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

I hope you’ve all had a chance to see ROAD TO PERDITION, the incredible film Sam Mendes has fashioned from my graphic novel. A few fans have complained about changes Mendes and screenwriter David Self have made, but I am entirely comfortable with what I think are intelligent and in some cases necessary modifications.

The graphic novel was originally structured to appear in three manga-style issues; it never did appear in that form, but it bears that structure. For that reason, the graphic novel has many more action set pieces than the film; and the numerous hit men pursuing O’Sullivan and son were rolled up into one character, Maguire, the evil Weegee-like photographer…a great creation of David Self’s. This provides the screenplay with a secondary villain and suits the structural spine of the film. I approve and applaud it.

The emphasis on the father and son relationship between Rooney and Sullivan (Looney and O’Sullivan in my book) is an apt one — very effective, deepening the piece. That Looney and O’Sullivan had a father-and-son relationship is implied in the book; but Self and Mendes rightly hit it on the nose, using the wake sequence to cinematically express some rather straightforward exposition from the graphic novel.

The toning down of the violence also was a good idea, particularly in light of the somber approach that Mendes and his brilliant cinematographer, Conrad Hall, took. Nonetheless, the violence is stark and disturbing — not unlike what I’ve done in my Nate Heller and Quarry novels — and appropriate to the tone. I ask my fans this — would you rather have had a movie with all my action set pieces, but starring, say, Jean Claude Van Damme or maybe Jeff Speakman? I don’t think so.

In fact, the film seems to me to encapsulate everything I’ve done in mystery fiction for going on thirty years — Dick Tracy and Junior are reflected in the two Michaels; then there’s the father-and-son relationship between Nolan and Jon, as well as the bank robbery aspect; the historical approach of Nate Heller (Stanley Tucci IS my Frank Nitti!); the honorable hitman of Quarry; the revenge motif of Ms. Tree; the child and murderous parent theme of MOMMY. It’s all there.

As for the changed ending…I will tell you this: at the after-premiere party in New York, the first thing Steven Spielberg said to me was: “The only thing I don’t like about Sam’s movie is that he didn’t use your ending.” Obviously, I would tend to agree…and my ending was part of Self’s screenplay. But the ending of the film does work, and — since my ending is not played out — Michael and his father MUST exchange roles in that climatic scene, just as Mendes shot it.

There’s been an incredible (and surprising) amount of attention paid to me and the graphic novel, and you may have seen the ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY profile or perhaps the USA Today or Associated Press pieces. Many mentions in reviews, too — some preferring the graphic novel to the movie, and talking about the book in depth. Most reviews have been great, and speak of Oscars at year’s end.

So go see the movie while it’s still in theaters — the visuals (and the wonderful music) deserve the big screen, big sound system treatment.

In the meantime, the news is this: I’ve signed to do two ROAD TO PERDITION sequels for William Morrow (publisher of WINDTALKERS). They will be novels, not graphic novels, though the latter may eventually follow as well. I’m discussing a separate graphic novel — an episodic look at the father and son’s time on the road together — with Marvel; the hope is that Richard Piers Rayner can be involved.

Other news: I’ve just signed to do two more CSI novels (the second will be out in October: SIN CITY) (not my title — mine was the wonderful but politically incorrect DEAD NUDE GIRLS). I’ve delivered the I SPY novel, and am working on the second DARK ANGEL (SKIN GAME) with the first due around October, also (BEFORE THE DAWN). Matthew V. Clemens continues to work with me on the CSI and DARK ANGEL books as researcher and co-plotter.

Watch also for THE LUSITANIA MURDERS around the same time.

Some comics work in the pipeline: I’m halfway through a massive BATMAN graphic novel, CHILD OF DREAMS, drawn and co-plotted by SILENT MOBIEUS creator, Kia Asamiya — the first BATMANGA. I may also be doing a CSI comic book mini-series, and the serialized JOHNNY DYNAMITE mini-series, UNDERWORLD, is probably going to be pubbed as a graphic novel.

Speaking of which, the Pocket Books reprint of the original ROAD TO PERDITION graphic novel has hit the New York Times bestseller list!

Thanks for your interest and support. Nate and I will try to update this site more frequently. In the meantime, enjoy the PERDITION wallpaper!

M.A.C.