http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19008

http://woldnewton.blogspot.com/2009/04/serial-vigilantes-of-paperback-fiction.html

A helpful book by Brad Mengel will detial the paperback original adventure series trend, including the vigilante characters, with a release date in June.

Gerry Conway also admitted the influence of the Shadow.

http://mmmmmovies.blogspot.com/2009/01/executioner-part-ii-1984-or-just-say-no.html

I recall few people huffing of the Exterminator as a Punisher rip-off. Well, "we all live in glass houses"....

http://jabootu.net/?p=687

Yes, the Punisher came out in 1973, and the Exterminator came out in 1980. However, I seriously doubt that they had the former character in mind when this film came out. In any event, somebody got ripped off.

"Basically, the Punisher always seemed to me a very direct rip-off of the Executioner, the lead character of a long series—eventually over three hundred of them—of pulp drugstore paperback books starting back in 1969. Mack Bolan was a Vietnam special forces vet, his family was killed by the Mafia, and used his combat skills to kill, ultimately, thousands upon thousands of mobsters. Frankly, I’m amazed there was any organized left in this country by the time he was done.

The original Shadow had more than a little in common, attitude-wise, with writer Don Pendleton's popular (and much imitated) "Mack Bolan" character, whose bloody, one-man war against organized crime is chronicled in the EXECUTIONER paperback series. While I've never been overly enamored of Mr. Pendleton's creation, myself... even he deserved far better than the wholesale swiping of his conceptual mainsprings enacted by comics scribe Gerry Conway (during his lengthy tenure on Marvel's SPIDER-MAN series), re: The Punisher.

Quite simply: "Frank Castle" (a.k.a., The Punisher) was lifted, wholesale -- origin; motivation; and motif -- straightaway from the better-known (and immensely popular, at the time) EXECUTIONER series of novels. A man whose family is wiped out during a "mob" crossfire; the near-psychotic obsession with (and totemization of) "the holy, cleansing power of firearms"; the hag-ridden quest to rid the world of all gangsters, everywhere -- preferably, one bullet at a time. "And so" (in the words of the immortal Vonnegut) "it goes."

Stuff this shameless and opportunistic goes well beyond any reasonable definition of the word "homage"... particularly when the original creation (to say nothing of its author) is never afforded so much as a tipping of the hat by latter-day parvenus. Were I Mr. Pendleton's legal counsel... this sort of thing would have occasioned a hefty little lawsuit decades ago.

Frankly, a certain segment of comic book fans have never “got” what I do, and this reader is typical — he thinks there could actually be “a kiddified version of THE PUNISHER,” not understanding the absurdity of that statement, since THE PUNISHER is obviously inherently, ridiculously juvenile."

Well, as shown here
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/13/bloody-saturday/
Gerry Conway created the Punisher as a Comics Code approved underling of the Jackal version of the Executioner (Don Pendleton series), so Mr. Collins has some justification in his objection.

We are talking to Titan about reprinting the DC material, by the way.

Frankly, a certain segment of comic book fans have never "got" what I do, and this reader is typical -- he thinks there could actually be "a kiddified version of THE PUNISHER," not understanding the absurdity of that statement, since THE PUNISHER is obviously inherently, ridiculously juvenile.

WILD DOG, for those who bothered to do more than glance at one issue and look past Terry's Johnny Craig-esque "clean" art, would have found it to be a gritty crime story with lots of violence but also the ramifications of violence. It was meant to be a real-world vigilante hero story, hence the cobbled together elements of Wild Dog's "costume" and weapons.

I don't think it was a masterpiece, but it did some interesting things.

Really bad!

Great news about all the new projects. Bless you both for dropping by -- I'm blushing like a schoolgirl. Thanks for all the great reading over the years.

I would say only that Greg you might want to look for SPREE, the final (to date) Nolan novel, which I think you might like better than BAIT MONEY (which was written when I was 21). You should also read the Hard Case Crime novel THE LAST QUARRY (recently turned into a film called THE LAST LULLABY from a screenplay I co-wrote).

And my best work in any medium is the Nate Heller series. These are much more noir in flavor than the somewhat similar Jack Starr series. Heller is more Hammer-esque. Try my take on the Black Dahlia -- ANGEL IN BLACK or maybe the Ameila Earhart one, FLYING BLIND. These do not have to be read in the order they were written -- the chronology is all over the place.

As for Andrew Vachss, he would be the first to admit that there would be no Burke without Mike Hammer. Some years ago Andrew gave me a glowing comment about the Heller (and Eliot Ness) novels that I'm still getting mileage out of.

This is my 60th birthday, by the way, so this was a great gift.

After very long break, Collins and I are working together on various projects again. There will be at least one more comics-themed murder mystery that I'l be illustrating - and I just revised the "mystery map" for the third of the "Barbara Allan" antiques-themed mystery novels by Max and his wife Barb.

TV pilots are in the works for both Ms. Tree and Johnny Dynamite -- and that means there's a darn good chance Max and I will be doing some new comics -- probably graphic novel format -- for both properties (nothing set in stone yet, though).

Ok -- I've got to run. In addition to inking "The Batman Strikes" every month, I'm currently "visiting artist" at MCAD here in Minneapolis -- teaching in their comics program, and I need to prep for today's "Comic 3" class. We're going to be looking at some Johnny Craig and Bernie Krigstein EC stories today -- should be fun! And one of these days, you'll be reviewing work by some of my students -- there's a lot of talent in my classroom!

Thanks again!

I've been a Collins/Ms. Tree fan since the beginning, and have had the privilege of working with him a few times in the last couple of decades. I was, in fact, the editor of the above-mentioned MIKE DANGER series.

My own upcoming crime comic FEMME NOIR, owes no small debt to Collins & Beatty – the artist, Joe Staton, even drew the P.I.s comic shown above.

I've also reviewed a number of Collins comics in my crime comics blog, http://gunsinthegutters.blogspot.com/

And I want to second Tom Fitzpatrick's comment, above. Andrew Vachss is a terrific writer. And for any reader who sets a value on deductive reasoning in a thriller, there is none better than his protagonist Burke.

Cheers!

I've managed to purchase a lot of great 80s comics on eBay but I really should go after Ms. Tree. I didn't read it back in the day, but I think I will based on your recommendation!

Crime-lit snobs who poo-poo Spillane seem not to understand that Hammer is an unreliable narrator. They quote Hammer's obnoxious self-justifications and right wing rants, but I'm convinced that those passages are supposed to be exactly what they seem like today, disingenuous attempts to deal with his own violent impulses (on Hammer's part, NOT Spillane's). I think Hammer is a complex, desperate, angry man, beautifully rendered, but not actually endorsed, by Spillane. These are great novels.

Good news: Checker is reprinting Collins' wonderful run on Dick Tracy. The bad news: they're overpriced and poorly designed (three strips per page and tons of white space? What the hell?). Check 'em out from the library, it's great stuff.