Pulp Thursday - inspirational photo dump

Comics and Film

Dynamite Has been coming out with some decent releases. I'm really looking forward to the Superpowers book.
Here is a Blurb on it from the website:

From the dawn of the 20th Century came a new chapter in mankind's history, unleashed during a time of great war and destruction.
It was the beginning of the Age of the SUPERPOWERS, yet with the closing of the Second World War, this new spark seemingly flickered and died.

Until now...

Now the story can be told of the great lost SUPERPOWERS -- men and women with incredible abilities who changed the course of mankind forever...

and who had been thought lost ...

Until now...

Now, DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT and Alex Ross unleash PROJECT SUPERPOWERS! This explosive #0 issue features a story crafted by Justice collaborators Alex Ross and Jim Kruger, joined by artists Stephen Sadowksi, Doug Klauba and additional art by Alex Ross.

The story of PROJECT SUPERPOWERS begins here, in the present day with the Fighting Yank, coming to terms with the ghosts of his past and present! As our story unfolds, we journey to the heights and depths of the Second World War and come face-to-face with the great forgotten heroes of the ages, and solve the mystery of where these legends disappeared to after the great war.

This is THE event of 2007, and it leads directly into the PROJECT SUPERPOWERS series! Issue #0 is where it all begins and features 28 pages of story and art PLUS a full PROJECT SUPERPOWERS color sketchbook by Ross and original Ross interconnecting covers - all for just a buck!

check out the Flash presentation here.



Just a friendly reminder:



Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

If you haven’t seen this movie on the big screen, then you haven’t seen this movie.
Here’s where it will be playing for a lucky few.


2/1/08 - Columbus (Drexel Gateway, Columbus - 35mm)
2/15/08 - San Francisco (Castro, San Francisco - 35mm)
2/29/08 - Sacramento (Crest, Sacramento - 35mm)


And the Collage contest has concluded. Thanks to everyone who sent in an entry. I now have a ton of Emails to sort through and see who walks away with the Swag-bag. The winner will be anounced sometime next week!

Motivational Monday

Too Damn Funny!

Star Wars Coming to America - Watch more free videos

"May all your dreams - but one - come true."

David Gemmell’s last novel Troy: Fall of Kings has been released. David passed away last summer, before finishing it so the story was completed by Stella Gemmell his wife.

Reading this book is going to be a bittersweet experience for me. I usually get an electric charge when I get my hands on a new Gemmell story, but knowing this is the last Gemmell story makes me hesitant to read it. If I read it then there will be no more, if I don’t read it then there will always be one left to read.

In any event, if there are any of you out there who have yet to read a story by David Gemmell, please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of “Legend”. If you are a fan of heroic fiction or you just like a well told tale, Legend is a must read.





My thanks to The Cimmerian for a heads up on this great article about David Gemmell from the Wall Street Journal.

The Evil DM's collage contest

In celebration of having my computer fixed I figured I’d hold a contest. So here’s the deal:
At the top of the page is my Evil DM collage. The person who can identify the most pictures wins. The photos can be identified by either naming the source of the photo (i.e. Captain America #112 Marvel comics) or the Blog post it first appeared under (“Happy Wednesday” April 11, 2001). There may be one or more photos that don’t appear on the Blog or may have appeared on the Tripod Blog before the move over to Blogger, which is why the contest rewards the MOST number of pictures identified. If there is more than one entry with the most photos identified, then the winner will be determined by the date and time on their email, the first submitted will win. If there are entries with the same date and time then I will roll a D20, highest roll wins- The minions will serve as witnesses.

Win? Win what?
Well… I buy a lot of stuff, “She who must be obeyed” feels I buy too much stuff. Sometimes I buy stuff I’ve already bought, and then I have doubles. The prize will be a “Swag bag” of doubles. For instance: Ever heard of Harold Lamb? Well, I just found out I have two copies of his book Genghis Khan. Remember the Green Ronin sale? I have two copies of Testament-the D20 sourcebook of campaigning in the Biblical age. Stuff like that will be in the bag. It will be new, or collectible - Not junk.

