blog

No more heroes?

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:00:23 +0100

Way back in 1977, The Stranglers opined that there were no more heroes but, you know, it wasn’t true then—strictly speaking—and it isn’t true now. I’ll tell you how I know.

A few years back, I was asked to write a story set in a world of costumed do-gooders and larger-than-life bad guys. (Heh . . . talk about a labour of love!) When I had completed the tale, I asked Nirvana’s management for permission to use a couplet from one of the songs on Nevermind (‘Lithium’, I believe). “Sure,” came the quick response from the band’s representative. But then she went on to explain that they would require a payment roughly three times the budget of the entire anthology . . . and that was for just the first printing. I politely declined.

Instead, I approached David Bowie’s management to use ‘Oh we can be heroes / Just for one day’. About a week later, I received a nice letter saying I could use the couplet in all incarnations of my story, wherever it appeared, and all for the somewhat less-than-princely sum of £50 (about $85). Needless to say, I accepted the terms and paid the fee out of the money I was going to receive for the story.

Now, I don’t intend to bad-mouth Nirvana here—I’m not sure if Kurt, Krist and Dave ever received details of my request—but I will say how wonderful I thought Bowie’s management had been. I had been a fan ever since Bowie’s first album (on Phillips, with that glorious gatefold cover and, of course, ‘Memories Of A Free Festival’) and it was nice—reassuring, actually—to discover that, if you look hard enough, there are good guys to be found. Indeed, heroes even.

Just last weekend, I discovered another.

I bought my first Marvel comic in 1960—I’d read lots of those wonderful horror stories from the anthology magazines put out by Marvel’s predecessors (Atlas and Timely) as back-up stories in British black & white reprints but, seeing them in colour was a real mind-blower. I was mainly a DC man—still am, to be honest—but I do confess that I lapped up those incredible Marvel sagas that spanned entire decades and multiple titles, and I dreamed of a world in which not only the goodies could band together but the baddies, too. And Marvel’s characters were just so big! I mean, hoo boy! Galactus? The Watcher? Come on!

But it was the man behind it all who dwarfed the whole lot: Stan Lee.

Thanks to PS Artbooks Series Consultant Roy Thomas (once christened Rascally Roy by the alliteration-mad Stan and his Marvel Bullpen chums), I made contact with Stan’s assistant prior to the soon-to-be nonagenarian Lee’s visit to Blighty to attend the London Comics Convention, and he said to come across and say Hi.

Now, I’ve had similar instructions before and been sorely disappointed when it came to the crunch so it was with some trepidation that I went over to the Convention green room, fighting a path through the three or four thousand fans waiting patiently in line to get the great man’s signature . . . and maybe even run a hand over the hem of his jacket.

Standing on either side of the green room door were two be-suited leviathans, kitted out with earpieces in place, no-nonsense expressions and hands firmly clasped just in front of their belts (they could not possibly have actually crossed those biceps-laden arms even if their lives life had depended on it). They listened patiently to my jabbering explanation before asking me to stand to one side and they’d get Stan’s Personal Assistant. Just minutes later, I was ushered by the PA—a charming fellow called Max—into the green room (Asgard, if you will) and into the presence of the man who has masterminded the enjoyment of millions of kids over six or seven decades. Was I nervous? You bet! I’ve spent time with the likes of Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Cliff Richard, Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa and many more but, somehow, to the kid who still lives not-so-deep inside me, this was different. I had ‘made mine Marvel’ umpteen times, I had laughed (and groaned!) at the puns and I had lovingly stacked first tens, then hundreds and eventually thousands of four-colour comicbooks in a succession of bedrooms (the house is now big enough to allow whole rooms to be devoted to specific types of literature) but I had never dreamed of ever meeting the man himself. What would he be like? I was about to find out.

I had barely got my name out as I stepped forward to shake his hand before he got to his feet excitedly—yes, dammit . . . excitedly! Stan Lee was excited to meet me! Nah, it couldn’t be . . . but that’s exactly the way it seemed.

He raved on about the books Roy had told him we were doing and he asked about what else we had coming up (and, boy, we’ve got some doozies heading your way!). Then we spent a little more time and whoosh! . . . he was raring to go. As he emerged from the green room, the cry went out (you may have heard it wherever you are and simply put it down to the shifting of tectonic plates over in the Bay area) and, I tell you, you could taste and even smell the excitement and the . . . well, the sheer love comicbook fans the world over feel for this man.

