Showing posts with label Cal McDonald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cal McDonald. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Dark Horse April Solicits

I don’t normally talk about a company’s solicits. I guess it would be easy. I could stretch it into a couple posts if I did a separate one for each of the big companies. Normally that doesn’t feel right to me though. I generally want to talk a little more about things then, “hey this is coming out.” I’m very excited to talk about one of Dark Horse’s April releases, but as I looked over the other solicits I wanted to talk about them also.


Here is the big one. Dark Horse Presents #11 is the debut of Francesco Francavilla’s Black Beetle. Black Beetle is a character that Francesco created on his own blog, Pulp Sunday. Since this seems to be a big year for the Black Beetle Francesco has also created a blog specifically for the Black Beetle. Trust me; this is a book you’re going to want to read. Besides being one of the nicest people on the planet Francesco is such an amazing storyteller. This is very big stuff and we will be talking about it more in the future.


There is also a Criminal Macabre one shot out in April. We love Steve Niles at That F’ing Monkey and we especially love his pill popping detective. Anything Cal McDonald is an instant buy for me. I’m pointing this one out because of that amazing Fiona Staples cover. I love it.


The last thing I feel like I need to mention is that the Mass Effect line is starting a series of single issue stories. The first is starring James Vega. This is the strangest choice ever. The internet is already pretty much against this douche-y looking new character. The bonus is that the writer of each comic will be the person who wrote the character in game. I look forward to seeing who else gets a one-shot.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Heroes Con 2011: Interviews Part 2

We interrupt our normal Hangover Thursday type post for the second part of Heroes Con interviews; I hope that no one minds too much. Today we’re talking to Steve Niles and Chris Moreno.


Steve Niles

K: Obviously on That F’ing Monkey we talked a lot about Detective Tales. What else is coming out that we can tell people about?

SN: Well there will be more Detective Tales; I’m going to do the next one with Bernie Wrightson. It’s just the matter of me getting time to write some prose. I’ve got a novel to wrap for Simon and Schuster. They gave me another couple of months because the like it. I think. I hope. So I’m going to finish that up.

And after that Bernie and I are working on a sequel to Frankenstein. Which is just, forget it. I grew up with Bernie’s Frankenstein and now to be working on it…

K: Who is going to publish that?

SN: IDW. It’s actually going to be split between IDW and Bloody Pulp.

K: Really? That’s really cool.

SN: IDW, they are so great. Obviously I can’t say enough good things about them. Since day one they’ve been just great with me. They know I’m trying to get this creator owned thing off the ground so they’re giving me a leg up.

K: So are the majority of your works going to be coming out under that banner?

SN: We’ll see. I like to keep it spread it around. Do what ever I can.

K: Like the one October where almost every comic company had a Steve Niles book coming out for Halloween.

SN: That was hilarious. I know. And everyone one of the called me with, “Hey I got an idea, we’re going to put it out for Halloween.” October is always really busy for me and then November I got nothing.

K: Now I you worked on video game writing.

SN: Fear 3

K: Is that something you’d like to do more of?

SN: I’d love it. I really enjoyed it. That’ll be out June 21st so they are really starting to push it now. If it does well then yeah, I’m always looking around. Those are actually hard jobs to find.

K: Are they talking to you about comic tie-ins for it?

SN: Yeah. I did like an 8 pager for Wildstorm. I think it’s an Amazon exclusive. You know, every site, every store has an exclusive.

K: Are you playing any games?

SN: Well I was playing L.A. Noire and then my Xbox took a nose dive. I’ve had it. I’m not dropping another 400 dollars. This is like the second one I’ve owned. I have no game systems right now.

K: And I know you aren’t drinking anymore. Normally I ask what your drink of choice is.

SN: I haven’t drank for years. 30 year old Macallan was probably the last time I drank. I split a bottle with Bernie. I thought I killed him. I got a call the next day, “Is Bernie okay?” We’re fine. That was probably the last time I drank.



Chris Moreno

K: People that want to find your artwork, where can they see what you have coming out?

CM: Well the website is chrismoreno.org. I have a Deviant Art account at chrismoreno.deviantart.com those are the main places for where the artwork can be found. Coming up I have Zombie Dickheads which will be coming our around October.

I’ve got the 80/20 Principle that will be out in February. That’s an adaptation of Richard Koch’s self help book. It’s one of those help you get your life straight books. But it’s also good for people who run businesses; sort of a way to maintain efficiency in your life.

K: So is this a full on motivational comic or illustrations in the book?

CM: It’s a full on comic. It’s a company called Smarter Comics. They’ve been doing adaptations of some of the top selling books of this type. It’s very cool. When I was drawing it, it made me think a lot about Understanding Comics and also Will Eisner’s PS magazine that he ran for the military. Just sort of good information and using comics as the delivery system for it, so it’s pretty cool.

K: You mentioned Zombie Dickheads. Zombie books are hot right now, what makes it different?

CM: First I’ll tell you what it doesn’t have. There’s no army men. There’s no scientists. There’s no Milla
Jovovich. That might hurt my sell. I don’t feel this huge need to explain where the zombies come from. We all know where they come from. Or at least we have a sense. What it does have is a lot of humor. A lot of guts, like blood and stuff like that. It also has characters you can root for. Four zombies that don’t eat people. That’s the other thing it doesn’t have, it doesn’t have zombies eating people. Why would you want this book? It’s hilarious, that’s why.

