Worlds Apart Review

Amazon user ChickJ gave the book 5 stars and titled his review “Pulp and comics crossover done by a master.” Here’s his full review:

“A wonderful cross of comics and pulp. Lazarus Gray is my second favorite character in Reese’s world. But my favorite character did kinda show up as Lady Peregrine. Set in the 40’s, the battle between two evil villains and 6 heroines and one hero seems to be a little lopsided but lots of fun. (Scantily-covered females always interest us guys.) I notice this was written in 2017, it seems this was when Barry Reese was hitting all the right notes. (I have to go get Nightveil: The Quiet Girls. He really made me want to read it.)”

Glad you enjoyed the book! If you liked this one, definitely seek out The Quiet Girls as I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written.

The Pulp Super-Fan Tackles Lazarus Gray Volume Ten

Michael Brown, aka the Pulp Super-Fan, has posted a review of the latest Lazarus Gray volume. Here’s what he had to say:

Just before the end of 2021, we got a new Lazarus Gray book, The Adventures of Lazarus Gray, Vol. 10, from Barry Reese. I was expecting to see this some time ago, as Reese has already written through 13, so I hope we’ll see the rest more quickly.

“The Adventures of Lazarus Gray, Vol. 10″Lazarus Gray is a New Pulp character from Reese (The Peregrine, Gravedigger, and other characters and works). Gray is sort of inspired by the classic pulp hero The Avenger, and has a group of associates organized as “Assistance Unlimited.”

Gray is located in a fictional town called Sovereign City (created by Pro Se Press publisher Tommy Hancock), and thus is part of the larger Sovereign City Project. He is also set in the same universe as Barry’s other characters, so has crossed over with them.

In addition to the current members of Assistance Unlimited — Morgan Stanley, Eun Jiwon, Samantha Grace, Abigail Cross, and Black Terror — we will see some new additions to the group in this one. This time, we get two stories with some additional folks, some of whom have appeared in prior volumes.

First up, we get a short story, “Satan’s Lair,” that does not contain Gray, but introduces a new group, The Heroes! Most of the group have appeared before. The Black Terror (the classic comic book character introduced previously, though with a slightly different origin) meets the group in New York. The rest of the group is The Fighting Yank (another classic comic book character who previously appeared), The Golden Amazon (a classic British character who was previously introduced, but with a slightly changed origin), and Olga Mesmer, who called them together.

Olga Mesmer is a classic pulp heroine. But she appeared in short comic stories (probably three to four pages each) that ran in Spicy Mystery Stories in 1937-38 before being replaced by Vera Ray. As I’ve never read any of her stories, I wish someone would reprint them! But know she is “The Girl With the X-Ray Eyes.” We are told her origin, but I don’t know how much is what was in the original stories. If the “Sally the Sleuth” stories are any indication, the originals were probably a bit bareboned in regards to character development.

Anyway, in this story, the group comes together for the first time to fight against Doctor Satan and his new female assistant. This will be the first of several appearances by this new group, which will be connected to Assistance Unlimited via The Black Terror.

The rest of the volume is taken up by the much longer “Lazarus at War,” which is set just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the men injured there is given powers by the goddess Eris, and sent to cause chaos, taking the name Phasma. He plans on doing so by finding the four parts that makes up a mystical device. And Lazarus and his associates works to find them when they get a hint of this. At the same time, Lazarus tries to get his group involved in helping the U.S. government, which leads them in joining up with a shadowy agency. Added to that, a villain tied to Abigail decides to make his move against Assistance Unlimited.

As things move to a conclusion, along the way Babylon (a new character created by Reese who appeared in another book I’ve reviewed) assists as do members of the Heroes to help Lazarus and Assistance Unlimited put an end to the schemes to create chaos in Sovereign City. How will some of these events affect future stories, especially when the secrets of Lazarus and his friends are revealed?

I hope we get the next volume soon (as I noted that Reese has written up through volume 13) rather than wait a whole year. In addition, if you check his timeline, you see references to a few other works that aren’t out. But a new one, The Sword of Hel has been released. I hope the others will appear soon and that we’ll also see more new stories with Assistance Unlimited set in the 1960s.

Thanks, Michael! You’ve been a great supporter of my work over the years and I’m always curious to see what you think of the new volumes. Volume 11 should be out very soon!

Sunday Thoughts

Early reactions to Worlds Apart, the crossover novel between the heroes of the Femforce comics and my Reese Unlimited imprint, have been positive — and I heard from Sean Ali, the formatting genius who’s working on the 11th volume of Lazarus Gray. He said that he was genuinely shocked and thrilled by the ending to that book. Volume twelve has to do a lot of work explaining and dealing with what happens at the end of eleven… but Mike Hintze, who edited that one, said that he was impressed with how I resolved it all. Fingers crossed that everyone else agrees.

