KNOPF NOTES REVIEWS FELONY FISTS!

KNOPF NOTES REVIWS FELONY FISTS!

THX TO MYSTERY WRITER AND MEMBER OF THE ELITE HARDBOILED COLLECTIVE, CHRIS KNOPF, FOR THIS GREAT REVIEW OF FELONY FISTS POSTED OVER AT HIS KNOPF NOTES BLOG ...

Welcome to the new Fight Card series by a group of skillful hardboiled artists writing under the name Jack Tunney. In the episode “Felony Fists,” Paul Bishop presents Pat “Felony” Flynn, an orphan raised in the school of hard knocks.

Literally, fighting his way through childhood and the neighborhood, and then during WWII as a ferocious pug who liked nothing better than boxing above his weight. Now back stateside trying to adjust to civvie life, he’s a cop whose honor is more important than his life, and whose loyalty to a family-run boxing gym is more important than anything else.

The story is a period piece, with all the gritty reality that entails, though Flynn is a man who anyone – black, white, hooker or priest – wants to have by their side.

“Felony Fists” is a classic pulp novella that rings true both as an exemplar of the sub-genre (the tone is dead on, though never over-the-top cornball, as these things can go) and a look inside the surprisingly complex experience of big strong men doing everything they can to beat the crap out of each other. If you’re into either or both, it’s a very satisfying read.

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WHY PULP!

WHY PULP!

E-PUBLISHING GURU AARON PATTERSON LETS ME SPOUT OFF ABOUT NEW PULPS, OLD PULPS, AND WRITING FIGHT FICTION . . .

Far too much of today’s fiction output is bloated filler designed to turn books into 700 page doorstops under the false assumption more is better. If you’re like me, you don’t have the time or patience to plow through 700 pages to read a story better served in 300 pages – or less.

The writers who work on the pulp magazines from back in the day understood this. Their audience wanted stripped down yarn filled with action, twists and turns, all with the point of providing reader satisfaction.

Hero pulps from the ‘30s and ‘40s, such as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Avenger, pull major collector’s prices today. To a lesser extent so do the weird menace and aviation pulps. Western pulps can still be had for bargain prices as can many of the romance and sports pulps.

The best of the sports pulps, Fight Card Magazine, however, demands the same high collector’s prices as the popular hero pulps. The stories in Fight Card Magazine were a definite cut above the stories in the multitude of other sports pulps. The most collectible issue of Fight Stories Magazine contain two-fisted tales of Sailor Steve Costigan written by the creator of Conan, Robert E. Howard . . .

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IN THE RING WITH ALL PULP!

IN THE RING WITH ALL PULP!

I TALK SPORTS PULPS AND FIGHT CARD OVER AT ALL PULP . . . NEW PULP’S PREMIERE BLOG . . .

I’ve been a pulp fanatic for as long as I can remember, but not just for the hero pulps. The aviation pulps and the western pulps also caught my imagination along with the sports pulps . . . Wait? Sports pulps?

Yes! Sports pulps! While hero, adventure, weird menace, western, and aviation pulps are still hot collecting commodities, the sports pulps, like the romance pulps are mostly forgotten.

In my typical walking to the beat of a different drummer way, the sports pulps have become my passion. Street and Smiths Sport Story Magazine, Sports Novels, Fifteen Sports Stories, Dime Sports, and Thrilling Sports were among the best of the many sports pulps that proliferated between the late ‘20s and the mid ‘50s.

Baseball, track, and basketball strories dominated the early years of sports pulps. As football caught the American imagination, it too became a fertile source for the sports pulps. Horseracing, hockey, car racing also had their popular place in the sports pulps. Eventually, as the sports pulps proliferated, stories of almost any sporting contest – from log rolling to canoeing to powerboat racing – found their way between the pages. Even stories of soccer, rugby, and cricket can be found if one looks hard enough.

Pride of place in my collection of sports pulps, however, goes to Fight Stories Magazine. During the pulp era, boxing was even more popular than baseball both in the actual arena of sports and in the fictional creation of endless fisticuff dust-ups. There remains something elemental about one man pitted against another that continues to capture the imagination ... 

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ED GORMAN REVIEWS FELONY FISTS!

ED GORMAN REVIEWS FELONY FISTS!

THANKS TO ED GORMAN FOR REVIEWING FELONY FISTS AND GIVING TWO THUMBS UP TO ‘NEW PULP . . .

As someone who grew up in the Forties and Fifties boxing fiction was almost as familiar to me as detective stories and westerns. Hollywood especially loved boxing material. Some of the movies were extraordinary but most were lame and predictable.

When I read about Paul Bishop’s Felony Fists (under the name Jack Tunney) I wanted to read it because Paul is such a good writer and because he set his story in his hometown, Los Angeles in the historically interesting year of 1954 (Joe McCarthy, mob hearings in the Senate and Ike promising to end the Korean war one way or the other, including dropping the big bomb).

