Interviews « Friends/Family/Fans of Max Allan Collins

The Rising Son

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

My son Nate, who – as regulars here well know – runs this web site will be in Japan for a month (he’s there already as you read this). So he’ll be putting up these weekly updates from Japan, and I don’t think there will be any glitches, but (just in case) I thought I’d mention it.

Quarry's List We will continue to showcase the upcoming QUARRY reprints. This week it’s QUARRY’S LIST, and another of Terry Beatty’s terrific covers.

I usually post quite a few links to news stories and reviews, but this week, I’m all over the web and it’s one story endlessly recycled…but it’s very good news, so I’ll repeat it here, even though you probably already have Charles Ardai’s press release memorized by now.

Hard Case Crime is moving to the great UK publisher Titan (they are distributed in the USA by Random House). Titan is one of my favorite publishing houses, and publisher Nick Landau is one of my favorite publishers…favorite people, actually. Titan is the house where we will very likely be doing collections of a certain Collins/Beatty title, and another key property I’m involved with may be moving to Titan, as well – I’ll share more when I’m able).

Anyway, one of the first (if not the first) titles Hard Case will be doing at Titan is the postponed (but very well-reviewed) QUARRY’S EX. There is no contract for another Quarry yet, but Charles and I are talking. What is much more firm is another Spillane/Collins collaboration – a non-Mike Hammer, but the sequel to one of Mickey’s best bestsellers. And to make that news even more exciting, Robert McGinnis will be doing the cover.

I do have one link for you, a very nice write-up about an hour-long internet/radio interview I did, and it includes a link to that interview. I know you’ve heard and read plenty of interviews with me, but I was in a weird mood that day and spilled a bunch of new beans. So it may be worth your time.

Nate, have fun in Japan! And everybody reading this needs to read the book that paid for the trip, and the link is right here.

M.A.C.

Tags: Covers, Interviews, Quarry, Quarry's Ex, Quarry's List
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 4 Comments »

Con Fusion

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Saner heads have prevailed, and I will not be trying to attend two panels simultaneously. I’m getting a little long in the tooth to do my Basil Fawlty impression.

So I will be reluctantly forgo the Vertigo Panel (though editor Will Dennis promises to give RETURN TO PERDITION a boost), and concentrate on the Scribes/Tie-in Panel. Here’s a reminder:

Friday, July 23:

5:00-6:30 Scribe Awards/Media Tie-in Writers Panel— Presenting the fourth annual International Association of Media-Tie-in Writers (IAMTW) “Scribe” awards, honoring such notable franchises as CSI, Criminal Minds, The X-Files, Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, and Dr. Who. Nominees on hand include Alina Adams (As the World Turns), Max Allan Collins (G.I. Joe), Keith R. A. DeCandido (Star Trek), Stacia Deutsch (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), Jeff Mariotte (CSI), Nathan Long (Warhammer), and Dayton Ward (Star Trek). With moderator Collins and awards presenter Lee Goldberg (Monk). Room 4

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is no autograph session scheduled after the panel. And, throughout the con, I have no autograph sessions set either in the autographing area or at a booth. But there is no panel following the Scribe Awards one, and the panelists listed above – including yours truly – will hang around to sign books you’ve brought. Before the panel, you can buy books by the panelists at Mysterious Galaxy’s booth and elsewhere in the dealer’s hall. Right after the panel, in Room 4 itself – or in the hallway, if we get chased out by officious pratts – all of us will be signing any books and other stuff you haul along.

And I’ve had another panel appearance added (you may not find it in the official con listing – I seem to be among “others” on the panel):

Thursday, July 22:

4:00-5:00 From Screen to Comics— An in-depth look at what it takes to turn big screen action into 32 pages. Join talent creators from across the spectrum, including Max Brooks, Nancy Collins, Peter David, Tony Lee David Tischman, Mike Johnson, Max Allan Collins, and Scott Tipton as they look behind the scenes at some of the biggest properties to come to comics, like True Blood, Doctor Who, The A-Team, TRANSFORMERS, and Star Trek! Room 9

The Iowa City Book Festival was great fun. What a privilege to do a panel with Nick Meyer, one of my heroes (and a fellow University of Iowa grad) and the gifted director/writer who mistakenly confused Iowa and heaven, Phil Alden Robinson. Great guys – funny, knowledgeable, and very nice. I felt very much honored to be in their presence.

