Chuck Meade’s Journal
07222008 301pm
In the air and heading for Cleveland…horrible traffic almost made me late for the flight, so I’m doing what I’d hoped to do while waiting to board now…
Think I have everything I need for my discussions with A.J. and the letters are in my sport coat stowed above my head. More than a few on this plane heading for the convention, as I counted at least five teens or adults dressed in costumes waiting to board this flight. The person next to me, thankfully, isn’t a costumer, but he’s wearing an old comic-license tie from the 1980’s that proclaims him a member of Corps Cosmica—one of the few books I don’t know well because A.J. and Monty had nothing to do with that comic.
In my final prep and packing, I ran across some old memos from C.K. Gill to A.J. (& others) and must remember to ask him about Gill and their working relationship. This is the potential next book for me—examining Bulwark in the 1930’s and 40’s and mapping/analyzing through its big expansion in book (not periodical) publishing (& the republishing of all the fiction and comics) in the 1960’s and 70’s. If there’s too much material, it can be multiple books to encompass the full history of Bulwark and look at the current spate of repub projects (which, if rumors are true, will even bring back the dime novel materials for the first time in 100+ years).
What do I absolutely need to find out from A.J. this weekend?
- He and Gill were the only two creators from BC’s Golden Age comics to be allowed to do some initial work on the Silver Age when many IPs were rebooted and changed. Was this an internal decision, office politics, or simply a case of who had the time and interest?
- I’m curious as to how much input they had into people altering or tinkering with their older works and character IPs.
- Did they fight to keep control over characters to prevent massive alterations (I.E. Almost no changes with Brass Bradley and other A.J. creations)? Or was it Gill working in-house that protected them from too much altering?
- Might refocus this discussion/project even more tightly only on the comics of the 1940’s and the Soltare/Gill input, then look at all the iterations of two more successive generations of those same characters/IPs…especially if I can get AJ to give me more of an insider’s view than I can already glean from internal company memos et al.
IMPORTANT—Don’t forget that this man is among the last of those with direct knowledge of what Bulwark was like in its formative years, so don’t waste a second on minor or inconsequential discussions!!!
So, what’s—
“Excuse me, sir.”
I keep my “Damn!” to myself as I look up at the male flight attendant who’s moving past my seat. Oh yeah, first warning.
“We’ll need all electronic devices turned off before we head in for our landing, sir. Ten more minutes, okay?”
“Fine,” I say, turning my attention back to the screen. No use. Lost the train of thought anyway.
I queue up my checklist, then realize I need a connection to check on my room reservation and all that. Guess it’ll have to wait until later. I close the laptop and stow it in my briefcase beneath the seat in front of me.
When I sit back up, I feel the tension from my fingers all the way down my back. I stretch my fingers to loosen up forearm tendons at least, while I sit. Could really use a massage, if there’s time this weekend and if the hotel has a massage therapist.
The flight’s on time, thank the gods, but I have to hustle if I’m going to get to the hotel in time to meet up with A.J. and his aide for dinner. At least we’re meeting at the hotel, not another restaurant, so there’s that. I hope that doesn’t mean we’ll get interrupted a lot by convention-goers. Assuming he’s okay with discussing them in front of this Sam Herneson, I’d love to go over the letters tonight.
And what’s the deal with this guy, anyways? He’s obviously someone who A.J. and Mr. Kharm trust, but what’s his actual role and job within Bulwark? Anyone who’s actually worked with him say he’s open about not having much publishing pedigree, but he’s running a high-profile (at least internally) project of republishing the dime novels. Most of the Repub team seems relieved to have him in charge, thought it’s probably more relief about not reporting to David Brandt, whose ego is only surpassed by his love of semicolons.
Therese in Archives thinks Sam’s secretly either a son or nephew of Oscar’s, given his levels of access at all Bulwark offices despite a lack of experience, history, or degrees. She did say he’s almost always working directly for Mr. Kharm. While she said she knew more, she kept getting sidetracked telling me her fantasies about the guy. That tells me he’s a long-haired with tattoos and a bad-boy vibe—Therese’s overt weakness—and knowing she’d readily throw herself onto a table for the guy is something I wish I could un-hear. Almost as disturbing as having my drunken boss hitting on my girlfriend at my first Bulwark Christmas party four years ago, but not quite.
Conrad Post is the most buttoned-up cliché of an editor I’ve ever met, and his insistence on professionalism is how said drunk boss got canned before New Year’s (and Conrad liked my background enough to promote me into his job). Conrad fumes if anyone under his watch doesn’t have the requisite training or degrees he thinks they should have. Seemed strange to me that he’s only got glowing comments about Sam Herneson despite his total lack of background or degrees.
Stranger still, he stepped out of his office when I was leaving and whispered, “Give my regards to A.J. and Sam both, but warn them they still owe me eight Januscripts between the pair of them. They’ll know what I mean, hm?” With a rare smile and rather enigmatic chuckle, Conrad waved me off…and I’ve never known Conrad to be amused by anything outside of P.G. Wodehouse.
Well, guess I’ll learn about him soon enough. About two hours before dinner, assuming I get to the hotel in time. I stand up briefly to let my window-side companion out and decide to get my sport coat on. I take it out of the overhead bin, shrug it on, and pat my chest pocket…where A.J.’s letters should be but aren’t.
The fasten-seatbelt chime sounds just as my stomach falls through the floor of the cabin.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
TO: Charles Meade
FR:Conrad Post
DA: July 21, 2008
RE: Corporate event at GrealKon/Schedule Conflicts?
Chuck, here’s an internal PR flack memo (built from the internal bibles on our IPs & products) just to give you an idea of at least one of the headaches you’ll have to endure while in Cleveland this weekend. Expect to schedule your meeting(s) with AJ around his interviews with various and sundry about this game, its touchstones with his work, etc. I’ve already informed those from GMG running the show down there that you are NOT to be wasting your work time playing this sort of thing–leave that time for the children.
Online Thrills I & II
This MMORPG was created and launched by Earthorizons & GMG in October 2000 as a pulp-driven interactive world in which players could become 1920s and 1930s pulp characters working alongside many Bulwark pulp characters. The game’s core setting is the cursed city of Fairgeth, the standard location for stories of Ace Barrigan and other characters (though the game adds many characters from a variety of 1930s Bulwark pulps and comic books).
Since its initial worldwide launch in October 1999, Online Thrills has built and maintained a modest average audience of subscribers in the millions. Its two releases (in 2000 and 2003) were City Under Fire (an expanded Fairgeth moved up to the 1930’s filled with gangsters, Nazis, and demons) and Haunted Highways (expanding the territories and adding 4 smaller towns and the environs among them and the Fairgeth metropolis). Since that third release, the game has relied on fans to build their own sub-games using online generators and the tacit approval of the game developers to use some open-sourced elements of their original platform.
Plans are in the works for a major and far more immersive game experience to be released in late 2008. All information on the game has been tightly controlled, and all that has publicly been revealed is a release schedule:
- Online Thrills II: Fairgeth to New Jericho (September 2008)
- Online Thrills II: New Jericho to Fort Corax (February 2010)
- Online Thrills II: Ravens to Svetlantzek (June 2011)
- Online Thrills II: The Crossroads (August 2013)
Fans have been chewing on these scant details for more than a year and have built anticipation on seeing the other Citiestoried locations (and their characters). However, even more excitement comes from the Crossroads, since it has always been exclusively a Bulwark Comics notion and fans want to see even more modern and more powerful characters in their games.
As of June 18, 2008, the online discussion forums for Bulwark Publications have exploded with theories and commentary with the announcement that there would be a major preview and chance to play the beta version of the game at GrealKon in Cleveland on Saturday and Sunday only. Lotteries among ticket/badge holders for the convention would take place on Thursday and Friday nights with the lucky 150 players chosen at random among those at the convention and announced at 11:58pm on Friday night with demos starting when the main hall opens that Saturday morning.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
TO: Oscar Kharm, A.J. Soltare
FR: Charles Meade
DA: July 20, 2008
RE: Men of Letters & Action TOC
Misters Kharm and Soltare,
Yes, I know you’ve both insisted many times that I refer to you as Oscar and A.J., but habits and propriety die hard among those of us in the editorial trenches.
