Posts Tagged ‘Johnny Dynamite’

My Birthday Is, Apparently, Super

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020

Before we get to my birthday, here’s a present for you: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, running now through 3/31/2020, including Girl Most Likely at $1.99, and the following at 99 cents each: (links go to Amazon)

What Doesn’t Kill Her

Mallory Series:
The Baby Blue Rip-Off
No Cure for Death
Kill Your Darlings
A Shroud for Aquarius
Nice Weekend for a Murder

Disaster Series:
The Titanic Murders
The Hindenburg Murders
The Pearl Harbor Murders
The Lusitania Murders
The London Blitz Murders
War of the Worlds Murder

Midnight Haul

[Note from Nate:] Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago is also on sale at Amazon for $1.99! I don’t know how long this sale lasts. The deal also seems to be available at other eBook retailers. Click here to go to the book page, where I have links to different sellers.

Now here’s a present those of you attending Bouchercon this year you can give me that doesn’t cost you anything. Anthony Ballots for Bouchercon attendees went out over the weekend. Votes for Antiques Ravin’ (Barbara Allan) and Murder My, Love (Spillane and Collins) are appreciated in Best Novel. Votes for Killing Quarry and Girl Most Likely in Best Paperback Original are also appreciated.

* * *

Today is indeed my birthday, and reaching 72 years after some of what I’ve been through with various health issues feels rather momentous, but you people didn’t have to go to the trouble of calling this Super Tuesday. I mean, I’m touched, but that’s a little over the top.

Despite my carping about lack of marketing support from some publishers, and the perils of being perceived as a hack because three books of mine are about to be published essentially simultaneously by three different houses, I am busier than ever, and doing just fine, thank you. In fact I am one lucky son of a bitch.

I have two projects in the works, one of which involves writing three novellas about a new character, with a contract with the publisher already in hand. It’s too early to share much more than that with you, but I will say it’s a private eye series starring a female and is set during World War Two at the home front.

The other project is an ambitious novel co-written with an SCTV star, which exists at this point as a substantial sample of five finished chapters and a complete synopsis. My longtime agent, Dominick Abel, is marketing it. I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to jinx it. When we have a sale, I will share everything. But working with one of my heroes in the world of Second City is a wonderful thing indeed. Talk about Happy Birthday!

For those inclined to read between the lines, I will say this is a genuine, working-in-the-trenches project, not a ghost job – plotting together, rewriting each other, the real deal. We have been working on this for several months and I am anxious to share more, but can’t.

Other things in the works that I can discuss only vaguely includes some real potential for a new Mike Hammer TV series. The possibility for TV or movies derived from Scarface and the Untouchable remains real, too. And there’s real interest in the Antiques novels for TV. Streaming is a hungry eye.

Those three books coming out next week aren’t everything, either. The new Mike Hammer novel, Masquerade for Murder, will be also available from Audible read by the great Stefan Rudnicki with Do No Harm read by that other terrific narrator, Dan John Miller, the voice of Nate Heller. The non-fiction follow-up to Scarface and the Untouchable will be out in August – Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by A. Brad Schwartz and me – and Terry Beatty and I have edited and assembled the complete Pete Morisi Johnny Dynamite for Craig Yoe. A second Ms. Tree collection (Volume Two: Skeleton in the Closet, featuring the rest of the DC graphic novellas) is on the way this year, and so is a new Caleb York, Hot Lead, Cold Justice. The new Trash ‘n’ Treasures by Barbara Allan, Antiques Fire Sale, will be out April 28.

Like many of you, I wonder what this year will bring where this coronavirus is concerned. I am a high risk, having had heart trouble, respiratory problems and being fucking old. My grandson was a premie and has respiratory issues, and so does Nate. My beautiful wife is almost high risk age-wise, though she of course looks like a young trophy wife I managed to bamboozle.

Barb and I look at things like the schedule for Crusin’ to play its summer and early fall gigs and wonder if that is endangered by this threat. We look at various public events we’ve agreed to be part of, like Bouchercon, and others we’ve been considering, like Comic Con, and are scratching our heads. We have bought more canned soup in one trip to the supermarket than we have in the last ten years of supermarket trips. I am beginning to wonder if we will be bunkering in at some point and finally getting these damn Blu-rays and DVDs watched – maybe even read some of the stacks and stacks of books I haven’t gotten to.

