Paul Bishop's Blog, page 36

STILL MAGNIFICENT

STILL MAGNIFICENT The Magnificent Sevenhas topped my list of my favorite movies list since I saw it for the first time as a very impressionable ten-year-old. The film embodies every male trait I grew up wanting to emulate. Elmer Bernstein's score for The Magnificent Seven became the soundtrack to my childhood.  The iconic music became instantly recognizable in the wider publics conscious in 1963, when it was used in the exceedingly masculineMarlboro Man tobacco advertising campaign. The real cowboy ads, featuring the dramatic theme, singlehandedly catapulted Marlboro cigarettes to the top of the tobacco industry.  While the plot of The Magnificent Seven is based on Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese masterpiece, Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven itself has been copied again and again – sometimes almost scene by scene. Not only were there three Magnificent Seven sequels (Return of the Seven, 1966, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, 1969, and The Magnificent Seven Ride,1972), but also a Magnificent Seven TV series, which ran from 1998 to 2000 – each episode a basic remake of the original movie, along with original Magnificent Seven actor Robert Vaughn making numerous guest appearances. There have also been any number of films, television shows, and books in other genres which have adapted the durable western plot to their own tropes and devices.   The sci-fi film Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) featured seven space mercenaries (including Robert Vaughn again virtually reprising his role from The Magnificent Seven) hired to save a farming planet from alien marauders. The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983), starring Lou Ferrigno and Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond The Starsalso starred Danning), was a cheesy sword-and-sandal variation on the theme. The pilot for the 1980 television series The A-Team (which again featured Robert Vaughn in later seasons) was also a riff on The Magnificent Seven. Notable authors Stephen King – in his 2003 novel Wolves of the Calla –  and Robert B. Parker – in his 2001 Spenser novel Potshot – also put the always adaptable Magnificent Seven plot to good use. But here is an adaptation of Magnificent Seven I didn't know about until recently. In the late ‘70s, Marvel Comics scribe Roy Thomas wrote a 4-issue story arc Star Wars story (issue numbers 7, 8, 9 & 10 from the original Marvel series) based on the Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven plot and illustrated by Howard Chaykin.   In the comic sequence, The Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3 are a group of misfits organized in true Magnificent Seven style by Han Solo and Chewbacca to protect a simple farming village from a band of marauders called the Cloud Riders.  Although the Star Hoppers (also known as the Amazing Eight) only remained together for one mission, three of the surviving members – Jaxxon, Amaiza Foxtrain and Jimm Doshun – later reunited against the threat of bounty hunter Beilert Valance who mistakenly believed Jimm to be Luke Skywalker.  "Couple of years ago, it was, back on Aduba III. I got hired by some ugly mug named Han Solo. Joined up with seven other mercs, each one more hard-scrabble than the next. We went up against the Cloud Riders, a bunch of sorry swoop jockeys from the Outer Rim. Chased em off good and proper, with the help of a big behemothy type thing." ~ Jaxxon, member of the Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3. In sequence, the comic issues include: STAR WARS 7: NEW PLANETS, NEW PERILS! After bidding farewell to their Rebel friends, Han Solo and Chewbacca set out to return to Tatooine to pay off their debt to Jabba the Hutt. En route, they are hijacked by space pirate Crimson Jack and his gang of thugs. The pirates take the reward money given to Han and Chewbacca by the Rebel Alliance for rescuing Princess Leia Organa, but spare their lives.   If you remember the Boot Hill scene from The Magnificent Seven (Steve McQueen upstaging a pissed off Yule Brenner by repeatedly shaking shotgun shells while Brenner is saying his lines) you’ll know exactly what the next plot development will be…  Forced to lay low because they can't pay Jabba, the two seek refuge on the planet Aduba-3. There they are hired by a priest of the Sacred Way to bury a recently deceased borg. Although they meet some resistance from the locals who object to having a borg buried in their traditional mound, they do eventually find their way to the burial site.    