Mark Mazz’s 12 Questions
with Scott Sheaffer...

1) You’ve displayed a wealth of knowledge about the early pulp magazines. How did this come about, and do you have any favorites?

Plenty of people know more about pulps than I do.

A lot of the fiction I like originally appeared in the pulps, but one guy in particular sparked my interest. To name a few of the pulp writers I like, there’s H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Edmond Hamilton. Heck, Ray Bradbury started off in the pulps. Plus I’ve enjoyed reading science fiction, horror, and mystery that appeared in the pulps. But, the one who really fueled my interest in pulps is Robert E. Howard, Conan’s creator. Howard is my favorite writer. He inspired me to write. At one time, I had an overwhelming drive to read and re-read everything I could find by and about Howard. In my many readings of Howard books, I’d read the promotional blurbs, the copyright page and all that. I kept seeing info listing where the stories originally appeared. These were often magazines from the 1930s. I wondered about those magazines. I read the biographical information about Howard and those contained mentions of the pulps he wrote for. Then I wanted to learn more about Howard. Now, I didn’t realize at the time that those Howard books were flawed and a lot of the information available about Howard was disputable. Still, as I read more about Howard, I picked up bits and pieces about the pulps he worked for and fellow pulp writers. I realized that a lot of other writers I liked also appeared in those magazines.

My interest in the pulps tends to be Howardcentric, so that affects my choice of a favorite. In addition to sword & sorcery, Howard wrote westerns, horror, historical fiction, and boxing stories. He’s not remembered for them today, but in his lifetime, Howard had tons of boxing stories published. He probably made more money from them than he did from the Conan stories which are far better known today. So Howard appeared in numerous pulps. Choosing from those though, there’s one that stands out, one pulp he’s most closely associated with. It published a lot of his best known work. It’s where his Conan stories, his Kull stories, and his Solomon Kane stories appeared along with other notable works like “The Valley of the Worm” and “Pigeons from Hell” which Stephen King characterized as one of the finest horror stories of the 20th century. (Well, actually, in Danse Macabre King said “our century,” but since the story and his comment were both published in the 20th century…) I only have about one box full of pulps now. Some years ago, with a lot of remorse, I sold many of my pulps, but I kept every issue of this series even though only a few of my issues have Howard or Lovecraft stories. I’m talking about Weird Tales.

2) Your story, “The Bullpen,” which was published in CAG Anthology #4 about Bullpen work ethics is fairly direct. What was the genesis of this story?

As you know, my all time favorite comics’ creator is Jack Kirby. Back when I first got into fandom, one of the big stories was Marvel’s reprehensible treatment of Kirby, refusing to return his original art., etc., etc, Also, there was the controversy over who really wrote the early Marvel Age stuff, Lee or Kirby? That’s a controversy that intrigued me for years. This will start off as Stan bashing, but bear with me Stan fans because despite what you’ll hear early on, I still think Lee is a genius, a good writer, and one of the most important people in the history of comics.

While others may have harped on Kirby’s dialogue, the comics where Kirby got a writer/artist credit consistently blew me away with their wildly imaginative stories. I mean those books seemed to radiate pure creative energy. It’s like Dixieland Jazz musicians in some wild and endless jam session. Working with Joe Simon, Kirby created or co-created numerous characters in the 1940s and ‘50s. Writers who worked for the Simon and Kirby shop mentioned that Kirby gave them plots for their scripts. Then in the 1970s, Kirby drew and wrote most of the stuff he worked on, and again came up with wondrous concepts and characters. It just seemed strange that Kirby took the entire 1960s off from character creation and new ideas.

By strange coincidence, this was also the decade when Stan Lee, who’d done nothing but copy what other companies did for the previous few decades, suddenly started creating all kinds of innovative characters and concepts. Stan then followed this with nearly another 4 decades of nothing noteworthy. Striperrella? Come on. Anyway, after years of Stan Lee getting credit for all the ideas at Marvel, Kirby started firing back, saying that he (Kirby) was responsible for everything. Of course, one obvious reaction is to ask, “What about Spider-Man?” Kirby didn’t work on that title, Steve Ditko did, and fans and critics had high regard for the writing. Interestingly, Ditko, who also wrote and drew his own stuff before and after working with Stan, had an issue with Stan Lee when it came to writing credit on Spider-Man.

