The Visitor

 This week I received a cryptic message from a new visitor to our site,  one Steverounc Steverounc
 I can’t be sure, but my hunch is this message is from the same person who messed with the 2016 presidential elections.  His message of hope and conciliation is as follows:

“Hi, I've been visiting your website a few times and decided to give you some positive feedback because I find it very useful. Well done. I was wondering if you as someone with experience of creating a useful website could help me out with my new site by giving some feedback about what I could improve? You can find my site by searching for "c*&^*^ monkey" in Google. I would appreciate if you could check it out quickly and tell me what you think. c&^%#monkey.com Thank you for help and I wish you a great week!”

His nefarious purpose is clear. Not only does he demand all of us to visit his online casino but, just like in the last presidential election, he is attempting to overthrow my contest for an autographed copy of “Son of Ravage.”

Do you damnedest, Steverounc Steverounc or whatever your hacking handle is at the moment. jplinde.com and the friends at Weebly will remain vigilant.
​
And now, this week’s blog:

Villains wore black and spoke with distinct fascist-tinged accents. The heroes were true-blue, red-blooded Americans, and possessed neither fear nor vice. These adventurers had distinct names, meant to strike fear in the hearts of evil-doers around the world. Names like, The Shadow, The Avenger, The Black Bat, and others. Danger was around every corner and on every page. It was an era of the dime novel and the daring exploits of Rock Ravage and his amazing crew of adventurers.
 
To say, I love fantastic stories found in the pulp novels of the thirties is a bit of an understatement. I came to these unique tales late in life, introduced by a college friend who shared a sensibility as well as my sense of humor. I devoured as many of these paperbacks as I could find, as addicted to the colorful covers as I was to the words inside. This, my friends, is how “Son of Ravage” came to be.

Like most books, Son of Ravage did not come into this world easily. In the eighties, its incarnation was a screenplay titled, “Comic Book Heroes. Some of the core characters even existed in the unproduced version but the plot never really got off the ground and the project was abandoned. 

An extremely overwritten first draft of the novel had been finished years ago, and it was only through much trial and effort that the final version eventually manifested itself. I wanted the work to have a distinct feel, each chapter resembling the over-the-top serials of the 40s.  In essence, I wanted to take an entire book series of pulp adventures and cram them into a single volume. Easier said than done.

I also wanted to infuse the novel with a 1980’s vibe, complete with a distinct voice and sense of humor. The work does border on satire but hopefully is much more than that. If I did it right, the humor is both situational and borne out of the distinct characters. The constant bickering of the vain actor Face and the exuberant hulking man-child known as Beast quickly became my favorite scenes to write. Creating a constant feuding that felt familiar to pulp and comic fans became a fun challenge. Doc and Brain proved to be a bit more challenging, and it was a quite teh task not to have the two archetypes blend together. Lisa Wittman, an early supporter of the project, was extremely helpful in insisting that the two have own distinct style.

The cast of colleagues are all based on real-life personalities. Close friends that I have known for a long time. However, as close as their physical description is to real life, their motivations and personal histories still remain complete fiction. On a humorous note; one of these real-life personalities, the friend who is the basis of character Doc, recently read a draft. His only comment was that Brain seemed to get more page time.

Any careful reader will note immediately that historical events do not always coincide with the actual year and date. I humbly ask for forgiveness whenever history does not match the the decade. If you have any sense of history at all, you will soon know what I mean. 

I hope you have a better understanding of why this book is so important to me. It represents an attempt, feeble as it may be, to recreate a very special time. National and world events being what they are, maybe it is time for more heroes like Barry Levitt. I, for one, hope so. It has been a long journey from imagination to page, but I have enjoyed every single step of it. I hope you get a kick out of it as well.

Okay, well that’s it for this week. As usual, tell all your friends about our little virtual home away from home. And most of all, to visitor, Steverounc Steverounc. As God is my witness, you, sir, will never win an autographed copy of my book