Adventureman #3 by Matthew Fraction and the Dodsons

 

So when we left Claire she had just stumbled into the family dinner.  OK there was a gap of some hours between when we saw last saw her until the dinner. It's a mystery what happened to her and one that should be solved in this installment. Let's see what Matt Fraction wrote.

The family is concerned and they race her to the Emergency Room.  Claire feels great and she can hear again (or at least partially).

When one of the cops she saw last issue is brought in injured.  He was injured in a bug attack and is losing blood.  He's AB- and Claire declares that she's multiversal blood type n and after an Adventureman flashback she gives him a transfusion of blood.

Record scratch - WHAT THE BUTTS?????

multiversal type n???  Fine, he's AB- but O- is the universal donor and can be given to anyone.  I get that they may have limited blood stocks but to make up a blood type from the whole cloth - which you don't really explain I was yanked out of the story sooooo fast.

Now I'll accept a lot in my pulp and pulp-adjacent fiction, I mean I'm the guy who wrote about a ray that causes the blood to rust (or at least appear to rust)  check out my novel Australis Incognito for more details.

But the type n blood was a step too far for me.

It may seem that I'm hard on this book and I am - I have high expectations of this story.

Back to the story, we get the information that Claire's dad may have been the Chief of Police as Claire's old partner calls him Chief.  

Then we're told that Claire appears to have grown fifteen inches (37.5 cm) but I'm not quite seeing that growth reflected in art.  (BTW the Dodson's art is gorgeous)

The MRI scan shows Claire's brain is active, really active.

And we're half way through the book and the mystery is set up and Claire can't remember what happened to her.

She goes home with her father where they along wih her son watch an Adventureman serial.  "Fair Phantom of the Lost Fortress" is the title (the other appears to be Adventures of A Dark Tomorrow)

As Claire watches she declares that she remembers.

But we leave Claire to see what is happpening with Baron and Baroness Bizarre torturing Philanda Phade - the ghost assistant of the original Adventureman.  There's several pages of Baron Bizarre talking where they are trying to release Abbathexiddion the Beast-GOd of the Ultravoid.  It ends with the Beast-God sending the Baroness to take the head of Adventureman.

The we get several pages of anecdotes and sketches about the creation of Claire's family and specifically her sisters.

I get the feeling that this comic would do better with less behind the scenes and more background, make it more like Watchmen where the back matter tells us about the classic pulp era Adventureman - excerpts from "the Great Pulp Heroes", fanzine articles about the Adventureman serials, interviews with the original pulp author, explanations about the magic pill Adventureman takes (because for all the mystery it seems obvious that Claire has taken that drug)

Pulp should be fast paced we are now three issues into the series and very little has happened.  I'm sticking with the book because it seems that we are building to something in the next issue but we need more answers and explanations of this world.   

Australis Incognito: Behind the curtain.

So as promised here's a peak behind the curtain for the story behind the story of Australis Incognito.

Now I'd love to say the whole thing came to me in a one big hit but that's not true.  Some of the ideas had been floating around in my head for some time.  The Rusting Death had been a title that been waiting since the mid 90s when I mistyped the Doc Savage novel The Rustling Death for my book list.

But the story really started on Watchmen's 25th anniversary in around 2011.  Like many fans I wondered how things would have went after the events of Moore and Gibbons' story.  It's a world now without a superman just people in costumes.  Was there a third wave/generation of heroes, did the peace last?  What might a third wave look like?

I let myself imagine.  Silk Spectre II and Nite-Owl II would have kids The Nite Spectre, Silk and Nite-Owl III.  There would be a Rorschach II, the daughter of the original's landlady who believes that Walter Kovacs is her father.  There would be original characters like the Cutlass.

I never wrote anything down and at some point reality set in assuming that DC was going to do anything they wouldn't be hiring me anytime soon (and shorly after we got the Before Watchmen collection of miniseries)

As any Watchmen fan worth their salt knows the story was written with the Charlton characters.  DC looked at the story and realised that it would render their newly acquired characters unusable.  Moore then created new characters who if you squint looked a little like the Charlton Characters,

So I squinted - The third generation Watchmen siblings became The Dingo, Risque and Risk.  Rorschach II became The Question Mark II.  I left the Cutlass alone.  I dropped several characters and created new ones.

One of my new characters was the Aggressor, a veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq and fighting a bloody crusade against organised crime.  Then I found the Cutter series by James Hopwood - and also published by Pro Se Press.  Hopwood did what I was planning and in all honesty did it better.  So I changed tack The Agressor was active in the 1980s and was involved in The Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption in the Queensland Government and police force, which worked much better for me.  So James if you read this - Thank you.

Around the same time, I was looking at myself as an Australian new Pulp writer and what I wanted to write.   I discovered a history of Australians creating pulp and pulp adjacent characters and I met several other creators who were crafting new stories in the same vein.

I wanted to write a big Australian pulp story. I had the basis for my story.  I pitched the idea to Pro Se as Oz Pulp.

The good news they liked the idea, the bad - they were not so keen on Oz Pulp.  I wasn't keen on their suggested replacement Aus Pulp.

