Friday, October 21, 2011

Criminal Fucking Complex

Oh, babies, it has been too long. Where has your Uncle Jimmy been this whole time? Well, the big top-secret project that I couldn't mention all summer finally jumped off like a successful bank-job. Yes, loves, Criminal Complex has arrived and is kicking you right in the teeth.

For those of you paying attention, since about a year ago I've been writing (ir)regularly for a little site known as Gestalt Mash, which itself is part of Boomtron.com. Back in May or June of this year, Jay Tomio, one of the main men over at Boomtron World Headquarters, asked me if I'd be at all interested in running a crime-intensive wing of Boomtron--all the latest and greatest news and features about crime fiction: movies, TV, books, comics, games, noir, hard-boiled, action, thrillers, chillers, and Phyllis Dillers.

Naturally, I said I'd be all up for something like that, since the whole working-for-a-living thing has not been going all that well for the past 16 years or so. So I rounded up my crew, the finest writers that I know: Cameron Ashley, Josh Converse, and Matthew Christian Funk. I say something like the finest writers I know, and it can sound like I'm blowing smoke, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even before the site went live last month, these three guys have worked their asses off so we could make this site the best it can be, and I wouldn't have thought I could be closer to them as friends and as colleagues.

And if there's any doubt, the proof is in the eating: check out Converse's piece on the clusterfuck that is the John Gotti bio-pic project. Dig Ashley's on-going series on the frantic panic of Japanese crime fiction. And Funk has written what has rightly proven to be our most popular article yet, "5 Terrifying Crime Films That Actually Happened."

And these are just our main corps. We also have featured such delights as Keith Rawson and his tremendous interview with Drive author James Sallis. The nation's most-incarcerated reprobate, Johnny 99, gives us the Lonely Planet of prisons with his Wrought-Iron Round-Up. And yes, your Uncle Jimmy aims to be the Pete Rose of this team, acting as player/manager as well as betting on his own team. My biggest editorial indulgence is my on-going recap of NYPD Blue, "NYPD Blog." And honies, allow me to remind you that this is a daily enterprise. Monday through Friday, me and the Double-C boys are working our fingers to the bone(r) to bring you all-new material. So check the site and check it often. And if you ain't already, why not follow us on Twitter @CriminalComplex, like us on Facebook, and encircle us on Google+? It's good for what ails you.

Well, Satan knows I've been a busy boy these days, and not just with the ol' Double Cranch. My fiction these days has been focused on longer, more substantial pieces than the flash-fictions I often crank out. So with luck, 2012 will see a lot more stuff from yours truly. But aside from the rash of anthologies I told y'all about last time, I've got another story in yet another antho for youse out there. America's sweetheart, Alec Cizak, has gathered together the motliest crew possible for the debut issue of Pulp Modern, including art by my dear friend Brian S. Roe and stories by some of personal favorites as Dr. Glenn Gray, Garnett Elliott, and Lawrence fuckin' Block. Yeah, I have a hard time believing it as well, but it's true: I am sharing page space with none other than living legend Lawrence Block, whose works include the Hitman series as well as the Matthew Scudder books, one of which, Eight Million Ways to Die, I count as one of my bigger personal influences, on writing and in life.

If that's not enough to entice you to buy Pulp Modern #1 (and who are you then, the fuckin' Queen of England?), perhaps I can help sweeten the pot. If you buy this issue, I will send you one (1) 80-minute mix CD, fat-packed with my near-flawless taste in music. All you gotta do is buy an issue, read it cover to cover (which will be no sweat), and then write up a little review over at Amazon. Then just send me the link to it and your mailing address to letsexploiteverybody@gmail.com, and bada-beep, bada-boop, one CD for you. A few lucky fuckers have got CDs incoming, though I've yet to send them. But send them I shall. So get cracking, kiddies.

And if you thought I was neglecting this blog, it's been months since I've been able to get it together for one of the exploitation film bloggy-woggys. Fortunately for me and you, there are a few more-than-competent individuals stepping up to the plate. Why, just today in fact, the above-mentioned sweetpants Alec Cizak turned in this piece on the 1982 euro-slasher, Pieces. Sadly, Alec feels he has not been able to find the perfect slasher movie, and is thus retiring from slasher-crit as a reigning champion. Bad news for us, I know, but the good news is Mr. Cizak assures me that he is likely to write elsewhere for the Let's Exploit Everybody! quartet. Take, for example, Let's Fight Everybody!, which has been doing some very brisk business these days. Newcomer to these pages, Garrett Cook, delivers an excellent reading of the Vincent Price classic, the 1971 film The Abominable Dr. Phibes. From all the way down under, Crime Factory's own Andrew Nette brings us the even more hardcore Australian version of Hardcore, 2008's The Horseman. And New Jersey's own Thomas Pluck has not one, but two entries where revenge is the only argument makes any sense: Shane Meadows's 2004 flick Dead Man's Shoes and the 2007 Jodie Foster vehicle The Brave One. Woof, it's a big pallet of high-end and low-brow film criticism, the brand of which your Uncle Jimmy simply loves to bring you. Enjoy, my darlings, enjoy.

And with that, my loves, I bid you a fondue. I hope to have another entry up in here pretty quick, but even if I don't, I want you all to take care of yourselves and come back and hang out later. Yeah?

Yeah.