Who can enter?
Anyone can enter. But being a one man operation, and on a budget I can’t afford to ship a swag bag out to Nepal or Germany. So if you win and live outside of the US you must have a US address for me to ship to, otherwise you forfeit.
Alaska and Hawaii- you guys are US (Don’t let anybody tell you different).

How do I enter?
1) Email me your answers before the deadline of 11:59PT on Monday January 28th.
Email address is: boojiesdad at hotmail dot com

2) On the side of my Blog is an advertisement. Click it. Visit it. Buy something if you want. This will help me pay for shipping. This part has to be on the honor system- so help a brother out huh (remember brain tumor…horrific car accident)?

So there you go. Good Luck!

Pulp Thursday

Turok son of stone DVD
The classic Dell comic character who had a brief resurgence at the end of the 20th century is headed to DVD. The trailer looks cool. With all the dinosaurs chomping people in half , it’s probably safe to say this one ain’t for the kiddies.





Dark Kingdom
Image comics came out with the Death Dealer comic a few months ago. Now we have Dark Kingdom set to hit the shelves in April. So far, it looks like Image is gonna do the whole Molly Hatchet catalogue.




Red Nails
There may never be a Red Nails animated DVD, but by the Gods there will be a complete audio version available for download!






Italian pulp
The Acrobatic flea gave me the heads up on this one.
I have no idea what this site is saying, but I had a great time checking it out.
Here is the skinny on it:
La Domenica del Corriere (”Sunday Courier”) was Sunday insert for Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper that ran for 90 years, from 1899 to 1989. For most of that time the section featured a full-page illustration on its cover each week.
These were often dramatic gouache or watercolor illustrations, almost in a pulp-illustration vein, but they presumably illustrated actual news stories (think of all of the notable and dramatic events that occurred during that period of time).
There is a site devoted to them at www.illustrated-history.org/, containing an archive of the illustrations and a bit of the history.
There is a search function on the home page that allows you to search by region (Per luoghi), by artist (Per autore) or event (Ricerca avanzata), with attendant drop-down menus.
It appears that there is a concentration on two artists in particular, Walter Molino (above left) and Achillies Beltrame (above right), whose work is sought after by collectors. Searching for these two may be a good place to start. Once you are on a page with a featured illustration, clicking on that image provides a pop-up with a wonderfully large reproduction of the painting. (I’ve included a full-size crop from a small section of each illustration above.) You can also informally browse from an illustration page to other pages by incrementing or decrementing the database number at the end of the URL in your browser’s address field.
Some of the illustrations are less interesting than others and there is some repetition of subject as they looked for sensational topics to illustrate (lots of train wrecks and other disasters), but some of these images are just wonderful and make the trouble of searching and browsing worth your while.
This is intended to be more of an illustrated history than an appreciation of the artists, but it serves as both. You can take a fascinating stroll through the early to mid 20th Century and view some wonderful pulp-style illustrations in the process.
I also found a blog on a site devoted to the paper, Blog del Club Domenica del Corriere, also in Italian, that features the illustrations, but doesn’t dwell on them exclusively.




Gold Monkey
Now I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up…It’s just a rumor…But, “Tales of the Gold Monkey” could finally be headed for DVD!

And that is your Pulp Thursday Report!

Happy Birthday Bob

102 years.

Motivational Monday

Sunday Funny

The State of the Lair

Computer
I picked up another 160GB HD today. I also bought a 2GB pocket flash drive, some antivirus software, and spy ware protection. The new drive will hold all my system stuff and the old drive will be for files and such. I have lots of room now, but I’ll soon rectify that!
I’m hoping that “She who must be obeyed” will soon let me take my nuts down off the wall where she stapled them after the crash, but I’m not pushing it.
I’ll be looking into this thing they call “backing up” as well.

Star Frontiers PBEM
One guy left my PBEM, and he was integral to the story, so I’ll have to see how that goes. Between the holidays and the crash I’m sure the guys in my game feel a bit abandoned, hopefully we can salvage something from it.

Broadsword
Before the crash I was puttering along with the Broadsword expansion. The expansion itself is done, but James wanted three scenarios. I was halfway through completing the first when the crash happened. So I have to wrap my head around that again.