Anyway, Kirby made a startling claim about Spider-Man that caused a lot of people to dismiss everything he said about writing the early Marvel Age comics and creating the characters. People thought he must either be lying or going senile. Stan was hurt by what Jack said. See, Kirby claimed he created Spider-Man. That was ludicrous! Wasn’t it? The thing is, Kirby was originally tapped to be the artist on the first Spider-Man story. Lee has often told how he went to Kirby, but when Kirby brought the pencils in, he’d made the character look too heroic, and Stan wanted something different. So he went to Ditko to get the look he wanted. Now, bear with me. This will prove relevant to Spider-Man. Kirby liked to revisit and recycle old plots, characters and concepts that he’d previously worked with. This made practical sense in the idea intensive days when comics were anthologies containing a bunch of shorter stories instead of issue length stories let alone the multi-issue arcs stories are stretched these days. Many creators including Simon and Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Stan Lee would periodically dust off an old plot and reuse it. Beyond this, Kirby seemed to have a career long fascination with revisiting old characters and concepts that he’d previously worked on. In the early plot intensive days, it was often a direct recycling of an older plot. In later days, he’d make lots of changes. For instance, how many people have read The New Gods as a continuation of Kirby’s Thor work? And how many people have seen The Eternals as a disguised and revised version of The New Gods? Or what about Kirby’s 1970s Kamandi series? Way back in the 1950s, he worked on a character called “Kamandi of the caves.” In early days this recycling was much more direct, much more blatant. It was often a straight rehash of the earlier plot. Ok, so Kirby had a habit of finding ways to reuse his ideas. Now here’s the thing about Spider-Man. Ditko gets Kirby’s pages to work with possibly along with a script. Ditko goes over this stuff. According to Ditko, there’s a big problem. The story needs to be changed. See, Ditko has read the story previously. It’s a retelling of the origin of The Fly published by Archie comics. Who was the creative team on the Fly? Joe Simon and Jack Kirby! So let’s see, Lee wrote a story nearly identical to one of Kirby’s earlier stories, Kirby penciled it with out realizing it, and it took Ditko to notice that hey! this is one of Jack and Joe’s old stories. What are the odds on that? Doesn’t it seem more likely that Kirby had input into the original plot? Ditko and Lee reworked the story considerably from that point so the final product is a Lee/Ditko story with some things evolved from or inspired by the earlier Kirby version. If so, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to speculate that this got a little jumbled in Kirby’s memories as the years passed and that he remembered he’d made early contributions to the character, but failed to appreciate how much Lee and Ditko had changed and added. Thus, in Kirby’s mind, he created Spider-Man. (I don’t want to get too far off on a tangent here, but Joe Simon has had something to say about the Spider-Man issue as well.) A fan named Stan Taylor looked into the Spider-Man issue and wrote about it. There are some things I disagree with, but he makes some good points. It was through his article that I became aware of Ditko’s discussion of the Kirby drawn Spider-Man origin. You can find the article at http://www.adelaidecomicsandbooks.com/

