Greetings loyal airman.  I want to discuss a subject that has been on my mind for several years now. And that is the issue of why it is Hispanic immigrants believe they should be treated any different than all the millions of ethnic immigrants from all over the world who came to America in the past?  When the French, the Irish, the Germans, the Russians..all of them came to this country, it was to leave their homeland behind and to become Americans.
Yet our Mexican immigrants come and demand it is we, Americans, who change our language to accomodate them.  Back in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt made a speech that is very topical to our times and this current issue.  It filled with old fashion, common sense.

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.  But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here.  Any man who says he is American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.  We have room for but one flag, teh American flagl…we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

A concise, intelligent and wonderful speech that welcomes all and at the same time defends what it is we all cherish so dearly, one America.  Not Hispanic-American, not French-American, not African-American.
One land, one people.  Teddy was a man ahead of his time.  Wish that we had that kind of no-nonsense leadership today.

The Spider.  Say that name to any true fan of pulp literature and watch their faces light up with a very special kind of glow.  It is safe to say no single character so embodied the essence of an entire genre than this creepy, fang-faced avenger with his blazing .45 automatics.   Arguably the three greatest heroes to emerge from the pulp era were Walter Gibson’s cloaked mystery man, the Shadow; Lester Dent’s world spanning adventurer, Doc Savage and Norvell Page’s psychotic vigilante, the Spider.  But it would the Spider who would quite literally, month after month, give weight to the term, “…the bloody pulps!”

Begun as a monthly from Popular Publications in 1933, he was invented by Harry Steeger to be competition to Street & Smith’s successful Shadow.    Steeger assigned writer R.T.M. Scott to this new series starring an uncostumed operator named Richard Wentworth who battled crime with the aid of his friends; the lovely Nita Van Sloan, his Hindu manservant Ram Sighn and his wartime associate, Ronald Jackson.   Had Scott remained on the magazine, it would most likely have never achieved the macabre glory it now lays claim to.  That particular, and unique, success was the result Norvell Page, who took over the series with its third issue and pulpdom would never be same again.

 Page brought to the character an entire new complexity that would propel him into bizarre and sensational plots no other sane hero would ever dare venture.   Under Page’s fevered imagination, the Spider became a true representative of the country’s poor and downtrodden, as he battled the most fiendish, outlandish villains this side of a Dick Tracy comic strip.  And the more over-the-top the stories became, the more lurid the covers were painted, the fans devoured it all.   Soon the Spider was not only equalling the Shadow in sales and popularity; he was at times exceeding them.  But less you think Richard Wentworth was a two-dimensional, gun crazy lunatic, there was a strength of honor and nobility that permeated his persona.  Wentworth knew he was often all that stood between a world of civility and utter chaos.  If he was a fanatic, it was because he loved his fellow man and was willing to sacrifice his life, and those of his aides, in his self-appointed crusade to battle villainy.

 There was only one Spider!

 Thus you can imagine my elation when Joe Gentile offered me the opportunity to write a brand new Spider adventure for Moonstone’s forthcoming anthology.  It was a joy colored by apprehension.  Hell, it was outright fear.  You see, Joe explained there would be twenty stories in this volume and each would be limited to 5,000 words.  I felt my stomach flip.  Only 5,000 measly little words…to tell a Spider story!  It was ludicrous!

The Spider was the battler of the bombastic!   His 60,000 word novels centered about crimes so horrible and world-shattering as to shock the imagination.  This was a character that fought only Herculean monsters!  How on earth could any of us do him justice in 5,000 words?  Could anyone actually write a small Spider yarn?   The more I wrestled with that idea, the more I was forced to examine all I of knew about this iconic pulp figure.  What was it that truly made Richard Wentworth tick?   Was it a dangerous junkie-type addiction to action and thrills?  Lots of people over the years have argued that Wentworth had a death-wish and expressed it in his alter-ego, laughing in the face of the grim-reaper, always taunting him with his daredevil exploits.

But there again there was that honor I referred to earlier.  There was no denying Wentworth was a man of deep passions.  A war hero, he loved his county, his city and the people who dwelled there.  He saw himself as their protector and it was a self-imposed duty he would never shirk.  So, I mused, how would he react to a crime ring that victimized the young and the innocent?  It wouldn’t matter one iota if this new cartel were an elaborate, sophisticated crime organization.  No, all that would matter, in his mind, was the cruelty and suffering inflicted on the victims. 

Thus was the kernel idea around which I began to weave a story I titled THE INVISIBLE GANG.   It is not your typical, over-the-top Spider thriller.  Oh, there’s action aplenty in its short 5,000 words.  There are gun-battles and villains vanquished, but in the end, it is about righting wrongs, even the little ones.  That was what I learned from this truly wonderful experience; for the Spider, the Master of Men, there are no small crimes.

Moonstone's new anthology, THE SPIDER CHRONICLES will be out soon.  It is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble on-line.  I hope you'll pick up and copy and check out my story and the other nineteen as well.   It's all good stuff.  Thanks.

And that wraps another week, airmen.  Ron, over and out.