I’m working away on the first short story in the third Straw-Man book. This one brings in my modern-day updating of the American Crusader. She might stick around as a supporting character. We’ll see.

Our art today is by George Sellas and features The Peregrine making an emergency exit.

Worlds Apart!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EPIC CROSSOVER ACTION! NIGHTVEIL AND LAZARUS GRAY! BARRY REESE’S ‘WORLDS APART’ DEBUTS!

The heroes of two universes come together to face a threat to all reality! For the first time ever, AC Comics and Pro Se Productions’ author imprint Reese Unlimited cross over in Barry Reese’s WORLDS APART! Now available in print and digital formats and starring AC Comics’ Nightveil and Reese Unlimited’s New Pulp heroes Lazarus Gray and Gravedigger!

Nightveil, Femforce’s mistress of magic, is brought together with Assistance Unlimited’s founder, Lazarus Gray, to investigate an alliance between two of their greatest foes! And no universe may survive!

With guest appearances by a host of other heroes, this tour de force by award-winning author Barry Reese is a genre-breaking classic in the making! From Pro Se Productions, Reese Unlimited, and AC Comics!

Featuring an excellent cover by George Sellas and print formatting and logo design by Sean E. Ali, WORLDS APART is available for 7.99 via Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/mw94n2h7.

Formatted by lo Iaocono, this epic crossover is available as an ebook for only 99 cents for a limited time from Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/bdfmb5wv. Kindle Unlimited members can read for free!

Barry Reese’s THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY and THE ADVENTURES OF GRAVEDIGGER are available on Amazon from Pro Se Productions.

Nightveil leads the adventures in THE QUIET GIRLS by Barry Reese and CRISIS AT THE CROSSROADS OF INFINITY by Bobby Nash, both available on Amazon from Pro Se Productions and AC Comics.

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.
To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to http://www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at Pro Se Productions.

Anticipation!

Everyone at the Reese Unlimited HQ is waiting on pins and needles — WORLDS APART, the crossover novel featuring characters from my pulp adventure universe and the heroes from AC Comics’ Femforce series, is expected go live at any moment. Currently the Kindle version has been approved by Amazon but we’re still waiting on the physical copy to do the same. Can’t wait to share the cover here, which features Lazarus Gray, Gravedigger, and Nightveil! It’s a fantastic image by our old pal, George Sellas.

Stay tuned, true believers.

Back to Grove’s Folly

I’ve returned to Grove’s Folly, the setting for the Straw-Man series. Volume three will continue the same approach that I took with the first two books, at least in terms of it being a collection of six short stories. I’m also going to be continuing to put a concerted effort into creating new concepts and characters. Volume three will see a modern-day updating of the old American Crusader character, a story focusing on the ghostly Ephemera and several more. I’ve tried to play the entire series as a horror superhero title, in the vein of the the Wein/Wrightson Swamp Thing or Marvel’s Ghost Rider and I think it works pretty well. Sometimes it veers a little bit further into heroics and other times it’s mostly horror but overall it’s a blend.

Hopefully I’ll have some news about upcoming releases soon. Keep watching this space!

Completed!

Finished The Adventures of Lazarus Gray Volume 14 last night – I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. Not sure when it will make its way to press since volumes 11-13 are still in the pipeline at the publisher. This volume features a new member joining Assistance Unlimited while an older member and a supporting cast member are both killed off. It’s a bloody affair!

Up next… I don’t know yet. I might want to do another Straw-Man book since I have a couple of new characters that I think could make excellent additions to his universe. Or I might do something completely different. This is the best and worst time as a writer — the possibilities!

I’ll do my usual thing of taking a couple of days off and then I’ll dive back into writing something.

Our art today is by George Perez and features Marvel’s Moon Knight. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming Disney+ series.

Nearing the End

I’m approaching the end of Lazarus Gray Volume 14. It’s been a fun experience — as some of you know, this will be the second time I’ve written Volume 14. Originally, I wrote an entire novel that dealt with elements from Music From the Elder by KISS and the notion that there is a ‘lost’ play by Shakespeare that drives people insane when they see it performed.

Yeah. It was… interesting.

I wasn’t completely happy with that book so I turned around and started all over. The only thing I kept from the original version of 14 was the character of Randolph Winthrop. Lazarus Gray’s uncle will remain an integral part of the story, though the plot is now completely different.

Sorry, KISS fans, I’ve scratched the character of Mr. Blackwell.

