All posts by ERTorre

E. R. Torre is a writer/artist whose first major work, the mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe, was optioned for motion picture production by Platinum Studios (Men In Black, Cowboys vs. Aliens). At DC Comics, his work appeared in role-playing game books and the 9-11 Tribute book. This later piece was eventually displayed, along with others from the 9-11 tribute books, at The Library of Congress. More recently he released Shadows at Dawn (a collection of short stories), Haze (a murder mystery novel with supernatural elements), and Cold Hemispheres (a mystery novel set in the world of The Dark Fringe). He is currently hard at work on his latest science fiction/suspense series, Corrosive Knights, which features the novels Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, a 12/5/18 update… and… Whew!

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there have been a dearth of updates/blog entries as of late ’round these parts.  Usually, I’m looking around and offering my 0.02 cents about many (too many!?) things.

Well, the reason I’ve been rather quiet is because not only did I finish up writing Legacy of the Argus, the seventh and concluding novel in the Corrosive Knights series, I’ve contracted ebooklaunch.com to re-do the covers for books #2-6 of the series along with doing the cover to Legacy.

But hiring them was just the first step.  Being something of an artist myself (cough), I’d work on rough versions of the covers as I was hiring them and sending those roughs out to them to use as the basis for the covers they came up with.  Then, when I’d get their versions of the covers, most of the time we’d go through a few “drafts” before hitting on the “right” cover to use.  To be fair, though, there was at least one cover, that of Nox, which they hit at the first go and I didn’t feel any more work needed to be done.

And while doing all that, I was preparing the paperback versions of the books, which meant going back to the original book files (not an easy task…I had to make sure I had the right files!), making sure I fixed any glitches (grammatical or spelling) that I was aware of in the earlier drafts and taking care of them.

Right now, I finished going over all the books but the first so that when I get the paperback cover files in the next few days, I’ll send both the new covers and revised/corrected novels in to Amazon.  While I can’t promise you ALL the grammatical/spelling glitches were found and taken care of, I’ve done my level best to go through these books and give it my best shot.

As for the first book in the series, Mechanic, given how long ago I wrote it, I’m going to spend a little more time on it.  In the next few days I’ll read through the entire book and see how it works while fixing any problems -if any- I may encounter within it.

No, I won’t pull a “George Lucas” and reinvent/rewrite the book.  Her story will remain as it is, but I figured given its age I needed to do a more thorough read-through and make sure everything within is smooth.  I figure in all the years between making that book and Legacy of the Argus, I’ve become (hopefully!) a slightly better author and am capable of smoothing out any rough edges while strictly adhering to that novel’s story.

Truthfully, I don’t anticipate any major changes!

So, for now, that’s what’s left on my creative “plate” for what’s left of this year.  It’s been a wild 10 or so years of writing the Corrosive Knights books and now that the main story is done, I want to make sure that in 2019 they’re cleaned and polished just right.

Onward!

General

John Allen Chau…

Is the name familiar to you?

If you’ve been following the news …well, the news outside of whatever latest lunacy Donald Trump’s been involved in… John Allen Chau is the Christian missionary who earlier this month went to a remote Indian island with the intent of converting an isolated tribe there to Christianity.

He was killed by the remote islanders, who are isolated and have had no outside contact with “civilization” and thus know nothing about Christianity or current events and, no doubt, came to view Mr. Chau as a threat to themselves.

Over on Slate.com I found this fascinating article by Ruth Graham titled…

Martyr of Dickhead?  Why missionary John Allen Chau’s death on a remote Indian is so unsettling to Christians

Christian missionaries entering potential “hostile” territories is nothing new.  Part of their mission (they are “missionaries”!) is to convert people to the Christian cause, and no doubt Mr. Chau viewed his outreach as trying to spread the word of God to those who needed it.

The article is most fascinating in the early paragraphs, where the author offers the following history:

In January 1956, five young American missionaries decided to make contact with a small tribe of natives in eastern Ecuador, with the purpose of converting them to Christianity. Instead, just a few days after their first direct contact with the group, they were speared to death on a secluded beach. News of the missionaries’ deaths spread quickly in the United States. Life magazine devoted a 10-page spread to the story of “five devout men who sought to bring the word of God to a fierce tribe of Stone Age savages.” The reverence for the missionaries went even deeper in Christian circles, where believers saw the men as martyrs killed for their faith.

