Paul Bishop's Blog, page 55

THE MONSTER INSIDE US

THE MONSTER INSIDE US!
 JASON CHIREVAS ON WRITING FIGHT CARD: MONSTER MAN 

I’ve always found losers more interesting than winners. Let’s start there.

Fight Card: Monster Man is a story about losers.  Losers of varying degree, but losers nonetheless. The only character in the book who may be doing what he wants to do, who has achieved what he set out to achieve, is the villain of the piece.  That should tell you what to expect in this story.
But then, that’s noir, isn’t it? And noir is one of the things that drew me to Fight Card.  Pulp and noir – two terms thrown together a lot, but which don’t really have much in common – collide head-on in the traditional Fight Card books. When I pitched Monster Man, I knew three things – I wanted it be noir; I wanted it to evoke pulpy Hollywood B pictures of the 40’s and 50’s; and I wanted it to be about losers. Another thing I’ve always found interesting is the good guy trapped in a hulking body. It’s easy to write and envision a big, muscle-bound, guy as a thug or a villain – but what if Goliath is the good guy? That paradigm shift was what I wanted to explore in Monster Man. It was also the biggest challenge – how to take a big, hulking, boxer and not only make him the hero, but also make him a loser? Enter Rondo Hatton. Rondo Hatton was an actor in several second and third-rate horror movies in the 1940s. Hatton had a disease called acromegaly – essentially a form of gigantism­­ – which gave him a menacing, distorted appearance.

RONDO HATTON Hollywood exploited this feature, casting Hatton as some variation of a monstrous character called The Creeper in most of his movies with little more than lighting needed to make him look like something underworldly. Hatton’s success, if that’s what it was, was short-lived as he died of an acromegaly-releated heart attack in 1946 at the age of 51. A big, hulking, boxer with acromegaly. The idea fascinated me. But, as Fight Card guru Paul Bishop asked, was it possible for such a person to actually box? My answer – Primo Carnera was the heavyweight champion of the world from 1933 to 1934. He was 6’ 7” tall. He also had acromegaly.  Now, if you choose to read up on Primo, you will find his rise to the title may have had some influence from the mob, but the real reality was Primo Carnera was a huge guy, with acromegaly, who got in the ring and banged it out with guys like Jack Sharkey and Max Baer. Plus, mob influence – how noir is that? So, with a real-world precedent in place, Ben MonsterHarman was born. Ben is a big, hulking guy who learned the disciplines of fitness and boxing from Father Tim at St. Vincent’s Asylum for Boys in Chicago. Like a lot of Father’s Tim’s boys you’ve read about, Ben looks to the pro ranks for his salvation when he’s old enough to leave the asylum.  However, World War II and then the illness – which he comes to call Hatton’s disease – puts an expiration date on Ben’s time as a boxer. So, that’s Ben. But he’s not the only desperate noir loser trying to fight his way through Fight Card: Monster Man. The person just past his or her prime is another concept of fascination for me. In Monster Man, we also meet Victoria – a never-quite-wise movie actress who settles uncomfortably in the harbor village of Mamaroneck, New York.  Sparks fly when Victoria meets Ben, who is in town to perpetuate an underground boxing scam with Pete – who is Ben’s manager and also a fellow refugee from St. Vincent’s.  The idea of two losers – both fallen from different walks of life, which might have granted them some celebrity – trying to use whatever they have left to get ahead, really interested me. It made me care about the characters and what would become of them as they make choices that put them on a slippery path to disaster. At their best, I think B movies and the kind of fiction Fight Card represents are great for two reasons, both arising from their brevity. First, the short running times and page counts force writers to power the plot along at lean, stripped-down pace. Second, events move so quickly, and circumstances are usually so dire, it forces the characters to expose their raw, base selves. Crisis is when you learn who someone really is and humans in crisis is what Fight Cardis all about. We put our fighters – and the people who love them – through hell, turning and turn the story on its head before you, or they, have time to react.  Monster Man was a fun book to write and I hope some measure of that enjoyment will carry over when you read it. I’m proud to be part of Fight Card. It’s exactly the kind of fiction I always wanted to write and I’m happy to see I wasn’t alone.  Keep punching, Ben. You and Vicky may find a way to win yet.   

COMING SOON IN PAPERBACK!

COMING IN MAY ~ FIGHT CARD: MONSTER MAN!

 JASON CHIREVAS WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

COMING SOON IN PAPERBACK!

