Today Dynamite Comics releases Masks, an eight-part mini-series teaming the company’s Pulp-era licensed characters for one epic battle. What menace could be big enough to draw together The Spider, The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Kato and Zorro? Writer Chris Roberson (iZombie, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love) explains in an interview with Newsarama:

The genesis of the idea was a well-known storyline that ran in The Spider pulp magazines in the 1930s, over the course of three novels: The City That Paid To Die, The Spider At Bay, and Scourge of the Black Legions. In the original story, written by Norvell Page (as Grant Stockbridge), a political organization called the Party of Justice takes over New York State, and quickly institutes a fascist police state. It was an allegory for what was happening in Europe at the time, and saw the Spider go from being a vigilante who fought crime to being a full-blown freedom-fighter protecting the citizenry from an oppressive government.

Yes, the Spider’s “Black Police Trilogy,” which Age of Aces Books had the privilege of putting back into print (as The Spider Vs. The Empire State), is coming to comic shops! And the New York Rebellion of 1938 is bigger than ever: In addition to The Spider, The Green Hornet, The Shadow and (a 1930s-era) Zorro, the struggle against the Party of Justice will see the rise of “new” heroes too — The Black Bat, Miss Fury, Black Terror and The Green Lama. With so many 1930s vigilantes sharing the spotlight, the narrative necessarily deviates from Norvell Page’s 1938 tale, yet — judging from the capsule descriptions of future issues — The Spider thread of the story remains pretty much unchanged. As Roberson told Check Point Interviews:

The idea was that, while the Spider was off having his adventure, the other vigilante characters who were operating at the time would have also had to deal with this fascist police state.

So who could possibly visualize such a monumental saga? Only Alex Ross, of course. Ross rose to prominence painting the Marvel universe in Marvels; then brought the DC universe to vivid life in Kingdom Come; now he does the same for the Pulp universe with the first issue of Masks! Actually, he’s been itching to do a pulp crossover for a while:

For years now, Dynamite Entertainment and I have desired to unite all of the varied pulp characters they’ve been publishing into one big crossover event. … I always thought that illustrating the first hero archetypes like The Shadow would be a milestone in my career. I’m thrilled to touch upon the legends that began the very concept of the superhero in Masks with a crossover that is literally the longest overdue.

I’ve read the first issue, and while there isn’t nearly enough Spider (it is “his” story, after all), it totally delivers the Black Police goods and authentically recreates Novell Page’s nightmarish, fascist New York. This is one comic I can safely say I will be breathlessly following every month, rather than waiting for the inevitable trade paperback.

Read more about this Blockbuster event:

• Preview of Masks Issue #1
• Newsarama interview with Alex Ross
• Comic Book Resources interview with Chris Roberson

We were back at PulpFest last weekend for the 2010 show, and so was Professor Hilfer. She reports that last year for her pulp class she added the infamous “Ku Klux Klan issue” of Black Mask to the syllabus, something that the Mecham brothers of Girasol Collectables had turned her on to at the convention. This fall, with Hiram suggesting the theme of “war” for the school year, she is planning to have her students read The Spider Vs. The Empire State as part of the class. Fantastic! Tom Krabacher, who wrote the introduction to the book was at the show too, and he, Arlene and I had a rousing discussion about The Spider, the Depression, and what she might do with her students this semester. Who knows, they may even have an assignment to contribute original content to FightTheEmpireState.com. Watch this space for developments!

Age of Aces is proud to announce the launch of FightTheEmpireState.com as an intriguing new promotional site for The Spider Vs. The Empire State.

What if our history was pulp history? This new site treats the central conflict of the Black Police Trilogy as if it were real, offering photographs and posters from the New York rebellion of 1938 to delight fans of the book and to hook non-fans into the crazy world of The Spider.

I’m something of a purist when it comes to the pulps, so the book I designed includes only what was in the magazines. I allowed myself to create my own cover, but otherwise it’s all Gould and Howitt visually. And yet as an artist there was so much more I was inspired to do with the world of this imaginative Norvell Page epic. That’s how the “movie poster” advertising image originally came about, which was similar to the cover in its composition, but didn’t fit visually with the book. But what about other “scenes” from the revolution? And shouldn’t the Black Police have a cool logo? You can now find these things at FightTheEmpireState.com.

We wanted to mark PulpFest 2010, the first anniversary of our  top-selling book, by giving something back to the fans who have made it a hit for us. Hopefully we can also capture the imagination of people not steeped in the pulps, and grow the audience for this remarkable story and for pulp fiction in general.

