to TV and/or DVD yet.

My anthology feature, SHADES OF NOIR — which includes the short films “Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life,” “A Matter of Principal” (Quarry) and “Three Women,” PLUS the documentary “Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane” — is finished and will be delivered to Troma Entertainment as soon as editor/D.P. Phil Dingeldein and I can find time to do the commentary track.

Troma also plans a boxed set including SHADES, the two MOMMYs and REAL TIME. New commentaries on the MOMMYs need to be done, too, which has held us up.

What is probably the final “disaster” novel for Berkley Prime Crime will be out in June — THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER. It’s out just in time to take advantage of the Spielberg movie, though my book focuses on the radio “invasion” and teams Shadow creator (and magician) Walter Gibson with Orson Welles himself. You will have fun.

I just completed ROAD TO PARADISE, the final book in the trilogy (although the door remains open for more books in the saga). It’s been delivered to my editor at Morrow and the response has been wonderful. Very proud of this one — look for it late this year or early next.

Just yesterday (March 17), I delivered the new CSI novel, IMPERFECT CRIMES. The previous CSI novel, BINDING TIES, hits the stands any day now. Also, I’m doing a CSI: NY comic-book mini-series for IDW called “Bloody Murder.” And my CSI assistant Matt Clemens has been helping me on all of that, plus two CSI: NY jigsaw puzzles. (No, I’m not doing the CSI: NY novels — Pocket wants me to concentrate on Vegas).

Breaking news — I’ve just signed with HardCase to do a movie tie-in edition to promote SHADES OF NOIR. I’ll be expanding the Quarry story, “A Matter of Principal” (the award-winning film of which appears in SHADES) into the full-length THE LAST QUARRY. It will utilize the screenplay I’ve written for director Jeffrey Goodman, who seems close to get the Quarry movie up and running. This is the first Quarry novel in twenty years. And it probably will be the last, as the title indicates.

I’ve also done a very fun movie novelization — my first in several years — but I’m not sure I can mention what it is yet. Let’s just say it’s about an incompetant French detective and a famous jewel named after a feline.

Finally, it looks like we’ll be mounting my play ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE (greatly expanding the short film of the same name) in a few months at a terrific venue in Des Moines. We did a one-night only presentation in Des Moines last year. NESS has been nominated for a Best Play Edgar. Michael Cornelison, the John Wayne to my John Ford, will star. If we get the venue that I think we’ll get…it’ll be worth a trip for any Ness or Collins or Cornelsion fans.

And, yes, Phil Dingeldein and I will be shooting the production.

Stay tuned.

How do you like the new updated website?

Nate has done a great job as usual.  One minor glitch: a long update got lost in cyberspace, and this quickie (I’m working on ROAD TO PARADISE) will have to suffice.

Following these brief words, you’ll find a ROAD TO PURGATORY (on sale Nov. 23) press release, and our ROAD TO PURGATORY book tour so far.  Out all at once are ROAD TO PURGATORY (Morrow prose sequel); ROAD TO PERDITION 2: ON THE ROAD (DC graphic novel sequel, collecting the three ON THE ROAD graphic novellas); TWO FOR THE MONEY (Hardcase Crime dual reprint of my first two novels, BAIT MONEY and BLOOD MONEY (the first two Nolan and Jon books); MEN’S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES (the campy Taschen coffee table book George Hagenauer and I have done on the “sweat” mags of the ’50s and ’60s); and the new CSI graphic novel from IDW, DEMONHOUSE.  There’s also a recent CSI novel from Pocket still on the “new” shelves: GRAVE SECRETS.

I have just completed CSI: BINDING TIES and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDERS.  ROAD TO PARADISE is shaping up well — it takes place in the early ’70s…about the time my career began!  What does it say that my historical novels have now caught up with my lifetime?

Exciting indie news: SHADES OF NOIR, my anthology film collecting the three short films (“Eliot Ness: an Untouchable Life,” “A Matter of Principal” and “Three Women”) and my Mickey Spillane documentary will be released by Troma on DVD next year.  It will also be part of a boxed set of all my indie films to date, as will a new 10th Anniversary DVD edition of MOMMY.