Now Stan Lee has long said that some artists need less plot than others. He only needed to tell someone like Jack Kirby that this month’s villain is Dr. Doom and Kirby would send in a fully penciled story and Lee would add appropriate dialogue. Think about it. If someone only told you that they wanted a story with Dr. Doom for a bad guy and you sent them a fully drawn story along with some rough dialogue suggestions, wouldn’t you conclude that you’d pretty much written the story? And if you were like Jack Kirby and rarely looked at the finished product after it left your drawing board, you wouldn’t see how much the other guy contributed to the writing. And Stan Lee did a lot. He revolutionized comics with the way he handled that dialogue and used it to add more depth to the characters. Now, according to Stan, he and Jack didn’t start off working this way. In the early days, Stan typed up the plots, Kirby broke them down as he drew and Stan added dialogue to the art. Classic Marvel Method. Later the plots got looser and looser. Instead of Stan typing them at all, Stan and Jack would just get together and hash out ideas. Finally, they got really loose as Marvel expanded, increasing the number of titles Stan edited and his role in P.R. grew too. Still, the most famous example of a detailed, typed plot for a Kirby/Lee comic is the one for Fantastic Four #1. Do a blow by blow comparison though and you’ll see a number of changes in the art from what the plot called for. The traditional method of doing comics was full script method where a writer described what happened on each page and in each panel and the artist followed these descriptions. It’s entirely reasonable that artists initially confronted with Marvel Method felt they were doing a large part of the writing. This becomes especially understandable when you’re asked to work only from a suggestion of who the villain should be. On the other hand, it’s easy to see how Stan may not have thought what he did constituted asking the artists to contribute to writing the story. After all, how many people are ready to file a lawsuit when they see that a movie has come out using the same bare bones idea they may have proposed years ago? “What??? An asteroid hits the earth! They stole my story!!” So approaching it from that mind set, it’s possible that Stan still saw himself as the guy who came up with the story, that he was THE writer and not a co-writer. In fairness to Lee, as the artists did more and more of the plotting and after Ditko complained, he did alter the credits to recognize the increased roles that Kirby and Ditko had taken on. Ditko asked for a plot credit. Kirby just wanted the credits to say that the stories were by Lee and Kirby without breaking down who did what. Unfortunately for Kirby, fans recalled the old credits and continued to assume he only penciled.

In the 1970s, Lee wrote a book called Origins of Marvel Comics which seems to have really upset Kirby. People who have seen Kirby’s copy say it’s filled with all kinds of notes. In this book and others to follow, Lee gave detailed descriptions of how he thought up all the characters. The thing is, he is on record with two different stories of how he created Spider-Man. In one he thought of the character because he liked the pulp hero The Spider when he was a kid. In another story, Lee said a spider crawling up a wall inspired him. Lee was asked about one of these stories when he was at this year’s New York Comic Con. He said maybe he was drunk. He didn’t really remember how he created Spider-Man. He made the whole thing up because it sounded like a good story to tell people when they asked how he came up with Spider-Man. If that’s the case with Spider-Man, arguably the most important character Lee is associated with, what about all the other lesser known characters? Are those stories made up too? Take Thor for instance. Jack Kirby had a long time interest in Thor and Norse mythology and it turned up in his pre-Marvel age work. Thor appears in stories Kirby worked on in the 40s and ‘50s. In fact, Kirby did a red-bearded version of Thor in keeping with his actual description from Norse myths. It may be there, but prior to Thor’s series in Journey into Mystery, I’m not aware of Lee showing interest in Norse myths. Back then, when most people did something mythologically-oriented, they went to Greco-Roman mythology. Look at all those sword and sandal movies. Given that Kirby used Thor previously and showed interest in and knowledge of Norse mythology, it causes me to give weight to Kirby’s claim that he was the one who wanted to do a Thor comic rather than Lee’s story that he decided to top Superman by doing a “super god” character.

So you had this controversy with both guys claiming they wrote the stories and created all the characters. Most people simply accepted what they always heard, that it was all Lee. Partisans of Kirby asked what Lee ever created when he wasn’t working with Kirby and Ditko. On the other hand, Lee’s supporters had significant reservations about Kirby’s claims. If Kirby wrote so much of the early Marvel stuff, how come the dialogue and characterization is nothing like the dialogue and characterization in the comics Kirby wrote in the 70s? A lot of people have come to the conclusion that both guys contributed to the writing. This would explain why Kirby/Lee comics like The Fantastic Four have the kinds of wild ideas and cosmic imagination that appeared in Kirby’s solo work along with the snappy, freewheeling dialogue which could be found in humor and teen comics, in Millie the Model, and other Lee projects. The way he tells it, the decision to do characters with depth was a sudden inspiration just before he embarked on The Fantastic Four. Yet, hints of his interest in characterization appeared before. As an aside, collaborative writing also explains why the early Spider-Man stories have Lee’s style of dialoguing and characterization along with the weirdness and moral certitude that often pops up in Ditko’s solo work. Read this stuff and compare it with what each guy wrote apart from the other, those ‘60s Marvels combine the writing strengths of each guy and minimizes the weaknesses of each. Thus, it’s easy for me to buy the argument that both Kirby and Lee deserve credit for writing the comics they worked on. For whatever reason they’ve both claimed sole credit for coming up with the ideas. Are they not telling the truth? Is it bad memory? Is it truly a failure to comprehend what the other guy contributed? I don’t know.

