Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Hatchet Force Journal #1

Last night I downloaded and immediately read cover-to-cover this first issue of this new e-magazine devoted to the action/adventure genre.  The brainchild of author (and occasional commentor on this blog) Jack Badelaire, this is a fine piece of work.  Highlights are a lengthy essay by Badelaire about societal influences on the explosion of men's adventure paperbacks in the late Sixties and all through the Seventies, an extensive interview with author Mack Maloney (whose work I'm aware of but have never read, something I have to remedy), and an in-depth review of Sam Peckinpah's film BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (a movie I've never seen, something else I have to tend to).  There are also articles on "The Evolution of Pulp" by Tom Johnson, an authority on that subject and an old friend of mine, and "Movie Adaptations That Beat the Book" by Henry Brown, plus book and TV reviews by various hands, all good.  I had a great time reading HATCHET FORCE JOURNAL, and I hope it's just the first of many issues.  If you're an action/adventure fan, it comes highly recommended by me.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too bad the cover makes it look like a magazine devoted to guns and quasi-military gung-hoo wannabes.

12:29 PM, June 21, 2011
Jack Badelaire said...

Richard, you make a good point.

For better or worse, the demographic you point out does strongly overlap the old Gold Eagle books / 80's action movie / aggressor pulps crowd that is the (non-exclusive) focus of HFJ.

In planning the original cover (what you see in the Amazon link) I went with a title font very similar to that used on the cover of GE's Phoenix Force books, and I looked at a lot of Soldier of Fortune magazine covers for inspiration. Christopher Mills was kind enough to re-design the cover with a little more "snap" to it, and I think that helps.

Future covers will have different fonts, designs, and photos depending on the themes. Issue themes are going to include "Techno-Thrillers", Historical Adventure, Sci-Fi / Sword & Sorcery, post-apocalyptic, crime & vigilantes, and more.

Truthfully, this is an experiment to see if there is a fan base for future issues, so your feedback is extremely helpful. If I'm hearing "make it look like something other than Soldier of Fortune for action fiction fans", then that's the direction we'll move towards.

Thank you again for your feedback,

-
Jack Badelaire
Editor of HFJ

12:57 PM, June 21, 2011
Brian Drake said...

Cover looks fine to me. I appear to be in the target demo. I grew up on the Gold Eagle books and have a large collection of the original Executioner titles. I could write an essay on their influence on my future writing and life in general. They weren't just blood and thunder books to me.

Good luck with it, Jack. I will check it out.

1:45 PM, June 21, 2011
Matthew P. Mayo said...

I just bought a copy and dove right in. So far, it's right up my alley. I'm already looking forward to issue #2.

5:58 PM, June 21, 2011
Duane Spurlock said...

Looks great and interesting.

James, you've never seen BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA? Ooh, that one colors every other performance by Gig Young I've ever seen. He's got the dead-eye stare down cold. That may, in fact, have been his final film appearance before his death.

And Warren Oates ROCKS!

9:04 PM, June 25, 2011

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