McQueen as Vin: “You elected?”   Brenner as Chris: “Nah. I got nominated real good.”  After completing the task, the two smugglers are relaxing in a local cantina where they are presented with a much deadlier one.   Is all of this starting to sound familiar?    STAR WARS 8: EIGHT FOR ADUBA-3 Han Solo and Chewbacca are hired by Ramiz, a moisture farmer on Aduba-3, to protect his village from a band of local thugs known as the Cloud Riders led by Serji-X Arrogantus.  You are allowed to immediately think of Eli Wallach preparing to chew scenery from under a wide sombrero and through a scraggly gunfighter’s mustache…  Han and Chewbacca hire six misfit spacers to help them with the task, including Don-Wan Kihotay, an old man who thinks he is a Jedi Knight, and Jaxxon, a rabbit-like creature with a mean disposition.    Sounds like James Coburn (as Britt) and Charles Bronson (as Bernardo)…  Serji-X tries to convince Han to forget about his mission to protect the peasants and even offers him compensation, but Han declines.   Coburn as Britt faced with the same choice: “Nobody throws me my own guns and says run.”  Meanwhile, on Yavin 4, Luke Skywalker, C-3PO and R2-D2 leave in a scout ship to search for a location for the new Rebel Alliance base (yawn). STAR WARS 9: SHOWDOWN ON A WASTELAND WORLD! Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the Star-Hoppers arrive at Ramiz' village Onacra, only to find it under attack by flying High-Hounds. They repel the beasts, saving the life of a young girl named Merri to the great relief of her father Oncho, the village spokesman. But their relief is short-lived as Serji-X Arrogantus and his gang attack. The Star-Hoppers valiantly defend the village from the attack, but not without cost as FE-9Q is destroyed in the fray.    Wallach as Calvera: “I should have guessed. When my men didn't come back I should have guessed. How many of you did they hire?”    Brenner as Chris: “Enough.”   Wallach as Calvera: “Generosity...that was my first mistake. I leave these people a little bit extra, and then they hire these men to make trouble. It shows you, sooner or later, you must answer for every good deed.”   McQueen as Vin: “We deal in lead, friend.”  However, Merri's grandfather the Old One, a shaman, dismisses the hired spacers' help and summons a large, mythical reptilian monster called the Behemoth from the World Below to handle the invading Cloud-Riders. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker informs Leia Organa he has found a new location for the Rebel Alliance base in the Drexel system, but the transmission suddenly ends, and a worried Leia sets out to find Luke. STAR WARS 10: BEHEMOTH FROM THE WORLD BELOW  The Old One has summoned the Behemoth, a giant reptilian monster, to defend the village Onacra from the villainous Cloud-Riders. Serji-X Arrogantus, the leader of the Cloud-Riders, realizes he and his men have no chance against the beast, and he also realizes that the giant is being controlled by the old shaman. He attacks the Old One but the Behemoth reacts in time to kill Serji-X, however the old shaman is killed as well causing the monster to run amok.  With the rest of the Star-Hoppers running for cover, would-be Jedi Knight Don-Wan Kihotay tries to stop the great beast on his own. Hedji tries to help him, but is killed by the monster without much trouble.    A dying Brad Dexter (the only one of the Seven whose name nobody can remember) as Harry: “Tell me there was gold, Chris. Don’t let me die thinking I came back for nothing.   Brenner as Chris telling a big fib: “Yes, Harry. There’s gold.”   Dexter as Harry: [Dying words] “Well, I'll be damned.”    Brenner as Chris: “Maybe you won't be.”  Then Han Solo rushes to help Kihotay, and uses the man's lightsaber to destroy the Behemoth.    Brenner as Chris: “The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”  Meanwhile, Leia Organa searches the Drexel system for Luke Skywalker who hasn't been heard from since his last transmission was interrupted.  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN No matter how many times I see it (and irritate my spouse by saying the dialogue along with the actors), The Magnificent Seven still stirs my blood. The dialogue. The action. The iconic actors. No matter how it’s delivered, for me, it never grows old…

