My novel Girl Most Likely will be promoted via Monthly Deals: starting 6/1/2025 and running through 6/30/2025, the first of the two (thus far) Krista Larson novels, offered as a Kindle book at $2.49 USD.
I love the two Krista Larson novels, but they (this one and Girl Can’t Help It) are the only two of my books that haven’t earned back their advance. This stands in the way of Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer ever doing business with me again, despite the fact that I’ve sold over a million books for them in other series.
So if you are a Kindle reader, and a M.A.C. reader, now’s the time.
Back before e-mail and social media, Terry Beatty and I ran a lively letter column at the back of each issue of our Ms. Tree (the comic book that ran from 1981 to 1993). Terry, of course did the art and I wrote the scripts, although he and I had story conferences frequently, so it was a co-creation in its purist sense. Actually, the feature began as a serial in Eclipse magazine in 1981 and began as a comic book in 1982, shortly after the original – surprisingly successful – serial ended its six-issue run. I also wrote several Ms. Tree prose short stories, one of which (“Inconvenience Store,” the basis of my film (Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market) was published in 1994. And my Hard Case crime Ms. Tree novel, Deadly Beloved, appeared in 2007.
We accomplished quite a bit, except for the making a living part. We were the longest-running PI comic book in history, at least up to that date (I haven’t kept track of those who came after). We slightly pre-date the craze for female private eyes initiated by Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. We survived despite changing publishers four times, winding up respectable (after our indie run) at DC itself.
The letters column, SWAK!, was lively and popular. Mostly I answered the letters myself, and Terry answered art-specific stuff. Just as the comic book covered controversial subjects, so did the letters column. When we moved to DC, editor Mike Gold insisted we bring SWAK! along.
A lot of people got mad at us and at each other, but nobody reading SWAK! got bored.
Last week we heard from a SWAK! correspondent, whose letter was both a surprise and quite interesting. Here it is.
Max, it was so nice to hear from you. I was struck by your response when I suggested that you and Terry might do a MS. TREE special for Hard Case.
(This is what I told him: I doubt we’ll ever do another MS. TREE, as the character now seems so rooted in the ’80s and ’90s, that going forward, or for that matter backward, doesn’t hold much appeal.)
One thing I really enjoy is getting a better understanding of the influences that guided the creators of some of the wonderful series in my collection. So, for instance, I recently reread one of my favorites, Mark Schultz’ XENOZOIC TALES. Besides seeing the obvious Wally Wood influence, I learned of Schultz’ admiration and later friendship with Al Williamson. I did pick up Williamson’s FLASH GORDON issues and learned how he in turn was influenced by Alex Raymond.
In a way, what Schultz was doing with XENOZOIC TALES was very similar to what you guys were doing with MS. TREE and your “experiment in coherence” (as you put it). You both took inspiration from pre-code, pre-Wertham EC and modernized it with an unwavering commitment to writing and artwork at the service of storytelling. Form follows function. You guys were swimming against the tide at the time where books like Alan Moore & Steve Bisette’s SWAMP THING, with heavy prose and dizzying page layouts, were the rage. I love those types of books too, but undeniably the test of time has shone very favorable on your “experiment” proving beyond any doubt to the nay-sayers that there was method to your madness.
A foray into my favorite BATMAN series led me to reread the Englehart/Rogers run recently, where I made the startling discovery of the Collins/Rogers newspaper dailies. This, in turn, lead me to reaching out to you, Max, and subsequently rereading the entire MS. TREE run, turning your words over in my head as I did.
I must say, it all holds up extremely well. It is astonishing that the treatment of contemporary subjects of the ‘80s still seems fresh even though major changes have occurred like the overturning of Roe vs Wade and the widespread legalization of gay marriage. It just goes to prove that the French got it right when they say “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
One of my favorite moments in the series was when Mr. Hand reveals to Mike Jr, that he had a gay lover when he was a mercenary. Mike Jr’s world view is imbued with a certain macho homophobia, presumably inherited from his father through hardboiled osmosis. Unable to express the cataclysmic shifting going on in his head in words, Mike Jr simple says to Mr Hand, “hey why don’t you stick around, we ordered pizza.”