The thing is if Kirby had a hand in creating the characters and writing the stories, he’s grossly under appreciated by fans and media who focus mainly on Stan Lee. Even when they know who Kirby is, many people only think of him as an artist and not as a plotter or an idea man. I do believe Lee played an incredibly important role in those stories. I do believe that Lee is a genius. I’m not one of these people who want to take all the credit away from Stan Lee, a guy who I admire and respect a great deal. I’d just like to see Kirby get a lot more attention as well. Without Lee, those comics wouldn’t have had the commercial and critical impact that they did. I actually like Kirby’s later work better, but the Marvel work is more popular and more important. It wouldn’t have been that way if it wasn’t for Stan. Still, let’s not forget the other side of the coin. It wouldn’t have succeeded in that manner without Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko either.

Any way, I’ve gotten off on a tangent there. I tend to do better these days and bite my tongue on that subject because arguing about it is a lot like beating your head against a brick wall. Still as you can see, I’m still prone to ranting on occasion. Let’s bring it back to the question, because it ties in to the genesis of “The Bullpen.”

In part — let me emphasize this — in part, Jake Bixby, the elderly out-of work artist, is based on the situation that I believe Jack Kirby faced. I believe Jack Kirby didn’t get full credit for what he did. Jake Bixby doesn’t get full credit for what he did either. Although Bixby’s personality is in no way inspired by Kirby’s, I did make Bixby a brilliant artist as well as a writer, an imaginative and inventive plotter, a creator much like Kirby.

There are other aspects of Bixby’s situation that reflect what other creators besides Kirby went through. My understanding is that Kirby did make a good living. You can debate whether the pay was fair in relation to his contributions, but it still seems he lived pretty well. On the other hand, I’ve heard horror stories about what other creators went through financially in their later years. From what I’ve heard Siegel and Shuster both went through some rough times before DC reached that settlement with them in the late ‘70s. Think about that. How many millions of dollars has Superman generated over the years? Superman basically set off the whole super-hero genre. How much money has that generated over the years? Yet, the two guys who started it all faced impoverishment decades after creating the character.

More recent creators provide a third layer of inspiration. I’ve heard a lot about guys who worked in comics back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and who did good work but who can’t get a job in comics these days. It sounds like these guys are being excluded because they’re old guard and there’s a bunch of people who want change for change’s sake and youth for youth’s sake. Yes, you need to change at times. Change is good when it improves things. It’s not so good when some manager is merely implementing it so he can show higher management how innovative and active he is. It’s downright bad when something that works well is replaced with something that doesn’t work. Yes, you need to regenerate by bringing younger people in. Yes, competition from young, hungry creators can keep established pros on their feet. I’m not saying never hire someone new. Heck, I mean I’m new. I’d like to get hired. But, don’t exclude someone just because they’re older. Pick the best person for the job. And you know what? A lot of times, that’s the older, more experienced guy. Let me put it this way. There comes a time when even the best quarterbacks don’t have what it takes anymore. If you’ve got a young, talented, quarterback who’s ready to step in, then you make a move. But you wouldn’t bench Tom Brady next week in favor of a 23 year old rookie just because the rookie is younger, would you? (For posterity’s sake, let it be known that I answered this question in the middle of the 2007 season.) Also some of my thoughts on the way mainstream comics are going creatively worked their way into the story. It seems like there’s some serious cognitive dissonance. There seem to be editors who love comics and yet are embarrassed by them at the same time. So you get guys choosing comics for their career who then try to make comics as unlike comics as they can. Let’s scrap sound effects. Get rid of captions and thought balloons. If it’s a super-hero comic, let’s have the heroes sit around out of costume the whole time. Oh, and even when they’re in costume, everyone will call each other by their real names. Come on, get over it. Why eliminate sound effects? Are they too comicbooky? Why eliminate captions and thought balloons? Because movies don’t have them? Guess what? Movies can do a lot of things comics can’t do. If you eliminate things which work in comics but not in movies you’re actually making it harder for comics to compete with movies. On the other hand, captions and thought balloons work very well in comics. They’re strengths that movies don’t have. You can only do so much voice over narration in a movie. Captions in comics are seamless and natural when done right. The only movie that springs to mind where I remember hearing the characters think was the 1980s version of Dune. It just didn’t seem right. But, again, few people think twice about reading a thought balloon in comics. Come on, people! Utilize the strengths of the medium. Don’t discard them in a vain attempt to imitate another medium.