SEARCH FOR A COP KILLER

SEARCH FOR A COP KILLER KABC reporter Eileen Frere recently followed up on the unsolved murder of an LAPD officer forty years ago… Tobie Edwards clutches yellowed letters from strangers who knew her father more than 40 years ago -- as yet another anniversary of his murder approaches.  Mike Lee Edwards, an LAPD officer with 77th Street Division, was murdered May 10, 1974. His body was found the next morning in an abandoned building at 122 1/2 West 89th Street in South Los Angeles by two teenagers.
 The 25-year-old officer had been handcuffed, his shirt covered his head. He was shot several times execution-style. According to police reports, Edwards had been dead several hours before he was discovered. His gun, a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson Airweight, was missing as well as some money.  Tobie Edwards, just 6 years old, was playing in the backyard when her family got the news. Her brother, just 1-year-old, was too young to remember. FOR THE FULL STORY CLICK HERE

THANKS TO THOSE WHO PROTECT AND SERVE

I AM GIVING A HEARTFELT THANK-YOU FOR THE BLESSINGS OF ALL FIRST RESPONDERS AND  MILITARY PERSONNEL EVERYWHERE, FOR WHOM THE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IS SIMPLY ANOTHER WORK DAY WHEN EATING ON THE RUN IS COMPULSORY...
BE WELL...
BE SAFE...
GOD BLESS YOU...  

AUTHORS ON THE AIR PODCAST

Wednesday evening (11/25/2015), I'll be engaging with callers and host Pam Stack ​on the Authors On The Air podcast. The below link will go live at 6PM PST (on the west coast)...Need some friends to call in and keep me interesting...2.5 million listeners and 250,000 social media followers can't be wrong... TO LISTEN LIVE OR CALL IN CLICK HERE

VINTAGE LAPD

In 1970, Leave It To Beaver's Ken Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department after typecasting curtailed his acting career. He grew a mustache in an effort to secure his anonymity. He worked in vice and narcotics and as a motorcycle officer. 

On September 20, 1980, Osmond was hit by three bullets while in a foot chase with a suspected car thief. He was protected from two of the bullets by his bulletproof vest. The third bullet ricocheting off of his belt buckle. Osmond was placed on disability and eventually retired from the force in 1988. The shooting was later dramatized in a November 1992 episode of the CBS series Top Cops.

A WORD ABOUT TYPOS

A WORD FROM MY PUBLISHER... Pro Se Readers, I am sending you this email because you purchased and/or read an ebook copy of Lie Catchers by Paul Bishop and pointed out multiple typos and errors in the e-edition.  First and foremost, thank you for making us aware of the issue. It is extremely important that we know when things are missed, which obviously will happen sometimes, but also when things are not nearly at all right, as it was with this ebook.  I have determined that a mistake was made in the formatting process that led to the wrong file being formatted.  This is unfortunate, obviously, and is not a common occurrence for Pro Se, the first time in our 200 book long publishing career.  But it has happened and we are taking immediate steps to make it right.  I expect a new edition of the ebook to be uploaded in the next 2-4 days.  When that edition is uploaded, an announcement will be made on our Facebook page (PRO SE PRODUCTIONS) acknowledging that there were some issues with the ebook and a new edition has been uploaded.   You should, regardless of where you purchased your copy, be able to go and download the revised copy.  I also want to extend to you a credit for any other Pro Se ebook of your choice at any time, even if it’s Paul’s next Lie Catchers Book.  If you would, email me (address) editorinchiefATprose-press.com with the heading LIE CATCHERS EBOOK and I will respond with all the options for redeeming the credit.  If you would prefer an actual refund of your money, I can do that, but only via paypal and would need an address to send it to. Again, nearly every book published has editing errors in it, but we at Pro Se strive to not have any and even attempt to catch and correct small ones that get by us when we can.  In an instance such as this, however, it is not only our desire to, but our duty to make this right and what I’ve said above is the best way I know how.  Please accept my apologies for this mishap and know steps are being taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  If you have any questions or wish to discuss this further, please email me at editorinchiefATprose-press.com.   Thank You,Tommy HancockPro Se Productions Editor in Chief

VINTAGE LAPD: DRAG RACING

MARCH 6, 1955...TASK FORCE UNITS SURROUND TEENAGERS DRAG RACING IN THE L.A. RIVER CULVERT NEAR THE 6TH STREET BRIDGE... 
WONDER IF ZUKO AND KENICKIE WERE CAUGHT... THX TO CHRIS JAMES