The screening of THE LAST LULLABY at the Bijou Theater on Sunday afternoon at the U of Iowa student union was well-attended, and the audience seemed to really like the film. We had a spirited question-and-answer session. Among those attending were such friends and fans as Stephen Borer from Minneapolis, Brad Schwartz from Ann Arbor, and Charlie Koenigsacker from Iowa City. I hadn’t seen the film for maybe six months, and viewing a nice 35mm print was a treat. Jeffrey Goodman reports around a dozen foreign sales for LULLABY – not in the USA yet, though you can still get a copy of the limited edition “screener” DVD at www.thelastlullaby.com.

Speaking of our favorite hitman, two really great advance reviews of QUARRY’S EX have turned up on the net.

Bill Crider loves Quarry almost as much as I love Bill Crider.

And Craig Clarke has made up for not caring for YOU CAN’T STOP ME with a rave review at his excellent SOMEBODY DIES site.

And I gave two interviews that have turned up at two other first-rate sites.

Jeff Pierce of RAP SHEET fame (at his KILLER COVERS site) does a nice write-up (intended for MYSTERY SCENE) on classic gals-and-gats paperback covers, with interview stuff from me, Norman Saunders’ son and somebody called Charles Ardai.

And John Kenyon (also an attendee at the LULLABY screening on Sunday) has posted his recent interview with me at his THINGS I’D RATHER BE DOING site.

See you at the con! Check in here daily starting Thursday morning for brief con updates.

M.A.C.

Tags: Appearances, Comic-Con, Comic-Con 2010, Interviews, Perdition, Quarry, Quarry's Ex, Return to Perdition, Reviews, The Last Lullaby
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | Comments Off on Con Fusion

Rapping About Banging

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

In Stores Now!

First off, Thursday night (May 20) at 7 pm, I will be reading from THE BIG BANG and speaking afterward at one of the really great indie bookstores, Prairie Lights in Iowa City. Here is the store’s own write-up on the event.

I don’t need to say much this week, because I said so much elsewhere. I am honored to have been asked to do a lengthy interview on THE BIG BANG and my relationship with Mickey Spillane (and Mike Hammer), appearing right now at one of the really, really great mystery sites, JANUARY MAGAZINE’S RAP SHEET.

Topping that off, the RAP SHEET will celebrate its fourth anniversary with a giveaway of four copies of THE BIG BANG and four copies of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIKE HAMMER: VOL. 2 – THE LITTLE DEATH. These will all be signed and sent out by me, personally.

My thanks to J. Kingston Pierce for giving THE BIG BANG and me such a lavish platform to display our wares. Mystery fiction has few finer advocates than Jeff Pierce.

In addition, there have been some other terrific write-ups on the net lately.

That other great internet site, Bookgasm, gave THE BIG BANG a flat-out rave. You gotta check this one out.

The Noir Journal site has a terrific write-up on THE BIG BANG, with some great graphics plus bonus reviews of two Spillane classics, VENGEANCE IS MINE! and THE DEEP. Very smart stuff on the latter two books by a female Spillane fan.

You have to scroll down for it, but there’s a nice bit about THE BIG BANG courtesy of Bob Wade in the San Diego Union’s mystery column.

The one and only Paul Bishop – real cop, real writer – also said nice things about THE BIG BANG (and kindly provided a link to the Rap Sheet interview).

We’ve been hitting the internet jackpot lately, where some of the top mystery sites are concerned. That fine, funny writer Bill Crider has one of the very best sites, the kind worth checking three or four times daily. He likes the ANTIQUES series and did a splendid write-up of the current ANTIQUES BIZARRE.

And here’s some love for THE LAST LULLABY.

The last few updates have been on the brief side, I admit – I am burrowed in working on the second J.C. Harrow novel, and it’s a bear. I’m on page 410 and still have five chapters left.

Barb and I have plotted the next ANTIQUES mystery (the one after next year’s ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF!). She has already written her first draft of the first chapter. The series is building in popularity and the Barbara half of Barbara Allan deserves the lion’s share of credit.

For many, many months, I’ve been going from one novel to the next, or at least from one project to the next, and I am frankly frazzled. I’m preparing to slow down some. Most of the rest of this year will be spent writing the JFK assassination Nate Heller novel. Well, about half of it will be reading research material, and half writing.

Also, I’ll be plugging away at RETURN TO PERDITION, which is at about the half-way point of its around 200 pages. This is the graphic novel finale to the PERDITION saga, although not necessarily the last PERDITION book. This is the first major Terry Beatty/M.A.C. project in some time.

