I apologize for my absence here of late. I've been working on more audio commentaries, and I'm knuckling down to a particularly ambitious one now. But I thought I really should pop in to let you know about some new work I've generated elsewhere online.
I was recently interviewed by the online arts journal THE CHISLER. You can read our conversation here.
Apparently it was well received by their readership and I've been encouraged to contribute more regularly. Still not decided on whether to approach this challenge as a column or as a series of independent posts, but I did test the waters over there with a first contribution about director Al Adamson, whose entire surviving body of work is going to be released in a staggering box set from Severin Films next month. You can read it here.
I was recently invited by Shane Hazen and Ted Haycraft to be a guest on their podcast THE PHI PHENOMENON. We recording our conversation last night, talking for about 90 minutes; they may be breaking up the session into two episodes. I'll let you know when I know it's been uploaded.
In other news, this is shaping up to be a remarkable year. I've been pursuing my fiction career of late with more determination and, last week, I signed a contract with Lori Perkins' Riverdale Avenue Books, which will be publishing two of my novels - THE ONLY CRIMINAL and THE ART WORLD - later this year. Legendary BATMAN artist Kelley Jones has promised me a piece of original art for THE ONLY CRIMINAL. Additionally, I hope to have an announcement soon about the publication of my most recent novel, a novelization of the film script THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES.
You may also recall that my novella THE SECRET LIFE OF LOVE SONGS is due out from PS Publishing later this year, and work has been continuing on the musical soundtrack intended to accompany the book. There will be five songs I've co-written with Dorothy Moskowitz Falarski (formerly with Columbia recording artists, The United States of America) and the songs will not only be graced with vocals and piano by Dorothy herself, but also by legendary guitarist Gary Lucas (Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart's Magic Band) and the fabulous multi-instrumentalist Mike Fornatale (Murderer's Row and the reunited Left Banke and Moby Grape). Gary just turned in his tracks, and we're still waiting for one from Mike. It's been a long, slow process but it's exciting to see and hear it all coming together. We're just about at the mixing stage.
Other than that, I've been reading lately much more than watching films. I got through WAR AND PEACE finally, with great admiration for it, and I've been reading a good deal of French pulp and literature, some SHADOW, some DOC SAVAGE, and Edgar Wallace's THE DEVIL MAN - far and away, the best work I've yet read by him. Just finished DEATH PACKS A SUITCASE, the debut novel by his son Bryan Edgar Wallace, who I found to be a far more lucid and vibrant writer though the novel ultimately succumbs to a too hasty final couple of chapters. A great deal at stake is written off rather glibly, but I was still impressed by his skill at writing character - fairly dimensional women as well as men, even if they are prone to throwing tantrums and committing murder. I also recently got around to reading Black Coat Press' THE DAUGHTER OF FANTOMAS, which I should write about here soon at some point, as I've covered the previous ones in the series on this blog. By an absolute coincidence, I picked this book up on what this blog later reminded me was the second anniversary of finishing its predecessor, SLIPPERY AS SIN.
(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