That said, I’m sending along the tentative table of contents for Men of Letters & Action for your perusal and tacit approval. We can discuss any particulars about the structure when I get to Cleveland this week or when Mr. Kharm can visit our Chicago offices.
In short, we’ve opted for a chronological structure. We break the book into four parts of two decades each, allowing us to see the initial letters build toward one of the best writer friendships on record. While this makes some topics and details more complex and harder to track/follow for readers, it’s more organic and lifelike in that we simply sort the letters by date and let the conversations speak for themselves.
While Mr. Montgomery’s writing begins almost ten years before Soltare’s, this gets ignored other than in conversations discussing such works after the fact. I’ve chosen only to list his complete bibliography as an appendix (the same with Mr. Soltare’s output as well). This allows the book to be more about their friendship and “things that mattered to writers of their times” rather than a catalogued biography of the writers and their works.
I’m still working to gain Conrad’s approval to make it easier for new readers to follow the threads of conversation among the letters. This means more sidebars to underscore the significance of some comments or simply to remind folks of the contemporary history in your letters (as an off-hand reference to “the on-going problems in [X]” needs more than a letter’s date for clarity). His argument against such a move is simple—it adds cost in my time to make said clarifications, work for graphics in layout and execution before printing, and it adds another check/step during galleys. I’ll have another discussion with him before I leave for Cleveland and let you know the status of the book and its prospective layout at that time. I’m holding out hope that sidebars will win over footnotes, but as long as people can understand what’s being discussed, we all win.
Here’s the very basic TOC, and I can clarify exactly what’s in each chapter when I meet you. In short, it’s a basic assumption that each chapter will roughly span 6-8 years to allow us twenty years per part and within three chapters. However, the correspondence was greatest between 1936 and 1954, so Parts I and II have more chapters and pages than the remainder of the book.
Introduction
Prologue/Intro by Publisher Oscar Kharm, as one of the few Bulwark professionals who has had connections and contact with both men.
Part I: The 1930’s and 1940’s
Chapter 1: The Start of a Beautiful Friendship (1931-1935)
Re: introductions, first collaborations, creation of Solomon Lazarus
Chapter 2: Fighting through the Great Depression (1936-1941)
Re: the Redressor, the Gaslight, Lexicon Jones, Ace Barrigan, Brass Bradley, Fairgeth & other Citiestoried locales/characters, etc.
Chapter 3: The War Years (1942-1945)
Re: Real world issues, continuing work outside (and inside?) the war, etc.
Chapter 4: Help Across the Waves (1946-1949)
Re: post-war England & America, changes in tone & style, etc.
Part II: The 1950’s and 1960’s
Chapter 5: Shine Up the Old (1950-1955)
Re: slow work years, bits about radio, movies, character revivals, etc.
Chapter 6: Feeling Outside of the Process (1956-1963)
Re: editorial changes to older materials, reprints, & paperback collections
Chapter 7: Spanning the Generation Gaps (1964-1969)
Re: Bulwark’s Silver Age comics work, Beatle mania, “Sixties”
Part III: The 1970’s and 1980’s
Chapter 8: Stories in Motion (1970-1979)
Re: the cartoons & comics off your old works and new
Chapter 9: A Third Renaissance (1980-1989)
Re: Bulwark’s Bronze Age comics work & spin-off licenses
Part IV: The 1990’s to Today
Chapter 10: Sunset Years (1990-1996)
Re: reception of old work, respect of peers, awards & new reprints, etc.
Chapter 11: AJ Alone (1997-2006)
Re: letters to others about Monty and/or his family to AJ, modern work on major revamp/relaunch of many properties
Chapter 12: Epilogue
Re: AJ’s obits for John Farnsworth, Ed Page, and Blake Montgomery
Part V: Appendices
Bibliography for Blake Hart Montgomery (1924-1996)
Bibliography for Alexander John Soltare (1931-2008)
Characters Created or Co-Created by Montgomery or Soltare
Again, thank you both for all your time, input, and aid in this project. I look forward to seeing you Thursday night, AJ, and perhaps you can solve that mystery regarding those odd letters for me.
Respectfully,
Charles “Chuck” Meade
PS: Just for full sharing of information, here’s my original thematic plan/TOC that fell by the wayside five months back.
I originally liked this plan better as it encapsulated discussions and topics that spanned decades of your correspondence. It also let browsers find snippets of info where they expected them. The major problem with this organization was time consumption in terms of sorting and making the anecdotal editorial anecdotes out of the bodies of the letters. It also left behind the obvious friendships built by said letters and merely used your letters as sources from which to build a Bulwark publishing history. Still, thought you’d find it of interest in some way.
Respectfully Yours
Opening chapter/intro that sets the stage with your initial letters, introductions, and getting to know each other as writers and people
Dime Dreadfuls and the British Pulps?
Chapter on The Redressor, the Gaslight, and other British exclusive characters
Ace, Brass, Cops, & Detectives
Chapter on Brass Bradley, Ace Barrigan, & other noir/detective pulps
Cities Made of Stories
Chapter on all “Citiestoried” locales (Fairgeth, New Jericho, Norbridge, Fort Corax, Myrford, Vereule, the twin cities of Svetlantzek, & Portanika) and their work therein
Kharndam Rising / Kharndam Come
Two chapters on the fantasy world for which you two are famous (one on the building of the world & pulps end; one on the comics and the reprints in the 1960’s and today)
A Gold Mine in Four-Colors
Chapter on the other Golden & Silver Age comics works by both men
Sundry Wonders and One-Offs
Chapter on random works, stories not linked into any series (at least at first), etc.
Under Cover: The Bulwark House Names
Chapter on the discussions on the corporate house names, your work therein, your thoughts (beyond what’s noted in the letters for a sidebar, perhaps?), etc.
Men Illuminated (A.J. & Monty & the Movies)
Short chapter on the licensed use of many characters, your involvement (or lack thereof) in the movie or television versions, etc.
By the By
Chapter for random and sundry letters and discussions that don’t apply within the above structure but retain some benefit for the readers in terms of learning more of what makes their favorite writers tick
Requiem
Chapter for discussions on the passing of contemporaries, friends, and others; also includes AJ’s published obits for John Farnsworth, Ed Page, and Blake Montgomery
Appendices
Complete bibliographies for each author, sorted chronologically; also has lists for each character created or co-created by said authors and their appearances (and how many appearances of said characters were not done by the two authors in this book)
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Bulwark Publications—A History
</p>Bromley Kharm came to the American Colonies in 1679 as an importer of British goods (via his family’s many businesses in England). His business and family prospered, and he died succeeded by four sons and five daughters (all of whom had equally sizable families). By 1756, his great-grandson August established a printing-house in Boston and named it Bulwark Press.
</p>“A Treatise on the Natives along the Allegheny,” an eight-page pamphlet by Samuel Alriss, became the first publication from Bulwark Press in early October 1756. There are three extant and complete copies on display at requisite Bulwark Publications headquarters in Toronto, London, and Chicago and another copy owned by the Kharm family at their English estate. Five known copies remain in private hands, while another nine exist at Oxford and various Ivy League colleges. The last time a copy came to auction in 1997, the “Treatise” sold for $38,000 to an unknown buyer.
</p>During the rise toward American independence, many younger Kharms supported or actually became Sons of Liberty (including Lincoln, August’s nephew, and his children). Many others (including the related Hullark and Arlan clans) remained loyal to the British Crown and emigrated among various Canadian provinces by 1772. Family skills and traditions stayed strong, and the Hullarks remained printers and publishers with Guardian Publishing.
</p>In 1843, the last British Kharm relation died without issue, leaving the eldest of the North American Kharms—Barnett Kharm, age 52—a baron’s title and manor (Geneva House manor outside of Chichester, Sussex) with additional properties and lands around the United Kingdom. While his two elder sons remained in Canada with their printing business, Barnett and his youngest children emigrated to England for the first time.
</p>By 1855, Cullen Kharm built Rampart Press in London and restored the British family name & fortune. By 1897, he unified business relations with his Canadian and American cousins to merge the three printer-publishers under one corporation—Bulwark Publications. Cullen placed his five sons at the heads of the largest and most lucrative Bulwark holdings before his death in 1901. Control of Bulwark was a contentious issue for decades because of this heavy-handed move. After influenza wiped out the entire American branch of the Kharm family (and many relations by marriage) by 1920, the English branch of the family has had unshakeable control of the publishing empire.
