Posts Tagged ‘Graphic Novels’

Your New Year’s Resolution

Tuesday, January 8th, 2019

Here’s a sad story with which almost any professional writer can identify, as something like it has undoubtedly happened to every one of us.

At the last San Diego con, several personnel from Titan waved me over at breakfast to meet the man from Barnes & Noble who buys graphic novels for the chain. He was a big fan – clearly thrilled to meet me. I was the Beatles and he was Eddie Deezen in I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I sat and we chatted and I told him about the upcoming graphic novels from Titan, Quarry’s War and Mike Hammer: The Night I Died. He couldn’t wait!

Cut to recently when I looked at Barnes & Noble’s graphic novel sections in Davenport, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Iowa; and various Chicago B & N’s. Not a copy of either graphic novel was available at any of them.

Hey! I know! They had all sold out!

Or not.

A smaller sad story is the lousy one- and two-star Amazon reviews for both graphic novels from buyers who are angry that they accidentally bought a comic book. One of these reviewers hates graphic novels and considers them the downfall of literacy in America. Yes, these are idiotic cranks, but neither graphic novel has received enough reviews to weather such boneheaded ones (Quarry’s War does benefit from reviews some of you fine humans have contributed). The Mike Hammer has only one review – a two-star bummer from the aforementioned graphic novel hater.

So.

Here is your New Year’s Resolution. If you have already read either of these – whether in the four comic books collected in each graphic novel, or by way of the graphic novel itself – you will ASAP write a brief Amazon review, unless you have already done so. I do not specify that these reviews have to be raves. But I do request that you not post a review complaining that a graphic novel turned out to be (shudder! horrors!) a graphic novel.

Or…if you haven’t bought either book, and are not among those who despise the comics form, please acquire these gems (unbiased opinion). Maybe you’ll find them at a Barnes & Noble. But don’t count on it. B & N will have it on-line, as Amazon does. I have spotted Quarry’s War at a Books-a-Million, but not Mike Hammer yet. Maybe you have gift cards you haven’t used yet – what are you waiting for?

Okay, I’m whining again. Sorry. But judging by the stealth existence of these two graphic novels, the writer of Road to Perdition…which is on many “best graphic novels of all time” lists…won’t ever get to write a graphic novel again.



In the meantime, let me remind you what’s coming out in the first half of this year, with not a graphic novel in sight. I apologize there’s so much of mine to read, but (a) I can’t control dates of publication, and (b) if I don’t write, nobody sends money to my house.

Here is what is coming up.


Paperback:
E-Book: Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

USS Powderkeg is a trade paperback (and e-book) from Brash Books on February 1st. This is the revised edition of the novel Red Sky in Morning, with the penname “Patrick Culhane” banished to the cornfield in favor of my actual byline (Max Allan Collins, remember?). I am very excited about this, and so very grateful to Brash to putting my preferred title on the book and, of course, my preferred byline. It’s a personal novel to me, based as it is (in part) on my late father’s experiences in the Navy in World War Two as one of a handful of white officers on an ammunition ship manned by black sailors.


Paperback:
E-Book: Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane and me will receive a mass market paperback, in the Titan format, in late February.


Hardcover:
E-Book: Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo
Audiobook: Kobo

Murder, My Love by Mickey and me is the new Mike Hammer hardcover from Titan, out in mid-March. Published simultaneously on audio from Skyboat Media, available from Audible. This is the first Hammer written solely by me, but from a Spillane synopsis.


Paperback:
E-Book: Amazon
MP3 CD: Amazon Audio CD: Amazon

Girl Most Likely is a trade paperback and e-book from Thomas and Mercer, out on April 1, no fooling. This I’m particularly excited about because it’s a thriller that charts new territory for me – I would call it an American take on nordic noir. More about this closer to pub date.

Toward the end of May comes Last Stage to Hell Junction, the new Caleb York western from Kensington, a hardcover. It’s bylined Spillane/Collins, but it’s a Collins novel using characters and situations created by Spillane.

Toward the end of April comes Antiques Ravin’ by Barbara Allan, again from Kensington. Barb and her husband wrote it. Very funny and a darker mystery than you’ll encounter in most cozys. Of course, Jon Breen says we’re a subversive cozy series.