I sat brainstorming when  I remembered that on old maps Australia was called Terra Australis Incognita - and Australis Incognito was born.  (Several Australian horror anthologies have used Terror Australis)

Australis Incognito became more than the title of the story but the collective name of my heroes and would go back to the settlement of New South Wales in 1788 allowing me to weave a backstory that allowed me to reference several characters I had read about.  It also gave me a reason that these characters all knew each other.

I had the idea for a villian so big that these characters couldn't battle them alone.  I distinctly recall the idea that one of the heroes was suggesting the unknown villian was a Moriarty-type.  The mysterious villian lurking over the skyline of Brisbane on the cover.

Around this time I had been invited to contribute to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Was Not (IFWG, 2019) an anthology that paired Sherlock Holmes with a different doctor instead of Watson.  I selected Dr Nikola, the villian of five novels by Australian writer Guy Boothby that were just as popular as the Sherlock Holmes stories back in the 1890s.  Nikola became a large piece of the this new story and his actions in the past served as a catalyst for this modern day adventure.

I had a great time building a world where modern pulp heroes could operate and link in with other Australian pulp and pulp-adjacant characters.

AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO now available

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUPER HEROES FLY FROM DOWN UNDER-BRAD MENGEL’S ‘AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO’ DEBUTS
The Land Down Under, a land of crime and adventure.  For over two hundred years, Australia has been guarded by the masked men and mystery women of Australis Incognito.
The Dingo, Risqué, Risk, The Knight Errant, The Cutlass, The Question Mark and the Sai are the latest generation of crime fighters.
Now they are faced with an ancient evil, a mastermind committing impossible crimes.  A mystery villain who threatens to expose their greatest secrets and those of their predecessors. Australia’s heroes…and the world itself may not survive in Author Brad Mengel’s debut novel-AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO, now available from Pro Se Productions.
Featuring a haunting cover and logo design by Jeffrey Hayes and print formatting by Antonino Lo Iacono and Marzia Marina, AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO is available in print at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1074217349/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=australis+incognito&qid=1560997291&s=gateway&sr=8-3 for $9.99.
Mengel’s debut novel is also available as an eBook formatted by Lo Iacono and Marina for the Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/Australis-Incognito-Brad-Mengel-ebook/dp/B07T3WD99Y/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=australis+incognito&qid=1560997378&s=gateway&sr=8-1 for only $2.99. The book is also available to Kindle Unlimited members for free.
For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.
To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

This has been a long time coming and I'm so pleased to see it finally come to life.  Massive shout out to the team at Pro Se and to Jeffrey Hayes for the awesome cover that exceeded my wildest dreams.

To my Australian mates,  ebook only on Amazon Australia.  Brisbane folks can order a hard copy at Pulp Fiction Book shop.  http://www.pulpfiction.com.au/

I'll post soon about the background for the story and how it came to be in a separate post.

What's new Brad?

I'm a little behind in promoting my stuff but better late than never!

I did my first ever podcast appearing on Percival Constantine's The Exploding Typewriter

My topic was Creating Pulp Characters.  Percival was a great host and it was a pleasure chatting with him. 

Sadly, this is the final episode of this podcast and if you have any interest in writing in general or pulp writing in particular I would highly recommend listening to the other twenty episodes.  Percival has assembled a fascinating array of guests covering a number of interesting topics. 

Pro Se has released the first of my Pro Se Single Shots : Australis Incognito: Bus Bait Blues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PULP DOWN UNDER IN NEW PRO SE SINGLE SHOT SIGNATURE SERIES-
AUSTRALIS INCOGNITO DEBUTS FIRST DIGITAL SHORT STORY!
...

Masked men and mystery women from the Land Down Under explode to life in author Brad Mengel’s Pro Se Single Shot Signature Series- Australis Incognito!
Crime is alive and well in Australia and thankfully so are several Pulp Heroes ready to take on evil! Brad Mengel’s own creations, including The Question Mark, The Cutlass, The Aggressor, Sai, Risqué, The Bushranger, and others will stand alone and combat thugs, crooks, and psychopaths in their own stories. But behind the scenes, a puppet master of Machiavellian proportions is yanking the strings, jerking the world toward the brink with every tug, and pulling Australia’s heroes closer together. Closer to the answer. And to the final battle.
In the first stand alone short story, Bus Bait Blues, a hero known as The Question Mark follows in her predecessor’s footsteps trying to protect the common people of the city. Witnessing what appears to be the pick up of a young girl for a life of prostitution on the streets, the Question Mark uncovers something much more heinous. Can she survive the gauntlet she must run to save a girl and herself? Or will she be the second bearing the name The Question Mark to disappear? Find out in Bus Bait Blues by Brad Mengel.
Brad Mengel’s Australis Incognito, a Pro Se Single Shot Signature series from Pro Se Productions, features an evocative cover by Jeffrey Hayes and digital formatting by Russ Anderson. The first short story in the series is available for Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/loya4o2 and for most digital formats at http://tinyurl.com/lp8wb6f for only 99 cents. Australis Incognito - A Pro Se Single Shot Signatures series from Pro Se Productions.