</p>Bulwark’s most visible growth spurt came between the 1920s and the 1940s when four different houses in three countries put between 15 and 30 Bulwark-owned pulps on the stands at any given time. As the era of the fiction pulps began to fade, Bulwark diversified its properties by licensing radio and movie serials, toys, comic strips, and comic books. Guardian Comics printed its first comic books in 1936, followed by Bulwark Comics in 1940. By 1942, the two companies’ comics and characters were only eclipsed by National Periodicals/DC Comics and Fawcett Comics in the 40s.
</p>Another reason for Bulwark’s longevity and success (at least according to some in publishing circles) is their apparent honesty toward its creative staff. Since the beginning of the 20th century, all of Bulwark’s companies have reliably paid higher rates for short and long fiction and nonfiction work and even paid out royalties on reprinted materials. However, some have always complained about a lack of control under their auspices. Bulwark has had an ironclad work-for-hire standard on all of their published and licensed materials since 1899 (with the only exception being the WISHLAND book series as a shared-copyright with the Ventesch family). In short, Bulwark always paid better in exchange for total control of characters and worlds created under its roof.
</p>Books—Fiction
Bulwark Press: 1797-1897
Guardian Publishing: 1958-1978
Rampart Press: 1877-1940
Bulwark Publications: 1940-present
</p>Books—Nonfiction
Bulwark Press: 1797-1878
Rampart Press: 1878-1940
Bulwark Publications: 1940-present
</p>Chapbooks, Pamphlets, & Limited Publications
Bulwark Press: 1756-1877
Guardian Publishing: 1772-1825
Rampart Press: 1855-1877
</p>Comic Books
Guardian Publishing: 1936-1958
Bulwark Publications: 1940-1948; 1964-1991; 1998-2008; 2013?
</p>Dime Novels & Dreadfuls
Bulwark Press: 1849-1921
Guardian Publishing: 1846-1876
Rampart Press: 1855-1897
</p>Fiction Magazines & Pulps
Guardian Publishing: 1902-1927
Rampart Press: 1902-1924
Bulwark Press: 1902-1973
Bulwark Publications: 1989-1998; 2009-present
</p>Games & Licensed Print Media
Guardian Media Group: 1978-present
</p>Newspapers
Guardian Publishing: 1825-1939 (Guelph Guardian)
</p>Nonfiction Magazines
Guardian Publishing: 1877-1916
Rampart Press: 1877-1920
Bulwark Publications: 1902-1973; 1980-present
</p>Non-Print Media & Other Licenses
Bulwark Publications: 1928-present
Guardian Publishing: 1991-present
</p>Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Bulwark Publications
Founded by one family and its offshoots over four centuries, Bulwark Publications is a multinational publishing conglomerate spanning England, Canada, and the United States. The company has been in existence in one form or another since the 18th century, though it became a household name in the early 20th century with its pulp fiction magazines and related licensed ventures into movie serials, radio, newspaper strips, and comic books. The many characters and properties that came from those years have spawned a publishing empire embraced by more than five generations across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
</p>Bulwark Publications—Current Structure
Bulwark’s global corporate headquarters has been in Toronto since 1989; it previously centered its offices in London from 1877-1940 and Chicago from 1940-1989.
The Kharm family always maintains a presence in the boardrooms and among the executives of all the Bulwark companies. As majority shareholder, Sir Oscar Kharm serves as Bulwark’s Publisher. He splits his time between Geneva House (his manorial home in England) and his primary offices in Toronto. Oscar shares CEO responsibilities with Sarah Kharm, his niece and chosen successor, who lives in London and operates out of Bulwark’s offices there. Bulwark’s COO James Childs Sr. handles many day-to-day operations for the conglomerate from Toronto. The Kharms or their close relatives control all the major satellite companies as well:
</p>At present, there are nine distinct corporations in the Bulwark conglomerate and more than a dozen publishing houses or imprints among them. They are listed below in priority of their corporate importance and seniority within the conglomerate.
- Bulwark Press—printing and publishing (Toronto); Caroline Kharm, CEO;
- control</p>
- this press controls the Canadian output of Bulwark Publications.
- Rampart Press—printing and publishing (London); Larry Kharm, CEO;
- this controls the British holdings of Bulwark Publications.
- Honor Press—printing and publishing (Chicago); James Childs Jr., CEO;
- this press controls the American arm of Bulwark Publications.
- Hartale Inc.— distribution and shipping (Liverpool); Jennifer Kharm, CEO;
- this company handles distribution & shipping of all Bulwark Publications.
- Jennifer’s son Maxwell Kharm manages the American office in St. Louis and her daughter Sabrina “Bree” Kharm leads the Vancouver office.
- Vellumedia—paper and materials production (Edmonton); Simon Kharm, CEO;
- all Bulwark publications receive materials from this company.
- Guardian Media Group (GMG)—game production (Vancouver); Elizabeth “Betsy” Childs, CEO
- this company handles print and non-electronic games for Bulwark Publications.
- Bulwark Comics (Chicago); Henry Vance, CEO;
- this company controls comic books & graphic novels for Bulwark Publications.
- Earthorizons—digital media & animation (San Francisco); Susan Vance, CEO;
- while each company may have its own digital/web division, this group handles video games, animation, and the like for all subsidiaries.
- Aurichorn Associates—merchandising & public relations (New York); Michelle Childs, CEO;
- this PR firm is solely for the Bulwark conglomerate’s use & its effectiveness and control of licensed merchandise is only rivaled by the Walt Disney Corporation.
Due to semi-independent development of its corporations over time or absorption of other companies, there is overlap within the conglomerate. Bulwark, Rampart, and Honor Press each have at least seven divisions/houses for general fiction, genre fiction, history & politics, travel & geography, reference & education, craft/hobby & how-to, and technical/science books. Additional houses include occult/New Age/esoterica, photographic & art reference, scholastic references & text books, and others as determined by markets and interests. Example imprints and houses include but are not limited to:
- Bardic—reference and educational (Oxford)
- Crossroads Books—travel, geography (Ottawa)
- Earthworks—video games (San Rafael, CA)
- Enigmabula—occult, esoteric, New Age (Seattle)
- Hullark Books—how-to guides & cookbooks (New York)
- Merlon Books—world politics, current events (London)
- Nuvista—genre fiction (New York)
- Parapet Books—general fiction (Cambridge)
- Precinct Press—craft/hobby, gardening, cookbooks (York)
- Prospect—general & genre fiction (Vancouver)
- Seven Scriveners Press—writing, publishing, how-to (Toronto)
- Stockade Books—general fiction (Milwaukee)
- Third Vision—genre fiction (Dover)
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Chuck Meade’s Journal 07142008 543pm
Good day, productivity-wise. Got a lot off my desk—good, considering the hole punched in my schedule next week. Didn’t expect a quick response from Kharm on my offer to travel to Cleveland, let alone a plane ticket and hotel reservations messengered to my desk within three hours of my email.
Conrad seems put-out by my communications with Kharm, even though he’s the one who put me in touch with him. Apparently, he got an email from the Bulwark head office informing him of my trip before I’d talked to him or he’d read yesterday’s emails. For someone who prides himself on equanimity, Post gets very bent out of shape when he feels someone’s not using “proper channels.” Must CC: him into any conversations with AJ et al or he’ll make life miserable thinking I’m after his job. Like I’d want all that responsibility of contracts and editorial plans and no actual hands-on fun working with authors…
Conrad should worry more about Brian Drake, his sycophantic new editorial assistant who is after any job above his. Sheryl says he’s a political gossip who edits people out of his way by innuendo and rumors, not actual ability. That does hint how he advanced out of a Marketing production assistant’s job, but Drake shouldn’t be in Editorial with such poor proofreading skills. Must also warn David about him—Drake’s fishing around the Reprint offices a lot sniffing for position.
Must wrap up soon for that date with Rachel—some new place she found in the Loop. She’s picking me up here, so I’ll hit the gym then shower and change here before she gets here at 7. Hope she’ll forgive me for giving up the weekend after next to go to Cleveland—I’ll try and make it up to her by taking her to Lake Geneva this weekend. I’ll just have to work late every other night before the trip to keep on deadline.