Legends of Steel
My work on Legends of Steel continues, the players section is done and the GM part is almost done. One of the artists I hired hasn’t responded to any emails since before Christmas. I paid her for a couple of pieces of art but haven’t seen or heard anything from her.

Mission Adventure
One of the guys looking over LoS is really pushing me to try writing “Mission: Adventure!” with the LoS rules-set rather than the FASERIP (Aka: four-color) system. He makes a good argument, since I have a system engine in place why use a different one? The LoS engine was primarily built around a low tech campaign, all I need to do is develop firearm, and vehicle rules, swap out magic for Psionics, and add some more contemporary skills.

ZeFRS
I’m really intrigued by this idea of using ZeFRS as the engine for an alternate earth campaign world set in the “Dark Ages”. I found a great deal on EBay for a run of Arak comics and found some more at the local comic store for 50% off. Thanks as well to those of you who wrote in with book tips and suggestions.


Gen Con
One of my favorite quotes is: “If you ever want give God a good laugh, tell him your plans”. Gen Con ain’t gonna happen this year.
After the car wreck I was out of work for almost three months. Not only out of work but out of car as well. Add in the holiday expenses and things were getting a little dicey here at the Lair. I’m back at work, and we are slowly climbing our way out of past due notices, but Gen Con is an extravagance that wont be realized this year. The medical bills are still being incurred and they are being paid, but we are a ways away from any talk of settlement, so for now we just tighten the belt and soldier on, as my littlest minion would say: “Suck it up like Conan daddy!”

Computer update

It looks like tomorrow I'll be getting a new HD for the computer. the Windows on my old HD locks up when it boots. My stuff is still there, I just need a new HD to access it. My Aptiva has stepped in to fill the void while my Dell is down. the Aptiva has given good service but she's old, really old. even stripped down to the bare bones, it takes a while to get anywhere. we can check email and pay bills but thats about it. Needless to say things like LoS, the Broadsword Adventure, and my PBEM have taken a major hit. This all just happens to come at the busiest time of the year at work, so even blog posts have to wait to get done on the lunch hour. I hope to be up again by Sunday. but you know what they say: Hope is a lying bitch.

Pulp Thursday!

Lobster Johnson
I almost missed this! I saw the issues in my comic store last week and picked up all but #2. I'm on the hunt for #2 now cause #1 was everything a pulp comic should be.
Huge hairy monsters, Nazis, subterranean hideouts, Chinatown, electro blasters, cannibals, .45's, this story has it all. Get thee to a comic shop before it's too late!


Need a pilot for your Pulp game? Call Jimmie Angel.
A real life Pilot and adventurer (with a name thats 100% Pulp hero). This guy's life would make a great movie.
More about Jimmie here.




Thanks to NJ Harman for the tip on Jimmie.


And lets say your team of adventurers hire Jimmie and you all somehow you find your way to that “Lost Plateau” who better to greet your players than:


Gotta thank Trollsmyth for that one.


You can never have too many pulp blogs:
And here's another good one:



And checking out Christopher's blog will lead you to Planet X



Does this cover just kick ass or what?



And while we are talking comics, lets wrap this week up with a freebie.



I love Tim Truman's art. I loved his Scout and Spider stories in the 80's and I love his work on Conan now.




And that is your Pulp Thursday report!

Make mine Marvel! Uh...on second thought, don't.

First they kill Captain America. Now they are having Spiderman sell his marriage to Mephisto to save Aunt May’s life? WTF is that about? Aunt May is like 300 years old. In what universe does this make sense? Spiderman’s code has been “with great power comes great responsibility”. Where is the responsibility in making a deal with the devil for your own selfish reasons? Whose Spiderman is that? I just don’t get it. Why is Marvel doing this? Shock value? To sell more comics?
Does the editor have a need to feel famous and edgy? “Yeah, I’m the guy that spun the Marvel universe on its ear. First I killed Captain America and then I ruined Spiderman’s whole world.”
Maybe the guy has issues and by doing shit like this it makes him feel all powerful. This just furthers my resolve to stop buying new comics from Marvel.
Enough of that crap, let’s jump in the "Wayback Machine" and check out some girls in tights.

