My exclusive interrogation of Tommy Hancock, high-end pulp pusher and head of the Pro Se Productions pulp cartel, continues...
Was it a sudden epiphany leading you to start Pro Se, or was it a deliberately planned conspiracy to make the world a better place through pulp?
Actually, the whole thing was more about me hearing opportunity knock with the right password. In my time in juvenile court, I ended up working with an attorney who, in similar and different ways, had the same interest I did in creating great stuff people would enjoy and maybe making a little money from the effort.
The attorney, Fuller Bumpers by name -- yes, yes, it's a real name -- had been a writer in Hollywood and an actor. He had worked with everyone from Judge Judy to Robert DeNiro, but had returned to Arkansas to hang out a shingle and raise a family. Still interested in being creative, Fuller had established Pro Se Productions and was looking for a specific focus. I came on board as we got to know each other, first moving in the direction of original audio drama. We produced a few things, ranging from public domain boys' adventure stuff from the early 20th Century to our own original ideas. But about the same time, I found myself published in the New Pulp world for the first time.
Derrick Ferguson, one of my best friends thanks to the wonders of technology, and one of the tops in New Pulp writing, pointed out there was a company taking submissions for pulp short stories written by modern types. This led me to Ron Fortier and Rob Davis at Airship 27 Productions. At the time the company was -- and still is -- making a huge mark on what we now call New Pulp. I wrote Ron and Rob a Virgil Earp story for an anthology. It was published, and the writer's die was cast for me.
Being an inquisitive investigator -- okay, nosy -- I began looking into publishing as a possible direction for Pro Se. I quickly found myself knee deep in the growing corner of genre fiction we called New Pulp. What I found had wonderful possibilities -- if the right people came together in just the right way and had the patience to work at a singular goal for years, there could be something great for all involved.
Readers who never knew they enjoyed the sort of stuff many of us want to write would discover New Pulp. Authors who would never see the light of day via traditional publishing houses, and who should have seen the light of many days would get published. Even already well-established writers who wanted to cut loose and write descriptive, over-the-top pulp could have a place to do it. I took all of those inspirations, rolled it around in the rather discombobulated mass in my head I refer to as a brain, and laid it all out for Fuller -- resulting in the concept of Pro Se Productions being born in 2010.
What was your initial vision/goal for Pro Se and how has it grown into the insidious pulp empire it is today?
Insidious? Now, I'm not so sure... well, okay, maybe...
The initial vision for Pro Se is still the path we're beating today. Without going into minutia, Pro Se is built on three five-year plans, with a short prologue phase.
The prologue phase began in 2010, when Pro Se first entered the New Pulp field with a line of magazines -- Masked Gun Mystery, Peculiar Adventures, and Fantasy and Fear. All three were very much styled after classic pulp magazines. Using that model, we built a decent stable of writers interested in continuing to work for Pro Se. We made connections while continuing to research and explore the direction Pro Se needed to go in order to become something special.
In 2011, we began publishing novels and anthologies as we kicked off our first five-year plan, which takes us to the end of next year. This phase continued our initial intent of building a great catalog filled with writers from New York Times bestsellers to brand new writers who readers just had to experience.
In achieving this early goal, we've also helped define New Pulp more clearly, but also opened up was previously a niche interest to hordes of new fans and possibilities. Embracing the fact New Pulp and genre fiction are terms related to the sort of literature people want to write and read has gone a