E-Book A Go Go

If you’re curious about Jaye Manus’ design for the Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats e-books, then here’s a taste.

Vanessa Lopa

If you haven't checked out the campaign site yet, maybe the lovely Vanessa Lopa can change your mind? She's shown here in a stunning photograph provided courtesty of JRMadrasto Photography.

For more va va va voom, choose the Faster, Hellcat! Donation level:

 http://igg.me/at/hoods

While you're at, give Vanessa and JR a like and a share!

© 2013 John Reuben Madrasto. All rights reserved.

Campaign A Go Go

The Indiegogo campaign for Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats is live! Pay it a visit for no other reason than to assuage your curiousity about what my voice sounds like.

The Skinny

Hoods, Hot Rods, And Hellcats is an anthology of original crime fiction set in Postwar America, the era that gave birth to our consumer driven culture. For the emergent superpower, a good consumer was a patriot. Dollars bought "happiness" and undermined the diabolical Red menace. Even more than that, a good consumer was a homogenized suburbanite—making Draper's job cake.

However, for the men and women changed by the war, accepting the lockstep didn’t come easy—if at all. If you throw in the "teen-ager" and a bunch of hillbillies singing rock'n'roll, you've got trouble...

"...the world of Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats is a dirty cocktail of fact, fable, fears, and fantasies. The 1950s are recreated one more time but here it's with a savage, razor-honed edge you'll never find in Grease, Happy Days, or American Graffitti." —From the Introduction

There's murder and robbery, shootouts and knife fights, car chases and drag races, good girls and bad girls, and a lot of troubled men. Hoods opens with a brilliant introduction from counterculture icon Mick Farren, then busts you in the mush with eight lengthy tales from Eric Beetner, Chad Eagleton, Matthew Funk, Christopher Grant, Heath Lowrance, David James Keaton, Nik Korpon, and Thomas Pluck.

• A young woman constructs her murderous identity from her father's stash of lurid paperbacks.
• A hot rod mechanic's relationship with his troubled wife redlines when his brother returns home from the War.
• Passing through a small town, a former Marine finds his girl and a whole lot of trouble.
• A pair of brothers on a robbery spree cut a bloody swath through the Southwest until they encounter a little girl with a stuffed rabbit.
• A young boy discovers just how far he'll go for rock 'n' roll.
• A lonely girl and an emotionally scarred vet face a beachside showdown with a violent motorcycle gang.
• A teenager follows the girl of his dreams into a high-octane nightmare.
• Two generations of men named Jake obsess over a girl named Cherry.

What's The Big Deal?

Hoods, Hot Rods, And Hellcats is written and edited. The e-book editions are gorgeously formatted thanks to Jaye Manus' skills. And Brian Roe of RSquared Studios is completing the final formatting on the print edition now. Each edition offers its own visual experience.

So then you’re wondering, "Where do I come in?"

I'll clue you. I know it's far out, but brace for it....okay, are you ready? Here it is—

I think people deserve to actually get paid for their work.

Sounds kookie, I know, but that's where you come in. Your money will cover the cost of the donation level gifts and ensure that the contributors earn something more than a promise and a writing credit.

Patched In

No bread but still want patched in with the cool kids? Give us a share, a like, a tweet, or maybe even a blog post.

The Black Leather Jacket

If you haven’t read it, you should definitely check out Mick Farren’s history of the black leather jack.

Hollister

Nik Korpon's story, "Only The Vultures Will See Me Hang," features two outlaw biker brothers on a cross-country crime spree. The image of the outlaw biker grew to mythic proportions from a single source.

This one.

The Hollister Riot.

Scarred Angel

Since their 1958 crime spree, the real life crimes of Charles Starkweather and his accomplice Caril Fugate have inspired countless fiction portrayals of a young murderous couple on a cross-country rampage: The Sadist (1963), Badlands (1973), Stark Raving Mad (1983), Murder in the Heartland (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), and Starkweather (2004). Heath Lowrance understands the trope well and makes it his own in "Scarred Angel."

Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen in Badlands.

Somewhere In Texas

"1958: Somewhere In Texas," Christopher Grant's clever tale of identity and 1950s sexual repression, plays on the sad traditions of the lesbian pulp paperback original.

For more info on the lesbian pulp paperback, visit:

Strange Sisters

Say Mama

HeadCat (Lemmy, Slim Jim Phantom, and Danny B. Harvey) covering one of my favorite Gene Vincent songs.