 COVER DESIGN BY CARL YONDER AND DAVID FOSTER

A BACK-UP WEAPON FOR YOUR BACK-UP WEAPON!

A BACK-UP WEAPON FOR YOUR BACK-UP WEAPON!

Over the years, it was inevitable my twin careers – LAPD detective and a professional writer – would sometimes bump into each other. One of the minor collisions occurred simply because of my name.

In the original script for 1992 film Delta Heat, the main character – an LAPD detective to be played by actor Anthony Edwards – was named ‘Paul Bishop’. When the production company’s legal section realized there actually was a current LAPD detective named Paul Bishop, they reached out and asked me to waive the rights to my own name.

This was not a particularly appealing idea, especially since there was no compensation offered. Rather than negotiate, the production company simply changed the main character’s name from ‘Paul Bishop’ to ‘Mike Bishop.’ However, prior to the final outcome of the character’s name change, I had a very pleasant lunch with Anthony Edwards at the Britannia pub in Santa Monica, which was one of my local hangouts.

Edwards was extremely affable and we talked about a wide range of subjects. He was particularly interested in the back-up weapons I’d carried when working undercover.

I explained about usually carrying a five shot Smith & Wesson Chief Special with a two inch barrel on my ankle, but Edwards was aware of this type of back up and was looking for something different.

As a result, I told him about carrying an even smaller, non-department approved, back up weapon known as a ‘crotch rocket’ because it was carried under your scrotum – it’s amazing what discomfort you can get used to when your life may depend on it. If somebody searched you, they would almost always find the ankle gun, but would almost always miss the ‘crotch rocket’ because of a reluctance to touch that area of somebody’s person.

This was a lesson I’d learned in the police academy when we were doing situation simulation searches. Myself and one other rookie (out of 54 in my academy class) were the only ones who found the ‘crotch rocket’ when searching the instructor acting as the suspect.

When ‘LAPD Detective Mike Bishop’ hit the big screen in Delta Heat (5 stars out of 10 on IMDB) it sank into the New Orleans swamps – where the movie was filmed – pretty much without a trace. However, I still had the pleasure of seeing my sort-of-namesake rescue himself in the film’s climax by using his hidden ‘crotch rocket’ back up weapon after having his ankle gun taken away by the villain of the piece.

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FIVE BOOKS FREE FOR FIVE DAYS!
CROAKER: KILL ME AGAIN
Los Angeles homicide detective Fey Croaker must solve the recent murder of a pretty, forty-something woman whose fingerprints surprisingly identify her as a previous murder victim from eighteen years earlier.

At 43, Fey Croaker has survived three dead-end marriages, a severely abusive upbringing, and the relentless resentment of her male colleagues on the force. Now, because of a streak of unsolved murders, she feels extra pressure to solve the murder of a mysterious woman who had multiple IDs in different names, a million dollars in cash, and only new clothing and furniture in her equally new condo at the time of her death.

Fingerprints inexplicably reveal the woman had already been murdered – 18 years earlier in San Francisco. Despite this twist, the case appears to be open and shut – the woman's ex-husband, convicted of killing her the first time, was released on parole weeks before her second murder. However, the victim has many more surprises for everyone involved – especially for Fey, who finds herself becoming one of the suspects when her investigation takes a turn for the deadly.

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HOT PURSUIT
A Calico Jack Walker / Tina Tamiko L.A.P.D. novel . . . It’s 1977 and veteran L.A.P.D. cop Calico Jack Walker and his rookie partner, Tina Tamiko, are planning to make Calico’s last shift on the job something special – but plans, as they do, come apart because Walker and Tamiko are good cops no matter what the cost . . . even if they're L.A. cops, in uniform, in their patrol car, on duty, and way out of their jurisdiction on the Las Vegas Strip. When a major crime is going down, good cops never hesitate.

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SUSPICIOUS MINDS
1977, the one and only king of rock-n-roll, Elvis Presley, is taken from the world far too soon, but the legend will never die.

1996, Elvis impersonator Cole Ramsey, a young man with enough voice and a style to take him to the top, receives a very odd phone call from an Icon dead for almost twenty years . . . Cole has heard all the Elvis conspiracy rumors, but ... it couldn’t be ...

Before he knows it, however, Cole’s life is turned upside down. He’s on the run and up to his ears in Elvises ... are they all impersonators or is one of them hiding from deadly suspicious minds ...

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RUNNING WYLDE
A collection of seventeen novellas and short stories spanning my writing career.