I thanked Max for his efforts and, rather cheekily, I asked if Stan might come over to the PS Artbooks stand. He patted me on the shoulder and said he’d see what he could do. And then he was away to look after his charge.

I went back to the stand in a bit of a daze and recounted the experience to the rest of the team (and, hey . . . don’t let anyone tell you different, man—we’re all of us fans, all of us comic-geeks . . . and mighty proud of it, too). And then I got on with the job.

A couple of hours or so later, Paul reached out and tapped me on the arm. I was facing into the stand at the time, explaining about pre-code comicbooks, Fredric Wertham and the infamous The Seduction of the Innocent to a couple of wide-eyed youngsters. As I looked up, Paul said to me, half whispering, “Pete, turn around.”

So I did.

And there, heading towards us, leading a tsunami of grinning faces (disciples, if you will) and a battery of flashing cameras, was Stan Lee, strutting out like one of Robert Crumb’s eternal keep on truckin’ hipsters looking as though he was barely a third of his ninety years, accepting handshakes and pats on the back, and returning good wishes and smiles galore. He stepped into the PS stand and said, “Okay, let’s take a look at these books—oh, my! They’re beautiful, Pete.”

Well, what was I supposed to say? They are.

And so he spent the following ten or fifteen minutes on the stand while I showed him all the books and went through the catalogue with him. Then, after we posed for a few photographs, he volunteered to write a Foreword for a future volume and then headed back to the green room, presumably to rest up for his next signing onslaught.

All we could do in the newly restored calm was shake our heads in a mixture of amazement and affection as we watched him walking away, a spring in his step like a modern day Moses leading his people to salvation.

No more heroes?

Nah, true believer. Not a chance.

Look after each other . . . and happy reading.

Pete

Festive Fun at PS Towers

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:34:44 +0100

Click on the logo to see our seasonal greetings

Zoran Zivkovic

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:29:38 +0100

Yeah, so I’m sitting in my office thinking about starting the day, first cup of coffee in hand, when I get this note from Zoran Zivkovic.

Now, Zoran’s a lovely fellow—a ‘stand-up’ guy, as our American chums might say—and he’s a truly remarkable writer. However, the simple fact is that, here at PS, we’ve found it difficult to make his books the staples of British readers’ bedside tables the way they should be. But, what the heck, it’s not written anywhere that quality work will always succeed just as it’s often all too painfully obvious that huge successes do not necessarily suggest high quality.

The most interesting thing that Zoran mentioned in his note—which was altogether interesting as his missives always are—was the numbers.

In pointing out the fact that Italian publisher TEA will be publishing new editions of two of his books, Zoran went on to mention that TEA’s edition of his wonderful The Last Book sold some 30,000 copies. That’s thirty thousand! That’s a lot of books. Ask anyone—I mean a lot of books.

So I did a bit of ferreting around.

In South Korea The Last Book sold in excess of 15,000 copies, in Germany almost 10,000 copies (in fact it probably will be ten thou by the time you read this), in Portugal more than 5,000 copies, and in Holland just over 4,000. And it’s a similar story in other countries. But in the countries where the native language is English, the figures are not so hot. Why? Hey, don’t ask me—I don’t understand it either.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me—and it doesn’t actually bother Zoran: believe me, this is not a begging letter—but it really does puzzle me. We’ll keep on publishing his books for as long as he’ll let us for the simple reason that, like everything PS puts out, Zoran’s work is just so damn good. And, best of all, he said in his letter that- but no, I’ll let him tell you. “Talking about The Last Book—my most successful novel so far, at least commercially—I am well under way in writing a sequel to it, The Grand Manuscript.”

Yeah, you bet you can guess where you can pick up a copy in English.

The power of a book-jacket

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:58:24 +0100

If anybody ever asks me about the power of a book-jacket then I'll tell 'em this: it works with me . . . and I mean Big Style.

I was in the the wonderful Hockney Galleries at Salt's Mill in Saltaire (and if you're ever stumped about where to spend a long weekend or even a whole damn week, then this is the place for you . . . and I mean that), checking out the bookroom, and I came away with seven titles, most of which I knew diddly about. The thing was, I fell in love with the covers . . . and I want to tell you about one in particular: Northline, by Willy Vlautin.