Felony Fists give us the era vividly and it also delivers a knock out story with the protagonist police officer (and amateur boxer) Patrick “Felony” Flynn.

If I had to categorize Felony Fists I’d call it New Pulp. Yes it’s fast paced, honors many pulp tropes and delivers everything pulp readers require but it’s much more realistic than Old Pulp. For one thing Paul Bishop knows boxing and it shows. He also gives headline names like Mickey Cohen real life.

This is a story that just won’t quit. I read it in two sittings and enjoyed every page. And all it cost me was $2.99. Next in the series is Mel Odom’s Cut Man.

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ROUGH EDGES REVIEWS THE CUTMAN!

ROUGH EDGES REVIEWS THE CUTMAN!

THANKS TO JAMES REASONER OVER AT HIS ROUGH EDGES BLOG FOR THE HIS REVIEW OF THE CUTMAN . . .

The Cutman, by Mel Odom writing as Jack Tunney, is the second installment of the new Fight Card series, and it's every bit as good as the debut novel, Paul Bishop's Felony Fists.

This one is narrated by Mickey Flynn, brother of Patrick Flynn, the hero of the first book. The Flynn brothers are orphans who grew up at St. Vincent's Orphanage (better known as Our Lady of the Glass Jaw) in Chicago, where they were taught to box by the priest Father Tim. Mickey travels the world as a sailor on the cargo ship Wide Bertha, and as The Cutman opens, the ship is docked at Havana, Cuba, where Mickey and his colorful friends among the crew quickly run afoul of gangsters who have moved in and taken over Havana in those pre-Castro days. The friction escalates until Mick finds himself in the ring battling a vicious boxer who works for one of the local mob kingpins, with the fate of his ship riding on the outcome.

That long, epic battle is a classic, and Mickey Flynn would be right at home next to some of the "iron man" characters who populate Robert E. Howard's boxing stories. There's plenty of local color and tough-guy action, and Odom keeps the story moving along at a great pace. The best thing about this novel, though, is Mick's voice, which is just about perfect.

Like Felony Fists, The Cutman is pure entertainment, and Fight Card is shaping up to be a great series. Highly recommended.

FISTICUFFS, PALOOKAS, AND NOIR!

FISTICUFFS, PALOOKAS, AND NOIR!

AT THE BIJOU'S HEAD USHER ABSOLUTELY KATE LEADS YOU TO YOUR PLUSH THEATER SEATS FOR A SCREENING OF PAUL BISHOP'S TAKE ON FISTICUFFS, PALOOKAS, AND NOIR . . . A LOOK AT BOXING MOVIES WITH A NOIR KAYO PUNCH . . .

Boxing and noir go together as smoothly as a one-two combination punch. The inherent qualities of both noir and boxing, desperation, bad choices, violence, tension, humanity stripped bare, combine for a marriage made in Hell.

We’re not talking the Rockys of the boxing world here. We’re not talking the life affirming, if you punch hard enough, sooner or later you’re gonna be a contender, kind of boxing stories. We’re talking about the down and dirty, punch drunk, cauliflower-eared, in bed with the mob, no hope fighters who populate such novels as Fat City (Leonard Gardner), Ringside Jezebel (Kate Nickerson), The Leather Pushers (H. C. Witwer), The Bruiser (Jim Tully), or Iron Man (W. R. Burnett).

There’s always the classic femme fatale involved in these tales – usually a high class socialite who gets her slumming hooks into the blue collar fighter and plays him for a sap. She’s usually responsible for pitting the palooka against the mob – you know, the bent-nosed guys looking to take over the fight racket by making the hero take a dive in the 4th round ...

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THE CUTMAN ~ 5* REVIEW!

THE CUTMAN ~ 5* REVIEW!

REVIEW FROM BILL CRIDER'S POP CULTURE MAGAZINE . . .

I read this one last night. The setting is great, and the first-person narration is right on the money. The final bout between Flynn and Simbari is classic stuff. The fate of the Wide Bertha is riding on the outcome. Great stuff in the pulp tradition . . .

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FIGHT CARD DEBUTS!

FIGHT CARD DEBUTS!

FIGHT CARD’S CO-CREATOR MEL ODOM TALKS ABOUT THE SERIES GENESIS . . .

When I was a kid, I had a soft spot for tough guys. I loved them in the movies, on television, and the guys I met in real life. Okay, maybe I still have a soft spot for them. That’s one of the reasons I loved all the Spenser books Robert B. Parker wrote.

A few years ago, I had a chance to write a boxing novella for an editor, something I’d always wanted to try. That one had a supernatural element to it, but the boxing was clean and the 1950s atmosphere was strong, at least in my opinion. I also loved the first-person voice I came up with for the character and I enjoyed sinking into the world.