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PENALTY SHOT
Top-flight English goalkeeper Ian Chapel's last soccer game ended in a kick to the face from a German opponent leaving him with just one eye and believing he could never play the game again.

Working as an editor for one of his brainy brother's sports magazines, Chapel has recovered his fitness, but hasn't touched a soccer ball since his accident. So, he finds it ludicrous when his old army colonel pitches a proposal with him playing goalie for the Los Angeles Ravens, an American indoor soccer team owned by the colonel and his partner Nina Brisbane, who has the body of a goddess and hides her shotgun-blasted face forever behind a veil.

The Ravens are headed for the league finals, but their goalie has just been murdered, and if Chapel takes the job, the colonel and Miss Brisbane would like him to clear up the murder as well.

With much reluctance Chapel caves into pressure, whips himself into good goalie shape, joins the team – which includes the German player who put his eye out – dodges murderous attacks from Irish terrorists, and copes with the very temperamental Miss Brisbane, all the while enjoying the close companionship of the Ravens' second-string goalie, a very fit, ambitious, and pretty young lady.

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COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD: AUDIO!

APRIL FIGHT CARD UPDATE!

APRIL FIGHT CARD UPDATE

Our latest release Fight Card: Copper Mountain Champ by Brian Drake (writing as Jack Tunney) has just hit the virtual shelves.  Brian is another of the top breakthrough writers to become part of our Fight Cardteam.

FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP

Butte, Montana. 1951…Back from the horror of World War II, Alex Slayton started working the copper mines of his hometown, but it’s hardly the life he intends for himself...or his girlfriend, Liz. However, when long festering problems at the mine force a union strike, Alex finds himself up against the mining company’s notoriously tight-fisted owner – a man who believes in violence as a first resort.  

Based on his raw fighting talent, Alex learned the sweet science from his mentor and fellow miner, Pete Kovich – hoping boxing would get him out from underground and on to a sunny future.  Now, caught in a web of town intrigue, violence, and sudden death, Alex is forced to face the mine owner’s son, a top boxing prospect, in the ring.  Alex knows he’s not ready, but the only way out is to fight – not just for himself, but for the whole town…

Any exposure is appreciated.  Please use the appropriate sharing buttons at the bottom of each page at www.fightcardbooks.com to spread the word via Facebook and Twitter.

Coming up next month (May) will be Fight Card: Monster Man from Jason Chirevas with a distinctive storyline, which takes the Fight Card formula in a very different direction.

June will see Fight Card making a big splash at the Howard Day’s convention in Cross Plains, Texas, with the debut of Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey by Howard scholar Mark Finn.  The Fight Card tales owe a big debt to Robert E. Howard’s early creation of Sailor Steve Corrigan.  Finn’s Sharkey tales pay tribute to the world and style of Corrigan, but with a distinct voice all their own.   I’m personally very excited about this collection, which sports an amazing painted cover from Carl Yonder.

Also coming up later in 2014, Fight Card: Guns of November by returning Fight Card author (Fight Card: The Last Round of Archie Mannis) Joseph Grant – in which Fight Card enters the murky waters of the JFK assassination – Fight Card: Bridgetown Brawler from rising pulp star David White, and Fight Card: Fight River from pulp guru Tommy Hancock.This summer, Fight Card will be the focus of an intensive five week college marketing workshop known as The Space.  Jeremy L.C. Jones and I will be working with these top marketing students to come up with new ways to promote our Fight Card brand and generate more book sales for all of us.Till next month … Keep Punching!

AVAILABLE NOW ~FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP!

AVAILABLE NOW ~FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP!

BRIAN DRAKE WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

ANOTHER TWO-FISTED FIGHT CARD STORY

Butte, Montana. 1951…Back from the horror of World War II, Alex Slayton started working the copper mines of his hometown, but it’s hardly the life he intends for himself...or his girlfriend, Liz. However, when long festering problems at the mine force a union strike, Alex finds himself up against the mining company’s notoriously tight-fisted owner – a man who believes in violence as a first resort.  

Based on his raw fighting talent, Alex learned the sweet science from his mentor and fellow miner, Pete Kovich – hoping boxing would get him out from underground and on to a sunny future.  Now, caught in a web of town intrigue, violence, and sudden death, Alex is forced to face the mine owner’s son, a top boxing prospect, in the ring.  Alex knows he’s not ready, but the only way out is to fight – not just for himself, but for the whole town…
 


 

BRIAN DRAKE ON WRITING FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTIAN CHAMP!

BRIAN DRAKE ON WRITING FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTIAN CHAMP!

