Once upon a time, the shelves were bulging with big, loud adventure. Larger than life heroes. HUGE adventure and massive imagination. These were the days of pulp literature, and they were days of big fun. Also once upon a time, the world of comic books was populated with the same, bright, imaginative heroes battling vile villains. The Silver Age of comic books was for many the very BEST time in comic books.

So what if you merged the two, bringing to the shelves a book of pulp prose adventure stories done in the spirit of those classic comic books by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and others? That's just what WildCat Books has done with Super Heroic Tales, a 100-page dose of action adventure conceived by author Wayne Skiver, with character artwork by Keith Howell and five short stories by Skiver, Scott Cranford and Ron Hanna, and book design by William Carney. Also included are comic-style "Fact Files" of colorful characters like Blitzkrieg, Hell Hammer and Mister Liberty. 

recently had a chance to sit down with Keith Howell, who drew the character designs and illustrated the book. He filled us in on what lies at the heart of Super Heroic Tales. 

: So Keith, thanks for taking the time out to sit down for this. 

KEITH HOWELL: Actually, I should be thanking you for taking the time to do this. 

: My pleasure entirely. So this Super Heroic Tales, it's NOT a comic book, it's an illustrated book about superheroes, in the tradition of the pulps, right? 

HOWELL: Yeah.  We're "bridging the gap" and bringing those who love pulps and those who love comics together for one giant party! 

: Sounds like the kind of idea born from those fun, geeky (in a good way) "wouldn't it be cool if?" talks. 

HOWELL: Exactly.  The publisher, Wild Cat Books, has carved a nice little niche in the market (along with Moonstone) as a publisher absolutely committed to keeping the pulps alive.  They keep some of those great pulp adventurers in print that have lapsed in public domain.  But most importantly, they continue to introduce new mysteries, adventures, and heroes all in the same vein as the classic Doc Savage, Avenger, the Shadow, and many others. 

: It's pretty clear reading the introductions, especially those by yourself and writer Wayne Skiver, that there is a great fondness for those pulp adventures. Is it that mutual love for the material that brought you guys together in the first place? 

HOWELL: Yes.  It's really bizarre how similar Wayne and I are in our sensibilities regarding comics and super-heroes in general.  I immediately caught the classic "Marvel" spirit of the world in which Wayne's characters live.  And it's not just us.  Wayne is already fielding requests from other writers who want to get in on this action.  I think we've touched a nerve out there that even we didn't realize was there. 

: That's fantastic. Now, to clarify for our readers, Wayne created a universe of adventure heroes, and you created the designs for these characters. Is that correct? 

HOWELL: That's pretty much it. Wayne provided me a couple of sketches he'd done for some characters, but mainly he's given me carte blanche. As an artist, Wayne is a GREAT writer. He's been so positive in his reaction to my designs, because we're right there together in our super-hero sensibilities, that I've actually had to make very little changes from initial design to final. In fact, most of them are basically unchanged. The closest we came to a disagreement was my design on Blitzkrieg, our resident speedster. Wayne was a bit perplexed when my design came back with Blitz wearing what was apparently short pants. But I had a logical justification for it and Wayne bought into my reasoning ... and by god, Blitzkrieg has bare legs! (Laughs.) 

: Hah! Looking at the characters, it's immediately clear what you guys are going for. The cover of Super Heroic Tales could have been a comic cover from 1944. Was this your intent? 

HOWELL: Pretty much.  Though I would put it a bit later than 1944.  I sketched around with a more static and classic posed cover (think Alex Ross's oversized JLA Secret Origins book), but I thought ..... BOOORRRRINNNGG.  I wanted something that reminded me of those great Marvel comics in the 70s that just zinged off the comic book rack screaming, "Buy Me!  Buy ME!" 

: Is that an era for comics - not to mention adventure novels - that is especially close to your heart? 

HOWELL: Sure.  That's the time period where I first really got into comics and, around the mid-70s, discovered things like the Doc Savage reprints, The Avenger reprints, the James Bond novels. Even discovered Ray Bradbury's work.  That sort of stuff. Pure sci-fi/adventure/fun. 

: Tell me a bit about your process when it came to illustrating this book. Looking through the galleries on your website, you dabble in a wide-ranging number of styles. You've got cartoonish work, science fiction art, "serious" photo realistic art, and much more. In this case the group of guys on Super Heroic Tales  were looking for something pretty specific. How did you go about capturing the vibe you needed? 

HOWELL: Well, there actually was some thought that I put into it.  While the book is a collection of stories about costumed super-heroes, I designed them just as I would for a comic book.  But I made some choices about styling that means buyers of the book will be exposed to two different styles of art.  For the prose stories themselves, I chose to work in full graphite (that's pencil for those of you in Rio Linda).  This was to more properly evoke that old pulp feel to the art and to differentiate it from the black-lined rendering of a comic book. 