Motivational Monday

Finally an Action Figure post

Maynard over at Joe hobby pics posted it. Then I saw it on the Geek Parenting blog (which is an excellent Blog and a EDM daily read). Then tonight my buddy Charles sends it to me. So yes, this is officially a cool site.
I would buy these figures in a heartbeat if they would release them, somebody needs to give this guy a job at DC Direct or Marvel Legends. Theres plenty of other cool stuff on his site as well. Now I gotta go find the comics for this. More stuff to buy.

Does anybody really care?

One of my good buddies in the Blogo-verse is a guy who goes by the handle the "Acrobatic Flea". He runs a very solid geek blog called Heropress.
For various reason he hasn't really been feeling the love out here on the net and has been thinking about folding up shop and dropping the Blog. Now this would be a shame, cause his blog is pretty damn good. He has insightful commentary, well written reviews, and other features that make his Blog one of my daily stops (and he doesn't even need half -naked girls to pad his weekly posts). In response to his post on thinking of quitting I responded:

"As official reader #2 I want to let you know I'm here just about every day. And believe me I know how frustrating it is to see a bunch of people visit and only one or two post a comment. But I find my blog as my way to log all the crazy stuff I see and think about. I use it as a repository for stuff I run across and don't want to forget. Your blog has turned me on to movies, games, and other websites I would have never known about otherwise.
I hang out at Midnights Lair because YOUR BLOG turned me on to it. so screw the world mate.
Blog for me and the other guys who appreciate it. Hell I got big numbers of visitors on my blog, but most of them just show up for the girlie picks.
They swipe em from me(The same way I swiped em from someone else) without so much as a "Thank you" and move on to the next shiny blog.
You think if my blog disappears tomorrow any of those guys would care? Hell no.
Like you, I have a few loyal readers, a small band of brothers that follow my blog cause we have stuff in common. Thats who I do it for. I blog for me, you and a handful of other guys who actually care about what I've been up to and what I think. I hope you keep it up buddy, but if you decide to close shop your always welcome at the Lair.
Jeff"


Is that how I really feel?
yeah, I guess it is.
I think blogging is more than just a little narcissistic. I mean, sure you tell yourself it's a way to post your thoughts and such, but it's also about that little charge you get when people actually respond to what you have written.
I love comments.
Do I get a lot of them?
No.
But then again I don't leave comments at every blog I visit every day either.

Have I made some friends as a result of the blog? Yup, I sure have.
I hope the Acrobatic Flea keeps on churning out Heropress. But if he doesn't thats okay too. Because of our blogs I know him, he knows me. and we're mates. So it's all good.

ZeFRS resolution Part II

So, of the various settings I’ve considered, I like a Fantasy Earth “Dark Ages” setting the best (with a Thundarr setting running a very close second).
I say fantasy Earth, not in the way of elves and faeries (god no) but in the way that -Low magic is present, diabolical forces can and do manifest, and history is altered somewhat to give more opportunity for adventure and expression.
Primarily, Berber traders would have “discovered” the southeastern side of the Americas, Norsemen would colonize the northern half, and over on the west coast, Chinese traders would have mapped out Polynesia and begun colonies on the western side of the Americas.
That would open the whole world up with still plenty of mysterious places to explore. You could stay in the old world or take your chances in the new one. And this will be without the advantage of gunpowder. And of course magic will work, with a lot of effort and sacrifice, but it will work.

I’m looking at several sources such as TSR’s AD&D sourcebook “Charlemagne’s Paladins” and possibly some other Dark ages RPG sources.

And lest we forget it’s a S&S game world we are trying to invoke, I’m also looking at gathering some issues of DC Comics; “Arak-Son of Thunder” which was a great series that dealt with the Carolingian empire as a backdrop to the heroes adventures.

My ZeFRS resolution

ZeFRS really is a cool system.
I think it captures the flavor of Sword and Sorcery better than most systems out there.
In its original inception as the engine for the TSR Conan RPG, it was one of the first games that asked questions like; where did you come from? What did your father do? What is your story? On the character sheet, right after your characters name and your name, is the word STORY in big bold caps. The character sheet doesn’t even deal with stats until after you have written a bit about your character. The stats had their place, but right off the top the game wanted you to start thinking of a background and a concept for your character. In a way, it was a story telling game before “story telling” games were cool.