WRITE NOW: INTERROGATING THE MAN IN THE HAT

The man in the hat. You see him at conventions everywhere. There he is on Facebook. There he is again on PRO SE PRODUCTION'S ever expanding website. Who is this mysterious figure who runs one of the largest pulp cartels in the world? He is an unapologetic pusher of pulp – that dangerously addictive concoction of explosive action and imagination with the ability to immediately whisk mainliners away from their mundane existence.  Like the man in the hat himself, you see pulp addicts everywhere – victims of the El Chapo of Pulp – normally efficient, healthy, individuals turned into hollow-eyed, drooping, flesh bags from too much late night pulp, caffeine, and adrenaline. They sit in their figurative work cubicles, pushing mountains of figurative paperwork from inbox to out, counting the hours until they can get their next pulp fix. But now, the man in the hat is in custody and under the bright lights of the interrogation room – subject to rubber hoses, and guys who only believe in bad cop/worse cop. It’s time to get some answers…  Every interrogation starts with a few personal history questions – easy stuff to get a suspect talking. What can you tell us about Tommy Hancock before he became a pulp dealer? That’s one of the nicest things I’ve been called since starting down this winding dark alley of Pulp. Although I have to say my favorite title, other than The Man in the Hat, was once being called, The Pulp Provocateur – a complicated word, but one dripping with all kinds of interesting connotations. It’s hard to say what I was doing before pulp became my focus. In a way, pulp has always been my focus. I have always been a writer of pulp fiction, even before I knew what it was. However, somewhere along the line, I picked up a Master’s Degree in History. Then there was a period of time when I thought I’d like to be a teacher, but after a six month bout of substituting, I figured out how wrong the idea was. I also did some hard time as a college instructor and working in the mental health field – yes,working! I was a juvenile officer for several years, and worked in Juvenile Court in Arkansas in a variety of positions.  Program development was another thing, as was marketing for a bit. Eventually, time doing child abuse investigations and suicidal and homicidal emergency assessments led to working as an attorney’s investigator, for which I am still officially on retainer. But now, The Hat and I have finally found the destination we took all those curves and twists to find. Currently, I work full time as Editor in Chief for Pro Se Productions. Somewhere in the midst of all those tangents, I met my wife Lisa, an angel who didn’t mind her knights being somewhat tarnished, and who has managed to put up with me for just short of nineteen years. She has given me my miracle, Braeden (17), my gift, Alex (15), and my princess, Kailee (9).  When did you first get hooked on pulp? That’s sort of like asking Elvis when he first felt the urge to gyrate. In my recollection, pulp has always been a part of who I am. Now, that probably needs some clarification. I don’t see pulp as just being the stories that appeared on pulp paper when published in the early 20thCentury. I see pulp as being a style of writing – of entertainment – encompassing several key points. The most important of those points, for me, is it’s genre entertainment filled to the brim with action and adventure coupled with clearly defined heroes and villains. If you look at pulp that way, then I’ve always been a fan. I enjoyed watching and reading westerns since I started turning pages at age four, saw Star Wars the night it debuted in 1977, stayed up late to watch detective movies and TV shows like Hawaii Five-0, Columbo, and even stranger fare like Manimal and Salvage One (yeah, the last one will test some memories)… Of course, there was also the Good Times Picture Show. This was an Arkansas produced program for the Public Education channel. Produced by a gentleman named Ray (his last name escapes me), Good Times Picture Showbroadcasted every Saturday with what was essentially a matinee just like theaters used to show from the 1920s until sometime in the 1950s. It featured a serial, a cartoon, newsreels, and a main feature, and all of them from the Golden Age period, which has fascinated me for my entire life. The Good Times Picture Show exposed me to Captain Marvel on screen, and to the Mesquiteers. I saw Randy Rides Alone with John Wayne via the Good Times Picture Show, and so many other truly fantastic pulp-type adventures.  And we can’t forget a real first love of mine – old time radio. My grandfather had given me a white box radio with a light up dial. I used to have to plug it in and hide it under my blanket because at 9:30 – a good 30 minutes past my bedtime – a college radio station in a nearby town broadcasted audio dramas. Monday nights was Star Wars, but the other nights had shows no one my age (8) or even ten years older had ever heard of. Shows like, The Six Shooter, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Adventures of Harry Lime, or my favorite at the time, Nightbeat. I was fascinated by these gems from a past era and spent a lot of time as a kid and teenager doing my best to hunt down episodes of OTR shows. Fortunately, that quest has become easier as the years have gone by. However, if you’re asking about my early exposure to actual pulp, it happened at age nine in an Alco in Batesville, Arkansas. On the same spinner rack where, a few short months earlier, I had bought a G.I. Joe comic with my own money for the first time, I found a book someone must have stuck on the rack instead of walking it back to the shelf. It was one of those large Doc Savage omnibus reprints, which made the rounds in the early 80s. Needless to say, it went home with me and I was hooked. After Doc came The Shadow and then a voracious reading of anything similar I could get my hands on.  