MPC Week: "The Damned"

SOMETIMES, THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN TRUST IS A DEAD MAN.

Today's Modern Pulp Comic is dedicated to the creation of the phantasmatic duo Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt: The Damned (published by ONI)


Do you think the alcohol was the only illegal traffic during the prohibition era? Think again! Behind the curtains (and in the lower areas of the city) there was another HUGE traffic which was controlled by an evil way worst than the gangsters: the demons themselves! And the traffic, of course, was in mortal souls. Things get interesting when a gumshoe (and hero of the book) gets picked up by the ditch where he was buried and put on the case. Defined like a cross between hellblazer and The Untouchables, The Damned promises cool pulp/gangster adventure with some good dose of supernatural to spice it up, all wonderfully served in a beautiful, moody, and classic black&white.

Cheers,
Francesco

"Modern Pulp Comics" © 2008 Francesco Francavilla

MPC Week: "Ghost Zero"

WEIRD! UNCANNY! UNBELIEVABLE!

Today's Modern Pulp Comic is the creation of a dear friend of Pulp Sunday: Dave Flora (ciao Dave! :))


Can't really say much, but I was lucky enoughto get a sneak preview to a short tale featuring Ghost Zero and I have to say that everything I saw was screaming authentic PULP adventure: the ingredients were all there and to boot we have also wonderful visuals and great retro feel on lettering and sfx: Dave did it right, no doubt about it :)
While we wait to read Ghost Zero on traditional (pulp) paper, which will happen soon I am sure, I hope you enjoy my quick, humble tribute and I warmly invite you to go to check its presence on the web for getting a taste of it - http://ghostzero.com.

Cheers,
Francesco

"Modern Pulp Comics" © 2008 Francesco Francavilla

MPC Week: "Frankenstein Mobster"

Welcome to Monstro City, multi-etnic home of humans and.. monsters! Yep, werewolves, vampires, and other beautiful "people" deals with mobsters and corrupt police.
The young detective Terri has her hands full when she arrives to the city after the father has been killed. But is he really dead? I mean, this is the kinda place where zombies are "normal" and other weird things happen...


Mark Wheatley, creator of the series, wonderfully illustrate the pages with a nice pulpish/noir feel to the look and feel. I don't remember if I read it somewhere or if it was just a thought, but the Frankenstein Mobster character seems inspired by our very own Jim Steranko: similiar haircut and similiar outfit with turtleneck.

Above is my tribute to the character (which I did back in the days - gotta go to re-read those books again ;)) more inspired by the classic Frankenstein monster, which you can see below in another tribute of mine to the classic cult movie.

Cheers,
Francesco




"Modern Pulp Comics" © 2008 Francesco Francavilla

MPC Week: "Sonambulo"

SONAMBULO
Tell Him Your Dreams!

For our second appointment with Modern Pulp Comics, I want to introduce you all to Sonambulo, the private eye with a luchador mask (how cool is that?) created by Rafael Navarro. This was a lucky find at SDCC 06, when Rafael's wife left a copy of the book on my table.


Believed dead (mobsters attempted to kill him) and buried for over 2 decades, former luchador Sonanmbulo wakes up from a deep sleep and comes back with the incredible powers to see other people dreams and to go for days without sleeping. He decides to use his new powers to do some good, hence his decision to become a P.I. and fight the bad guys, both the material gangsters and the supernatural evils.

Drawn in a beautiful Black&White, Sonambulo has all the noir, pulp elements we have learned to love from those old school P.I. investigation cases.
Reccomended.

Cheers,
Francesco

"Modern Pulp Comics" © 2008 Francesco Francavilla

MPC Week: "Sin City"

Hello Pulp Friends!

It has been already 3 weeks that the Archive.org has removed the OTR episodes of the Shadow from their website. I am not sure what is the reason (anyone?) but while I think of other OTR shows to use in here, let's have a little gallery of modern Pulp Comics that I read and I think you should too (if you like good pulp).
For all this week (also to make up from my missing Sunday last week, when I was attending Dragon*Con and enjoying the company of legend Bernie Wrightson), every day I will be introducing a comicbook title that has deep roots in the Pulp genre. Some might be already well known to you all (like today's ;)), some other might be less known (like it already happened with Blacksad), but what it counts, at the end of the day, is that you enjoy the post and maybe know something new about these titles.
And feel free to add your comments and feedback on the title spotlighted.


Let's start with Sin City by Frank Miller. Well... if you know nothing about it, then you haven't been around a lot in the last 20years ;)
Most of the books were available again thanks to the recent movie. A new movie is in production, I heard, so expect another wave of reprints of our fav Sin City and all its beautiful people :)

Cheers,
Francesco





"Modern Pulp Comics" © 2008 Francesco Francavilla

Pulp Pinup: Blacksad

Hello Pulp Friends :)

Soo, this is weird: I tried the whole day to get on the old radio shows of the Archive.org, but I got the message the "items" are not available all day.

So let's rely on our dear feature "Pulp Pinup" to save the day ;)

Today's pinup is dedicated to some of the most noirish character of the recent times: Blacksad by Spanish writer Juan Díaz Canales and Spanish artist Juanjo Guarnido. Blacksad is a private eye black panther in a world of anthropomorphic noir set in 1950. No, this is not a "furry" comicbook: once you start to read it, you forget these are animals and you get fully captured by this story that will kick you in the guts. If you like Sin City, you should give this GNs a try (even if they might be a little hard to find in English version).

Cheers,
Francesco

Pulp Pinup is dedicated to showcase commissions, pinups, or simple sketches I do every now and then, dedicated to our beloved pulp heroes.

"SMILE" - Day 6 - Conclusion

Hello Pulp friends,

And here's the conclusion: hope it was worth the ride :)
It's no mystery that Nazi "stole" lots of works of art before and during WW2 to place them in their personal "art galleries". Nazi were not the first to do so and not the last, but that was the inspiration for this short tale of Cap America.

Hope you all enjoyed the strips :) (click on the one below to see the second full strip in color)

Cheers,
Francesco