I created Fantastic Comics, Jake Bixby, and Sam Burns for an unpublished story called “Four-Color World.” It also featured Fantastic’s characters coming to life. I decided I really wanted to deal with Bixby’s relationship to Fantastic and the characters he created though. So, I moved on and wrote “The Bullpen.”

3) Having read some of your extensive articles on Robert E. Howard it struck me that the man might even be more interesting than his fabled creations. Care to share any personal insights on your research?

Thanks, Mark. Well, I’m struck by how many misperceptions there are about Howard out there. Let me preface this by saying that I liked L. Sprague de Camp. For years though, de Camp had the loudest voice when it came to Howard scholarship. De Camp was a good science fiction/ fantasy writer who took an interest in fandom. He was born a hundred years ago last week, November 27th) and passed away several years ago. In the 1950s, he got involved with Howard’s work. Howard, of course, was long dead. De Camp edited Howard’s Conan stories for new publication, completed unfinished Howard stories, and wrote new stories. A number of Howard fans, small at first, but growing more vocal and more influential over the years criticized de Camp’s often unnecessary editorial changes and the addition of new Conan stories. He also got involved with fanzines that focused on Howard or sword & sorcery and over the course of a few decades, he wrote a lot of articles about Howard. Then he wrote or co-wrote a couple of biographies. There was a short fan publication called, The Miscast Barbarian and then later a regular book called Dark Valley Destiny. As with the editing, there were a number of fans who disagreed with a lot of what de Camp said. Selections of Howard’s letters and writings by people who knew Howard appeared in the fan press. Some people began sorting through the evidence de Camp examined for his research, and they came to different conclusions than de Camp did. They had different interpretations of things than de Camp had. De Camp portrayed Howard in the mold of the mentally disturbed creative genius. He portrayed Howard as someone with some sort of Oedipus complex. Others who examined the evidence thought that de Camp’s armchair post mortem psychoanalysis was off-base. They brought up numerous flaws in De Camp’s methods, notably his tendency to speculate about something and then present the speculation as if it were fact. De Camp though was part of Conan Properties which controlled the rights to the Conan character. He edited mass market paperback collections of articles (including his own articles) about Robert E. Howard. Dark Valley Destiny was a mass market book. Plus de Camp, as editor of the Conan collections published first by Lancer and Ace, wrote or at least had a say on everything said about Howard in those books. It was in those books where the vast majority of readers learned anything about Howard. In my early days, I fell into the de Campian school simply because it’s all I knew. It was only when I found my way deep into the world of hard-core Howard fandom I heard alternative views. Although, I continued to like de Camp and even corresponded with him, I disagreed with a number of his conclusions, and I wanted to see restored texts of Howard’s work out in bookstores. Anyway, the big stage belonged to de Camp. Those who disagreed with him had a few fanzines for a platform as well as zines in an amateur press association called REHupa which was limited in size to only 30 members and which at one time had a number of de Camp supporters involved along with de Camp himself as an honorary member. A book of essays edited by Don Herron, a leading de Camp critic, came out in the early 80s, but otherwise de Camp dominated. It looked like a hopeless, lost cause. You know, fans ranting over the way things should be, but never getting anything accomplished, ignored by the people in power. But then something amazing happened. They won!! First they won over most of Howard fandom. They grew in influence and now it’s these fans who edit new collections of Howard stories, doing their best to offer pure texts. Rusty Burke, one of the editors of the Del Rey collections of Howard’s Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and other stories has been in REHupa since the 70s. He was one of the guys who challenged de Camp, did research etc. etc. Another one of the editors, Patrice Louinet has belonged to REHupa from time to time over the years. I see books edited by Steve Tompkins, another REHupan. There’s stuff done by Paul Herman, Leo Grin, Don Herron, Joe Marek, and Ben Szumskyj. All of these guys were REHupans at one time or another and critics of de Camp. James Van Hise edited a great collection of essays in the mid-90s which challenged de Camp’s views. Jim Keegan, the guy who does the strips about Howard in the back of the Dark Horse Conans was also part of this. Mark Finn has a bio out which he sees as a corrective to de Camp’s biographical work. Of course, the most important fan of all was Glenn Lord. In the ‘50s, Lord started tracking down important Howardian items. From 1966 to the mid-90’s, Lord was the literary rep for Howard’s heirs. He was pushed out of the post under questionable circumstances, and many blamed de Camp for the ouster. Along the way though, Lord had struck the deal which brought Conan to Marvel in 1970, and he managed to preserve vital records, story manuscripts, fanzines, and letters that proved invaluable to Howard scholars. Anyhow, these fans are the ones publishing most of the essays and books about Howard these days. I mean there are exceptions. For instance, I think Darrell Schweitzer put something out recently and he tends to be in de Camp’s camp.