It’s basically about four zombies who don’t eat people that are just trying to find a place to crash out and relax for five seconds without running into stupid zombies that eat people and act like assholes. And their dickheads so that can’t even get along with each other.

K: Any chance of more Sidekick ever?

CM: Possibly. I talk with Paul a lot and one of the things that always coming up is Sidekick and what is going on with it. It is something we both want and we know a lot of people want it. It’s just sort or a matter of the timing being right. It’s just about making it happen.

K: Do you game?

CM: Well my Xbox just red ringed recently. I was in the middle of the zombie thing from Red Dead. Pretty awesome, pretty great. There are games I’m excited for. I want Arkham City so bad. L.A. Noire looks pretty bad ass. I want see how smart I am essentially. I want to see if I got what it takes. I like to think I’m a pretty observant guys, but can I solve murders? Who knows? Also because it is a faithful reproduction of L.A. and I live in L.A. now, I want to see what my apartment looked like in 1947. I want to see if it is just orchards. Is it just like orange groves or something?

K:What is your drink of choice when you go into the bar?

CM: Jack and Coke, pretty standard. We go to a lot of bars at shows. Some of them are really cool and some of them are of the nouveau fru-fru kinda cruddy douche bars. And those bars don’t have everything, so if you order a side car, which is a drink that most people haven’t made since the 30s, you might be shit out of luck. When the 20 something gel head looks at you and says, “A what?” But everyone has a version of the Jack and Coke.

That’s it for today! There will be a Flash Friday tomorrow; we’ll be running the last interview I have from Heroes, one with Scott Kolins.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Bring me the box of Ferrets! or Random Thought Download.

I am going to continue the trend from last week and make this just a random stuff in my craw post.

First up is the Cal McDonald Detective Tales book from Bloody Pulp Books.

It came in the mail on Saturday. It comes in an evidence bag with what seems to be the date that your book was sent out, mine is 4/9/11. For some damn reason I thought this was fucking awesome, it is just a random detail that sticks out to me. As for the contents of the book, I like to call it "bite-sized (pill sized?) Cal". Why you ask? Well let me tell you. It contains 2 short stories - The "Y" Incision and Nocturnal Invasions. These stories are able to be read in about 15 minutes. I have only read The "Y" Incision so far and it is a great read. Mr. Niles has a gift of description, especially when that description is straight up disgusting. When he writes about disembowelment you feel like you are looking at the entrails pouring out right in front of you. That is of course a complement to his writing. There is a point in the story that had me flashing on Invader Zim, which is fan-damn-tastic when put into the context of Cal's world. I would HIGHLY recommend picking this up before it is gone, plus it is only five bucks. I personally can't wait until the next one comes out.


Now for your Hockey playoffs update. The Lighting tied up the series with the hated Penguins on Friday night with a 5-1 trouncing after a sad showing the game before with a 3-0 loss. The next game is tonight. My 6 game Lightning win is still in effect. Tonight's game is being played in Tampa.

Detroit on the other hand is looking to repeat last years effort of crushing the Coyotes hopes of moving to the second round. The Wings are up 2-0 in the series and are not looking to let up as they move to Phoenix for game three tonight.
Stay tuned next week as Ken and I update the playoff beard situation.

Finally I was going to talk about the premiere of "A Game of Thrones" last night. However because I do not have HBO and my totally legal search of the interwebs produced nothing for me this morning, I can't talk about it yet. This makes me sad, so if any of you fine folks watched it let me know what you thought in the comments.

That's it for this week, as always Let Your F'ing Voice Be Heard in the comments or facebook page!

Reading this week: Descent of Angels by Mitchell Scanlon and Cal McDonald Detective Tales by Steve Niles and illustrated by Kelley Jones

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bloody Pulp Books: Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1

I got some fantastic news this morning; Blood Pulp Books is now taking pre-orders for Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1. I realize I just threw a bunch of different things at you all at once, some of the names you may recognize and some may be new to you, so let me slow down and go over just why all of this is a very, very good thing and why I already spent 10 bucks before I finished my first cup of coffee.


Bloody Pulp Books is a small book publisher started by Steve Niles and graphic designer Alex Lodermeier. As the writer of 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Simon Dark, etc…Steve Niles should be a pretty familiar name to F’ing Monkey readers. Don’t think that Bloody Pulp is just going to be releasing comic related books though; their next book is going to be a biography of Lance Henriksen written by Lance and Joseph Maddrey. The book is going to include illustrations by Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, and Bernie Wrightson. How can that not be amazing?


Now that we got Bloody Pulp Books explained, we can go on to talk about Cal. Cal McDonald: Detective Tales is a collection of prose stories about Steve Niles’ famous pill popping detective. This first volume is written by Steve and will have illustrations by Kelly Jones. The book just went on pre-order this morning and only 2,000 copies of this 84 page beauty are being made. The fact that the website calls it volume one makes be very excited because I haven’t even read the first one yet and I already want more.


Now it is possible some people are reading this and saying, Cal who? Cal McDonald is a detective who is routinely pulled into the plots of the paranormal. For some reason it is attracted to him and he sees the things that most people refuse to take notice of. Seeing werewolves and vampires will take its toll on a person and Cal copes with handfuls of pills and what ever other drug he can get his hands on. Take one part noir detective, one part horror movie, and blend them together with a handful of speed and you get Cal McDonald. You can find Cal stories in the Criminal Macabre comic book series or in prose. If you’re looking for the prose, they made it easy on you a few years ago and collected it all in a single volume, Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories. I seriously can not recommend that book enough.

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