Finally, let me assure those who care that we are in serious talks about both Ms. Tree and Quarry for reprint editions – the complete run of the former, and the first four (and now very expensive) novels about the latter.

More definite info soon….

M.A.C.

Tags: Appearances, Barbara Allan, Bye Bye Baby, Interviews, Mike Hammer, Nathan Heller, Quarry, Return to Perdition, Reviews, Road to Perdition, Spillane, The Big Bang, The Last Lullaby, Trash 'n' Treasures
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 6 Comments »

SCTV For Christmas!

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

SCTV Reunion Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero, moments before rising from his wheelchair to acknowledge his standing ovation.

Let’s start off by wishing you and your family happy holidays. We are expecting Nate home for Christmas, with our cheerfully insane “granddog” Toaster, a Blue Australian Heeler named for the robots on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. And Crusin’ has a gig on New Year’s Eve at the West Liberty, Iowa, country club, where a lot of my old high school friends are members. Really looking forward to that. We have snow here and things are looking suitably scenic. Last night, Barb and I watched two Perry Mason shows from the latest DVD boxed set (one an Erle Stanley Gardner based show, “The Case of the Duplicate Daughter,” and those are the really good ones) and had cups of cocoa courtesy of Jane Spillane. Watching Perry Mason with cocoa and marshmallows provided by Mike Hammer’s creator’s widow reveals that even my dullest evenings are surrealistic.

I was pleased to see a really nice, insightful ROAD TO PARADISE review pop up from Brian Drake — a little after the fact, but with RETURN TO PERDITION under way, good to see.

Ed Gorman asked me to do a new interview for his site; I did one not long ago, but took him up on it anyway. I had to respond to some of the comments on the piece. My son gets uncomfortable when I do that, but I feel comments are different from reviews (writers really shouldn’t respond to reviews, and I’ve only broken that rule a handful of times).

I also commented on comments at a Cinema Styles, where a wonderful, smart review of THE LAST LULLABY appeared. But a couple of the comments were beyond the pale, and I just couldn’t let them ride.

I am working on the third Mike Hammer Spillane/Collins collaborative novel, KISS HER GOODBYE. Really just getting started, but it’s an interesting challenge. Mickey had taken two runs at this story, with very different plot elements; so I have around 100 pages of one version, 50 or so of another version, plus notes on both. Weaving these together will be a fun challenge. Elements of this story became BLACK ALLEY, the last Hammer published during Mickey’s lifetime; but about all that is left are a few names, the notion of Mike Hammer coming back to the city after recovering from gun shot wounds (a common start to Mickey’s later Hammer stories, both published and unfinished), and the notion of the mob moving into the era of computers.

Barb and I spent much of the week shellshocked from the incredible double-feature experience of the SCTV reunion at Second City in Chicago (see the photos courtesy of a wonderful audience member from Vancouver, who will remain anonymous, as these were largely sneaked during the performance). It’s hard for me to express how much this experience meant to us, but we’ll probably share our own photos next week, some of which reveal me in a state of crazed bliss. We are talking about an evening that began with Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) recognizing his standing ovation by bolting up out of his wheelchair and grinning goofily.

The other half of the double-feature was the day we spent (Monday December 14) with Chicago sportscaster Mike North, his lovely wife Bebe, and producer Carl Amari. It was a long, incredible day. Whether it will lead to the movie project we are all hoping for remains to be seen, but I found North — a working class guy made very good — an unaffected, affable, hilarious, gifted man. He invited me onto his Comcast sports show, “Monsters in the Morning,” and we talked PERDITION and movies with his co-host Dan Jiggets (also a great guy). I think Mike and Dan (and Carl, on the sidelines) were surprised by how at ease I am on camera, plus what a wise-ass I am willing to be in public. We followed Mike on a tour of his Rogers Park roots (which included lots of bars being pointed out) and spent some time at Norte Dame high school, where he coaches basketball for no pay and big personal rewards. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Carl gave me a box of the finished CDs of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIKE HAMMER VOL. 2: THE LITTLE DEATH. We listened to one on the way home to Muscatine — we had only heard a rough mix before. If you haven’t ordered this yet, you are at the wrong website. I am very, very proud of this, and will be sending some review copies out soon, so I hope that before long some web attention will be shared with you here.

Again, happy holidays. Hug your family. Give gifts. And most important, watch the original MIRACLE ON 34th STREET and Alistair Sim’s CHRISTMAS CAROL…otherwise it isn’t an official Christmas.

M.A.C.

Barb Collins, right, and audience member Jen Ritchies, left, before the SCTV reunion show.