The cover has puffs from the Daily Telegraph ("full of compassion"), the Independent on Sunday ("the Dylan of the dislocated") and even George Pelecanos ("the American novel I have been hoping to find") so you can be fairly sure you're on safe ground. Well, it turns out you're on exceptionally safe ground for no sooner did I get the book home than I discovered Vlautin is the lead singer in Richmond Fontaine, whose albums The Fitzgerald and Thirteen Cities have frequently graced the various systems at PS Towers. (Indeed, Thirteen Cities is playing as I write this . . . and exceptionally fine it is, too.)

The first thing that hits you--both in the book and the music--is the dialogue/imagery. Gee whiz, it crackles like a downed electricity cable with its live end in a puddle . . . all Carver and Steinbeck, Elmore Leonard and Philip Dick (those three or four mainstream books he wrote--absolutely stunning stuff), and . . . well, there are lots more, all the way back to the music connection of Richmond Fontaine and Vlautin's songsmith predecessor, Mark Eitzel.

It's the underbelly of America done better than anyone else has captured it . . . it's a movie scripted by Sam Shepard and Richard Ford, directed by David Lynch, starring a young Harry Dean Stanton with a soundtrack from Ry Cooder and American Music Club. Remarkable.

They came in their hundreds . . .

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:38:20 +0100

Today finds me settling down to work after the busy life of personal appearances and book-signings. Good fun and great to speak with fans of my work from Hull, Leeds, Ilkley and Manchester (more to come). The Leeds gig (Waterstones, Albion Street) was particularly noteworthy.

When Nicky and I came out of one of the cross streets into Albion, I was rather surprised to see throngs of people—and I mean THRONGS . . . like, hundreds!—standing in line and facing up the street in the general direction of Waterstones. We didn't think anything of it for a minute or so but then, when the bookstore came in sight and we saw that the line ended (or began, depending on your point of view) at Waterstones' doors, I couldn't help but wonder. I turned to Nicky at exactly the same time as she turned to me and we both shook our heads. "Nah!" I said, fighting off a dumbass grin. And then, when I'd taken a second look and determined that these folks were, in the main, kids of around twelve to fifteen (some of them dressed up in full-body animal costumes), I kind of figured these were not fans of Pete Crowther's work, even the gentlest and most poignant examples of it . . . and certainly not of my Forever Twilight cycle and the deranged serial killer, Virgil Banders. When I turned again to Nicky, our smiles had disappeared. "Nah," we chorused, "definitely not." (Ah, it's always nice to go off-world for a time but somewhat sobering to return to Earth and its many disappointments.)

Turns out there was a second book-signing at Waterstones, Leeds that day . . . the second one being an online group called The Midnight Beast. And, as luck would have it, 99% of the line was there to buy their new book. The guys at the store had got my little table right next to the Beast's place but I had it moved up to the SF/Horror/Fantasy section. We did okay and I still managed to shift a good few books without having to stoop to hiding copies in the Cookery and Travel sections. Many thanks to those folks who took time out to come say Hi and maybe even buy a book. Great to see you.

The golden age of comics is 12

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:21:43 +0100

I’ve been reading a lot of comics of late . . . mainly the reprint stuff, because that’s where my heart lies. After all, the true Golden Age of comics is 12 . . . which puts my interest around 1961/2, when the infamous Comics Code effectively brought in by Dr. Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent was well underway (having kicked off in 1954/55) and the comics themselves were fairly pale versions of what they once were.

So I’ve been slavishly buying DC’s Archive series (which now seems to have stopped—Shame! I say) and their subsequent Chronicles series (also thin on the ground now—Boo!) plus Marvel’s Masterworks . . . particularly their Atlas series of pre-code horror. The latest of the latter to land at PS Towers is the fifth volume of Strange Tales (numbers 40 through 48, November 1955 to July 1956) and I must say that, as much as I always enjoy all of these things, I was somewhat shocked at how pedestrian the stories were in that desert between the early/mid 1950s Atlas (Marvel) fare and the Lee/Kirby monster stuff (not to mention the off-the-wall gems that Steve Ditko had already been making a name for himself with over at Charlton) of the pre-superhero 1960s.