Desk of Charles Meade—TO DO for July 15
A) Do another pass on the Table of Contents to forward to Kharm ASAP and have at hand for my meetings with AJ. MUST finish TOC and NOT make any changes UNLESS the letters prove to have info that can’t be ignored.
B) Rework my internal calendar to move any meetings from July 23-30 and memo anyone who’d need to find me during the six days I’ll be out of the office.
C) Rally any and all materials together on which I have questions, copy them all (since I can’t take any originals with me aside from those damned letters I can’t read).
- Copy of the TOC for AJ’s okay or at least as a platform to discuss the book structure (as my recheck of the contracts allows him the right to refusal on the book up until it goes to press);
- Copies of any stories discussed by Monty & AJ where they grouse about editorial changes
- Remind Karl in Archives to scan and send me PDFs of the originals as they saw print in Sagas Supernatural;
- Have Burt in Archives see if any original mss of the same stories still survive in Archives (AJ reclaimed all his mss but Monty rarely bothered to get his originals back, so there’s a chance of even more details or changes to check.);
- Also get PDFs of ALL their reprinted versions (at least 3 versions of some of these stories out there, not including the comics adaptation of Hero Thrills #1);
- See if there’s an internal paper trail to identify if the main or assistant editor did said changes (as their external opinions have not always proven correct);
- Double check with AJ on my sidebars—highlighting the differences between the standard Bulwark in-house style and how much freedom the two of them were given beyond other authors.
- Dig up all I can on Solomon Lazarus® as he’s the crux of Chapter 4 as the co-creation of both men.
- Bring list of all appearances to double-check as the first 6 stories were credited to D.W. George, a Bulwark house name;
- Which were Monty’s, AJ’s, and Edward Page’s?
- Were there any others writing SL other than the non-pulp versions?
- Compile a DVD of any/all PDFs for reference instead of relying on hard copy.
- Clear with Conrad to make a copy for AJ as well.
- Have at least a list of ALL SL appearances, whether AJ or Monty had anything to do with them (Golden, Silver, Bronze Age comics; radio plays; the “Lazarus Gambit” serial; cartoons?)
- Bring list of all appearances to double-check as the first 6 stories were credited to D.W. George, a Bulwark house name;
- Perhaps interview AJ to delineate who brought what to the table on which characters?
- [Personal] Get my personal Kharndam Collected volumes out of storage for AJ’s signature on them as the last of the Kharndam Four still alive.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Chuck haplessly stumbles one step closer to the abyss…
TO: Oscar Kharm
FR: Charles Meade
DA: July 13, 2008
CC: Sam Herneson, Conrad Post
RE: Confusion within Soltare/Montgomery letters
[CM] I can’t seem to understand the issue of these letters—specifically a packet of nine letters wrapped with a gold-trimmed green ribbon. Consisting of scattered dates between June 1, 1947 and October 21, 1969,
[OK] Please detail where, how, and in what state you found said letters, as I wasn’t aware of anything beyond standard Bulwark mimeograph or photostat copies among your research materials for this project. I was not informed that you were in direct communication with AJ on this, but did he provide you with any direct correspondence? While I do want the book in question to be complete as per its publishing specifications, some of the gentlemen’s privacies should be respected.
Apologies, sir; I was unclear in my email and in previous discussions with Conrad on this matter. The letters in question are all from Montgomery TO Soltare with one exception—a brief one-sheet response from AJ to Monty on August 15, 1968. None of these appeared to be in-house memos or direct letters regarding materials in the publication pipeline, though such matters get discussed in asides. I’m not 100% sure, of course, as what appears to be on the page changes with each reading.
I didn’t receive the letters from Mr. Soltare; they were found in the mailroom with a Bulwark-standard sticky-note directing them to my office. The clerk said the note was typed but had no other routing information on it; that same clerk lost said note in transit between the mailroom and my desk, so I don’t know who sent the letters to me with any certainty. Despite the non-standard delivery method, I kept the materials because they directly related to my current assignment.
I did contact Mr. Soltare by phone months ago before breaking the wax seal holding the ribbon around the letters (phone contact from office on 06/17/08, 6 minutes). While he could not talk long, Mr. Soltare okayed my perusal of said letters but wished to review the contents of the letters before approving the release or publication of any information or materials. He mentioned being in the Midwest in July and we might meet to discuss this issue then.
In the past month, I’ve had no luck reaching Mr. Soltare by either phone (messages left on 0626, 0630, and 0702) or email (4 emails in the past 3 weeks) to discuss my personal issues and inability to transcribe the letters. As a result, I’ve locked the letters in my desk and will not move further on them until you or Mr. Soltare can help ascertain how to proceed with them.
[OK] I’ll be in your offices on August 3. At that time, I can speak with you directly on the matter of those letters and reclaim them for AJ, if he or Sam cannot come to Chicago any sooner to do the same.
If at all possible, I would like to meet with you, sir, whether I can reach Mr. Soltare or Mr. Herneson in the mean time. On that latter note, though, I noticed Mr. Soltare is the guest of honor at GreaLKon in Cleveland the weekend after this one. If it’s acceptable to you and Conrad, I can drive to Cleveland, meet with Mr. Soltare, and clear up this matter entirely. I assume that the company already has a block of hotel rooms reserved for staffers, given the launch of Online Thrills; I can easily share a room with someone, if there’s a spare bed to be had.
[OK] I’ll be interested in seeing how you’ve structured the book for comprehension and coherence.
As my deadline on the book is in mid-September, there is some time to delay, though not by much. With the redistribution of materials and cross-referencing of the actual letters, I’ll need an additional 4-6 days and another 3 to recheck and reshuffle the TOC and index. Thus, you must approve the use of these letters before August 12 if I am to have time to fully utilize their details.
Thank you again, sir. I’ll remain in touch on this before then, but I hope to see you in a few weeks.
Chuck Meade
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
I’m no Akanri Lorekeeper, but I know how things operate in dark, light, and anywhere there’s a coin. I pay attention to any opportunities that weigh more than the blades leveled against them. I see with whom I can do business, on whom it’s safe to turn my back, and against whom I’d be fish bait for doing either. If you want to learn what I know, drop a palm of coin to make my time and truths yours. After all, even the Akanri don’t know everything, though I’ll bet they’d never admit otherwise.
–Akal of Parhim, drover and trader of the Five Shields League
Only those who wear their seven-pointed star truly learn the secrets of the Star-Mages, and no one can practice magic in Impral territories without joining them (willingly or not). To do other risks death…or worse. I tread carefully around all Star-Mages, as they always demand much and offer nothing of value. Truth too, a Magustar has longer hair than patience (which is to say, the shaved pates have none at all).
The Kryssars have been rogue mercantile and military powers for over four centuries. While they once were consolidated, Kryssar “pirates” (at least according to the Imperam) today are any men and ships sailing outside of a government’s or patron’s control, their masts flying only the two black triangles over two circles for their colors. Some hint that the original Kryssar rogue-sails were remnants of Kharndam’s royal fleet that survived Impral ambushes and the Laor Cove Fires. The so-called pirate’s flag hint at such, as it apes the cutlass grip-guards (bearing double-masted ships with full dark sails) long ago used by Kharndam’s navy. Despite centuries of trying, the Imperam cannot extinguish either the Kryssar standard or the independents that use it.
The Costara Marona are among those I fear and keep at more than a giant’s arms-length. A few generations back, they were one of the biggest noble clans of Summath in the eastern Imperam. The rulers stripped the family name of all titles and landed holdings, though there’s much confusion as to why (but most whisper about the Star-Mages, as always with Impral rumors). Their house mark—a blue arrow piercing three gold coins—now is a feared mark left by their enforcers and assassins. The Marona lost their lands and titles, but their wealth and ruthless trade tactics all still covertly influence or control more than half of all Impral ports. In truth, they hold more power now, with no immobile center of power to attack, than they did as landed nobles, to the chagrin of their enemies (among whom they count many ruling praenars and their houses, all Magustar leaders of the Star-Mages, and even the Imprator himself).