Back in 1956, the author goes on to note, the killing of these missionaries was viewed as a repugnant act by a “savage” people.

Today, as you can tell by the link/title of the article presented above, society’s views of missionaries has changed.  While Christians no doubt view Mr. Chau’s death with sympathy and outrage, clearly there is a large segment of people out there that view his actions as the height of hubris/arrogance.

In other words, he got what was coming to him.

Now, I view his death as a tragedy.  Then again, I feel anyone with a sliver of a pulse should view the death of any young person by such violence as a tragedy.

But another part of me completely agrees that he was a well-intentioned but supremely arrogant man who walked into a very dangerous situation and -surprise, surprise- met his end because of that arrogance.

I can’t help but think of the longer history, though, well beyond 1956 and the way Christianity in general has spread throughout the world.  The Crusades, for instance.  The initial forays into the “New World” and the way the Native Americans in South and Central America were treated and at times violently forced to convert.  Hell, our own U.S. history and the way we’ve treated Indians.

What fascinates me the most about this article is that it shows a societal/world view certain shift in perspective.  The “civilized world” no longer automatically sides with the zealous missionary and his holy crusade.

We have developed the capacity, maybe several hundred years too late, to realize that our world view shouldn’t be imposed upon others, that a rarity like the remote tribe in that Indian island should be allowed to live their lives in peace, as they have for generations, and we have no right to impose upon them.

A fascinating shift, for sure.

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights… Ghost of the Argus!!!!

The fine folks at ebooklaunch.com have been re-doing/doing the covers to Books #2-7 of the Corrosive Knights series and, IMHO, have been doing a terrific job at it.

They saved the best for last:

…swoon…

What a freaking lovely cover!  I’ve uploaded it to Amazon and it should show up very soon for the Kindle edition of the book (you will find it here).  The paperback with this new cover will arrive soon, along with the paperback versions of all the new covers for the various books.

Now, to update the covers:

And, finally, the promo page I will use for all the covers (to date anyway!) of the Corrosive Knights novels:

I’m just beside myself with happiness! 😉

Oh, and just so we’re clear: I intend to keep the original cover to Mechanic (Book #1) as is.  Yeah, it no longer fits with the other covers but, of the covers I personally created, I’ve always liked that one the most and plan to keep it.

At least for now!

Music

Megadeth’s Killing Is My Business… And Business is Good 2018 Remaster

All right, so I’ve dealt with the remastered editions of some VERY big heavy hitting talent in recent days, first David Bowie with his Loving The Alien boxed set, which includes a pretty good re-do of what many consider his career worst album, Never Let Me Down, and more recently the beautifully remastered The Beatles, aka The White Album.  You can read about the Bowie remaster here and The Beatles here.

Remastering albums is certainly not a new thing, and at times it has been met with anger.  In recent years, however, it seems like newer remasters have been better.  Certainly in the case of the Bowie and The Beatles albums, it was for the best.

Megadeth, one of the pioneer thrash/heavy metal groups fronted by one-time Metallica member Dave Mustaine, released their first album in 1985.  Titled Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good, it was a more than decent first effort with some really fun songs (I loved the very profane remake of These Boots).  The sound, however, was quite muddled and, when I heard Mr. Mustaine was remixing the album back in 2004, I was hopeful that the muddled sounds would be alleviated.

Alas, the end result was not very good.  Worse, the original authors of These Boots were apparently quite offended with Mr. Mustaine’s… uh… reinterpretation and new lyrics of the song and would not allow it to be re-released as it was.  So, in a very silly move, the remixed version of 2004 featured the song with “bleeps” to negate the offending lyrics.

Fast forward to (and unknown to me until yesterday) June of this year and a new re-mix of Killing Is My Business was released.

I have to say, Killing Is My Business is a terrific improvement over the original 1985 release and most certainly much better than Mustaine’s 2004 remix.

Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good - The Final Kill [Explicit]

If you like that album, getting this remaster is a no-brainer.

As for These Boots… it appears we’ll never again see the release of the original Megadeth version of the song.  However, this time around they wisely nixed the whole “bleeped” version of the song and, instead, remastered the music and had Dave Mustaine simply sing the song with its original lyrics.

Yeah, it isn’t quite as darkly funny as the original version and, yeah, Dave Mustaine’s voice is clearly more worn down than it was on the original album (decades of concerts and singing will certainly do that to you… check out Bruce Springsteen’s voice in some of his earliest albums versus while currently on tour).