As the designer of The Empire State, I wanted to bring a more mainstream sensibility to the “pulp reprint book” and it’s exciting to see this strategy rewarded with a little mainstream attention. The feedback we’ve gotten from pulp fans over the last nine months has been terrific, but it’s gratifying to see that the book holds up outside pulp’s mean streets as well. As reprint publishers I believe we should always have our eyes on expanding the market for the fiction we love, while pleasing the faithful. If you haven’t seen this (ahem) award-winning design, check out our Empire State gallery page.

But as proud as I am of the design, people really need to pick up this book for the epic fascist parable contained within. No doubt if these stories were new, Norvell Page would be racking up awards too. Well, he’ll have to settle for accolades, like this post from Greg Hatcher at Comic Book Resources:

The book’s still got all the things that made the Spider such a great pulp series — the action and the heroics and the hell-for-leather pacing are all there in spades, the suspense never lets up for a second — but this time, it feels important, it’s really about something this time. As a result, it’s easily the most compelling Spider story I’ve ever read. For that matter, I’d go so far as to say that it may be the most compelling piece of pulp fiction I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of it.

Agreed! The Spider Vs. The Empire State is available now at Amazon.com.

Another cool thing to think about, if it was the first Friday of September in 1938: As we clutch our mint copy of “The Spider at Bay,” principal photography for the first Spider serial, The Spider’s Web, had only just started on Monday! And — as Ed Hulse discovered fairly recently — star Warren Hull had only been cast one week ago, after John Trent dropped out at the last minute. You have to wonder if The Spider’s Web would be considered one of the top cliffhangers of all time without this genius stroke of recasting — and if Hull himself would have gone on to embody other serial heroes such as Mandrake the Magician or The Green Hornet?

Bringing it back around to the “The Spider at Bay” … As this was the current issue of The Spider at the time, it is this magazine that figures prominently in The Spider’s Web photography and promotional materials. At right is Kenneth Duncan, who so ably played Ram Singh in The Spider’s Web and The Spider Returns, posing with the story that we just reprinted in Empire State. According to the Web promotions book, there were five stills of the actors posed with The Spider magazine to capitalize on the title’s popularity. Personally, I’ve only seen the Duncan portrait, and one of the Spider used in the magazine’s own two-page ad for the serial, pictured below. This ad ran in the January 1939 issue, which, as you probably guessed, hit newsstands on December’s first Friday.

]]> http://www.ageofaces.net/2009/09/first-fridays/feed/ 0 http://www.ageofaces.net/2009/08/71-years-ago-today/ http://www.ageofaces.net/2009/08/71-years-ago-today/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:18:08 +0000 Chris http://www.ageofaces.net/?p=1167 On August 5, 1938 a totally different kind of Spider story hit America’s newsstands. “The City That Paid To Die” was missing the usual oriental cults, pillaging beast-men or dissolving rays. In place of them, Norvell Page and the editors of The Spider magazine crafted a story that would bring home the day-to-day suffering of people in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. And as with the real fascist threat, it didn’t tie up neatly in one month. The incredible “Black Police Trilogy” devastated New York over the course of three issues (covering roughly seven months in story time). What is really unique about this saga is that in order for The Spider to take on an entire state, he must come out of the shadows and act as a leader — even a symbol — of the resistance movement. Age of Aces Books is proud to be offering, 71 years later, the first ever collection of these three stirring adventures of Richard Wentworth and his crew. Visit our The Spider Vs. The Empire State page for more details or to order from Amazon.

We sold our first copy of The Spider Vs. The Empire State during dealer setup on Thursday night, and this proved to be a good omen for sales. As I posted previously, we SOLD OUT of the title on Friday and could only take orders for it on Saturday and Sunday! (We also sent people to its Amazon listing, natch.) Some of these customers were not even Spider fans (initially), but had been drawn to our table by the Empire State flyers we had put outside the dealers’ room, or the large “movie poster” of the ad image behind our table. That was exciting.

In fact, so many people asked us about the poster, that we put our one extra (nice, unused) copy into the Saturday night auction, where I (but not Bill or David) was surprised to see it fetch $100. The assembled crowd must have been stunned too, because there was much applause at the end of the heated bidding. I want to publicly thank everyone that bid — as well as Tom Krabacher, who provided the oversize prints — you really made my weekend! What’s so fun about these shows is meeting people that are just as passionate about this stuff as you are.

Our aviation collections sold better than ever too, and much credit should be given to the PulpFest organizers who almost doubled attendance over last year’s PulpCon. Not only are we looking forward to next year’s show, I think we’ve all come away from the convention more excited about pulp publishing!