What scares and excites me the most is the return of the four-starred blade! It’s been seen at least five times very recently, or so my sources say. They talk of places in Lluranal, Pralkesh, and Xonorhil where openly corrupt folk of several races were slain and left heaped as carrion, a blade stamped with four stars from hilt to point. This mark conjures many rumors for us here in the Twelvelands, sure, for that was only ever the badge of the Knights Sovereign, the original army of Kharndam and the Home Guard of the Pegasus Sovereignty. Make of that as you will, what with folks talking of the Pegasus Throne having disappeared only to be restored.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
27 hours to go until the end of our fund-raising drive at Kickstarter–and we’ve picked up a surge of new backers in the past few days, for whom we’ve deeply indebted and grateful.
Head on over to Kickstarter for a quick update and a few links of information on the Akanri or Secrets, like Dragons…
Inside that link are the guest posts I did over at the blogs of two old friends and colleagues from my TSR days: Jeff Grubb and Dave Gross . I’m proud to say we’re all fellow Alliterates, our writers’ group of current authors, many of whom are also ex-TSR-wage-slaves.
There’s a lot of excitement and activity in the last day or two of any fund-raising drive, so if you’ve been curious and haven’t yet pledged even at Stage One, please stop over before it’s too late!
Hope all American readers have a great Memorial Day holiday weekend!
Steven
PS: Okay–one more snippet/preview of Akanri-related information we’ve got tucked away as material for story generation….because it may intrigue yet one more person to joining us in Kharndam.
Drakesfall
The former capitol of Old Kharndam, Drakesfall gained its name for being the site where the first dragon slain by humans came to ground. Ornaoth I forged the Pegasus Throne from its bones and his capitol city celebrated his accomplishment in its name. Over the next 200 years, Drakesfall grew to a city of 30,000 people at its height and became the heart of the Pegasus Sovereignty.
Drakesfall has also served as the center of power for the Akanri Order for more than a millenary, since Prince Ralek, Duke of the Wildings and 4th son of King Tarlov, joined the Akanri ranks in [exact date pending more than 9 centuries back]. Within the prince’s lifetime, the duty of guarding the royal palace fell more to the Akanri Order than to the Home Guard. Centuries after the fall of the Sovereignty, the Akanri continue to protect Corvath Palace, its shattered Pegasus Throne, and many of its other secrets—royal and otherwise—from looters and others seeking profit from the past.
Drakesfall is, in modern times, an independent city-state that nestles close among the adjacent borders of Tsarnus, the Twelvelands, and Impral-controlled Lluranal, though the rivers and floodplains around it add some natural territorial boundaries. It is an open city in terms of trade and religions and government, but it is notably intolerant of slavery and bounty hunting, so any slaves who gain entry to the city become free (and this makes Drakesfall a destination for many Impramese servants and slaves (as well as many of less reputable natures who use the freedom to avoid paying for their crimes).
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
This will eventually become a second book trailer/teaser for Secrets, like Dragons, but I wanted folks to get another taste of Kharndam before Sunday’s end of our fund-raising drive. Hope it intrigues a few more people into pledging the project over the line to its successful completion.
The Pegasus Throne symbolized a Golden Age.
The Pegasus Throne stood for Peace, Harmony, and Wonder.
The Pegasus Sovereignty unified Kharndam for five centuries until its betrayal.
The Pegasus Throne lay shattered for 1,000 years, undisturbed out of respect.
Over time, Kharndam splintered into the monolithic Imperam, the theocratic Tsarnus, and the manumitic Twelvelands.
Drakesfall, once-capitol and now sovereign city-state, retains its past strength due to trade and the protections of the mysterious Akanri Bladeless.
Four years ago, the Pegasus Throne disappeared off its shattered foundation.
For most, its disappearance stands for Hope—for peace in a restored Kharndam.
For some, its disappearance stands for Gain—for profiting in times of change.
For a prominent few, its disappearance stands for Fear—of ceding power unwillingly.
Now is a time of drama, dread, and dream.
Now is a time to answer the call of the hero.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at Kharndam.com. You can comment here or there.
If you wish to understand Kharndam as it is today, you must know its history. You also must acknowledge that Kharndam is but a name attached to the lands by history and hopes of its peace returning again. For far longer, the lands of which we speak were called the continent of Rokhal, the largest and earth-dominant continent of Dharual.
Now, youngling, the world-birth’s distance from us today makes knowledge of it seemingly pointless, but that is the short-sight of most mortals. Know that our lives are trees with roots stretching far from the present, nourished (or poisoned) by the humus of history acknowledged (or history lost, ignored, or misunderstood). What you understand of your history allows you to stand and grow to great height or shrivel and falter with hardly a leaf to mark your passing. Too, even the most well-meant actions can turn to rot by ignoring what nourishes one’s family (or racial) tree.
—Petram of Sarval, Day 151 in 1670 Overdrake of the Drakereckoning calendar
First Age—Age of Birthing
The Age of Birthing was the world’s First Age, and the Creation Times lasted approximately 8,000 years.
Circa -24,000- -16,000 OD (8,000 years)
The world formed from the elements, a world of fire and water, air and earth. Many islands and lesser attendants pushed up above the waves along with the four continents that were Rokhal and Shael and Orpak and Lammok.
First before all other living things were the Erl, the trinary plant entities who birthed the Flora and were creator, mother, and father to all plant life. Then came the Primal, the trinary mother-father-creator of Fauna, who populated the lands with all animalian creatures, predator and prey, warm- and cool-blooded, biggest to smallest. Among Erl and Primal, plant and animal life propagated and flourished among all elements on Dharual.
Next came the Progenitors—the Four Races of Reason: the Dragons, the Giants, the Goblins, and the Shay. All other sapient races on the world today descend from these four in some degree. In secret, the Shay allied with Primal and Erl to help protect all life and environments, while the others worked to exploit flora and fauna as resources and fuels for their needs. To dragons, giants, and goblins, the world was to be tamed for safety, and there was peace and creation for a time as all the races found their equilibrium and place in the world. But the Dragons knew greed and they sought to conquer all rather than share any.
Second Age—Age of War
The Second Age lasted five millenaries and was the Age of War when Dragons fought to (and briefly did) dominate all life on Dharual through the Spawning Conflicts.
Circa -16,000- -11,000 OD (5,000 years)
Dragons took mates by force, crafting new servitor races through abduction, experimentation, and other malign methods. They bred with Erl and Primal, spawning carnivorous plants and monstrous behemoths to keep the natural world beneath their claws. From captured Shay they birthed many Fiends that enforced their will over the Giants. They forcibly bred with Giants to create the original Ogres that dominated the Goblins. Willingly or no, Goblins mated with Dragons to unleash the Reptlar races across the world to ensure they had a place among the powerful (and races over which they could certainly rule).
In response, the Shay and the Giants in turn created Humans and Dwarves to challenge the fecund spread of Goblins and Reptlars. They bred with Erl to spawn the Fey races of such variety less than half were ever recognized by history. They too with Primal to birth the “Primal-Amalgams” or Prigams, as the name has survived for the animal-humanoid fusions of all elements and forms. All these races allied as the Armies of Light to fight the onslaught of the Dragon overlords. Dwarves built Dhiirm and Shaalth, their great homelands of on the continent of Lammok, and in them they crafted their weapons with great secrecy and precision.
Rokhal became the primary Battlelands in this war, and some dwarfish and giantish fortifications from these conflicts survive as ruins in the present day. By the end of the age and these conflicts, the Dragon and Fiend populations fell to near-extinction on Rokhal and Shael, though the Fiends survived in remote pockets on Orpak.
If you wish to understand Kharndam as it is today, you must know its history. You also must acknowledge that Kharndam is but a name attached to the lands by history and hopes of its peace returning again. For far longer, the lands of which we speak were called the continent of Rokhal, the largest and earth-dominant continent of Dharual.
Now, youngling, the world-birth’s distance from us today makes knowledge of it seemingly pointless, but that is the short-sight of most mortals. Know that our lives are trees with roots stretching far from the present, nourished (or poisoned) by the humus of history acknowledged (or history lost, ignored, or misunderstood). What you understand of your history allows you to stand and grow to great height or shrivel and falter with hardly a leaf to mark your passing. Too, even the most well-meant actions can turn to rot by ignoring what nourishes one’s family (or racial) tree.
—Petram of Sarval, Day 151 in 1670 Overdrake of the Drakereckoning calendar
First Age—Age of Birthing
The Age of Birthing was the world’s First Age, and the Creation Times lasted approximately 8,000 years.
