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| Author Chuck Miller |
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| Cover by David L. Russell |
Author Chuck Miller has certainly created quite an interesting character within the New Pulp movement.
The Black Centipede, that mysterious defender of Zenith, has appeared in previous issues of Pro Se Presents magazine, and has recently starred in his second book.
Editor-In-Chief Lee Houston, Junior of The Free Choice E-zine had the opportunity to interview the author and find out what's going on in his literary corner of the world.
Lee Houston, Junior: Please tell us something about your latest release.
Chuck Miller: Blood
of the Centipede is the second book of what I hope will be the never-ending
Black Centipede series. It picks up shortly after the point where the first book, Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede left off. The Centipede is now a national hero, and
circumstances conspire to send him to Hollywood, where William Randolph Hearst
is bankrolling a Black Centipede motion picture. Things get complicated when
several new foes emerge, including the White Centipede, the Black Centipede
Eater and Jack the Ripper--the original, NOT a copycat. The Centipede is aided by his new
friend, Amelia Earhart, and hampered by a well-intentioned but inept
crime-fighter called the Blue Candiru. Guest stars include Fatty Arbuckle,
Aleister Crowley, Anita Loos and Bela Lugosi. Baron Samedi, Stan Bartowski and
Percival Doiley, from Creeping Dawn are back, too.
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| Back cover by Sean Ali |
LEE: How did such a unique character like the Black Centipede come to life?
CHUCK: The Black Centipede was originally
inspired by the work of Philip Jose Farmer and William S. Burroughs. I wanted a
pulp-type hero who had all the traditional trappings, but who was coming from a
totally different direction. In some of the early, unpublished stories, I
involved the Centipede in genuine historical events, which were turned around
to where they were the exact opposite of what the world at large had perceived.
For example, in "Gasp, Choke, Good Lord!" the Centipede meets William
M. Gaines and Doctor Fredric Wertham, and we learn the "truth" behind
the establishment of the Comics Code Authority in the 1950s. When I did the
first official novel for Pro Se Press, I went back to 1927 for the origin of the
Black Centipede, a story that involved Lizzie Borden and H. P. Lovecraft. Also
in that book, we see how the Centipede established himself in the city of
Zenith, and the early days of his relationships with Stan Bartowski and William
Randolph Hearst.
LEE: The Black Centipede has certainly become one of the surprises of the genre known as New Pulp. How do you define the medium?
CHUCK: It's a way of telling a story that
observes a certain set of rules. These rules are not written in stone, and I
don't think they can be laid out like a formula. It can and does follow in the
tradition of old pulp, but, since it's new, I think it has a sort of duty to do
things in new ways. There should be heroes and villains and a lot of action.
But there is so much that can be done with that. Heroes don't necessarily have
to be completely heroic, and villains don't have to be pure evil. I think some
villians should be completely irredeemable-- like Doctor Almanac in Creeping Dawn or Jack the Ripper in Blood of the
Centipede, so you can have someone against whom you can root for the
protagonist. There should be at least one unambiguous element. But everything
else is more or less up for grabs. I don't try to come up with characters who
are realistic, necessarily, but I want to include elements that a reader can
identify with. They need to be projections, larger than life. You wouldn't
identify with them because they do or say what you would in a situation, but
because they do or say things you might want to, but don't dare. There's
a lot of vicarious working out of certain impulses and desires. They flirt with
some very dangerous things, and sometimes become consumed by them. Thus, the
reader-- and the writer-- can have these experiences without actually getting
burned. A hardboiled noir setting is fertile ground for all kinds of
experiments. I do think that if New Pulp is to be viable, the emphasis should
be on the New.
LEE: Why do you write what you do?
CHUCK: Most of the stuff I'm doing now has been in my
head for years. It comes from a lot of different places, and, like anybody who
writes, I put these elements together in ways nobody else can. If these stories
are going to be written--and I think they should be--then I'm the one who is
going to have to write them. Everybody has characters that are unique to them. Nobody but you could have done the Hugh Monn
stories or Project Alpha, and nobody but me can write the things I
write. Certainly, other writers could tackle these characters and produce
stories that I couldn't. All of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches, the new Doc
Savage tales, and so on fall into this categories. Stories that fans and
admirers of these characters want to see told-- they can't sit and wait for
someone else to do it. New stories keep those old characters alive, and take
them places their creators could not have imagined.
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| The first Black Centipede novel |
LEE: So what does inspire you to write?
CHUCK: That kind of goes back to the previous
question. There are stories in my head I think ought to be told, and this applies, of course, to every writer. I think it
applies across the board. It's sort of a distillation of everything I've ever
heard other writers say about why they do it. It does take a certain amount of
ego to put yourself in that position. I certainly do, and I think it's pretty
common. The question is: Am I right? I guess the readers can decide that.
LEE: Well, I must admit that when I started reading your first book, I felt I stepped into the Twilight Zone with everything that was going on in the opening chapters. Have there been any outside influences in the development of your writing style?
CHUCK: It would be pretty hard to go through life without any. My biggest influences are Flannery
O'Connor, William S. Burroughs, Carson McCullers, Hunter S. Thompson, Rex Stout
and Walter Mosley. In terms of content, there are all sorts of things--books,
comics, movies, music. I try to incorporate anything that seems worth
incorporating. Songs by Elvis Costello and David Bowie, to name just a couple,
have provided inspiration for stories and characters I've come up with. Movies
were a major source of inspiration for Blood of the Centipede, which is set in Hollywood. The Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard are chief among them. And the old Kolchak:
The Night Stalker TV show, too.
LEE: I loved the original series with Darren McGavin!
CHUCK: Me too. A little private, unwritten,
copyright forbidden back story. Los Angeles County Detective Lt. "Big
Jack" Matteo in Blood (1933) is the father of LAPD Lt. Jack
Matteo, who crossed swords with Carl Kolchak in the episode called "The
Vampire." (1974). I also privately consider my Jack the Ripper to be the
same one Kolchak electrocuted in his first episode. And a lot of the humorous
elements in the Black Centipede stories are inspired by Kolchak.
LEE: Where do you foresee yourself within the next few years?
CHUCK: With several more books published and a lot of money. But that's more of a hope than a premonition. Seriously though... I'm working on the thirdCentipede novel, Black Centipede Confidential. This will feature Professor James
Moriarty, Lord of the Vampires, who is the main villain in my next book: Vionna and the
Vampires, the first installment in ""The Incredible Adventures of Vionna Valis & Mary Jane Kelly". The Centipede
will have a little band of adventurers called the Invisible Round Table,
organized by Amelia Earhart. This will include Aliester Crowley, Frank Nitti,
The Red Dagger (a creation of mine that I have not yet used), the Blue Candiru,
Aimee Semple McPherson, Doctor Wilhelm Reich and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Similarly, Moriarty has assembled a gang of miscreants that includes John
Dillinger, Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, Kate "Ma" Barker, George
"Machine Gun" Kelly, Doctor Herbert West, Zelda Fitzgerald and the
Loch Ness Monster.
LEE: How did Nessie get involved with a group like that?
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| PSP#13, Cover by Sean Ali |
CHUCK: You'll just have to wait and see. I'm also working on a Doctor Unknown Junior novel,
"The Return of Little Precious." The good doctor and her partner,
Jack Christian, appeared as the cover story in Pro Se Presents #13.
LEE: Sounds like you're quite a busy guy right now, so I better let you get back to work. Thanks for taking the time for this interview.
CHUCK: You're welcome.
All of Chuck Miller's work is available from Pro Se Press via Amazon or Create Space. Just ask for it by titles.
