During the heyday of the pulps, the three best selling hero magazines were; The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Spider. The Spider was a blatant attempt to compete against the highly popular Shadow. Still the publishers were smart enough to make their character different from the other. They did so by making him scarier, meaner and just plain bloodier in his death dealing. Polo-playing Richard Wentworth lives by one credo, “the only good gangster is a dead gangster.” And he never had any problems dispatching dozens of them in each and every one of his many adventures.
Aided and abetted by his sweetheart, socialite Nita Van Sloan, his impressive Indian Sikh manservant, Ram Singh and his tough-as-nails chauffeur, Ron Jackson, he blazed his way across pulpdom.

His adventures were credited to one Grant Stockbridge. That was a house pen-name for such stalwarth wordsmiths as Norvell Page, Emil C.Tepperman, Wayne Rogers and countless others.

Earlier this week I was invited to write a Spider story for a new anthology being produced by Moonstone Comics under the editorship of Joe Gentile. Last year, exploring the prose market, Moonstone put out a Kolchak the Nightstalker anthology that sold through the roof and won them a Bram Stoker award nomination for best new horror anthology. It didn’t take Joe very long to realize there is a real audience for these old fashion, purple prose tales of wonder.

I’m very excited about this project and actually got butterflies in the pit of my stomach when I learned who else will be contributing to the book. Heading a very stellar list, is the famous historical novelist, John Jakes. Also on board is Warner Bros. Animation guru, Bruce Timm, plus popular writers like Robert Weinberg, Chuck Dixon and my own amigos, Chris Mills and Martin Powell. Like I said, it’s a stellar cast. Stay tuned. I’ll let you know more as it develops.

Off course, life does seem to balance out and shortly after getting this good news, I received a terribly sad notice that a local comic book personality in our area had passed away at the young age of 41. Hector Diaz owned and operated a comic shop in nearby Portsmouth, NH. I’d known Hector for over twenty years,when he first moved into the area and one night, out of the blue, called and asked if he could come over and meet me. He was an artist wanting to get into the comics game and was hoping I could give him some mentoring on that career choice. Valerie and I were immediately taken with his personable enthusiam and over the years our friendship grew. Then we drifted out of touch as Hector went on to make his dreams a reality. About ten years ago I learned he’d opened JUMPGATE, the comic shop I mentioned. I made a point of driving up to see him and congradulate him. He was the same Hector, full of bubbly fun and engergy. Sadly, according to his obituary, he lost a four year battle with cancer. He leaves behind his loving wife, Sharon, and two sons. I’m still in shock by his passing. It’s a cautionary warning to me that we have to live every day to the fullest as there are no guarantees in this life as to how long any of us will be here. Rest in peace, old friend. You won’t be forgotten.

Finally, Valerie flies home tomorrow. Yahoo.
You see, airmen, every year she spends the entire month of January in Ft.Collins, CO, with our son, Alan and his family. It helps her get through the winter, which are brutal here in New England. We miss each other deeply, but it has helped her cope with these long lasting winters and that’s what counts. Whereas asbsence certainly makes the heart grow fonder..and how. And tomorrow she’s home. I hope your weekend will be just as happy as mine is going be.

Until next week, over and out, Ron.