I should add that there are new collections of Howard’s letters available. I’ve been meaning to buy them. I bought the smaller collections put out by Necronomicon Press back in the 90s, and felt they were a tremendous way to get to know the man. You can cut through a lot of the interpretations and stuff by his later biographers.

4) Of the Robert E. Howard creations do you have a favorite?

This is something that has shifted around a bit over the years. The first Howard character I encountered was Conan. Later on, I became more fascinated with Kull and Solomon Kane. More recently though I gained a new appreciation for some of the depth Howard put into the Conan stories. I could understand why these stories have had the biggest impact. So Conan started out as my favorite Howard character and now he’s returned to that spot.

5) Do you see yourself as more of a novelist, a journalist, a writer of pulp heroes, or dark heroic adventure? Do any of these labels apply, or is it in the mix...?

I think it’s mainly a mix. I never really see myself as a journalist though. Now that you mentioned it, I guess I do a little bit of fan type journalism.

6) Any interests in the more noir pulp heroes?

By noir heroes, do you mean The Shadow, or were you thinking of hard-boiled detectives? I’d say I have an interest in both, but by no means am I an expert. I’ve read a few anthologies of hard-boiled mysteries. With the Shadow, I like the character. There is so much out there though. So much stuff yet to read. I’ve also got some of the Shadow comics which have come out over the years, and I have about 30 CDs of Shadow radio shows. There were a lot more broadcasts than that though.

7) Do you see any direct translations of these archetypes of heroes for a 21st century audience?

Sure. Why not?

8) Any advice for new fathers who are writers?

Well, as far as finding time to write, I found one thing that worked. I’m not following it at the moment though because of my current work hours. I hope to resume it when my work hours change again in mid-January. Anyway, try going to bed a bit earlier and then getting up two or three hours earlier before everyone else gets up. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some quiet time with no interruptions. I mean there are no guarantees, but the odds are much better. I never really considered myself a morning person. I actually used to find it depressing to be up and hanging around the house really early, but I found I was more inspired and creative than usual when I was writing at 3:00 A.M. It works as far as getting decent chunks of regular writing time. I’m looking forward to doing it again.

There’s one area where writing books and child rearing books agree. That’s on the importance of reading. It seems that reading to your kids is good. Even when they’re too young to enjoy the stories, they’ll often just like the sound of your voice and hearing you talk to them, and it will help develop their vocabulary. It’s not just about reading children’s books though. You can read newspapers, magazines, and regular books to them too. In writing books I’ve read, it’s recommended that you read a lot if you want to be a writer. In On Writing Stephen King is really emphatic on that point. Now, I’ve found that when I’m watching my son either by myself or alongside my wife, it’s usually not a good time to write, but there are lots of opportunities to read out loud to him. There are hazards for the books though, so I wouldn’t recommend hauling out some priceless collector’s item. Your child could spit up or even projectile vomit on it. Besides, curious children can be pretty rough on books. They’ll tear pages out and things like that when the opportunity presents itself. When my son was younger, I’d hold him and read to him. Now he’s a lot more active, crawling around and exploring. He doesn’t want to be held as much and if I hold him in my lap, I better keep the book or newspaper or magazine out of his reach. So, now I’ll read when he’s crawling around and playing with stuff rather than when he wants me to hold him.

