Fiction (Three Investigators Books): In the first book of a 26-book story arc, it’s the summer before their freshman year in high school and Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, and Pete Crenshaw are back on the case in Rocky Beach, California. Their new client, Isabella Chang, wants to discover the truth about a murdered ancestor whose son Li Chang is rumored to have hidden a bag of gold nuggets his father panned from the American River during the heady days of the California gold rush.

Publishing (Kairos): At the height of the Disney Star Wars controversy, YouTuber David V. Stewart produced an insightful video The 5 Phases of Corporate IP Ownership. In his video, David breaks down the corporate decision making process that runs franchises across all media, not just comics, into the ground.

Pulp (Comics Radio): Today, we begin a story-by-story look at a randomly chosen issue of Adventure, a pulp known for publishing high quality tales of… well… adventure. We’ll be looking at the January 10, 1926 issue. I’ve had a PDF copy of this one on my tablet for a few months and now don’t remember why I chose it particularly. But any issue of Adventure is worth visiting.

Tolkien (Sargon of Akkad): The Death of the Orc

Review (Good Reads): An Unparalleled Biography: Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author. Having the privilege to read Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author by Willard M. Oliver before its release in mid-March 2025, I am left in awe of this monumental work. This is, without question, the most comprehensive and detailed biography of Robert E. Howard ever written.

Tolkien (Ink and Fantasy): What Was Tolkien Like As A Professor?

Tarzan (Pulp Super Fan): A nice coffee table book that came out from Titan Books in 2012 is Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration. It’s subtitled “The Stories, The Movies, The Art.” Written by Scott Tracy Griffin, it has an intro by the late Ron Ely.

Artists (Comic Tropes): Frank Frazetta: How One Illustration Changed the Course of His Career

Science Fiction (Paperback Warrior): H.G. Wells (1866-1946) is widely considered the father of science-fiction. He authored over fifty novels, some of which are still being adapted today into mixed media formats. Sci-fi, fantasy, and even horror writers often cite Wells as an influence on their work. His most popular novels include The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), War of the Worlds (1898), and the subject of this review, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). 

Publishing (Persuasion): Literary fiction is dead. Or, so we’ve been told. Perhaps we can agree it lies bleeding. It’s convenient to assume that readers are to blame for killing literary fiction, and publishers have abandoned it because book-buyers are stupid, have bad taste, and just aren’t reading anymore. But what has actually occurred is death by committee.

Ian Fleming (Mens Journal): In terms of fiction, Ian Fleming only ever published one book that wasn’t a James Bond book; the 1964 children’s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But, as a journalist and essayist, Fleming was prolific. In fact, his career as a journalist in the 1930s predated much of his other work in both the military, and later, as an author. But, outside of the 1963 collection Thrilling Cities, Fleming’s nonfiction has been basically impossible to find.

D&D (Black Gate): There are many intersections between my favorite hobby (which is also my line of work) and my favorite fiction. One of these intersections is represented by Dr. John Eric Holmes and the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When I was a youth, the first Dungeons & Dragons set that I owned was edited by Dr. Holmes.

Comic Books (Comics Radio): Planet Comics (published by Fiction House) began life with an issue cover-dated January 1940 (so probably came out in late 1939). It had a nice run of 73 issues before ending in 1953. The first 20 issues (and occasional issues after that) featured a superhero called the Red Comet, who had the ability to change his size.

Fantasy (Ken Lizzi): Joy Chant’s Red Moon and Black Mountain is a book I wanted to like more than I actually did. I’ve a notion that timing is a factor. Had I read it, oh, 40 years ago, I might have thoroughly enjoyed it. It is, after all, an ambitious piece of fantasy, the language skillfully and often beautifully written. Just the sort of thing for teenaged me. For the reader I am today, however, it didn’t completely land.

Serials (Dark Worlds Quarterly): We have to stop off and check out a serial called The Phantom Empire. This 1935 serial starred Gene Autry. The trio of heroes are enjoying ranch life before they are kidnapped by the underground dwellers of Murania. This underworld has futuristic science including robots.

Weird Tales (Pulp Super Fan): An interesting book I got recently is The Weird Tales Boys by Stephen Jones. Published in 2023 by PS Publishing‘s paperback imprint Drugstore Indian Press, it is available on Amazon. It’s part of the “Stephen Jones Masters of Horror Series” and is #15 in that series.

New (Rough Edges): PULP ADVENTURES #46 is out, and it’s another fine issue of this book/magazine from Bold Venture Press. More than half of this issue is devoted to the classic movie KING KONG, with a lengthy, in-depth examination by Bart Pierce of a long-time mystery:

Ghost Stories (Old Style Tales): In the third part of our four-part series on the best ghost stories in Western literature, we will be focusing on a uniquely dark and experimental era in the history of supernatural fiction. It is also – quite undeservedly – particularly overlooked and glossed over when compared to the Victorian, Edwardian, and Postmodern periods.

RPG (The Other Side): Fantastic Quest of Whimsical One (#10) & Lost Tomb of Mummy Lich (#11) are his two newest adventures and they fit into that nice sweet spot that Old-School Essentials covers so well. Though Legend of the Seven Golden Demons (#9) goes to the 18th level.

Strange (Pulp Super Fan): Bigfoot, Yeti, Nessie, and other strange creatures that supposedly exist were something I was exposed to in the 1970s in movies and TV shows, such as In Search of, etc. Sasquatch was even a character on the Six Million Dollar Man show in several episodes.

Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): These are stories that offer tribes of monkey men, ape creatures, etc. living in the wilds of the world. The human characters encounter them and must deal with them. Some like Jules Verne’s offering are meant as commentaries on Evolution.

Westerns (Rough Edges): I remember quite vividly picking up the first book in a new Western series called The Gunsmith at a newsstand on the west side of Fort Worth more than forty years ago. The book was called MACKLIN’S WOMEN, and the author was J.R. Roberts.

Fiction (Tellers of Weird Tales): In thinking and writing about the Cosmic Horror Issue of Weird Tales (2023), my thoughts went pretty soon to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Published first as a three-part serial in Blackwood’s Magazine (Feb.-Mar.-Apr., 1899), Heart of Darkness first appeared in a hardbound edition in November 1902. Even if you haven’t read Conrad’s novella of an upriver trip made in colonial Africa, you probably know its most famous line of dialogue, Kurtz’s last words: “The horror! The horror!”

History (MSN): A diver stumbled across the find of a lifetime off the coast of Sardinia when a stray shiny item loosened itself from the sea grass below. That metallic sheen turned out to herald a bounty ofmore than 30,000 bronze and copper coins minted in Rome during the fourth century.

Fiction (Tellers of Weird Tales):Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) can be read simply as an adventure story, even if there is more to it than that. Like much of the best literature, it can be read at more than one level. Good genre fiction works that way, too. Merely sensational things are soon forgotten. Things of substance and quality stick.

Fantasy (Black Gate): It may not seem like it, but this winter has given fans of fantasy plenty to celebrate. Less than a month ago, Michael Moorcock turned 84, his most recent Elric novel turned three, and the latest reprint of his vaunted Eternal Champion series hit store shelves in the US. Thanks to a boatload of new collections, there is no better time to be a fan of the pale emperor. Or, for that matter, to look into his legacy.