Circa -24,000- -16,000 OD (8,000 years)
The world formed from the elements, a world of fire and water, air and earth. Many islands and lesser attendants pushed up above the waves along with the four continents that were Rokhal and Shael and Orpak and Lammok.
First before all other living things were the Erl, the trinary plant entities who birthed the Flora and were creator, mother, and father to all plant life. Then came the Primal, the trinary mother-father-creator of Fauna, who populated the lands with all animalian creatures, predator and prey, warm- and cool-blooded, biggest to smallest. Among Erl and Primal, plant and animal life propagated and flourished among all elements on Dharual.
Next came the Progenitors—the Four Races of Reason: the Dragons, the Giants, the Goblins, and the Shay. All other sapient races on the world today descend from these four in some degree. In secret, the Shay allied with Primal and Erl to help protect all life and environments, while the others worked to exploit flora and fauna as resources and fuels for their needs. To dragons, giants, and goblins, the world was to be tamed for safety, and there was peace and creation for a time as all the races found their equilibrium and place in the world. But the Dragons knew greed and they sought to conquer all rather than share any.
Second Age—Age of War
The Second Age lasted five millenaries and was the Age of War when Dragons fought to (and briefly did) dominate all life on Dharual through the Spawning Conflicts.
Circa -16,000- -11,000 OD (5,000 years)
Dragons took mates by force, crafting new servitor races through abduction, experimentation, and other malign methods. They bred with Erl and Primal, spawning carnivorous plants and monstrous behemoths to keep the natural world beneath their claws. From captured Shay they birthed many Fiends that enforced their will over the Giants. They forcibly bred with Giants to create the original Ogres that dominated the Goblins. Willingly or no, Goblins mated with Dragons to unleash the Reptlar races across the world to ensure they had a place among the powerful (and races over which they could certainly rule).
In response, the Shay and the Giants in turn created Humans and Dwarves to challenge the fecund spread of Goblins and Reptlars. They bred with Erl to spawn the Fey races of such variety less than half were ever recognized by history. They too with Primal to birth the “Primal-Amalgams” or Prigams, as the name has survived for the animal-humanoid fusions of all elements and forms. All these races allied as the Armies of Light to fight the onslaught of the Dragon overlords. Dwarves built Dhiirm and Shaalth, their great homelands of on the continent of Lammok, and in them they crafted their weapons with great secrecy and precision.
Rokhal became the primary Battlelands in this war, and some dwarfish and giantish fortifications from these conflicts survive as ruins in the present day. By the end of the age and these conflicts, the Dragon and Fiend populations fell to near-extinction on Rokhal and Shael, though the Fiends survived in remote pockets on Orpak.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
This week’s going to see a flurry of activity around Kharndam as the Kickstarter campaign to fund Secrets, like Dragons… winds up this coming Sunday. If you’ve been curious about the project but haven’t yet pledged, please do so this week.
We’ve added another reward stage for those who would like to leave a creative stamp on the world, so go to the Kickstarter site for more info.
I’ve also been allowed to do a guest-post on Jeff Grubb’s blog today, so go saunter on over to Grubb Street (and make that trip a regular one, as Jeff’s always got insightful things to say).
I’ll have more to say tomorrow and after that, as I’m working hard to ready a collection of Akanri and related character sketches and stage-setters so people can learn more about the world and the Akanri and characters that may (or may not) be in the initial book launch. Talk to you tomorrow, gentles….when I hopefully launch “Akanri Revealed” as a regular column/feature (regardless of what happens with our fund-raising campaign).
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
First, a quick and hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY to
tagthewhale! Second, I'm trying to get a lot more folks interested in the Kickstarter project that'll launch my publishing venture, and it's got 10 days left to meet its fund-raising goal. Please help me spread the news to all or any who might be interested.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/113
Third and last, thanks to any folks from LJ who sent me Happy Birthday notes here or on Facebook or email on Monday night through yesterday. I had a great birthday capped off by an Italian meal, and best of all, my 15-month old son behaved brilliantly throughout the restaurant trip.
More later. Must go write blog posts....
Steven
- Current Mood:
cheerful
For those patrons of our Kickstarter campaign at Stage Five and above, an extra for their pledge level is a very limited edition leather badge identifying its bearer as a member of the Akanri Order.
Our prototype for the exclusive badge (available to a maximum of 40 patrons, 10 of which have already been claimed) has been made by Eric Joseph, an artist in Michigan whose intricate historically inspired art pieces blew me away when I first encountered them. He’s got a website up showing a number of his pieces, so please go check his work out at griffinstone.com.
For those in the American Midwest with a taste for medieval history, Eric’s also showing and selling a number of pieces at the International Conference on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan today and through this weekend (May 12-15, 2011).
I’ll try to get Eric to chime in later with more specifics on how he makes the badges, but here’s an image of the thick leather badge prototype, the finals of which may have some tweaks to the design and most likely a hole drilled for putting the badge on a chain or thong. (Or would patrons be more interested if it were a pin-backed item with no hole? Drop a comment, please, if you’ve an opinion either way.)
Akanri Mark (hand-made by Eric Joseph)
That’s the real art piece available in a production run of 40 pieces and ONLY available through the kickstarter funding drive. Now for the world-detail and story stuff that’s more my bailiwick….
Within the scope of the stories and the KHARNDAM™ world, each Akanri crafts his or her individual badge, rather than having a mass-produced mark to identify members of the order. Each badge is unique, though all share similarities enough to mark them as Akanri since all must have the central image of a hand and a number of circles around it. The circles either signify auras in general or they might sometimes reveal a person’s degree of mastery in aura manipulation.
As an example, the horn-headed rhamath Karov of Flaroth’s Heart wears his badge carved on a slate disk amulet, three concentric circles within the palm of its hand bearing three squarish fingers and opposed broad thumb.
One other note in world and character detail: Any Akanri bearing such a mark inside Imperam territory knows it carries with it an implicit death sentence, as the Akanri are much misunderstood and feared by Impral military and magical forces alike. Such laws have stood for over eight centuries, even though few today remember or know why Akanri are so feared inside the Impramense.
More updates and info soon, and thanks for your patience, your support, and your time.
Steven Schend
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m all too nervous.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m ecstatic as well about the support and patronage of 33 individuals who’ve brought us up to 21% of our funding goal. It’s a great start, but it’s also a distraction while I juggle far more balls than I can without a good Dexterity check.
Until the Kickstarter funding drive is complete, I’m in a waiting pattern in terms of a number of things I’ll want to do when Vistag Media officially launches with Secrets, like Dragons….
Websites: I’ve been tweaking and tinkering with three websites, all to my frustration when I inadvertently crash one by a bad combo of plug-ins and have to lose half a day by restoring a backup. Even while this is important for visibility and communication, working on the site doesn’t seem a “priority” like getting some content snippets out there. Or is it?
Graphics: I’m trying to get some art ready and scanned in for tiny glimpses into the worlds of Kharndam and other sites usually hidden in my head. As I’m not able to give you more than Stick-Figure-Kabuki, I can’t keep too busy with the art beyond writing art orders and looking at sketches. Ditto on the maps, though I can scribble those out and hope whomever I can contract later to make them pretty and useful can understand them.
The Usual Suspects: And, of course, there’s the usual time-slippage of “just checking something really quick on the Internet” and losing time I can’t afford; there’s also lots of research and planning and legal details to set up for the business or some such. So yeah, there are lots to do while the clock ticks away.
While all of that is very much work that needs doing, it’s not anything I want to talk about too much herein. Since I want to blog a lot more often and stay engaged with readers new and old, I need things to natter on about. I just don’t know what else to talk about, as much of what’ s occupying my brain now isn’t really for public consumption.
So rather than continue to chase my tail (or my learning-to-walk toddler), I’ll ask any and all readers:
What are you most interested in hearing about from me, as a writer, editor, or publisher?
Just leave comments and suggestions here, on the Wall, at LiveJournal (if you’re reading the mirror feed there), or on any other topics or posts on this site. Thanks, all of you who’ve stopped by and given this site a look; let’s talk about things that matter to you so we can get a more fluid discussion going here.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Today’s the day you’ll all want to head on over to Atomic Array and give a listen to podcast #55. It’s all about Gaming Paper Adventures, the latest release from the folks at Gaming Paper.
