Compliments of the Domino Lady

I was only passing familiar with the Domino Lady until a couple of years back. That's when pulpmaster Ron Fortier asked me if I might be interested in writing a story about her for an anthology he was compiling. A pulp heroine who originally appeared in a mere handful of stories, Domino Lady's mystique (and, perhaps, physique) has saved her from being lost to the ages. Because Ron is an old friend and a terrific pulp writer and everything about the project sounded cool, I jumped on board. I did my research, and penned a 15,000 word novella, "The Devil, You Know." Aftwerward, as is not uncommon with live projects, the Domino Lady book began to evolve. For awhile it seemed like the book might even be on the ropes, but thanks to Ron's tireless efforts to keep it alive, it landed at Moonstone Books, where the scope of the anthology grew beyond it's original plan. A very satisfying twist, indeed.

Moonstone is arguably the finest publisher of new pulp fiction and comics working today. They've published a lengthy list of comics and prose anthologies featuring the Phantom, the Spider, Zorro, Kolchak, the Night Stalker, and many other classic characters. And they've done it with style and respect for the origins of those characters. Editor Lori Gentile quickly took the Domino Lady up a notch, expanded the scope of the project, lined up pulp-style illustrations and some more contributors, and brought everything to completion for what may be the best pulp anthology I've yet been published in.

My story appears there alongside the work of my friends and terrific writers, Ron Fortier, CJ Henderson, and Martin Powell, as well as comics great, Chuck Dixon. I've read a lot of Chuck Dixon comics over the years; he's one of the industry's sharpest writers and its reigning master of action and adventure stories. Mr. Dixon's run on Batman and Detective Comics is one of my favorite eras for the Dark Knight, and that's only scratching the surface of his body of work. So, it's extremely cool to share pages with him.

So, my thanks to Ron for bringing me into the fold on this book, and to Joe Gentile and Lori G. at Moonstone for seeing the potential in Domino Lady and for being so great to work with through editing and production.

For more info on the book, Moonstone has the full details and Jazma Online has an interview with me done during production.

As for the Domino Lady, aka Ellen Patrick, she's a wealthy socialite whose father was murdered when he tried to clean up corruption in the local government. Ellen, donning a trademark, black-and-white outfit and domino mask, sets out to strike back at the rich, powerful, and evil, by stealing their wealth and exposing their crimes, carrying on her father's work in spirit if not in practice. So, of course, in my story, she gets wrapped up with a group of powerful Satanists who hold places of power in the state government, and much mayhem and danger ensues.