So, if you’re into 1980’s era speed/thrash metal, checking out the most recent remix of Killing Is My Business is a no-brainer.

Books/Literature

…sigh… (Corrosive Knights)

Apropos of nothing… and at the risk of puffing my own chest, I was staring at the computer and noted…

So I decided…

Yep, its the entire run of the Corrosive Knights series (my own copies) laid out on the floor just so I could admire ’em.  Note the many little stickers I’ve put into various books.  This was done to keep track of certain characters/scenes.  Also note the covers to Books #2 (The Last Flight of the Argus) through #6 (Foundry of the Gods) have the “old” covers.

For now, if you order the books through Amazon (you can check ’em out here), you will get them with these original covers and as shown in the photograph.  Very soon, though, these books will be upgraded to the new covers I’ve shown off before (just scroll down a few posts… you can’t miss ’em!).

If you look closely at the cover to Legacy of the Argus (the last book in the series, #7), you’ll see a gray band on the upper half of the book and over “The Argus” on the title.  It is a “Not for Resale” statement.  The copy I have of the book was a “preview” copy I ordered so I could see how the novel looks and then determine if it can be formally made available via Amazon.  I have made it available although, for now, Amazon hasn’t linked the Kindle (digital) copy with the Paperback.  I assume that will happen soon enough.  UPDATE:  It’s happened.  When you click on The Legacy of the Argus via Amazon, you’ll have the option of getting the Kindle/Digital copy or the paperback.

One final picture (hey, humor me here, I feel so proud of all this work!)…

Music

The Beatles, a (right on time!) review

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On November 22, 1968 The Beatles released an untitled  double album which, over time, came to be known as “The White Album”.

The album, IMHO, is incredible and, in retrospect, one can view it as something of a line in the sand.  There’s the stuff that came before and, sadly, this album was pointing toward what was to come, ie The Beatles’ eventual breakup.

The album features a mind-bogglingly number of great songs in so many different genres that one can’t help but admire the group’s ability to stretch their boundaries.  There are rock songs, there are ditties.  There are songs that seem to fall into country, there are songs that fall squarely into a avant guard.  There are fragments of songs, there are songs that seem almost like children’s compositions.  There are hard rockers and even what can be called a proto-metal composition.

There’s an incredible amount of music of all different types and what’s the most amazing thing is that when one listens to the album, it feels like there’s a flow to the compositions, a logic that only a band with as much talent as The Beatles could dare to try… and, incredibly and perhaps improbably, succeed.  For the most part, anyway.

There are those who feel there’s a superb single album buried in this double album, and even I have some songs I don’t care that much for. Still, how can you knock something that ambitious and successful?

When I heard Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin who was the original producer of almost all of The Beatles’ albums, was doing to The White Album what he did to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, i.e. doing an intricate remastering, I was so there.

What Mr. Martin did with Sgt. Pepper’s was revelatory.  He made an already superb (IMHO!) album sound even better, and managed to make two songs in particular I didn’t care as much for on the album shine like they never did before.

This past weekend I finally got my hands on the “Super Deluxe” edition of The White Album’s re-release.

Starting with the original album itself, I have to once again give Mr. Martin an incredible amount of credit.  The songs sound extraordinary, and he’s managed to make some compositions I didn’t care all that much for suddenly light up.  He’s brought the instruments out and made the voices clearer and… jeeze, its like you’re there in the studio, listening to the lads as they play the material for you.  There is an intimacy and clarity you didn’t realize the album needed to make it even better than it already was (and, if I haven’t made it clear already, I felt the album as it was was pretty damn great to begin with).

And the bonuses… oh my.

First up are the so-called Esher Demos.  After finishing their trip to India, The Beatles got together at George Harrison’s house and essentially created rough demos of the majority of the songs that eventually made their way to The White Album.  Here then you have those demos and they’re wonderful to hear in their embryonic, and sometimes quite close to finalized, form.  You also have some songs that didn’t make the cut -at least not at that point- which are fascinating to hear as well for a total of 27 songs.

Following that you have another FIFTY alternate/early takes of the various songs which eventually made it to The White Album along with a few that did not, including early versions of Hey Jude, Across The Universe, and Let It Be!

Incredibly fun stuff to hear and it again makes you realize that this band, when it came to music, was on a whole ‘nother level when it came to releasing original compositions.