Bernie Sanders talks about the need for record turnout in the coming election, but if people are frightened to be out in public for fear of the Andromedia Strain, just how big a turnout will that be? If Joe Biden is the Democrat, will the old people who support him be able to stagger to the polls? If people start dying in droves, will the MAGA crowd still buy this thing as a Democrat “hoax”? Will Bernie and Joe and even Donald Trump all still be alive? They’re in the high risk age range, too.

Come on – you’re thinking about this shit, too! Don’t tell me you aren’t. By the way, here’s a tip – don’t watch the movie Contagion.

In the meantime, happy birthday to me and good luck to all of us on Super Tuesday.

And beyond.

* * *

On March 28, Barb and I will be appearing together at the Des Moines Book Festival, where we’ll be giving a “Master Class.” Info about attending is here.

Speaking of Barb and me, our Antiques Fire Sale has received an outstanding review from Publisher’s Weekly.

Girl Can’t Help It gets some nice attention here.

And don’t forget the Bookreads Book Giveaway of Girl Can’t Help It.

M.A.C.

Once Upon a Time in Muscatine

Tuesday, August 6th, 2019

If you’d like to pick up any of the Nathan Heller novels that Thomas & Mercer has reprinted (that’s everything but the more recent Forge-published novels including the upcoming Do No Harm), you can do so this month for a mere 99 cents per. Right here. Step right up!

If you’ve read and liked Girl Most Likely, please post an Amazon review, however brief. We’ve drifted just below a solid four stars and could use input from readers who dug it to push us back up. If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?

I have been having difficulty with responding to your comments here. Readers seem to be able to post, but recent responses I’ve made to questions have not made it through the process. I responded three times to this thoughtful post from Mike Pasqua:

Sorry that we didn’t have a chance to connect. Two things: I am pretty sure that, without Miguel, Bill probably would be reluctant to do a one-off SOTI show (I know that Miggie missed shows in the past because he was working but this is different). Second, while no one person is indispensable, the loss of Bat Lash was a terrible blow to Jackie and losing John Rogers was a major body-blow to the Con. Yes, they did their usual great job because they are consummate professionals but John’s loss cast a pall on the event. Rest assured Robin Donlan is more than capable of taking over the reins but people were operating on fumes this year. I know that this was nowhere near the celebration that I expected it to be but it’s hard to be upbeat when there was such a void (I spent time with John’s wife and I know that this was beyond painful for her). Just my two cents.

I’ll respond to Mike right now, and hope what I have to say will be generally interesting to readers of these updates.

Seduction of the Innocent’s surviving four members have discussed the notion of performing again, one last time, obviously without Miguel but in his honor. Bill Mumy was part of that discussion. Now, he might change his mind, but the reality is we were not asked to appear for the 50th San Diego Con, which would have been an ideal place to do a final show, possibly post-Eisner Awards. Our thinking was that we’d probably do a single, if rather long, set. We appeared at DragonCon without Miguel, when his movie work precluded his attendance, so there is (as Mike indicates) a precedence for SOTI playing as a four-piece.

Saturday morning quarterbacking is the easiest thing in the world to do, and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for those who put this juggernaut of a con on. Mike is an old friend and he is a veteran of helping mount this difficult, challenging show. My criticisms of the con are mostly confined to the increasingly dangerous exhibition hall floor, where the problems of crowds were exacerbated by exhibitors who created a frenzy with artificially contrived limited editions that fed lines in main aisles, which in turn sparked belligerent behavior on the exhibitor’s staffs and on convention security. SDCC stands on the precipice of a major, even tragic disaster if these practices are not curtailed.

My other complaints are more personal – that my collecting interests are not as well-served by the show now, and that my age (and the aftermath of health problems) make it difficult for me to navigate a room with 150,000 people in it, all seeking their own pop culture nirvana.

Here’s another comment I wasn’t able to respond to (Nate is working on it), this from Brendan:

It’s wonderful to hear more about your Ms. Tree collections. I managed to track down a large number of original issues several years ago, but some of them were in a pretty sorry state, so it will be great to own fresh copies of the stories.

And a Johnny Dynamite collection is coming out, too?! I can’t wait! Are you and Terry connected to that reprint? I’ve heard you two share the copyright on the character, but was never sure if that was true.

Yes, a Johnny Dynamite collection is coming out from Craig Yoe, gathering all of the Pete Morisi-drawn stories with a bonus Ms. Tree story (one of the few things not collected in the forthcoming five-volume Titan series). I am doing an intro but haven’t written it yet. We do control the copyright.

* * *

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is probably director/writer Quentin Tarantino’s best film – certainly it’s my favorite movie of his.