Then in early June comes the trade paperback of Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me. This is a major work (thanks to Brad) and I’m proud to be its co-author.

So, really, forget all these other writers you usually follow. You have priorities. You have work to do.

For those who need their pump primed – and you know how painful that can be – we’ll have a book giveaway before too long.

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Oh, and Happy New Year, everybody!

We had a lovely holiday with son Nate, daughter-in-law Abby, and grandkids Sam (3 yrs) and Lucy (3 mths). Sam and his grandfather watched a lot of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse on Blu-ray. And for those wondering, yes, I did receive a Christmas card from Paul Reubens/Pee-Wee this year. That made it an official Christmas, particularly since both Scrooge with Sim and the original Miracle on 34th Street were watched as well.

* * *

Here’s the first review of Girl Most Likely.

And the Stiletto Gumshoe includes Murder, My Love among the books to read in the winter of 2019. Great site.

M.A.C.

The Max and Brad Show Goes to Chicago

Tuesday, November 13th, 2018

My co-author, Brad A. Schwartz, and I will be appearing at the American Writers Museum in Chicago next Monday evening, from 6:30 till 8:30. The address is 180 N. Michigan Avenue, and we will give an informal talk and answer audience questions as well as sign (and, I hope, sell) copies of Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago. For more info go here.

* * *

Paperback:
E-Book:Amazon

You can now advance order the graphic novel version of Mike Hammer: The Night I Died from Amazon. [Note from Nate: I’m also seeing pre-order pages at the usual suspects, and the collection is also available digitally through ComiXology/Kindle. Links are below the cover.]

You may be able to find this at your nearest Barnes & Noble store, but based on Quarry’s War, it looks like they only stock a copy or two. So an Internet order might be worth your trouble.

This is, of course, the collected version of the serialized comic book version that appear in four separate issues not long ago.

* * *

Barb and I have seen three worthwhile movies that you might also enjoy.

Hunter Killer, directed by Donovan Marsh from a screenplay by Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss (adapted from a novel), is frankly something we settled on when the movie we went out to see wasn’t available yet. We took a chance on this one and it’s a very traditional (and very good) submarine movie crossed with a commando raid flick. The cast is strong – Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common (a rapper I assume), Toby Stephens, Linda Cardellini, and in what must be his last role, the great Michael Nyqvist. It’s one of those Tom Clancy-like affairs that are believable enough due to the research to sell you on the ridiculous story itself.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a continuation of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series based on one of the sequels not written by Stieg Larsson, whose death stalled what had been projected as an ongoing series, with a new writer hired to take over when materials Larsson left behind became ensnared in estate battles. The reviews have been fairly terrible, but this is a state-of-the-art action film with Claire Foyle excellent as Lisbeth Salander, for whom a resonant back story is created. The excellent score by Roque Baños and cinematography by Pedro Luque serve director/co-screenwriter Fede Alvarez well in creating a 21st Century James Bond feel. The Rotten Tomatoes score is 44%, which is nonsense. Any suspense/action/espionage fan will enjoy this, and if the reviewers manage to sink this reboot, they should be ashamed.

The weakest – but still worthwhile – of the three films we saw recently is Overlord, which has an 81% score from Rotten Tomatoes, reflecting how poor movie criticism has become in this country. We saw it on Veteran’s Day, which got some dark laughter out of us, because this is a movie about how on D-Day a little ragtag group of GIs made the invasion possible by blowing up the place where a mad Nazi doctor (insane, not pissed) was creating super-soldiers by shooting up French villagers with super-serum. I can always have a good time watching Nazi soldiers get shot up (by bullets), and the GIs were well-portrayed. Beginning with the horror of war and segueing into horror film territory is something I can get behind, and the filmmakers largely pull it off. But there are problems of tone here. The unpleasantness of the violence could have used a touch of dark humor. Evil Dead minus humor is just a gore fest, after all. While I liked this movie with reservations, I came away with the opinion that Rotten Tomatoes has become a worthless resource. They give Hunter Killer a 38% Fresh score, by the way.

M.A.C.