Even comics historian Michael Vassallo notes it in his usual excellent Introduction. “It’s truly startling,” he says, “how much the actual Atlas stories suffered, often by writers who just a year or two previously were turning out wonderfully imaginative material.” Quite so.

The reason I mention this here is the marked weakness of the post-code (and, to be honest, even the pre-code) Atlas material when measured against the Harvey titles (which didn’t continue beyond the arrival of the Code). Thus, on titles such as Witches Tales and Chamber of Chills, we were spared the disappointment inherent in the new Strange Tales volume . . . kind of like James Dean dying before he had an opportunity to besmirch his reputation by appearing in several vapid clunkers in his middle age in order to buy a new beachfront house on Big Sur (remember the likes of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price appearing in surf and hot-rod movies? Oh, let’s not go there . . . )

Now, you may say that this is just a soapbox for me to champion books that we’re producing over at PS under our Artbooks imprint—my only argument with that would be that it isn’t ‘just a soapbox’ (though I do want you to buy them): it’s something I do feel strongly about.

Sure, the old Harveys can be clunky, preposterous and downright crazy, just like the ACGs (we have the first volumes of Adventures Into The Unknown and Forbidden Worlds coming next month), but they show writers and artists who care about what they’re doing as against the stuff turned out by those same folks who’ve had the stuffing knocked clean out of them. ‘Nuff said as Stan the Man was wont to say. Make mine Marvel? Er, no thanks . . . Hand me Harveys!

Hull signing - a sell out

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:26:02 +0100

Yesterday's personal appearance at the Hull branch of Waterstones went wonderfully well. Waterstone's finest—in the form of Lisa and Jasmine (plus Peter and store manager Lee)—looked after me brilliantly. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time buttonholing any customer who stopped to check the shelves in either the SF, Dark Fantasy or Horror sections and introducing them to DARKNESS FALLING. The result was that we sold out the eighteen copies remaining from some earlier-in-the-week activity in a little over two hours, so they're going to re-order. So anyone in the Hull area who wants a signed copy but didn't know about the signing gig yesterday should let Waterstone's Hull know and they'll mention it to me. I'll be happy to call in and sign a few extra copies.

Next up is the Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax on Saturday 22nd October to be followed by Leeds Waterstone's on Friday 28th and Manchester Arndale Waterstones on Saturday 29th. Maybe I'll see you there—I hope so.

Waterstones Signing Dates

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:41:25 +0100

Here are the dates so far on the 2011 Darkness Falling signing tour. I'm going to watch out to see if anyone attends more than one gig . . . kind of like Deadheads back in the day. (Following the Grateful Dead was a little difficult for a teenager in Yorkshire but I did follow a band called The Alan Bown—fronted by the excellent Jess Roden—all over the place. Anyway, I digress.)

Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London—Monday 3 October, 6 pm through to 7 pm
The Ilkley Literature Festival—Wednesday 12 October at 7:30 pm through to 9 pm (with Ramsey Campbell and Mark Morris) The Ilkley Literature Fesitval
Waterstones, Hull—Saturday 15 October at 1 pm through to 2:30 pm
Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax—Saturday 22 October, midday through to 2 pm
Waterstones, Leeds—Friday 28 October, 11:30 am through to 1:30 pm
Waterstones, Manchester (Arndale Centre)—Saturday 29 October, 11:30 am through to 1:30 pm

Must dig out those Alan Bown albums . . .

Darkness Falling goes on sale

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:13:57 +0100

Today's the day in the US when DARKNESS FALLING goes on sale. Let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I just heard that, here in the UK, it's already gone to reprint pre-publication—all I can say is thank goodness for large families!)

Here's an early review http://booksforbears.blogspot.com/2011/09/darkness-falling-by-peter-crowther.html Check it out (oh, and Tiffany? Virgil says 'Hi'). And if you're going to be at FantasyCon this coming weekend then come say hello. Those lovely folks at Angry Robot have organised a little launch party for the book on Saturday at 11 am through to mid-day. Be there or be square ( . . . as they used to say. Or so I'm told.) Whoo hoo!

Book signing at Waterstones

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:35:55 +0100

Following FantasyCon and the launch of Darkness Falling, I am looking forward to the book signings at Waterstones up and down the country. There are half a dozen or so already organised and more coming online but the first will be in Hull on Saturday 15th October at 1pm.