So now I have an abandoned Lazarus Gray novel that definitely exists in an alternate timeline since its adds a character to the cast that the new version doesn’t and one of the folks who dies in the new one survives in the original. Maybe one day after I’m gone somebody will publish this thing.

Monster Aces Review

Over on the British Fantasy Society website, David Brzeski posted a detailed review of Monster Aces, an anthology that I contributed a story to. Here is his review:

Jim Beard (‘Sgt. Janus, Spirit Breaker’, ‘Captain Action: Riddle of the Glowing Men’) is the brains behind the concept, so it was always going to be pulpy fun.

He contributed two of the stories in the book himself. The first introduces us to his team of “Monster Ace”, led by the enigmatic ‘Cap’n’, they include: ‘Joker’, the charming smooth talker of the group, so essential for smoothing their relationship with civilians; ‘Digger’, the powerful gentle giant of a man, who strangely also happens to be their stealth expert and ‘Gats’, the weapons expert. If any monster claimed to be immune to mortal weaponry, well Gats was there to put that theory to the test. They travelled and more or less lived on a massive sea vessel called ‘The Whale’, which was piloted by a man known only as ‘Mariner’. Then there’s ‘Trill’, unofficial member of the team. Enigmatic and pretty, almost ethereal in nature. Appearing and disappearing with no warning, she could be a nuisance but was often of immeasurable help. In fact she often as not was responsible for leading the team to wherever they were needed.

They hunted monsters and destroyed them. It was their sole raison d’etre. Cap’n was single-minded in this mission and no monster was looked upon with any sympathy… ever! This could and would lend a certain moral ambiguity to their mission.

In Jim Beard’s first story, ‘The Devil’s Clutch’, the people of the village of Nacht are being hunted. There’s an ancient legend, fearful, uncooperative villagers, a good soul damned and someone who delves into secrets that should have remained buried. It sets the tone for the series, somewhere between 30s pulp fiction and 60s Hammer movies.

Next up is ‘The Swamp People’, by Barry Reese (‘The Peregrine’, ‘The Adventures of Lazarus Gray’). It involves an innocent teenage girl, her typically stupid boyfriend, a carnival and an ancient race of ‘monsters’, who have been driven to extinction by the spread of humankind. The moral ambiguity of the Aces work is brought into sharper focus in this one.

The next story reminded me somewhat of the classic alien monster stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the pre-superhero tales of Marvel-Atlas comics. In, ‘The River of Deceit’, by Van Allen Plexico, our intrepid monster hunters encounter a weird and powerful Alien being on the shores of an uncharted tributary of the Amazon. As the story progresses the question of just who is the monster here is brought into sharp focus once again.

We stay in Kirby territory for Ron Fortier’s ‘The Ghoul’. He has our heroes arrive in an armoured vehicle to take on a Ghoul, which in this world is a demon, who possesses a human victim. When the demon comes forth the hapless host transforms into an eight foot tall rampaging monster with greyish skin. It reminded me of those classic Marvel, or DC war comics, with their squads of misfit soldiers, in this case taking on a creature reminiscent of a certain Marvel Comics monster who has occasionally been portrayed with grey skin. Thankfully, for the Aces, this monster wasn’t quite THAT strong! I’ve read quite a few publications from Ron Fortier’s own Airship 27 productions, but this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure to read any of his own writing. It won’t be the last.

Finally we come to Jim Beard’s second story in the book, ‘Hands of the Monster’, in which the Aces kidnap a famous fictional doctor to help them deal with probably the most infamous monster of them all. It was never going to go according to plan.

There have been many monster hunters in fiction in the past. In fact there are quite a few around now, but these guys are more hardcore than most. They all get seriously injured on a regular basis. I would suggest that the Cap’n look into adding a regular medic to the support team.

This is a very enjoyable book. I look forward to learning more about the Aces in future volumes.

Thanks for the great review! I had fun with the Monster Aces and if Jim ever wanted to invite me back for another go-round, I’d be more than willing. Time will tell!

The Batman Mini-Review

The Batman is not only the best Batman movie I’ve ever seen, it’s one of my favorite superhero movies ever. From the first minutes I knew that this was a film with a vision. I loved the colors, the rainy Gotham, the ferocity of the Batman mixed with actual detective work… Pattinson was fantastic as Batman/Bruce and I really, really like the realization that the character had that vengeance alone is not what is needed to save Gotham. He has to inspire, as well. Great character arc.

The Gordon and Catwoman characters were awesome and I never thought the Riddler could be terrifying but he was.

Yes, it’s a long film but I can’t think of what I’d have wanted to cut. In fact, it was so good that despite the fact that my bladder assured me that I couldn’t have handled it, I would have been fine with ANOTHER hour of this movie!

I really want to go see it again!