MINING THE STORY

When Paul invited me to contribute to Fight Card, it was a good day. He had said very nice things about my work prior to his invitation, and it felt like a nice payoff after almost 20 years of effort in the writing game. Of course I said yes, but then blind panic set in. I’m not a boxer. I know nothing about boxing other than what I’ve seen on television. I’ve only ever been in two fist fights (in junior high) that I suppose I won. Then I remembered something Harry Whittington (not the guy Dick Cheney shot, but the author of such amazing books as Fire That Destroy) once said – He said he was able to write any story in any genre because he understood people more than things.

With that in mind, I dipped into my personal and family history for the story. I struggled a lot growing up. I hated being young, couldn’t wait to be an adult, and the complications of that dichotomy fuel the book. 

My protagonist, Alex Slayton, is a young World War II vet trying to readjust to civilian life and dealing with some PTSD. He argues with his family and has few friends. He’s in his own world trying to find his own way and nobody’s helping.

Instead, they’re telling him what he should be doing with his life and not taking into account he’s his own man. They want to put him in a box with everybody else, but he knows he’s made for more.

That initial conflict gave me my characters, but what about the boxing content so important to this series? I may not know boxing, but I know martial arts, and how you can use the martial arts to discover your potential. So instead of kung-fu, Alex would learn how to box, and learn the same lessons my teachers taught me. 

With those bases covered, I needed a greater conflict to complicate Alex’s life even more. 

My family is from Butte, Montana, which is famous for copper mining. Three generations of my family worked the mines to dig up the copper, and my grandfather and great-grandfather were the ones who dealt with the early struggles to unionize the miners. 

Those struggles often got bloody. You didn’t go to a meeting without a baseball bat or brass knuckles (or a pistol if you could afford one) because there was always the possibility of a fight with company union busters. 

Dashiell Hammett, who wrote Red Harvest based on his time in Butte as a strike breaker, chronicled the insanity of those days very well, though the things he left out were even more insane and – I suspect – he left them out because nobody would have believed him. 

So, I had my characters and my secondary conflict, but with so little space to work with (25,000 words is not a lot), I had to find a way to compress 60 years of union battles into very few words.

The Butte in my story is not the Butte my family knew. However, there are obvious parallels and I used a lot of family history in coloring the town and characters.  In fact, one character and one location is specifically named for my grandfathers. Still, there is a real-life example of everything taking place in the story. 

Those battles happened. 

A lot of guys died and many more were injured.  However, while my story takes place over two weeks, those real-life events happened over a much greater period of time.

So, Alex, a miner trying to save enough money to move himself and his girlfriend out of town, must deal with union problems, a company out to put the effort down by any means necessary, his family, and his own struggle to find himself. 

There’s boxing woven throughout, and it’s in the boxing ring where Alex will have to save himself, his future, and the town.  It all comes together in a package of which I’m very proud.

It wasn’t easy to write. I had to fight the words instead of having them flow. I felt I was in the ring against the toughest bruiser I had ever faced. I wanted to go down for the long count in every round. 

This story was so different from my usual action/adventure fare, I didn’t think I could finish. However, Paul took a chance on me and I didn’t want to let him down, so I pressed on. I had become the fighter in the ring I was writing about…Alex had become me… and I wanted the victory.

Copper Mountain Champ helped me grow as a writer.  I learn a lot about finishing what I write – I learned to keep punching.  I am renewed as I return to writing my usual fare of blondes, bombs, and wannabe-Bonds – where things get blowed up real good and the baddies are trying to take over the world. 

It’s much easier writing about heroes and villains than about yourself.

FIGHT CARD: COPPER MOUNTAIN CHAMP

BRIAN DRAKE WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

ANOTHER TWO-FISTED FIGHT CARD STORY

Butte, Montana. 1951…Back from the horror of World War II, Alex Slayton started working the copper mines of his hometown, but it’s hardly the life he intends for himself...or his girlfriend, Liz. However, when long festering problems at the mine force a union strike, Alex finds himself up against the mining company’s notoriously tight-fisted owner – a man who believes in violence as a first resort.  

Based on his raw fighting talent, Alex learned the sweet science from his mentor and fellow miner, Pete Kovich – hoping boxing would get him out from underground and on to a sunny future.  Now, caught in a web of town intrigue, violence, and sudden death, Alex is forced to face the mine owner’s son, a top boxing prospect, in the ring.  Alex knows he’s not ready, but the only way out is to fight – not just for himself, but for the whole town…