As far as actually writing when I’m watching my son, I definitely wouldn’t do anything that requires intense concentration like revising. At most I’d draft something out in long hand. I don’t have a laptop or notebook computer, and I don’t want to make him just patiently sit by the desktop computer while I write. So that’s pretty much out. Even if I did have a laptop computer, I’m not sure if using it while watching a child my son’s age is a good idea. Get distracted and leave it in reach for a moment and next you thing know — smash! Actually, I’m really curious. What are your thoughts on that? I definitely wouldn’t do anything that really requires intense concentration like revising.

9) You’ve written several prose short stories of an intelligent heroic adventure character named, Fragyr. Care to tell us what was the spark for your idea?

I think I was in 6th grade. I was re-reading Howard’s Conan stories over and over. I wanted more Conan stories. More! I wanted them so badly that I started thinking up my own stories. Then I decided to come up with my own barbarian hero. I was sitting in class and there was an assignment with words divided in two. Two of the words were fragrance and fragile. The memory has become kind of cloudy. I think I came across fragrance first and it was divided into fragr and ance. I thought “fragr” had a barbaric, kind of a Norse or even an old Germanic ring to it. I was going to remember that name and write it down. A bit later in the exercise, I was frantic. I’d forgotten the name. Oh, man. I had a cool name for my character and I forgot it. Then I saw the frag of fragile, and I was, like, oh yeah! Fragr! That’s it. Later I added the y. At first the character was a typical barbarian hero, but reading Poul Anderson’s essay, “The Art of Robert Ervin Howard,” caused me to reconsider. Looking back now, it’s another case of not necessarily agreeing with everything a person said, but one thing got my attention. In discussing complex characters, Anderson brought up the case of Egil Skallagrimsson, a tenth century Icelander, whom Anderson described as “a rover from Greenland to Russia, confidant of one king and mortal foe of another – but also a poet of the first rank, a shrewd trader, a still more shrewd observer, a man of sardonic humor (often directed at himself) as well as undying hatreds; finally, aged and blind, he kills a man for some senile reason, but about this time when his son is drowned, he composes the unforgettable Sonatorrek.” Anderson then mentions that Egil was a real person. That caused me to make Fragyr more rounded. When you think about it, Howard had Conan able to read and write and speak a number of different languages. I decided to make Fragyr a barbarian who finds his way to civilization and learns to read and write. You end up with this intelligent, well-read barbarian who uses knowledge as well as brawn to solve his problems.

10) If you could explore any part of the world for research what would be your destination? And why?

I’d like to visit Rod Serling’s home town. I’ve got a ‘zine called The Dalriadic Chronicles which appears in SSWFT, a sword & sorcery/ weird fiction A.P.A. I’ve started doing a series examining one of my favorite television shows, The Twilight Zone. Hence the interest in Serling.

When my wife and I were driving back to Massachusetts from Arizona, I wanted to take a detour to Cross Plains, Texas, Robert E. Howard’s hometown. My wife overruled me though.

11) If you had your pick of all the pulp characters, television series, and movie sequels seen in the universal mind of our culture which one fascinates you the most? Where would you go with its theme?

As a writer, what fascinates me the most is doing something of my own, something original. If I was to write someone else’s characters though, I think you have to stay faithful to the established theme. I hate it when someone takes over something and they write stories that go against everything the original version is about. If you don’t care about or you have a problem with the established theme, then maybe you should be creating your own characters and worlds rather than messing around with someone else’s. I mean fans love this stuff for a reason. What’s the point of some interloper trampling over the very things the fans love?

12) Its 2012, you’re established in your field of choice and you’ve made your mark as a cultural icon... What themes would you feel free to explore?

We’ll see when I get there.