Mark K and a bunch of the guys over at the ZeFRS board put a lot of hard work in taking the game, dusting it off and making it available for everyone (all this with the blessing of the author Dave “Zeb” Cook, no less).

Alas, the forum has gone a bit cold (my fault as much as anyone’s). But despite the lack of posts, I’ve noticed that whenever someone on any of the various RPG boards I haunt mentions a need for a good S&S game, ZeFRS is right up there at the top of the list of recommendations.

I keep telling myself that I have to do something with this game- Create a world, write an adventure, try to add something to the efforts of the ZeFRS crew. But there is always something pressing at my free time- Legends of Steel, Broadsword expansions, a hard drive crash, the list goes on. But I’m resolved to do something this year with it.

Is there a book or series that would benefit from a ZeFRS treatment? Conan’s been done, Thongor’s been done, Lankhmar? Done. What else? Sinbad (Harryhausen’s style Sinbad)? “Jack of all Trades”? Gor? I’m not sure, but ZeFRS definitely deserves some more love.

Any ideas out there?

Motivational Monday

Last night I gamed!

Oh happy day!
I met up with Gabe, Cris, Vanessa, and Nate over at Great Escape games and had a rousing session of Cris's Pulp campaign using the Top Secret:SI rules and the Agent 13 campaign book. The game is set during the early years of WWII and involves elements of Nazi Spies, Time travel, and The Manhattan Project.

There was one other guy that was supposed to show up but he flaked, and unfortunately Vanessa linked her character to his, so she was basically out of the picture this first go-around.

My character, Angela Ramirez- Is a brilliant, headstrong, and of course beautiful research scientist working at Los Alamos. Gabe's character Jake Ryder- is an American GI who is being held for observation at the facility, the reason being is that he's from two years in the future.

After a bit of a shoot em up involving Nazi Spies who had infiltrated the base, Angela (who because she is a brilliant physicist) was recruited to research a device that was found on the Nazi spies that apparently allows not only time travel but also distance travel. So now Angela and Sgt. Ryder are about to embark on a mission to discover how this time travel device works, by trial and error.
This is the part where we are to meet Nathans character, who I'm told hails from the 1980's and Vanessa's character who originates in the 1890's.

It was a short session, as most first set up sessions usually are, but we did some solid role playing- I got a good concept of how I want to play Angela, and we rolled dice. I had a really great time (even though I didn't get to kill anything yet).

I hope the game continues. The group of players is good and I'm finally playing some Pulp!

God bless the "Computer guys"

I need a new hard drive. I have no idea what happened but I'm sure it had something to do with risky downloading. Save your sermons, I've heard them all. It's the chance you take and this time I rolled a "01" and fumbled. Anyway, I got one of those buddies, y'know the kind that has a truck. the one your wife has you call when your getting ready to move. well my "buddy with a truck" is Gabe and he works with computers for a living. He came over with his bag O' tricks and after a bit of doing his "hoodoo" he informed me I'm only partially fucked (which in this instance is a good thing). I cant open Windows as is, but he can get to my stuff. I'm just gonna need a new hard drive. So come payday we is going shopping. I might even get a new video card outta the deal.
Then me and Gabe are gonna go to the best Pizza place in Sac and gorge. I hope to be up to snuff by the end of the month. Until then things might run a bit slow but we are still here.

Farewell to Flashy.

Today I learned the sad news that another of my literary favorites has passed on. on Wednesday January 2nd, George MacDonald Fraser lost a long battle with cancer. Fraser is the author of the Flashman papers. The Frazetta cover from a Playboy press edition of "Flashman at the Charge" caught my eye many years ago, and I have been a fan ever since.

The Flashman books are one of the most entertaining and educating reads you could ever pick up. I will be revisiting them very soon.

More on G.M Fraser from The Telegraph:

George Macdonald Fraser, who died on Wednesday aged 82, revived in a long-running series of novels the career of one of fiction's most infamous characters, Flashman.