SHADES OF NOIR will premiere on Nov. 26 at the Brew & View in Rock Island, Illinois, as part of a benefit for the Mississippi Valley Writers Colony — it also marks the start of the PURGATORY book tour.  I’ll try to post more details soon.

And we just did a one-night only preview of the full-length play version of ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE.  Mike Cornelison, the John Wayne to my John Ford, hit the ball out of the park, and it bodes well for the more elaborate production we’ll mount (and film) next year, probably at the Des Moines Playhouse.  We hope to tour the midwest.  This performance was a benefit for the Iowa Motion Picture Association and the Iowa Scriptwriters Alliance; it was presented at the the Art House Valley West in Des Moines, a terrific venue.

More later!

FROM PERDITION TO PURGATORY — THE ROAD WINDS ON

Max Allan Collins, creator of ROAD TO PERDITION, was presented with a unique opportunity — and challenge — after Hollywood transformed his graphic novel into the Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.

“I knew there’d be demand for a sequel,” Collins says.&nbsp “And I’d already been thinking about following the son of hitman Michael O’Sullivan, into adulthood, on his own quest for revenge.”  The question Collins faced was — what medium? Comics or prose? “I felt a certain responsibility to the comics form,” the author says. “That a GODFATHER-level crime film like ROAD TO PERDITION had as its source a kind of comic book seemed to interest, and confuse, a lot of people.  For many months, I was interviewed on the subject of graphic novels, and sort of became the form’s ‘poster boy.’  I almost felt guilty about the notion of abandoning the graphic novel for the sequel.”

The unique solution Collins came up with was to create two follow-ups — one his novel, ROAD TO PURGATORY (a Morrow hardcover, December), and the other a second graphic novel, ROAD TO PERDITION 2: ON THE ROAD (a DC Comics trade paperback, December).  “I don’t believe two sequels to the same work, in two different mediums, by the same creator, has ever been done,” say DC Vice President, Dan DiDio.

ROAD TO PURGATORY, the prose sequel, follows Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., from the battlefields of Bataan back home to WW2-era Chicago, where his Medal of Honor-winning fame paves the way for an undercover war against Al Capone; O’Sullivan — now 21 — blames Capone for the death of his own gangster father.  A lengthy flashback to the 1920s explores the surrogate father-and-son relationship between John Looney and Michael O’Sullivan, Sr. (the characters portrayed by Newman and Hanks in the original film).

ROAD TO PERDITION 2: ON THE ROAD, the graphic novel, is a new narrative that takes place within the structure of the original story, when the father and son were “on the road,” fleeing gangsters and robbing Capone-held banks.  The artists are Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Steve Lieber and Josef Rubinstein.

Will there be a second film?

“It’s too early to tell,” Collins says.  “DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox have first look.  There certainly seems to be strong interest.”

Collins is not waiting for Hollywood’s answer.  He is already at work now on ROAD TO PARADISE, a second prose sequel for Morrow.

For more info and/or author interview, contact: M.A.C. Productions 563-263-4473 or

MAX ALLAN COLLINS/ROAD TO PURGATORY Book Tour

This will be a brief update, because the order of business right now is letting you know my schedule at the upcoming San Diego Comic Con Wed. July 21 through Sunday July 25.

Here are my panels:

Friday July 23:

6:00 pm – 7:00 Lloyd Kaufman, Max Allan Collins, and Bill Plympton. We will be talking indie filmmaking, and Lloyd and I will be making a SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT about several new Troma-released M.A.C. DVDs. Room 6CDEF

Saturday, July 24:

1:00-2:00 Witches, Vamps, and Robots, Oh My! Fiction and Facts of Fan Favorites. I’ll be sharing the panel with various other practitioners of the licensing “tie-in” art. Room 7B

2:00-3:30 Comics: The New Mainstream. This panel will explore the radical notion of non-superhero comics. Room 7A

Important note: right now there is a glitch in the Con scheduling: my official autographing time is DURING the “New Mainstream” panel. I have asked to be rescheduled, so check the daily con updates.