Was it a sudden epiphany leading you to start Pro Se, or was it a deliberately planned conspiracy to make the world a betterplace through pulp? Actually, the whole thing was more about me hearing Opportunity knock with the right password. In my time in juvenile court, I ended up working with an attorney who, in similar and different ways, had the same interest I did in creating great stuff people would enjoy and maybe making a little money from the effort. The attorney, Fuller Bumpers by name – yes, yes, it’s a real name – had been a writer in Hollywood and an actor. He had worked with everyone from Judge Judy to Robert DeNiro, but had returned to Arkansas to hang out a shingle and raise a family. Still interested in being creative, Fuller had established Pro Se Productions and was looking for a specific focus. I came on board as we got to know each other, first moving in the direction of original audio drama. We produced a few things, ranging from public domain boys’ adventure stuff from the early 20th Century to our own original ideas. But about the same time, I found myself published in the New Pulp world for the first time. Derrick Ferguson, one of my best friends thanks to the wonders of technology, and one of the tops in New Pulp writing, pointed out there was a company taking submissions for pulp short stories written by modern types. This led me to Ron Fortier and Rob Davis at Airship 27 Productions. At the time the company was – and still is – making a huge mark on what we now call New Pulp. I wrote Ron and Rob a Virgil Earp story for an anthology. It was published, and the writer’s die was cast for me. Being an inquisitive investigator – okay, nosy – I began looking into publishing as a possible direction for Pro Se. I quickly found myself knee deep in the growing corner of genre fiction we called New Pulp. What I found had wonderful possibilities – if the right people came together in just the right way and had the patience to work at a singular goal for years, there could be something great for all involved.  Readers who never knew they enjoyed the sort of stuff many of us want to write would discover New Pulp. Authors who would never see the light of day via traditional publishing houses, and who should have seen the light of many days would get published. Even already well established writers who wanted to cut loose and write descriptive, over the top pulp, could have a place to do it. I took all of those inspirations, rolled it around in the rather discombobulated mass in my head I refer to as a brain, and laid it all out for Fuller – resulting in the concept of Pro Se Productions being born in 2010.   What was your initial vision/goal for Pro Se and how has it grown into the insidious pulp empire it is today? Insidious? Now, I’m not so sure…well, okay, maybe… The initial vision for Pro Se is still the path we’re beating today. Without going into minutia, Pro Se is built on three five year plans, with a short prologue phase. The prologue phase began in 2010, when Pro Se first entered the New Pulp field with a line of magazines – Masked Gun Mystery, Peculiar Adventures, and Fantasy and Fear. All three were very much styled after classic pulp magazines. Using that model, we built a decent stable of writers interested in continuing to work for Pro Se. We made connections while continuing to research and explore the direction Pro Se needed to go in order to become something special.  In 2011, we began publishing novels and anthologies as we kicked off our first five year plan, which takes us to the end of next year. This phase continued our initial intent of building a great catalog filled with writers from New York Times Bestsellers to brand new writers who readers just had to experience.  In achieving this early goal, we’ve also helped define New Pulp more clearly, but also opened up was previously a niche interest to hordes of new fans and possibilities. Embracing the fact New Pulp and genre fiction are terms related to the sort of literature people want to write and read has gone a long way to establish Pro Se and broaden the horizons of the market for other independent writers and publishers inspired by pulp.  As the power behind one of the largest modern pulp cartels, what happens during a typical day of pushing pulp? It’s a lot of hiding the bodies and intentionally forgetting where you put them. Actually, this thing I call a job is a whole lot of fun for me. By nature, I am a person who needs to be busy. I like to have dozens of plates loaded with armed bombs spinning all at once, which is what daily work with Pro Se has become. To boil it down just to a few things in a list is nearly impossible – which is why I’m willing to try. Daily work for a pulp pusher? The best part is working closely with the fantastic individuals who make up Pro Se’s staff , always giving of themselves and their time –because nobody, including me, is getting rich doing this stuff. I have a terrific Director of Corporate Operations who is directly responsible for our editors. However, I still spend a lot of time interacting with our great editing staff and work directly with the fantastic artists responsible for the covers of our books. I also have a truly awesome Submissions Editor who I stay in touch with as new works come to us looking for a home at Pro Se. I am constantly in contact with our writers, both those who have been with us since the start, and those who are coming on board now. I am actively recruiting when needed while also conducting research and marketing. One of the biggest aspects of what I do daily is always looking for the next way to expand, the next way to promote, how to improve what we are doing to make the company operate better and expose more Pro Se creators to more readers, making this effort more profitable and beneficial for all. Amongst all the chaos, I work with the talented formatters who make our books look good and make sure the books get published. I handle all the interactions with vendors and other companies with whom we may be involved. Basically, I do a lot of talking, of pushing and pulling, and putting a shine on already sparkling work.  