The fag-roasting bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, Thomas Hughes's 1857 tribute to Dr Arnold's Rugby, was last seen being expelled for drunkenness. Age had not improved him. Fraser's appropriation in 1969, Flashman, joyously confirmed him as a thoroughgoing rotter and cad of the first water.
The book and its 11 sequels purported to be the memoirs of General Sir Harry Flashman, VC, discovered in a saleroom at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and entrusted to Fraser for editing.
This device allowed Fraser to pilot Flashman through a picaresque series of encounters with some of the choicest episodes of Victorian history. Thus, the first novel took as its background the First Afghan War - for Flashman an odyssey of self-preservation justified by his being the sole survivor of the Retreat from Kabul.
In Royal Flash (1970), which was later made into a film, he floundered his way through the Schleswig-Holstein Question, engaging Bismarck in fisticuffs and dallying with Lola Montez. Flashman at the Charge (1973) saw him accidentally lead the Light Brigade into the "Valley of Death".

So successfully did Fraser bring off the conceit that some critics, especially in America, believed the memoirs to be authentic. A debate ensued in the New York Times, and Flashman's concocted curriculum vitae found its way into works of biographical reference.

Yet Fraser had initially struggled to find a publisher. By profession a journalist, he had started to write the first book in the small hours after work, but had abandoned the project on breaking his arm. His wife, however, read the unfinished manuscript and persuaded him to complete it.

For two years he received rejections from publishers, with one American house adding that Flashman was the wrong name for the character. The book was finally accepted by the small firm of Barrie and Jenkins.
Although some critics saw the series as a satire on Victorian morality, its continued popular success was due to Fraser's ability to make learning history enjoyable.
The richly comic narrative moved with a military dash worthy of Anthony Hope or Rafael Sabatini while spoofing the wholesome sensibilities of the heroes of Buchan and Henty.

Though later installments perhaps strove for effect, with some critics tiring of Flashman's priapism and finding him braver than of old, the broad comedy was always underpinned by Fraser's meticulous research.
On Desert Island Discs he chose to take with him the Oxford English Dictionary, and he rightly prided himself on his command of 19th-century trivia and slang, often drawn from contemporary issues of Punch.
Fraser's Lord Cardigan, with his Cavalry drawl ("Fwashman's wife? Her father is a Gwasgow weaver"), might have stepped straight out of Thackeray's Book of Snobs.
George MacDonald Fraser was born at Carlisle on April 2 1925. His father was a doctor, his mother a nurse. George was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy, where his performance as Laertes was distinguished by his unscripted defeat of Hamlet in the pair's duel.
In 1943 he joined the Border Regiment and served as an infantryman in North Africa and with the "Forgotten" Fourteenth Army in Burma. He was eventually commissioned in the Gordon Highlanders.
Some of his finest writing is contained in his graphic recollections of his Burma service, Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), in which the affectionate portrait of his Cumbrian comrades demonstrated his keen eye for character and acute ear for dialogue. John Keegan, in The Sunday Telegraph, justly called it "one of the great personal memoirs of World War II".

On leaving the Army in 1947 Fraser worked as a reporter on the Carlisle Journal, where he met his wife, Kathleen. After they married they emigrated to Canada, where Fraser briefly sold encyclopedias and lasted three hours working for the Canadian Pacific Railway before the pair got jobs on the Regina Leader-Post in Saskatchewan.
The couple returned home after a year and Fraser became a sub-editor for the Glasgow Herald in 1953. He was later its features editor, and finally deputy editor from 1964 to 1969.
Fraser wrote a number of other books, notably a series of comic novels that drew on his time in the Gordon Highlanders and centered on Private John McAuslan, "the dirtiest soldier in the world".
He wrote a scholarly and well-received history of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers, The Steel Bonnets (1971), and several historical novels. These included a boisterous romp, The Pyrates (1983), and The Candlemass Road (1993), an Elizabethan adventure set in Fraser's beloved Border country.
He also wrote several screenplays, mainly for historical flummery like Richard Lester's Musketeers films and The Prince and the Pauper, as well as for the James Bond film Octopussy.