I’ve not had the time to sit and listen to the podcast, but Ed & Rone interviewed a whole mess of folks for the podcast, from Lou Agresta, Erik Bauer, Monte Cook, Brian Cortijo, Ed Greenwood, Christopher West, and little old me. I’ve no idea how they got that many people’s comments and such onto the podcast, so I’ll be finding some time this weekend to give it a listen.
If you’re a gamer, you’ll be very interested to see what we’re up to with GPA. Christopher, Louis, and Rone developed the maps and initial adventure for the Citadel of Pain; Ed, Monte, Brian, and I took those geomorphic maps and each went off in different directions with three independently developed adventures.
My adventure is an introductory adventure that sets up a number of mysteries and campaign plots for a group of PCs just starting out on the adventurer’s life. All they have to do is go into a corpse-filled military post, figure out if anyone’s alive, suss out what happened, and then return back to the village and tell the militia commander. That’s all….and to find out why it’s called “Keep Away from the Borderlands*,” you’ll just have to buy and read or play the adventure.
All I know is I’m blessed and honored to work with such a great group of very talented individuals at all levels. I hope you all enjoy what you listen to at Atomic Array and what you see when GPA hits the shelves later this year.
Take care, all, and hope everyone has a great weekend.
Steven
* In truth, in the concept stage, I’d jokingly called the module by that name to Erik and Stan! Brown, and they’ve never let me get rid of the joke for a better title. At least the adventure is my homage to my earliest gaming adventures back around 1982 or so, so the tone’s in keeping with modules contemporary with “Keep on the Borderlands.”
PS: Yeah, I’ll admit that “Village of Hommlet” is a closer inspiration of my adventure, and it’s one of my long-time favorites; did I mention above that Stan! and Erik wouldn’t let me drop the title?
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
I want more than just the supporters at Kickstarter to know how excited and thrilled I am that our Secrets, like Dragons… project is 18% funded in a week’s time! Profuse and hearty thank yous to our initial 26 backers for bringing us nearly 1/5 of the way to making the Secrets, like Dragons… book a reality!
I’ve just updated the funding page this morning with some new information and questions for people interested in the project. Please go give the updated Kickstarter page a read and either ask questions and comments there or come on back and tag them here as well.
Originally published at Kharndam.com. You can comment here or there.
I’ve just updated the Kickstarter funding page this morning with some new information and thanks to our first 26 supporters! Please go give it a read and either ask questions and comments there or come on back and tag them here as well.
Thanks again, all and every, who’ve taken the time to stop by and read this nascent-site-on-the-rise….
Steven
Originally published at Kharndam.com. You can comment here or there.
Welcome to a world of elements, secrets, sorceries, and swords! Welcome to the KHARNDAM™ world.
It’s a world devoid of elves, though it was not always so. The Star and Stone Wars attest to that, their ruins remaining millennia after the mutual destruction of the dwarves and their enemies.
But that’s old history and there’ll be more to talk about soon.
Our initial launch project can be found at Kickstarter.com or through this link!
Please say hi or leave us a comment or a question either here or at the kickstarter.com site, and we’ll try to answer as soon as we can.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
I didn’t think I’d be able to find a Kickstarter project that excited me as much as my own.
This one doesn’t (because, well, you know, I’d rather see my publishing house happen), but it’s still pretty nifty and fun and something I’ve got to keep an eye on.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1764
Dice-based geomorphic maps? What a great, great idea! Color me intrigued and I had to click around to see the other projects by Joe Wetzel.
Intriguing enough that I clicked onto his two linked sites and they’ll soon be among my links down the left-hand column. Good work, Joe and others, and I’m going to be exploring both of your sites a bit tomorrow, methinks. Any one else want to see the cool stuff they’ve got there?
http://inkwellideas.com/
http://www.dungeonographer.com/
Honestly, I’m not that much a gamer day-to-day any longer, but work in any industry for 20+ years and you’ll never get it out of your system. Thus, I love seeing things like this pop out and surprise me. It even makes me want to try and find some spare time to game regularly again, just to play with toys like these. (I foresee the necessary spare time reappearing on my calendar…oh, some time long after the End of the World according to the Mayan calendar….)
Good luck to Joe and his colleagues on this one; I’m hoping to see these dice at Gen Con, if I don’t find some money earlier with which to bid and get them via Kickstarter….
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
For those not among gamers, those terms mean next to nothing. To me, they’re a little bit red-flaggish, I’m afraid.
They’re short-hand for whether a gaming product is full of rules and game-specific material (be it an item, spell, race, or some thingummy for the rules system) or story and background material.
Crunch for “crunchy bits of game material.” Fluff for … well, no one ever answers that one.
And that’s my tempest in a teapot–”fluff” derogates (yes, derogative comes from a verb) anything that’s not linked directly to “game-usefulness” in the minds of many.
Silly me. I thought Game Masters already had the rules in hand and could get by with them. I thought what they didn’t have time to come up with was all the backstory and all the history and details and character interactions for their role-playing games. Thus, I always weighed heavily in my game designs toward adding history and layers of meaning behind the immediate details of what was on stage at the time. I figured people might like to know why there was a dungeon there or when a fabled artifact they might find in their adventure was lost, by whom, and the context.
Yes, I realize (as I was once a gamer just like they were) that there’s a lot of fun in expanding the game rules and all that. I’m not arguing that’s not a great and useful thing to have in your game supplements and adventures. I’m also not against adding continually to a system when it needs it and you’re not straining the same to its breaking point. (I’ll fully admit I was never the best at the numbers-game to balance game mechanics beyond the most gut-level way, so I was never one for introducing too many new spells, skills, classes, etc. into D&D while I worked at TSR or Wizards of the Coast.)
I just hate that the prhase has built this nonsensical straw-man-argument where people either want “crunch or fluff;” often, I’m finding that many who use the phrase do see non-rules-driven material as fluff, rather than real content.
Maybe that’s why I’m more on a path as a publisher and a fiction author, rather than staying within my comfort zone of the past 21 years as a game editor, developer, and designer.
For me, I’ll keep pushing for the “crunch vs. fluff” prhase to be “rules vs. story” if only because neither of the latter phrases assumes a derogative nature at the start of things.
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
Okay, guess I hadn’t expected such a blip in traffic to my site from my Kickstarter project.
Silly Steven. No doughnut for you.
Foolish of me to not have this in better shape for new viewers, really. Apologies for those folks who’ve stopped by and been disappointed by a lack of content. Not intentional–I’ve just been laid up without the energy or ability to get any new material up here. I had this site running fairly regularly through 2008 and 2009 but it’s gone fallow for a while.
By the time I got back to this, it was easier to crash and dump the old site than it was to root out the spambots et al that’d found it. Here’s hoping the new spam filters and all will allow me to keep this a better site.
So, for those of you who’ve just made it here, welcome. I’ll be adding more as I go, but I can’t guarantee it’ll go quickly. At present, I’m also building two other sites at the same time (business site and a world/IP site linked to that kickstarter project above); adding more and more to the world bibles for fellow authors (and I’ve already got more than 80 pages among the Kharndam World Bible and the Akanri Character/Group Bible); and, well, honestly, I’ve got a few other irons in the fires about which I can’t talk about right now. Suffice it to say that I’m kinda busy.
WIth that in mind, this site’s going to grow slowly but steadily. Expect this to be a central hub from which you can find news about what I’m up to in a number of different fictional worlds or our own. Whenever I’ve readied something new on another website, I’ll mention it here so no one misses out on anything they might find of interest.
If anyone has particular concerns, questions, or wants to influence me in my website(s) building, please say howdy in a comment. I’m toying with the WP-Symposium Plug-in, but I suspect that will work better with my plans for the kharndam.com site rather than here.
Now, maybe I’ve got enough time during my son’s nap to add more links to friends and fellow authors….
Hi, any and all! Just a very brief note to activate the blog/site and remind folks that I’m out here.
For those who’ve not been following me on Facebook or Twitter, the big news for me this week is my foray into publishing! Yup, finally adding a new notch to my creative cane by pulling together 4 other authors and a few artists in the hopes of producing a great fiction collection. Look here for more details, but come on back to this site (or others noted in the kickstarter updates) for more as the project grows.
