R Squared Blog
Here's the cover art from noir by the great Howard Chaykin. While talking to him on the phone he told me that I had a voice like a child. I've been trying to deepen my voice ever since.
A few years back I started writing fiction again and found myself settling back into my old stomping grounds. I started a cooperative piece called The Dogfight with Chad Eagleton and it really empowered me to write more. The great thing about writing on the internet is that I immediately began to find like minded folks who were often more passionate than me when it came to creating crime fiction. One of these passionate bastards is Jimmy Callaway.
When Jimmy asked me for some artwork for the cover of Laura Robert's Black Heart Magazine that he was guest editing I said "heck yeah" and started brainstorming ideas for a cover. The thing I kept coming back to was the Saturday night special, a small and cheap handgun that was often used in drunken crimes of passion. The basic set up of a good noir story is a sucker who makes one mistake and then follows a predestined spiral to the bottom. I'm pretty sure that Saturday night specials sent a lot of suckers down that particular track.
The final piece is called The Life and Deaths of a Saturday Night Special. Pick up a downloadable copy of the noir issue of Black Heart here.
And finally I have five new illustrations in a new book published by Alec Cizak. Pulp Modern is one class production. From the stunning cover by Jeremy Selzer (see below) to stories by Lawrence Block and other crime fiction masters, Pulp Modern is a book well worth adding to your collection. Pick up a copy through CreateSpace or soon through Amazon.
Although I write more than crime fiction I'm always drawn back to it since it allows me to write characters that don't live by normal constraints or laws. Although I loathe this lawlessness in real life I enjoy it in fiction because it allows me to create seemingly real world scenarios that have the inherent chaos of dreams. Thanks to Chad, Jimmy, Laura, Alec, and the other groovy people that I've become acquainted with, I'm now looking forward to writing and illustrating more of these dark and twisted worlds.
~Brian S. Roe
O.K., let's get this out of the way right away--I am the cantankerous coot of this review staff. I love old stuff first and foremost--Comics/Movies/Furniture/Toys/ and Music. I am not a complete coot but I have a foot in the door--I am willing to give most things a chance (unless it says IMAGE on it).
There's something about comic books that symbolize childhood in the way that fireworks, birthday presents, and root beer floats do. They are little events that contain an amount of excitement and joy that often seems leeched out of adult life. Those of us who continue to enjoy comics, as well as the occasional root beer float, often find it difficult to find a book that can make us feel the same sense of adventure that we did as children looking through a drugstore spin rack for whatever comics our allowance could snag for us. Basically being an adult can really be a drag and it helps to occasionally be reminded that there are still good stories to be found between the pages of a floppy paged comic book.
As many of you may have noticed zombies are everywhere these days. Being a collector of comics and horror movies, I am very pleased that these two genres are combining to bring me and many others, I am sure, pure bliss. Whether its The Walking Dead, Marvel Zombies, iZombie, or 68 there are so many awesome choices out there. Anyone who is into zombies or who has been alive for the past 43 years is at least somewhat familiar with the classic that started in all, George Romeros amazing Night of the Living Dead. The brilliance of this film speaks to me on many levels. Romeros classic takes place in Pennsylvania in 1968, a time in this world which is iconic for everyone, even for those, myself included, who were not even thought of yet.