At any rate, I released the short story on Kindle and it caught the attention of Paul Bishop, a career LAPD detective, who — like me — grew up on pulps, Gold Medal novels, and the idea of tough guys. We ended up talking about the story, about our mutual loves and wistfully wishing that someone still wrote stories like that. The more we talked, the more we realized we wanted to do that . . .

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ROUGH EDGES REVIEWS FELONY FISTS!

ROUGH EDGES REVIEWS FELONY FISTS!

THANKS TO JAMES REASONER OVER AT HIS ROUGH EDGES BLOG FOR THE FIRST REVIEW OF FELONY FISTS . . .

The eagerly-awaited Fight Card series makes its debut with the novel Felony Fists, written by Paul Bishop under the house-name Jack Tunney. Set in 1954, an era that really resonates with me, it's the story of Patrick "Felony" Flynn, a Los Angeles cop who's also an amateur boxer. Flynn gets a chance to combine those two parts of his life when he's offered a promotion to Detective that involves him taking down a fighter owned by gangster Mickey Cohen, thereby thwarting Cohen's attempt to take over the boxing game in LA.

As if that's not enough for Flynn to deal with, Bishop also includes counterfeiting, kidnapping, and a beautiful redheaded torch singer, as well as setting up the back-story for the rest of the series, which will be written by assorted top-notch hardboiled authors. He does a great job of capturing the time period with its swanky nightclubs, sweaty boxing gyms, and seedy back alleys. The story races along at a fine pace, culminating in an epic battle in the ring between Flynn and Cohen's fighter.

Boxing scenes are harder to write than you might think, but Bishop makes the action easy to follow for the reader, as well as skillfully mixing the fisticuffs with the hardboiled crime angle. I haven't read a lot of boxing fiction – Robert E. Howard's boxing stories are some of my favorites among his work, and the Battlin' Jack Murdock scenes in Daredevil #1 by Stan Lee and Bill Everett are still etched in my mind more than forty years later – but Bishop's efforts here are right up there with those yarns. Felony Fists is a great debut for what promises to be a highly entertaining series.

And next up is The Cutman, by Mel Odom writing as Jack Tunney.

FIGHT CARD!

FIGHT CARD!

THE NEW PULPTASTIC SERIES FIGHT CARD, CREATED BY MYSELF AND FELLOW WRITER MEL ODOM (UNDER THE PSEUDONYM JACK TUNNEY), IS INSPIRED BY THE FIGHT PULPS OF THE '30s AND '40s, SUCH AS FIGHT STORIES MAGAZINE AND THE SAILOR STEVE COSTIGAN TALES WRITTEN BY ROBERT E. HOWARD . . .

THE FIRST TWO BOOKS IN THE SERIES, FELONY FISTS (PAUL BISHOP) AND THE CUTMAN (MEL ODOM) ARE AVAILABLE NOW . . .

FIGHT CARD: FELONY FISTS

JACK TUNNEY

Los Angeles 1954

Patrick “Felony” Flynn has been fighting all his life. Learning the “sweet science” from Father Tim the fighting priest at St. Vincent’s, the Chicago orphanage where Pat and his older brother Mickey were raised, Pat has battled his way around the world – first with the Navy and now with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Legendary LAPD chief William Parker is on a rampage to clean up both the department and the city. His elite crew of detectives known as The Hat Squad is his blunt instrument – dedicated, honest, and fearless. Promotion from patrol to detective is Pat’s goal, but he also yearns to be one of the elite.

And his fists are going to give him the chance.

Gangster Mickey Cohen runs LA’s rackets, and murderous heavyweight Solomon King is Cohen’s key to taking over the fight game. Chief Parker wants wants Patrick “Felony” Flynn to stop him – a tall order for middleweight ship’s champion with no professional record.

Leading with his chin, and with his partner, LA’s first black detective Tombstone Jones, covering his back, Patrick Flynn and his Felony Fists are about to fight for his future, the future of the department, and the future of Los Angeles.

FIGHT CARD: THE CUTMAN

JACK TUNNEY

Havana, Cuba. 1954.

Mickey Flynn is an ex-Korean War vet turned merchant marine. He was born in the ghettos of Chicago and raised in an orphanage with his younger brother, Patrick. He was one of several young men who received an education from the nuns at St. Vincent’s.

But he was also taught the "sweet science" by Father Tim, a Golden Gloves boxer and retired police officer who only knew one way to bring a troubled boy to manhood. Father Tim worked with his young charges, taught them how to jab and punch and throw a hook that seemed to come out of nowhere. When the young men left St. Vincent's (Our Lady of the Glass Jaw), they were changed, fit and ready to take on the troubles the encountered around the world, no matter where they found them.