Of course, readers of SWAK would remember how savagely you were criticized for casting the serial killer Billy Bob a “homosexual” predator. Of course, you could have worked Mr. Hand’s reveal into the series much earlier if you were solely concerned about being politically correct, but instead you waited for the right story and the right moment. As a result the moment has a lingering sweetness to it.
I watched a couple of the Youtube interviews you did to promote the Hard Case collections with much interest. However, it pains me a little bit, Terry, that you still have some reservations about your early work in Eclipse Magazine. I think it is stunningly gorgeous. I can understand from a technical point of view that it is not as polished as the later DC work. But there is an infectious energy. The fact that the series starts out cartoony, then, little by little, adopts a more realistic style is entirely fitting for a character who bursts forth on the scene straight out of the newspaper dailies of DICK TRACY and MIKE HAMMER. If Alan Moore or Ed Brubaker thought of that, the critics would have said it’s brilliant and shoved an Eisner award in their hands. By the way, I love how fast things moved in the Eclipse Magazine strip. In one panel Mike Tree is getting married and then two panels later he is shot dead. What economy of premise!
I’ve gotten to the point where I can spot Gary Kato’s handiwork pretty easily since his figures and backgrounds are clearly influenced by Ditko. Back in the ‘80s, I was always scouring the back issue bins for Ditko’s early Charlton & Marvel work. Terry, when you ink your own figures and backgrounds like you did on the DC run, I don’t see a Ditko influence the way I now see the Johnny Craig influence. Of course, I preferred when you were doing your own full pencils and inks. Gary did a fine job and it was fascinating seeing how you worked with him to keep on schedule while maintaining your look and feel for the book. I assume you met Gary back in your underground days, perhaps on MOD (NOTE: Terry’s underground comic for Kitchen Sink). It must have been complicated and nerve-racking sending the artwork back and forth to Hawaii.
By the way, Terry, in the end, I really started appreciating and enjoying what you did with the duotone. I noticed you picked different color separation strategies for each color such as the subtle facial shading for the blues. And now I get it that it gives the book a kind of Japanese newsprint feel.
In rereading my MS. TREE collection, I am struck by what a strong body of work was completed. I see it as a three act play with a beginning (Eclipse), middle (Aardvark/Renegade) and end (DC). Each run is done with love, enthusiasm and craftsmanship. The characters mature and develop in a grand arc. Ms. Tree begins almost naively as a meter maid and she ends as a giver of life, the mother of Melody.
So in this sense, Max, I think you are right, there is no need for a new chapter in that the work is really perfect in itself. It’s really a monument to the ambition you had and achieved really against all odds. What is particularly endearing about MS. TREE is how completely faithful you guys were to your vision while at same time completely prepared to make any compromises necessary to keep the book on some sort of workable production schedule. Terry, I can’t help imagining while you were hunched over your drawing board, that you had Frank Sinatra blaring “My Way” in the background. I hope you guys have forgiven us so-called “gentle readers” for our constant whining and second-guessing in SWAK because really what made MS. TREE so great was your vision and your willingness to carve it out of the block of marble despite the overwhelming odds against you.
If you ever do decide to revisit MS. TREE one day, as a kind of coda, of course, I’ll be along for the ride. However, upon mature reflection, I have come to realize that MS. TREE is a wonderfully complete body of work unto itself. After completing my MS. TREE read-through, I took a spin through SIN CITY. Although also a wonderful and seminal work, it can’t be denied that the last couple story arcs were comparatively mediocre in both writing and art. Miller seemed to run out of ideas and enthusiasm [or perhaps he was simply consumed by some other project]. How much better to end on a high note as you guys ended MS. TREE, at the top of your game.
And where could you go, if you brought MS. TREE back for an encore performance? Terry, as you pointed out on Lonely Planet, MS. TREE would be a grandmother by now. Following the logic of consequences, would it not be likely that Ms. Tree who lived by the sword must die by the sword leaving Melody Tree to pick up the mantle (or trench coat) to avenge the death of her mother?