I came slow to Tarantino. I did not care for – and am still not a fan of – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance and both Kill Bills. With the exception of the Elmore Leonard-based Jackie Brown, his films seemed to me undisciplined show-offy affairs, and painfully reflective of the motormouth, know-it-all video clerk from the ashes of which director Tarantino emerged.

But starting with Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino began to better organize his narratives, making them less self-indulgent without losing his fannish enthusiasm and love of the outrageous. His characters no longer all sounded the same, spewing glib Tarantino speak; rather, they had specificity and even depth. Django and The Hateful Eight were among my favorite films of their respective years, and I am now – however improbably – a fan.

Like Yesterday, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will work best on a certain kind of Baby Boomer audience member (some will be put off by its bold storytelling and climactic violence). Tarantino lovingly, almost fetishistically, recreates the late ‘60s in Los Angeles, both the era and its artifacts. For those of us who lived through those years, it’s a time machine ride that will plaster a smile on faces despite the lingering presence of the Manson family on this oddly innocent world’s periphery.

I won’t talk much about the plot – frankly, there isn’t much of one, although for something so slight, the payoff is major. And this is a film that needs to be seen cold – avoid spoilers at all costs.

But the incidental joys are endless – replications of ‘50s and ‘60s westerns (and their differences); clips from films and TV shows into which the stars of this film are believably inserted (and, in one case, movingly not inserted); marquees and movie posters of exactly the right releases; products and places and things that now exist only in memory, brought back to life.

The film is not without controversy. Tarantino has not made friends with the far left by hiring some actors who have been tarnished by #Metoo, and his protagonists are obviously white males, one of whom (Brad Pitt) is overtly if quietly macho. An interesting and thought-provoking aspect of the narrative is the possibility that the Pitt character killed his wife – something neither confirmed nor denied – which has generated career-crippling rumors for the stunt man character. Somewhere in there is a commentary about the post-Weinstein criticism Tarantino has been getting, and knew he would inflame, but we are left to sort it out for ourselves.

On the other hand, Sharon Tate as portrayed by Margot Robbie, is a sweet, sympathetic portrait that shows the director as anything but misogynistic. This is in keeping with Tarantino’s improved ability to create characters for his little playlet-like scenes that aren’t just fragments of himself. Particularly winning is a surprisingly touching yet unsentimental scene between DeCaprio’s fading TV star and a female child star.

DeCaprio and Pitt give unflinching performances as “heroes” who are hugely flawed. What you ultimately have in Once Upon a Time is a loving critique of Hollywood and that specific late ‘60s era, at once a valentine and a reality check. Oh, and if you are avoiding this because of the Manson aspect, don’t. Their presence is unsettling but not a deal-breaker.

For me, the film had some interesting resonances. I was working on the script for in 1993 and ‘94 in Hollywood – not living there, but making numerous trips – and the world of this film was close to what I witnessed. Growing up in Muscatine, Iowa – and staying here for my whole life (so far) – it often strikes me as odd, how many brushes and near brushes with Hollywood I’ve had.

For example, Bruce Lee is depicted in the Tarantino film, and his son Brandon was my friend – and a huge Quarry fan. I once got a telephone call from him (while Barb and I were living in our downtown Muscatine apartment over a beauty shop, our rent $100 a month) to tell me how much he loved the Quarry novels. By the way, Damon Herriman plays Charles Mansion in Once Upon a Time – he played the Boyd character (renamed “Buddy”) in the Quarry TV series. I spent time with him on set – he’s a delightful guy…Australian, by the way.

Also, right now I’m reading Funny Man, a warts-and-all bio of Mel Brooks, and discover Jose Ferrer was a pal who Brooks often ran his stuff by, because he found Ferrer a good judge of what’s funny. Of course, Jose was Miguel’s father. I once spoke to Jose Ferrer on the phone about his love for mystery fiction, and he was so impressed that I was close to Mickey Spillane.

Yet here I am in Muscatine.

Right now I’m glad to be, because Nate and Abby and Sam and Lucy (son/daughter-in-law/grandson/granddaughter) have moved here and are just up the street from us now. Guess who went to a 3 pm matinee of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with me?

Nathan Collins.

* * *

Ron Fortier has done a wonderful review of Murder, My Love. Check it out!

A detailed entry on my band, The Daybreakers, is on Wikipedia. I had nothing to do with it, which makes it special to me. Pretty good. Check it out, too.

Finally, here’s a short but sweet review of The Wrong Quarry, my favorite of the list books (Brandon would have loved it), on Sons of Spade.

M.A.C.