Friday, August 30, 2013

A Tsunami of Swill FREE through Tuesday! Who'd Turn Up Their Nose at That?

Tsunami of Swill: Secret of the Ebook Crapnado by Charles Deckins is my novelty ebook short, normally priced at $0.99 but F*R*E*E for the asking at Amazon's Kindle Store beginning now and lasting over the Labor Day weekend (and through Tuesday). This may be the only link I post; I don't expect to add one over in the right-hand column under my "real" books. The joke won't explain itself there!

^ ^ Amazon Link! ^ ^
link
Last week, thriller author Joe Konrath issued a challenge on his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. He confessed that he had put out a handful of very short humorous how-to ebooks under a pen name: he wrote jokes, edited, formatted, created a cover on Paint, and published on Amazon in a hour or so per book. (He's made a few dollars a month on them without any promotion.) His challenge to the writers reading his blog: do the same in eight hours.

Many of those accepting the challenge wrote stories over the weekend about their series characters, or otherwise took up ideas in their normal genre. They put together some impressive covers in a hurry, out of stock photos. Others went a little farther afield, into the dangerous morass of humor. I too took my influence from the books Konrath put out as Dr. Hans Uberass, most notably How to Stop Farting. My cover should prove it; I tried to create one as generic-looking as possible (embrace the Comic Sans!), one that says "I dare you to spend good money on this book."

The influence to publish something in less than a day came from Konrath, but my plot came out of a thread on the Kindle Boards' Writers Café. A self-styled industry insider in New York publishing had blogged a typo-laden rant about those crappy independent ebooks flooding the Internet, and within a day the entire blog was mysteriously deleted. That set me on the trail of the amazing facts: all those ebooks are part of a global conspiracy. My tagline: Tsunami of Swill is based on a 7% true story.

This is strictly an ebook, in part for the sake of the joke. In order to do free promotions, I had to sign it up exclusively with Kindle. As I've mentioned before, the Kindle Reading Apps for PC, Mac, Smartphone, Tablet, and even your browser are free downloads from Amazon at any time. My books come without Digital Rights Management, so you can use the Calibre ebook library management program (also a free download) to convert from Kindle's Mobi format into Epub or whatever your e-reader requires.

Writers: the Konrath challenge per se is over—he blogs the results today—but nothing's stopping you from trying it for yourself. 2500 words in a couple of days, and you can "cheat" and get editing or formatting help, of course; but one way or the other you can publish a short ebook for a lark before the week is out. How liberating is that?

Remember: Tsunami of Swill: Secret of the Ebook Crapnado by Charles Deckins is absolutely F*R*E*E through this Tuesday. And if time is money, it won't take up too much of that, either; it's short!

We now return to our regularly scheduled comic book blogging.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Woolfolk Records 1951/01


Captain MArvel Jr. 100 cover
January 1951 stories go to Fawcett, Quality, and Orbit.

"Back Alley Girl" and "I Was a Slave to Tradition" were plotted at 2 pages each by William Woolfolk and published at 13 pages and 8, respectively, after Dorothy Woolfolk scripted from the plots.

"Story breakdown" is probably the same as Russell Carley's "script continuity" for Michael Fleisher at DC in the Seventies—helping a writer turn his or her plot into panel-by-panel scenes before the scripting. The scripter noted here, Miles K., would have to be the Miles Cahn with the byline on text fiction pieces in Love Diary 15-16 and The Westerner 35-36. Prescription for Happiness is the recurring short feature whose individual installments are untitled.

UPDATE: darkmark found the Monte Hale bandit stronghold story.

January 1951 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

7 pg   Monte Hale the bandit stronghold
"MH Invades the Bandit Stronghold" Western Hero 106, Sept/51
12  Arizona Raines outlaw's land
"Free Land!" Crack Western 73, July/51
11  Diamonds of Death jewel smuggling racket
"Diamonds of Death" Wanted 38, June/51
Ibis Karnak & the termite men
"Ibis and the Termite Men" Whiz 137, Sept/51
Captain Marvel Jr. Sivana Jr. & glacial age Chapter I
"CMJ and Sivana Jr.'s Cold War" [Chapter I] CMJ 100, Aug/51
story breakdown for Miles K a gal whose boy is called by the draft
[untitled Prescription for Happiness] Love Diary 17, June/51
plot for Dorothy I was a slum girl
13  "Back Alley Girl" L Diary 17, June/51
Captain Marvel Jr. Chapter II—death of Freddy Freeman
"CMJ and Sivana Jr.'s Cold War" [Chapter II] CMJ 100, Aug/51
Captain Marvel Jr. Chapter III—Sivana Jr., prince of universe
"CMJ and Sivana Jr.'s Cold War" [Chapter III] CMJ 100, Aug/51
The Survivor shipwrecked man kills for water—when there is fresh water all around him
"The Survivor" Wanted 38, June/51
12  Blackhawk battles the aerial circus
11  "Death Patrol" BH 46, Nov/51
plot for Dorothy girl with old family traditions & modern guy
"I Was a Slave to Tradition" L Diary 17, June/51
Wild Bill Pecos return of Lobo, the wolf boy
"The Return of Lobo the Wolf Boy" The Westerner 37, June/51
Monte Hale the lost homestead
"The Mystery of the Lost Homestead" Western Hero 108, Nov/51
10  Wild Bill Pecos curse of Ashtor
"The Curse of Ashtor" The Westerner 38, July/51