That would be a fine story, but perhaps a bit predictable. After all, long before Batman, Superman and Captain America “died,” you guys had already done the “Death of Ms Tree” in the Renegade run. It would be far more interesting to hear what you have in mind, in rooting Ms. Tree in the 1980s. I really like what Hard Case did with NORMANDY GOLD (‘70s) and PEEPLAND in that 1980s space. I’m a big fan of period pieces and I know you guys are experts in that. Max, your effort to slightly update Ms Tree in the Hard Case novel were reasonable, but, for my money, it didn’t add anything. Ms Tree doesn’t need cell phones or the internet to properly deliver a 9mm bullet.
If one day you do decide it’s time for Ms Tree to dust off her trench coat the only thing I ask is you do it with the same uncompromising relish and enthusiasm that you’ve put into the other 60+ issues. But if you don’t, the work is perfect as it is.
The only thing remaining to say, gentlemen, is, as the French say, “Chapeaux”: “Hats Off”. You guys really pulled it off. “Chapeaux” to you and “Chapeaux” to Gary Kato and Barb and Dean Mullaney and Dave Sims and Leni Loubert and Mike Gold and Charles Ardai and all the other people who believed in you.
Regards,
Paul Linhardt
Monterey
This was my response to this fine missive:
I share your love of his initial Eclipse work. It indicates what a MS. TREE comic strip would have looked like, at least for a while.
We have a new edition of our JOHNNY DYNAMITE mini series coming out, a nice collection that should be an improvement on the slightly compromised one before.
I would say only about the MS. TREE novel (
Deadly Beloved) that it is a rather typical example of me recycling material and not letting it die in a drawer. It’s a novelization of the unproduced script I did for Oxygen when they optioned and had the rights to MS. TREE for a while. Here’s the reality — I insisted in the contract that they had to let me take a pass at the screenplay, and that I had to be paid for doing so. They did that. In meetings with Oxygen folks later, I learned they had never read my script. I was a box that was checked off. Their script was better than the horrendous one Dick Wolf’s writer did when Wolf had the option. I’ve tried to forget it, but I think maybe Ms. Tree had a pet monkey. Or maybe that was a Johnny Dynamite option and Johnny had the pet monkey. Terry is the partner with the good memory. My imagination remains pretty good, though.The other function of the novel was to reach out to my mystery novel audience. Terry and I always had readers who loved the comics but never got near my novels. I was trying to get them to cross over, and it worked. A little.
I asked Paul’s permission to publish his fine letter here. MS. TREE has become something of a footnote in both my career and Terry’s, as Terry graduated to BATMAN and syndicated comic strips THE PHANTOM and REX MORGAN, M.D. But the truth is, we always thought of MS. TREE as the comic strip we wished we’d been hired to do. (Prior to MS. TREE, we did THE COMICS PAGE, a weekly page of comics syndicated to a handful of “shoppers,” and attempted to sell my DICK TRACY bosses at the Trib updates of both HAROLD TEEN and LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE. They loved the latter, but didn’t hire us to do it.)
Both Terry and I are very grateful to Charles Ardai, the editor of Hard Case Crime, and my Titan editor Andrew Sumner, as well as publishers Nick Landau and Vivian Cheung, for bringing out the “complete” Ms. Tree. (I put “complete” in quotes because a few odds and ends, in particular THE P.I.’s, our crossover at First Comics with the Mike Mauser character, were not included in the six MS. TREE volumes from Titan.)
I guess I’ve given somewhat short shrift here to those six volumes, and I shouldn’t have – for decades, actually, I’ve dreamed of having archival editions published of the work Terry and did on the feature, and now all six have. If you’re a fan of mine, and came in the Nate Heller door (or maybe through a window with Quarry, or by dropping into the Trash ‘n’ Treasures antiques shop) (among other entries), you may never have encountered Ms. Tree.
It’s one of my proudest achievements and I hope that statement will be enough to encourage you to pick up all six volumes.
M.A.C.
