The Silver Manticore is one of a ‘new breed’ of pulp hero.
I say new breed, because they are recent character creations, in this case by author P.J. Lozito, as opposed to those heroes with decade old history, such as the Black Bat or Green Lama.
So to start a taste from the back of the book ‘Silver Manticore: Friends and Foes’.
“To some, he is nothing more than an urban legend, rising from the fears of cowardly criminals. To others, he is a masked mastermind of evil cutting into the biggest schemes, helping himself to the largest share. And then there’s the truth – that the Manticore, unknown to both the Law and The Underworld, is a force of good merely posing as a crook!
Regardless of what those who know of the mysterious figure believe, The Manticore has come into contact and conflict with allies and enemies. This avenging vigilante has definitely made many friends and foes, each with their own stories.”
And that is what this book does, it tells a series of short stories about other characters in the Silver Manticore world. Since this was my first taste of the Manticore that posed something of a problem as a reader. You need perhaps a stronger base knowledge of the main character, who is relegated to cameo mentions for the most part, to appreciate stories on this around him.
It was sort of a case of not being let in on the reasons behind the characters, in the sense of why they are connected to The Silver Manticore, and why their stories deserve our attention. I was left feeling a bit out of phase.
So I wondered how the book of shorts came to be?
“The stories in ‘Silver Manticore: Friends and Foes’ were written separately over a number of years and published previously in different places,” related Lozito. “This was done without thought of gathering them together. “Basically, I’d write a story when I got an idea. Then I try to figure out which characters in my stock company would serve the story idea best. I wanted to show more of Mike Axelrod, Louise Scott and Joe Casey. It’s hard to identify with someone who puts on a mask and fights criminal masterminds, but Mike, Louise and Joe are ordinary people.”
Then the door opened to collect the works, offered Lozito.
“My publisher, Tommy Hancock, asked if I had any short stories. He felt the uncollected adventures should be published together. He had me write a new one to anchor it,” said the author.
Lozito said his fan base likes the effort.
“The hardcore fans want more of all of the characters,” he said.
So does Lozito have a favourite?
“The new story, hands down. This is because I can see improvement in my writing. That new story is “The Death of The Silver Manticore.” I made it the lead in to the next Manticore novel,” he said.
So how did Lozito come to create the Silver Manticore in the first place?
“I was always a reader and gravitated to Doc Savage reprints in grade school,” he said. “I quickly expanded to the reprinted paperback adventures of The Shadow and The Avenger. It was quite a shock to see that first book at my local candy store with that eye-catching cover: “From the author of Doc Savage, Kenneth Robeson.” We know better. There is something very satisfying about a good man who takes the fight to the oppressor and delivers a solid whooping to the bad guys.”
And then the world of pulps grew for the avid reader.
“Eventually, I came across The Spider, who I had read about in Ron Goulart’s ‘Cheap Thrills’, a/k/a ‘An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines’. “Before long I graduated from the vigilantes of the pulps to private detectives from the pulps. By which I mean the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Carrol John Daly. In between, I read other stuff. Not necessarily pulp but fiction with many of the same “thrill” elements. I collected all the Fu Manchu, Sherlock Holmes, Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Mr. Moto books. “I was a big mystery buff but modern mystery, outside of James Ellroy and Lawrence Block, was starting to bore me. It needed an injection of good, old-fashioned pulp vigilantes. Block’s Matt Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr and Evan Tanner could easily have come out of the pulps. Ellroy puts realism into the pulp clichés of tough investigators and comes up with something new and unique.”
When the question of a favourite character came up Lozito hedged his bets selecting more than one.
“The Shadow, I feel, is the coolest,” he said. “This well-trained espionage agent uses his old tricks, and a few new ones, to take a bite out of the crime he sees running rampant. Wherever he goes, he always has an ally to assist. He’s a marksman, an aviator, a code breaker, a master of disguise, a spy master and I never tire of it.
“The Spider, of course, was in the position of having to avoid the cops while he chased criminals. His high stakes cat-and-mouse game, as Richard Wentworth, with Inspector Kirkpatrick just adds to the excitement. His adventures are the most demented. How do you like that for a situation? You’re putting your life on the line to liquidate the bad guys but at the same time, the cops are gunning for you!
“Dick Benson, the Avenger, I think, is the all-around best character, although not my favourite. We know his motivation, we know his abilities, we know where he lives, we know about his past. Plus, he has a cool, completely reasonable little extra to help him; That is, his dead face being malleable and using it for disguises. We see him find his aides piecemeal. Benson is one of the few pulp vigilantes with an origin story. And, of course, it’s heartbreaking. You think it will come to a good end. You know, Doc and his aides are constantly being told one or the other of them, or an innocent character, is dead only to turn up alive. Not so here. Benson was also an equal-opportunity employer, well ahead of time. He had no qualms allowing women and black people into his crew.”
And then he added one more.
“Doc Savage may be my favourite,” said Lozito. “Lester Dent’s writing is so sharp. Doc is sort of unknowable but the aides, the criminal masterminds and innocent people who get involved in the adventures are all so well delineated. Doc’s cousin, Pat, lights up any scene she is in. She is quite an accomplished woman for the 1930s. Of course, the level of invention in the Doc Savage series exceeds anything in the vigilante pulps. Doc had common inventions decades ahead of their appearance in the real world. The best part is that Dent himself was an adventurer, so there is an element of verisimilitude to them.”
More characters also catch Lozito’s attention.
“I’ve lately become a big fan of the Phantom Detective after finding a trove of his old paperback reprints,” he said. “Unlike The Shadow, The Spider, Savage or Benson, this guy goes it alone! He’s a bit unbelievable sometimes. So it might be good if someone wrote a sort of more realistic version of him. “Those are my five favorites.”
The avid interest in pulp characters eventually led Lozito to ‘The Silver Manticore’.
“I wanted to write pulp,” he said. “You can’t read it for years without wanting to try your hand at it. It’s like Edgar Rice Burroughs deciding he can do just as good after reading it. I wanted to create characters that were nods to many of my favourites. I had also been reading a lot of my old paperbacks. I started to see there were some similarities among how certain characters operated. By the time I was ready to write, there was no market for pulp. This was around the same time I was working for Pocket Books. The very first book I worked on there was Aaron Allston’s ‘Doc Sidhe’, his homage to pulp vigilantes. But the trigger was Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’. I wanted to do for pulp characters what he did for vampires. Well, suddenly there’s a market for my kind of stuff.”
The time had come for ‘The Silver Manticore’ after years of waiting.
“I first came up with the character in the 1970s,” said Lozito. “It had been gestating ever since I saw ‘The Mysterious Dr. Satan’ serial. The Copperhead, we learn in that, had an ancestor who dealt justice in the Old West. I wanted to have a generational character like him. If the characters in the fictional world think it’s been the same guy all along, so much the better.”
Lozito said the good news for fans is that there will be more adventures.
“Well, I can’t give too much away. In fact, I’m in the middle of it now,” he said. “Something is up in 1967. The headlines scream that the Silver Manticore is dead. But what does death mean to immortals? Along with returning favourites, there’s a new cast, new equipment, new criminal masterminds to match wits with. “In the meantime, I’m writing the adventures of a new character, The Revenant Detective, for Pro Se’s Single Shot series. His first adventure, “Deadly Role,” is out now.”
A book more fully focused on the lead character sounds like it might be just the ticket to become a bigger fan of ‘The Silver Manticore’.