The price for the Super Deluxe edition of The White Album ain’t cheap.  The CD release will set you back about $140 and I can’t even begin to guess how much the vinyl version is.  There is a cheaper CD version (I saw it at Target on sale for around $25) which includes the full album plus the Esher Demos.  It does not include the other bonus material, including all the other takes of the songs plus those I mentioned above.

So if you’re anything at all like me, you either get the whole thing or nothing at all.  If you don’t feel you need the wealth of other demos/alternate takes, then you may be fine getting the smaller package.

Either way, this is a hell of a gift to music lovers and The Beatles lovers in particular.

A very, VERY easy recommendation.

*****

I’ve found some interesting lists online regarding ranking the songs on The White Album from best to worst.  Here’s one list, found on Ultimateclassicrock.com and written by Michael Gallucci, where he offers…

Beatles White Album songs ranked from worst to best

A second ranked list can be found on stereogum.com and was written by Chris DeVille…

Beatles White Album songs ranked from worst to best

I find such lists fascinating, and I do have to offer my 0.02 cents.

Worst song on the album?  It may be Wild Honey Pie for me.  Or perhaps Revolution #9, John Lennon’s trip into the avant guard.  However, listening to these songs now, in this freshly remastered version, has quite literally opened my ears and even these works feel fresh and interesting to me.

Best?

George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps is terrific, as are Lennon compositions like Dear Prudence and Julia.  Much as I like the single version of Revolution, the slower, bluesier Revolution #1 is quite terrific as well.  Paul McCartney was also on a roll, bringing some great rockers like Birthday, Back in the U.S.S.R. (a hilarious parody of Beach Boys-type “Americana” music), and, especially, Helter Skelter, easily the “hardest” music The Beatles ever made and arguably one of the earliest “heavy metal” tunes.

All of it is damn good stuff!

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, a 11/21/18 update – Foundry of the Gods!

New cover for Foundry of the Gods, Book #6 in the Corrosive Knights series…

So, an update on the series as a whole, with the new covers put in place…

Next up is a remake of the cover to Book #5, Ghost of the Argus.  After that, I’m done.  I like the cover to Mechanic (Book #1) and will likely keep it as is.  I may, in some future date, change my mind, but for now I’m happy with it!

Soon enough, all these covers will be available in the paperback editions!

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, a 11/15/18 update… Legacy of the Argus!

BAM!!!!

Legacy of the Argus, the concluding chapter to the Corrosive Knights series, was made available, via Amazon Kindle, yesterday, November the 14th.  The paperback will be made available as soon as possible, perhaps by next week.

I’m incredibly proud of the book and the series and hope those who have enjoyed previous books give it a try.

And now, finally, I get to update the graphic of the series…

Whew…!

Legacy of the Argus ties up all the various strands in the Corrosive Knights series and answers any lingering questions.

As for Book #8, I’ll be getting to it as soon as I finish up all the remaining work that needs to be done with Legacy of the Argus, ie getting the listings correct and getting the paperback ready for sale.

I repeat: Whew!

😉

Movies

Chato’s Land (1972) a (ridiculously) belated review

Back when I was very young and growing up in the early 1970’s, there were certain posters which presented what would become iconic images and were found almost everywhere.  One of them was Rachel Welch in the film One Million Years B.C.…

Boys like me loved that image, but I recall another poster that was found in/around that time, this one (I suppose!) being more eye candy for the ladies in the form of a very well toned Charles Bronson from the 1972 film Chato’s Land…

This image served as the inspiration to the famous poster…

Chato’s Land was on one of the Starz! channels the other day and I happened to catch it from the very near beginning.  I recalled seeing the film a number of years ago but remembered not all that much about it.  I did recall liking it well enough, even if I didn’t feel it was one of Mr. Bronson’s best works.

So I sat back and watched it and was fascinated by what I saw.

The film starts with Bronson’s Chato going to a small town’s bar and being confronted by the racist ramblings/provocations of the town sheriff.  Chato, you see, is half-Apache and in this era and time the “white folks” don’t much like seeing Apache Indians in their establishments.

The sheriff eggs on Chato, insulting him and trying to make him act.  Eventually, and despite Chato warning him not to, the sheriff draws his gun but Chato is a faster draw and guns the man down.

Chato leaves town as word spreads that an Apache gunned down not only a “white man”, but the town’s sheriff!