Now Mick's in Havana, working on WIDE BERTHA, his ship. After surviving a fierce storm at sea, the last thing Mick and the crew need to do is get crossways with the Italian organized crime flooding Havana, but it doesn't take much to put him in the cross hairs of a vengeful mob boss working for Lucky Luciano.

Unable to get free of bad luck and unfortunate circumstance, Mick ends up in the ring in an illegal boxing match fighting a human killing machine.

FIGHT PULPS: COVER CAVALCADE!

FIGHT PULPS: COVER CAVALCADE!

FIGHT FICTION: MANHATTAN NIGHTS!

FIGHT FICTION: MANHATTAN NIGHTS!

FAITH BALDWIN ~ 1937

A high society beauty falls in love with a boxer who crashed his way into her glittering world.
A society beauty falls in love with a boxer who crashed his way into her glittering world.

FIGHT COMICS: FLOAT AND STING!

FIGHT COMICS: FLOAT AND STING!

DAVIS WORTH MILLER

A GRAPHIC NOVEL BASED ON THE AUTHOR'S MEMOIR, THE TAO OF MUHAMMAD ALI . . .

Davis Miller is a puny, little mouse at Mount Tabor High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. At least that's what the other students call the 4' 7" senior. After years of being depressed, the sickly teen decides to take on an impossible dream. He decides to become a boxer. Then one day in 1975, Miller gets a chance to spar with Muhammad Ali, a bout that will change his life.

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JOE PALOOKA TURNS MMA FIGHTER!

JOE PALOOKA TURNS MMA FIGHTER!

Joe Palooka creator Joe Antonacci today announced the exciting news that MMA comic book fans have been waiting for: The comic series will finally make its world premiere with its first issue.

Beginning October 3rd, “Joe Palooka” issues #1 & #2 will become available for purchase for the first time anywhere. Fans can get their hands on the comic by clicking on the link below and hard copies of the issue will follow in early 2012.

The story for the series comes from Antonacci and Mike Bullock. The writers are Bullock and Matt Triano. Pencils and inks are done by Fernando Peniche, the coloring is done by Bob Pedroza, and the letters are done by Josh Aitken.

“It’s finally here…‘Joe Palooka’ is finally going to make its worldwide debut today!” exclaimed Antonacci. “I guarantee that fight fans, comic book fans, and action-adventure fans who download the comic are not going to be disappointed. The storylines, the characters, the art…it’s going to be awesome!”

Antonacci announced that a special 13-page FREE-VIEW will also be available Monday simply for signing up with an email address at:

http://www.Palooka.com/

And fans can also take advantage of a unique offer on “Joe Palooka” issues #1 and #2, which will be available together for the low price of only $1.99.

“Not only will fans get the chance to purchase ‘Joe Palooka’ for the first time, but they will also get the opportunity to check out a FREE-VIEW, and sign up for email updates and alerts. Fans, you aren’t going to want to miss this!”

The “Joe Palooka” comic series tells the story of Joe Palooka, an MMA fighter who competes in “Legion of Combat,” which is a sister comic publication. “Legion of Combat” will feature Joe Palooka and top MMA stars including “Suga” Rashad Evans, Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, the Blackzilians, Brendan Schaub, and the Miller brothers in team matches between fighters representing countries such as the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Russia, Japan, China, and other nations.

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FIGHT FILMS: WARRIOR!

FIGHT FILMS: WARRIOR!

An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father, a recovered alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for a mixed martial arts tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path towards the title prize, his brother, Brendan, a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family.

Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father. But when Brendan's unlikely rise as an underdog sets him on a collision course with Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront the forces that tore them apart, all the while waging the most intense, winner-takes-all battle of their lives.

FIGHT FICTION: SUCKERPUNCH!

FIGHT FICTION: SUCKERPUNCH!

JEREMY BROWN

MIXED MARTIAL ARTS FICTION . . . I STILL PREFER BOXING, BUT I CAME TO APPRECIATE MMA FIGHTING AFTER SEEING THE RECENT FEATUR FILM WARRIOR AND THEN READING SAM SHERIDAN'S NON-FICTION WORK HEART OF A FIGHTER . . .

No head butts, groin strikes, eye gouges, or fishhooks. He’d go along with it, but heavyweight mixed martial artist Aaron “Woodshed” Wallace thinks they’re taking all the fun out of fighting.

Stuck on no-name cards for tiny organizations, Woody is trying to put his shady past behind him with help from his trainer and mentor, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Gil Hobbes. When Banzai Eddie Takanori—president of MMA’s largest organization, Warrior Inc.—offers Woody a short-notice fight against a highly favored poster boy, Woody sees his shot at salvation. By the time Woody figures out he’s just a pawn in a high-stakes game between psychopaths, he’s in way too deep.

Good thing he knows how to take a punch.

And give a few back . . .

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FIGHT COMICS: CURLEY KAYOE!

FIGHT COMICS: BIG BEN BOLT!