However, for the fact files, which is our backup section for the book in the style of the old Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, I chose to go ahead and do the art in an inked comic-book style as befits the handbook look.  I also worked up head shots of the characters in ink, reminiscent of the old sidebar on the Avengers comic book covers where each character's heads floated around in there. I did those mainly to help decorate the back cover of the book, but our book designer, the talented Bill Carney, took those headshots and worked them into the book beautifully.  The cover, of course, was done first in pencil and then scanned into Photoshop, where I painted the color in layers on top of the pencils. 

For the story illustrations, I also took into account the tone of each individual story in deciding how to approach the illustration.  So, for example, in the Olympian story, which was a comedy, you'll see that the piece I did for that story is light-hearted and funny.  On the other hand, Hell Hammer was more of an intense occultic suspense thriller, and you'll see that my piece reflects the seriousness of the subject matter. 

: Having already worked in so many styles had to have helped you be flexible where you needed to be. What sort of input did the writers give you as far as what you were depicting? Or did they just say, "Have at it!" and let you do what you thought best? 

HOWELL: "Have at it!" is pretty close. These guys are writers. And they all seemed just thrilled to see what I might do with their story. 

: Though this is primarily a work of prose, the Fact Files are VERY comic book in nature, as you noted. Was there ever any talk of doing some of these stories in the comic form? 

HOWELL: Yes.  Wayne and I have talked about that.  Right now, Volume 2 is already well underway and Volume 3 has some work started on it.  And Wayne has expressed a desire to do at least one of the stories as a paneled comic book story.  If sales on these volumes justify it, it's not outside of the realm of possibility for Wild Cat Books to try their hand at a comic, or graphic novel-type book.  

: Obviously you had a chance to read these stories before almost anyone. So as a reader, not the fellow bringing the visual side of these stories to life, how did you enjoy reading Super Heroic Tales? 

HOWELL: I thoroughly enjoyed all five stories.  The Olympian story made me laugh and I passed it along to my 12- year-old son to read.  Mister Liberty flashed me back to my early days reading Captain America.  Space Hawk had a whole different feel to it, being outer space-based, was great fun and even expanded Wayne's universe to include somebody familiar with Edgar Rice Burroughs' space pulps.  Blitzkrieg was the hardest for me to pull a scene from because it spans a large time period (he is a legacy hero), but also because the conflict involving a speedster is always a toughie.  But, the writer Scott Cranford, came up with a nice challenge for a character who should be able to do just about anything.  My favorite of the bunch, though, has to be the Hell Hammer story.  The visual of a hero with a horned skull for a head is just too much to pass up.  But beyond that, I think the story was dense, intense, and featured great characters who interacted with each other quite well. 

: That sounds awesome. Lots of fun! At the moment people can preview and order it from Lulu.com. Do you have more outlets in the works? Will folks be able to surf over to Amazon? 

HOWELL: One of these days, very very soon, this book will be exploding across the Internet on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and more.  As a small press, it takes a bit for them to get us up online, but we wanted to make the book available to everyone as soon as we had it done, so those who can't wait can hit the Wild Cat storefront on Lulu.  We're working to try and get this book onto the shelves of the brick and mortar stores, and customer requests for it are the BEST to accomplish that. And brother, if comic book stores will order the book and really push it, especially on their more classic-minded clientèle, I think they will be very happy with the reaction.  And hey!  If the book/comic stores are within driving distance from Austin, Texas, I'm always willing to make the drive for a signing party if they think that will help them sell the book.  I have such faith in the book, I'm willing to do whatever I can to get people to buy it.  I'm that sure they will enjoy.  I've been in contact with a middle-school librarian, too, who was thrilled to find out about the book.  Seems she can't keep graphic novels on the shelves right now but the teachers are always trying to encourage their students toward more prose reading.  She thinks this book is a great way to appeal to the middle-schoolers but also appease the teachers.  So, your question is whether we have more outlets?  Yep.  And I'm looking to open up as many more as we can. 

: Fantastic. No question there is a void in the market where stuff like this used to be. You've got to figure getting some good old-fashioned adventure out there will be a good thing. 

HOWELL: Man I hope so.  If the buzz from other writers out there we've been contacted by is any indication, then we may be on the crest of a new wave in adventure. 

: Best of luck to you guys. It looks to be a load of fun. Keith, thanks a million for taking the time out for this. 

HOWELL: Thank you! 

You can purchase Super Heroic Tales at Lulu.com. For more about Keith Howell, visit his website:  http://profchallenger.com/default.aspx.