We are then introduced to Jack Palance’s Captain Whitmore, a veteran of the Civil War originally on the side of the Confederacy.  He is a well respected and seemingly noble veteran and, with the Sheriff gone, it is up to him to get together a posse and hunt down Chato.  He pulls out his old war costume and builds up his posse.  Right from the get-go, however, the viewer realizes that the crew is a motley one.  There are some who are decent individuals while others are clearly hot-heads or worse.

The group heads out of town in search of Chato and things eventually go sideways as Chato proves a far more elusive, and deadly, prey.

Watching Chato’s Land today, I found myself fascinated by the story it presented.  It’s a simple one, essentially a long chase by horseback of the character of Chato and the simultaneous degradation of a group of what were friends.

Chato himself is presented as almost more myth than a “real” person and Charles Bronson is given very little dialogue throughout.  He is always a step ahead of the posse, except in one sequence involving his wife where the posse comes upon his home and the more vulgar members of the group violently rape her.

This sequence, which to some degree makes little sense (why did Chato decide to lose track of the posse?  Did he not fear they might track him to his home?), is nonetheless important in the film’s story as it exposes the ugliness of a mob and shows that Jack Palance’s noble character has one HUGE flaw: He is a coward.  He, and a friend of his in the posse, knows what’s going on is not right yet he does not act.  He is unwilling to stand up for what is right and force his by now mostly out of control mob to stop.

What Chato’s Land presents, essentially, is the tale of how a few rotten apples in a group -and the lack of courage on the part of those who should know better to speak up- damns an entire group to failure and, in the case of this film, death.

And in some ways, it made me think of current political events.

I’ll say no more about that, though given the movie’s original release date of 1972, whatever symbolism was originally presented likely had more to do with the events in Vietnam.

In the end, Chato’s Land delivers a deeper story than one would think and manages to rise a  bit above its more “typical” western/pulp/revenge roots.  While it may not be a lost “classic”, I found it worth revisiting.

Recommended.

Comic Books/Graphic Novels

Stan Lee (1922 – 2018)

Sad word reached the news today of the passing of Stan Lee at the age of 95.

Mr. Lee is, of course, known as the guiding force behind Marvel Comics and was listed as the co-creator of many of the biggest, best known heroes published through the company, including the likes of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Hulk, etc. etc.

Apart from being involved in some truly wonderful comics released from the early 1960’s, what made Mr. Lee so unique was that he became a full throated cheerleader and face of the company, something which didn’t really exist in comics before that time.  He created a sense of down to earth friendship between reader and creators and seemed to “talk” to readers and wink at them while barking/hyping the latest works.

This served him very well as Marvel Comics went from another so-so company to the biggest selling comic book company under his stewardship.  When the Marvel movies started to take off, he continued to be the face of the company by making amusing cameos in the many Marvel based films, often providing jokey lines and humorous bits.

His career, however, was not without some controversy.  As amiable as Mr. Lee appeared in public, the fact of the matter is that two of his principle cohorts, Jack Kirby (who co-created most of Marvel’s characters, including The Fantastic Four) and Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, among others) both had a falling out with Mr. Lee in the later half of the 1960’s and left the company.

It was reported they were both unhappy with not only the rates they were getting for their artwork but also with the credit Mr. Lee gave himself for the books they worked on with him.  I know this might be very “inside baseball”, but Mr. Lee developed a method of “writing” comic books where he would get together with the artist and provide a light sketch of a comic’s plot.  The artist would then essentially create the entire book and Mr. Lee (or whomever was listed as the writer of the book) would come in afterwards and provide dialogue.  Amusingly, there were times when the dialogue didn’t fit what you were seeing on the page, though this didn’t happen all that often.

But the point is this: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko felt they were doing more than “just” drawing their respective books; that they were writing AND drawing them only to have Mr. Lee come in afterwards and dialogue them and then take the sole credit for being the book’s “writer”.  To be fair, Marvel eventually offered more credit to books made by both Kirby and Ditko, but by that point the bad feelings were obviously overwhelming and the two left the company they helped make so very successful.

Still, Marvel succeeded and without Stan Lee would likely not have become the juggernaut it became.  Whether he came up with more or less of the stories than were attributed to him, his dialogue and descriptions presented on many a page were both playful and exciting and, in the editorial/mail pages, he could sell a book like no other.

Truly there hasn’t been anyone in this industry remotely like him.

He will be missed.