[UPDATE: The original video went away, so I found another source. The link to it is below.]
You may not know who to listen to in the healthcare debate. But I’ll tell you who not to listen to: anyone who is obviously and cravenly feeding you bullshit in order to scare you.
How stupid do you have to be to buy into this nonsense?
Film producer Sajie reviews Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom at her blog:
This book reminds me of the old fashioned adventure shows from the 1930’s and 40’s like Tarzan, Superman and Flash Gordon. Lots of adventure, a little over the top, but fun.
I loved the relationship between Dr. Wilde and his kids. Concerned and caring, but also trusting them to be able to take care of themselves….
The rest is here.
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On the recently raised subject of Sanctum Books’ pulp reprints, Anthony Tollin of Sanctum recently released the following statement about their previous association with Nostalgia Ventures, and the unfortunate fallout of that association:
An open letter to the pulp community:
For those taking advantage of the discounted SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE volumes at Half-Price Books, please be aware that Nostalgia Ventures began remaindering these books last summer in direct violation of its sub-contract with me. Also, as of today (July 22, 2009), Nostalgia Ventures has still not paid royalties to either Condé Nast or me for any books it has sold since July 1st, 2008. (A semi-annual royalty payment was due back in February, and another six months of royalties are coming due in August.)
There is a very good reason why Nostalgia Ventures/Nostalgiatown is no longer co-publishing these books, and it involves a continuing series of contract violations.
And for anyone who may not be sympathetic because Condé Nast is a huge corporation, please be aware that Condé Nast has chosen to continue the oral agreement it had for decades with Walter Gibson, and is splitting its royalties for the SHADOW reprints with Walter’s family. This is an extremely rare and decent act that is quite unusual in the publishing world.
I think my SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE double-novel trade paperbacks are a great value at the $12.95 cover price. Obviously, the books are an even better value at discounted prices. However, please be aware that purchasing these books from either Half-Price Books or Nostalgiatown does nothing to encourage the continuation of these series. And since Nostalgia Ventures still hasn’t paid its contract-required royalties for any of the books it has sold during the past 12 1/2 months, the money from Nostalgia Ventures’ and Half-Price Books’ sales also hasn’t been continuing on to Walter Gibson’s family.
It’s not necessary to purchase THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE directly from Sanctum Books to support the ongoing publishing operation and encourage the continuation of these reprints. Bud Plant Comic Art, Adventure House, Mike Chomko, Vintage Library, Girasol, Edge Books, The Mysterious Bookshop and any comic specialty shop that orders its books from Diamond Comic Distributors all get their books either directly or indirectly through Sanctum Books (which continues to make its regular royalty payments to Condé Nast and would like to continue publishing these reprints for many more years).
Please feel free to forward this message on to other pulp-oriented email groups.
–Anthony Tollin, Sanctum Books
I’ve long been an avid supporter of Sanctum Books’ reprints of classic pulps, specifically the ongoing series of The Shadow and Doc Savage. Each volume is a magazine-sized paperback containing two novels, using the cover art and interior illustrations from the magazines published originally in the 1930s and ’40s. They’re lovely, and I’ve been greatly enjoying immersing myself in this literature that has been so influential not just in popular culture, but also in my own work.
Until recently, Sanctum was reprinting the two series on a monthly basis, which was great. Then they announced that they were throttling the stream a bit, and would be publishing (if I remember right) only eight Doc Savage and eight Shadow volumes a year, with the off-months now to be filled with alternating volumes of two other pulp hero series, The Avenger and The Whisperer.
The Avenger I knew. I had a handful of paperback reprints from the ’70s, and they were great stuff. So if Sanctum was reprinting the full run of Avenger tales, I was definitely going to add them to my collection. The Whisperer I didn’t know. But Will Murray (pulp historian, Doc Savage novelist, and endorser of Doc Wilde) wrote “Personally, I consider The Whisperer one of S&S’s [pulp publisher Street & Smith] best series. I like it better than The Avenger. But then I really like Laurence Donovan, and I’ve really enjoyed reading and rereading The Whisperer this last month. The parallels to Batman and The Green Hornet are amazing.” So I figured I’d give it a try. Continue reading
Today’s review has me pegged:
Tim Byrd is a man who read way too many pulps as a child, and realized the death of that subgenre was a loss to the world…
Thus begins another very positive review of Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, this time from writer Ian Randal Strock for SF Scope (“your source of news about the speculative fiction fields”).
Doctor Spartacus Wilde is the modern man of bronze. Very modern. Oh, he’s fabulously wealthy, handsome, gifted in every field of endeavor, universally recognized, and surrounded by devoted friends and helpers (sort of like Buckaroo Banzai, but without the rock band). But Doc Wilde differs from his dashing forebears in one important way: family. Doc’s family is an intimate part of his world, first and foremost his not-quite-pubescent children, Brian and Wren. They’re miniature versions of their father, from the blonde hair, bronzed skin, and omnivoracious mental appetite, to their incredibly physical training and stamina, and on to the adventurers’ vests containing every conceivable tool they’ll need for any adventure…
Doc’s the guy every man wants to be, and every woman wants to be with. But this is a book for kids (just about the ages of Brian and Wren, 12 and 10), so those women don’t enter into the story…
Well, not this story. But Doc, a widower, will have some opportunity for romance at some point in the future. And, as we’ve established very well by now, lots of grown ups are enjoying the book. But I quibble. ;)
I really like “omnivoracious mental appetite.” That’s wonderful.
…So Doc and the kids (along with their faithful aide Phineas Bartlett and their driver/strongman Declan mac Coul) take to the autogyro and head south. In the primordial rain forest, they’ll encounter powers so strong as to change a man into a, well, man-frog. They’ll deal with political intrigue and religious hysteria. And they’ll eventually face down a god, trying to break down the barriers between alternate realities in an effort to swallow ours. Naturally, our heroes are heroic, and they’ll find Grandpa Wilde before their work is done. But getting there is all the fun…
…The party will be forcefully separated, death will be threatened, danger will loom, unexpected (but completely logical) skills will reveal themselves to aid in the saving of the day, and things will seem darkest just before they go completely black. But never fear: the Wildes are here.
This review makes my day. Read it in its unabridged (and not spoilery) wonderfulness here.
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Today’s review:
Alex McGilvery at Armchair Interviews gives Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom a damn good review:
Tim Byrd writes with an infectious enthusiasm…The characters of the family are well enough developed to gain the reader’s sympathy, but there is plenty of room for the occasional surprise…
Any book that introduces the Frogs of Doom has to have a sense of humor. Tim uses both over-the-top storytelling and understatement to keep the reader chuckling through the book.
This is a book for both young boys and girls to enjoy.
The book is clever and well written, the characters engaging, and young readers may accidentally learn something along the way.
Go here to read the rest (it’s all good).
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Under An Outlaw Moon 