You’ve been revered and sometimes reviled as putting a new addictive product on the street called New Pulp. Considering the never ending argument between purists and progressives, what is your reaction to the term and how do you define it? Well, I always answer this sort of question with a disclaimer. I am not the guy who invented New Pulp, not anywhere close. Nor am I the pioneer who ventured into these waters first. In my opinion, New Pulp started almost immediately after the classic pulp magazines ceased publication. Writers from those venues moved on to paperbacks, TV, radio, movies, and took the style they’d developed with them. Also, fans of the classic pulp stories began writing their own stuff – putting it out there in every possible form from self-produced fanzines to actually submitting their own characters to publishing houses, magazines, and more. As for where New Pulp is today, I fully believe the first spark came when Joe Gentile started Moonstone Books. Focused on great pulpy tales and even licensed characters like Kolchakand The Phantom, Joe really brought the style of what I call New Pulp to comic books, and then to prose collections. Not long after Moonstone, other companies popped up, like Ron Hanna’s Wild Cat Books, who began publishing new characters by great authors, most notably Barry Reese and the aforementioned Ron Fortier. Then Ron went off on his own to form Airship 27, and other companies popped such as Pulpwork Press (which has a great collection of authors, including Derrick Ferguson), and White Rocket Books, manned by Van Allen Plexico. Then Pro Se came into the mix. So, I didn’t create or start New Pulp in any way. I just got to be involved in taking New Pulp to the next level and beyond.  As for how I define New Pulp, I see it as a style of writing owing a lot to the classic pulp stories written in the early 20thCentury. It is typically fast paced and plot oriented, with over the top larger than life characters. But New Pulp is also about the language, how the story is written. New Pulp is heavy with description, even purple to a point as long as it’s done right and not to bruise like some illegal fight club match. New Pulp is creative with its manipulation and even mangling of words, sentences, grammar, and presentation of all the things that make a story.  A number of your authors regularly appear at the top of many pulp fans Most Wanted lists. How does that make you feel as you imitate Sisyphus pushing pulp up the mountain again and again toward a successful tipping point? I am just glad to be able to be the guy who can say he knew many of the best future writers of genre fiction when. To be in at the start, or to have a hand in great careers like Nancy Hansen’s, Nikki Nelson-Hicks’, Logan L. Masterson’s, Nick Piers’, Chuck Miller’s, J. H. Fleming’s, Frank Schildiner’s, and so many others, that’s my passion in this. To also be known as a publisher and a publishing house which allows writers to write what they want – what other venues won’t let them write – is icing on the cake. Making money is great, but I have found there are writers who will write just to get the tales they want to tell out to people who want to read them – a list of people who have always wanted to write to names which have dotted best seller lists for years.  I catch a lot of flak from some because I am hesitant to say I am only in this for the money. Don’t get me wrong. This is now my full paying job and I want it to stay that way. I want all our writers to one day be able to do nothing but wordsmithing to put food on the table. But the real drive in this for me, the real reason I hammer away at what sometimes seems a series of impenetrable titanium walls, is to see creators get to tell their stories, to watch as readers uncover new worlds and find themselves in new dimensions. To be able to say that happens and the Pro Se logo is attached to it, there’s the payoff.  What is the future of Pro Se – where do you see the imprint in five years from now, ten years from now? Following our second and third five year plans, that’s really about all I can say…or they’ll have to kill me. And not a specific them, but rather the shadowy, ubiquitous them… Thankfully, Pro Se has built a broad foundation, which gives us a lot of opportunity to grow and go even further. What those who watch will see in the next little bit will be a focusing of sorts, less of a narrowing, more of a targeting on certain aspects. Business practices that work, authors who have an impact, stories and concepts that both entice readers to return, and risk taking to bring in even more fans. We’ve made a strong move into licensed concepts and will continue to do so. Pro Se has also opened up a new door by entering into an agreement with Radio Archives to produce audio books of our catalog. Essentially, we are taking all the pieces that have worked so far and focusing on how to make them work even better.  What can we look forward to from Pro Se in the immediate future? That answer might require a whole other grilling session. To get into what we have coming up – with Pro Se having the potential to produce anywhere from four to ten titles a month – would be a laundry list of wonderful fiction. It could turn into me being put on a hit list if I left someone off who was totally deserving of being mentioned. Let’s just say, the books coming from Pro Se between now and the end of the year literally relate to every genre one can probably imagine and a couple we’ve invented… And finally…Tommy? Tommy? Drat! Sound the alarm, the King of Pulp has just escaped down a tunnel hidden under his chair… ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Novelist, screenwriter, and television personality, Paul Bishop spent 35 years with the Los Angeles Police Department where he was twice honored as Detective of the Year.  He continues to work privately as a deception and interrogation expert. His fifteen novels include five in his LAPD Homicide Detective Fey Croaker series. His latest novel, Lie Catchers, begins a new series featuring top LAPD interrogators Ray Pagan and Calamity Jane Randall. * WEBSITE * TWITTER * FACEBOOK ** AMAZON * LIE CATCHERS *