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Jim Aparo Wasn't There

Back in this post I posited Jim Aparo as the artist of "The Sinister Stone" in Worlds of Fantasy 11 (Apr/58) from Martin Goodman's company, once Atlas and later Marvel. It would have been his first work in comics before coming to Charlton in the later Sixties.

I was seeing something that wasn't there. I proved myself wrong when I found that the most Aparo-like panel (and that mostly in the inks) is a swipe from Ruben Moreira's story "The Glitter of Doom" in DC's House of Mystery 58 (Jan/57). I haven't seen Aparo swipe other comics. So I'll defer to Doc V.'s attribution of Ed Winiarski on "The Sinister Stone."

Worlds of Fantasy 11 and House of Mystery 58 panels

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Woolfolk Records 1950/12

Crack Western 73 cover

William Woolfolk's records book shows stories for Fawcett, Orbit, and Quality this month.

He plots another story (a romance, judging by other months) for Dorothy Woolfolk to script.

He receives an end-of-the-year bonus from one of the companies: $75, the equivalent of an average story. I'll guess it's Orbit—in a house ad they boast of their highly-paid editorial staff, which listed in some books includes the writers and artists.

Woolfolk has already done an "Ibistick Fails" story, published in Whiz 92, but it's a completely different plot.

December 1950 Comic Book Scripts by William Woolfolk

10 pg  Ibis the Ibistick fails
"The Ibistick Fails" Whiz 135, July/51
12  Wild Bill Pecos the outlaw train
"The Outlaw Train" The Westerner 36, May/51
Captain Marvel Jr. tunnel to the future
"CMJ and the Tunnel to the Future" CMJ 99, July/51
12  Loan Shark Racket family man crook
"The Loan Shark Boss" Wanted 37, May/51
Arizona Raines the phantom stagecoach
"The Phantom Stagecoach" Crack Western 73, July/51
Hitchhiker murderer takes the identity of another—also murderer
"Hitch Hiker" Wanted 37, May/51
Captain Marvel Jr. battles Big Smoky
10  "CMJ Battles Big Smoky" CMJ 102, Oct/51
Dorothy story Love Diary
Monte Hale the demons in the hayloft
"MH and the Uninvited Demons" Western Hero 105, Aug/51
12  Wild Bill Pecos land of the pygmy Indians
"Land of the Pygmy Indians" The Westerner 37, June/51

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Batman 121-130 Writers

Jerry Coleman wrote a lot more Superman stories for Mort Weisinger than Batman ones for Jack Schiff, but he did write Batman with Superman for Schiff in most of the heroes' World's Finest team-ups from late 1959 through 1962. Coleman's work calls attention to itself with the sound effects Whammp and Whapp, ones not used by the other Batman writers in this period.

Batman 127--Batman's Super-Partner

Batman 121-130 Writers

Feb/59 121  The Body in the Bat-Cave Bill Finger
Crime Rides the Rails Finger
The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero Dave Wood
Mar/     122  Prisoners of the Sargasso Sea Finger
The Cross-Country Crimes Finger

The Marriage of Batman and Batwoman Finger
May/     123  The Secret of the Everglades Finger
The Joker's Practical Jokes Finger
The Fugitive Batman Finger
June/     124  The Invisible Batman Finger
The Return of Signalman Finger
The Mystery Seeds from Space Wood
Aug/     125  The Secret Life of Bat-Hound Finger
King Batman the First Finger
The Last Days of Batman Finger
Sept/     126  The Mystery of the 49th Star Finger
The Menace of the Firefly Finger
The Batman Lighthouse Finger
Nov/     127  Batman's Super-Partner Jerry Coleman
The Second Life of Batman Finger
The Hammer of Thor Finger
Dec/     128  The Interplanetary Batman Finger

The Million Dollar Puzzle Finger
The Batman Baby Finger
Feb/60 129  The Web of the Spinner Finger
The Man from Robin's Past Finger
Merriweather Jones—Crime Prophet Coleman
Mar/     130  Batman's Deadly Birthday Finger
The Master of Weapons Finger
The Hand from Nowhere Finger