Also, I will be signing at both the IDW booth and the Troma booth, but I don’t have the times yet, so check in at those booths; it’s possible a DC booth signing will be added, too. Additionally, my son Nate and I will be around the dealer’s room and various panels throughout the con. Don’t be shy about stopping me to sign something.

More news after the con, but available RIGHT NOW are the following new items: THE LONDON BLITZ MURDERS; BOMBSHELL; ON THE ROAD TO PERDITION: DETOUR; and the final issue of the CSI comic book mini-series, DEMON HOUSE.

Hope to see you at the con. Check back for the post-convention update, and watch this site for news about the ROAD TO PURGATORY tour.

M.A.C.

My apologies for not updating the site sooner and more often.  Nate’s been doing much better than his old man, putting covers up regularly.  But I have been swamped….

Right now I am writing ROAD TO PURGATORY, the first of two prose sequels I’m doing for Harper Collins.   Already out (the cover elsewhere on the site) is ON THE ROAD TO PERDITION: OASIS, the first of three graphic novellas that DC is bringing out.  OASIS is available now, and the next one is well under way, the script completed and brilliant artist Steve Leiber (WHITEOUT) is doing a job worthy of Richard Piers Rayner himself.

A new pin-up book, CALENDAR GIRLS, is out under my byline, although frankly I mostly just did the intro.  George Hagenauer and I have completed similar introductory material for a new book from Taschen about the men’s “sweat” (i.e., adventure) mags.  Not sure when that’ll be out.

I have completed THE LONDON BLITZ MURDERS, but it won’t be out until September 2004 from Berkley Prime Crime.  In it, Agatha Christie meets a real-life Jack the Ripper — the Blackout Ripper.  The current LUSITANIA MURDERS has been nominated for a Shamus by the Private Eye Writers of America.

Lots of CSI stuff — I’ve been a second comic book mini-series for IDW; the first of two CSI: MIAMI novels is on the stands (FLORIDA GETAWAY) and the next CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIATION novel, BODY OF EVIDENCE, will be out in November ’03.&nbsp Matt Clemens continues to co-plot and do the forensics.  Also, I’ve written the dialogue for the UBI Soft CSI video game (available now) and am co-plotting and writing the dialogue for a second one, now.

BOMBSHELL, the Marilyn Monroe/Nikita Khruschev thriller by Barb and me, has been accepted by FiveStar, who are bringing out a Quarry collection, QUARRY’S GREATEST HITS, in September ’03.  Not sure when BOMBSHELL will be out, but there’s some nice enthusiasm about it from the publisher.

Indie movie projects include an anthology of short films called SHADES OF NOIR, including my short ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE (a prototype for a longer film), director Jeffrey Goodman’s Quarry short A MATTER OF PRINICIPAL (my script and I exec-produced); and THREE WOMEN which I wrote and directed from bride Barbara Collins’s short story, “World’s Greatest Mother.”  A MATTER OF PRINCIPAL has already won several festivals.  Both NESS and THREE WOMEN star Michael Cornelison, star of both MOMMYs and REAL TIME.  Assembled with my longtime collaborator Phil Dingeldein, SHADES OF NOIR will go to strictly midwestern festivals, and I hope to expand it by adding my documentary MIKE HAMMER’S MICKEY SPILLANE, which would bring it to DVD-friendly feature length.

We’re in post-production on my second documentary, CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN AND ALLEY OOP, about the famous Iowa cartoonist whose innovative caveman strip inspired the Flintstones, among other things.  MOMMY/MOMMY’S DAY/REAL TIME collaborator, Steve Henke, is editing right now at the University of Iowa.   We’ll have it done by the end of the year.

Another indie project, PRODIGAL ROAD, a modernday retelling of the Prodigal Son tale (the screenplay is written) which I would direct keeps threatening to happen….Could go into production early next year.

Thanks for your interest and support!

M.A.C.

Back to News Index