BLINDSPOT

I’m enjoying the new NBC show Blindspot much more than I expected. It’s a ‘high concept’ show, which often spells disaster when the writers have no idea where to go with the high concept once they get beyond the pilot episode. When it works, however, it can be golden (Blacklist). Blindspot sports some very sharp writing, indicating the show runners have a clear understanding of the concept and where they are taking it. The high concept mystery underlying the series (who is the tattoo covered Jane Doe and why do her tattoos keep leading the FBI to major crimes) has been brilliantly dispersed through the first six episodes, managing to keep me interested and coming back without being frustratingly obtuse.   The biggest risk in utilizing this style of storytelling is it is a dangerous weekly high wire act. Done right, the underlying mystery keeps regular viewers wanting/hoping to see if the show can actually pull off a satisfying resolution. Done wrong (Lost), the mystery is kept going from season to season, simply getting more complicated and confusing (Person of Interest) with no resolution in sight causing once engaged viewers to let episode after episode stack up of their DVR without watching. So far, Blindspot has been handled in a satisfying and intriguing manner. I’m going to keep watching, battling against my cynicism and hoping for a strong wrap up to the season…  THE PICTURE ABOVE IS FROM MY APPEARANCE IN EPISODE 0... TO VIEW ALL EPISODES FROM FREE CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIA AMAZON INSTANT VIDEO CLICK HERE

'60s SPY SHOW THEME SWAP

OKAY, THESE ARE FUN...I HAVE TO ADMIT, I STILL GET CHILLS WHEN I HEAR THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. OR MISSION IMPOSSIBLE THEMES...


AND WHO IS UP FOR THIS COMBINATION IN DECEMBER?