Secrets, like Dragons… is the name of the project.
I’m amazed and happy that we’ve gotten some good support from the get-go, but we’ve a long road ahead before we can officially launch VIstag Media. No matter what, I’m happy to be a part of this and thankful for all the good wishes of many friends (and an official cloak from Wolfgang Baur, who says all who publish need a cloak).
More another evening, but wanted to revive steveneschend.com at long last (as well as my livejournal, to which this should be cross-posting). Be well, smile often, and remember we’re all in this together.
Steven
Originally published at Steven E. Schend. You can comment here or there.
littleelfhat the happiest of birthdays!- Current Mood: cheerful
In specifics this year,
I'm grateful and in awe of my supportive and loving wife for all she does.
I'm eternally thankful for a healthy, happy, and outrageously fun little son.
And I'm economically thankful we managed to sell our old home and buy a larger house in the crazy housing market as it is today.
Hope all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving have a great holiday; for the rest of you, have a great Thursday!
Oh, did I mention I'm thankful I'm neither working retail tomorrow nor am I joining the insane masses on the bacchanalia to the Gods of Consumerism tomorrow?
Steven
- Current Mood:
hungry
I'm tied up time-wise with three projects, raising my son, and just generally having a life (something I neglected to do for much of the 90's due to work).
Still, I want to restore an online presence, a blog, and keep working toward eventually starting my own small publishing house.
So, my quandary--I still have www.steveneschend.com, but due to weird circumstances, I'm locked out of it at the admin level and will thus crash it, rebuild it, and hopefully build a following therein (with posts coming here as well).
Still, I want to blog at times, so should I revive this as my main blogging site, start something new (and in line with the new branding and work I want to do), or try another affiliate site I've got like redroom.com?
Opinions? Comments? Crickets? Send 'em all my way...or at least lemme know if anyone's still listening out there.
Steven
I'm doing a short adventure for GAMING PAPER ADVENTURES available only via Kickstarter to those early patrons who sponsor the project.
Details are here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/187
Hope all of you take a look, whether you're gamers or not, as it's an interesting project from a writing and gaming perspective alike.
With some luck, I'll be revamping my website and blog and there'll be more activity here again.
Take care, be well, and I hope at least a few of you get as excited about GPA as those of us in the project are.
SES
Originally published at The Codex Continual. You can comment here or there.
Last year, my wife challenged me to mimic one of her habits. Thus, I kept track of nearly every book I read. I didn’t record or remember books I’d only read pieces of (for research), nor did I record anything I read for hobby and work purposes (like game books from Paizo). I didn’t bother to count those books I could not finish, like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen & Grahame Smythe-Jones; I’d have thought I was the perfect audience for that book, but the joke/conceit grew tiresome after 20 chapters or so and I had to put the book down.
</p>Still, I was shocked when I found just how many complete books I got through in one year: 193.
</p>32 Fiction (novels or collections or anthologies)
94 Graphic Novels (comic book collections or original graphic work)
67 Nonfiction books
</p>Alas, I ended 2009 with a number of books in the currently-reading-queue and they’ll be the start to my 2010 list: Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule Book 2)</em> by Mark Chadbourn; Toward 2012 (Perspectives on the Next Age)</em> by Daniel Pinchbeck & Various; Graphic Design for Non-Designers by Tony Sedon & Jane Waterhouse; The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith by CAS; and a random sundry of other graphic novels and short story collections and books on baby-rearing.
</p>I’m not going to bore folks with the full 2009 list, but random favorite reads of last year (not in any order of preference or standing, simply the order in which I read them) include:
</p>Fiction
Memory & Dream by Charles de Lint
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip Jose Farmer
Widdershins by Charles de Lint
Ravens in the Library: Magic in the Bard’s Name by SatyrPhil Brucato & Sandra Buskirk & various
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint
The Little Country by Charles de Lint
The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by John R. King
Gamer Fantastic by Martin Greenberg, Kerrie Hughes (ed)
Little, Big by John Crowley
Enemies & Allies by Kevin J. Anderson
The Annotated A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens & Michael Patrick Hearn
Wolf Moon by Charles de Lint
World’s End (Age of Misrule Book 1) by Mark Chadbourn
STAR TREK® A Singular Destiny by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Tapping the Dream Tree by Charles de Lint
</p>Graphic Fiction
Brave & the Bold (Vol 1) by Mark Waid & George Perez
JLA/AVENGERS by Kurt Busiek & George Perez
SUPERMAN and the LEGION OF SUPERHEROES by Geoff Johns & Gary Frank
DRESDEN FILES: Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher & Adrian Syaf
Jack Kirby’s THE DEMON by Jack Kirby with Mark Evanier
Astro City The Dark Age 1: Brothers & Other Strangers by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, & Alex Ross
Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936=1941 by Greg Sadowski, Jonathem Lethem, & Various
Booster Gold: 52 Pickup by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, & Dan Jurgens
ESSENTIAL DOCTOR STRANGE® Volume 4 by Roger Stern & Various
The Astounding WOLF-MAN™ Volume 1 by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard
Boris Karloff’s Tales of Mystery Volume One by Various
Freakangels: Volume One by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield
ETERNALS® To Slay a God by Charles & Daniel Knauf and Daniel Acuna
SPIDER-MAN 2099™ Volume 1 by Peter David & Various
Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak
Y: The Last Man The Deluxe Edition Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra
The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics by Art Spiegelman & Francoise Mouly
Solomon Kane: The Castle of the Devil by Scott Allie & Mario Guevara
Red by Warren Ellis & Cully Hammer
Sleeper: Season One by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
Light of Thy Countenance by Alan Moore, Felipe Massalera, & Anthony Johnston
Richard Stark’s PARKER—The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke
</p>Nonfiction
Algernon Blackwood by Mike Ashley
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman by Hank Wagner etc
A Universal History of the Destruction of Books From Ancient Sumer to Modern-Day Iraq by Fernando Baez
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff
Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman
The Printed Book in America by Joseph Blumenthal
Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe by John Evangelist Walsh
So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid
Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla/Biography of a Genius by Marc Seifer
Hitler’s Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life by Timothy W. Ryback
A World of Letters: Yale University Press 1908-2008 by Nicholas A. Basbanes
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the LEGION OF SUPERHEROES by Timothy Callahan & various
From a Writer’s Notebook by Van Wyck Brooks
The Well of Creativity by Michael Toms, Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg, Deena Metzger, Keith Jarrett, Isabel Allende, & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman [Audiobook]
The Book on the Bookshelf by Tom Petroski
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde by Thomas Wright
Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson
Stein on Wriitng by Sol Stein
American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau—Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Works by Susan Cheever
Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America by Christine Wicker
Haunting Museums by John Schuster (ed)
With Wings of Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda
Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy: 20 Dynamic Essays by the Field’s Top Professionals</em> by the Editors of Analog & Asimov’s Science Fiction
The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Rescued his Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits by Les Standiford
Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy Worlds of L. Frank Baum by Michael O’Riley
The Devil’s Details by Chuck Zerby
Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life by Michael Dirda
A Splendor of Letters by Nicholas Basbanes
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Alison Hoover Bartlett
The Business of Books by Andre Schiffrin
Every Book, Its Reader by Nicholas Basbanes
Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis
Secret Societies by John Lawrence Reynolds
Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Health Care Reform by Howard Dean
Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role-Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms by Ethan Gilsdorf
Dames, Dolls, & Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire by Jim Silke
Bringing Up Baby: The Modern Man’s Guide to Fatherhood by Sam Martin
Beyond The Occult by Colin Wilson
Bail Enforcer: The Advanced Bounty Hunter by Bob Burton
The Book of Dads by Ben George et al
Lapsing into a Comma: A Curmudgeon’s Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print—and How to Avoid Them by Bill Walsh
The Friendly Dickens by Norrie Epstein
The Body, Mind, Spirit Miscellany by Jane Alexander
The Babycenter.com Essential Guide to Your Baby’s First Year
Comic Books 101: The History, Methods, and Madness by Chris Ryall & Scott Tipton
The BATMAN® Vault by Bob Greenberger & Various
The Books in My Life by Colin Wilson
Skeptic’s Guide to Conspiracies by Monte Cook
</p> </p>