A short, heavily-built man, Fraser held unashamedly reactionary views on law and order. He was particularly firm in his conviction that the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima was justified, believing that among the lives it had saved had been his own.
Nor did he have much time for fashionable attitudes about the emotional delicacy of soldiers and their need for counseling.
His experience, in what he acknowledged was another age, was that war was a job that needed to be done, one accomplished by his generation without relish but with a common sense and resolve since vanished from the public spirit.
He aired his views in Quartered Safe Out Here and was touched when many young people wrote to agree with his sentiments.

Fraser moved to the Isle of Man for tax reasons in 1970, but despite the wealth Flashman brought him lived in modest style. One concession to his success was to exchange his half-size billiard table for one of full length.
He was appointed OBE in 1999.

In 2002 Fraser published a book of reminiscences, The Light's on at Signpost; and the last in the Flashman series - Flashman on the March - appeared in 2005.
Last year he brought out a novel set in Elizabethan England, The Reavers.

George MacDonald Fraser married Kathleen Hetherington in 1949. They had two sons and a daughter.

Pulp Thursday!

I'm working without my own PC and the resources stored there.
This weeks edition of PulpThursday features a listing of some of the Pulp related posts I had made prior to the regular Pulp Thursday. hope you enjoy!

One thing I try to inject into my pulp games is a bit of authenticity and maybe even some actual history where I can. One player paid me the compliment once that my games were actually educational. I don’t go overboard on the research and if it suits the story I’ll throw historical fact out the window and remind my players that we are on “Pulp earth” not real earth so they don’t bombard me with details and uncover my mistakes. Surfing around today I found this site dealing with the Naval contingent of the Hong Kong Police.
http://www.yanjan.force9.co.uk/




While most of the information is contemporary, some of it may be useful in helping a GM role-play procedure or even serve as a great background for an exotic pulp character.
The following was taken from the site and illustrates a skirmish level encounter between HK police and some real Chinese Pirates. The encounter plays out like it was written for a pulp adventure.

The Battle of Shek Pik
But some cases were reassuringly traditional in nature. In the summer of 1949 one of the more notorious pirates of the Pearl River delta decided to careen his junk near a small temple at the mouth of a stream which curled round a hill into the sea at the foot of Shek Pik Valley on the south coast of Lantau Island.
He might have got away with this insolent incursion had he not decided to extract a little `tribute' from the nearby villages at the same time, for as he prowled the upper end of the valley with some of his henchmen he bumped into a police patrol from Tai O. Shots were exchanged and the pirates withdrew to the temple, for their junk could not be refloated until the tide rose. Meanwhile the police patrol radioed back to Tai O for assistance. First on the scene was Launch No. 3 commanded by Inspector Schirjetski, joined shortly afterwards by Launch No. 4 under Inspector Blackhurst. The pirates were now trapped, but were still a long way from surrendering.
A force of some twenty men was hastily assembled from personnel available at Marine Police Headquarters and rushed to the scene aboard the former Air-Sea Rescue launches 21 and 22.

Among them was the young Marine Police Constable 3479 Cheung Sik-hung. This was his first major action, and he was never to forget it:

"Each of us was armed with a .303 rifle, a fifty-round ammunition bandolier, and a revolver. We landed at Shui Hau (over the hill from Shek Pik) and then advanced on the temple to meet up with some of the crew of launches 3 and 4, who had brought their launch Bren Guns ashore. The pirates had moved onto the hill behind the temple by this time. We surrounded the hill and there was a long fire-fight, but after their leader was killed the rest surrendered."

Two of the pirates, including the leader, were shot by Schirjetski. The leader died as he had lived: a revolver in one hand and a hand-grenade in the other. Ten of his men survived to serve long terms of imprisonment.





Thrilling Places
One of the best damn pulp supplements you will ever find!





Perils of the Orient
One of the worst damn supplements you will ever find!



Van Damme does pulp? Yer Damme right he does.


A pulp book I never bought


And that is you Pulp Thursday report!

What the hell??

I have no idea what the hell happened, but today my computer wont work. I'm writing this from the future-tomorrow at work. I turned it on and get to the part where windows loads and then it freezes. I'm thinking virus.

Damn all porn!

anyway, hell of a way to start the New Year. posts will be light until I figure out what the hell is going on. I can still access from work, but this is open enrollment for all my districts, so it's kinda "crunch time" around here.

I'll post as I can.