Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups, edited by Jonathan Maberry & Keith R.A. DeCandido, presented by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, is now funding on Kickstarter. The anthology features more than a dozen great tie-in writers teaming classic characters up.
We’ve already done several interviews
- Rigel Ailur (teaming Annie Oakley with Marian of Sherwood)
- Greg Cox (mashing up The Brain that Wouldn’t Die with Night of the Living Dead)
- James Reasoner (pairing G-Man Dan Fowler with Stinger Seave)
- Ben H. Rome (putting Bastet, Fenrir, and Quetzalcoatl together)
- Nancy Holder & Alan Philipson (Flaxman Low and Mezzanotte meeting)
- Keith R.A. DeCandido (teaming Ayesha, a.k.a. She Who Must Be Obeyed, with Egungun-oya)
- David Mack (teaming Prospero the Magician with Don Quixote de la Mancha)
Here’s an interview with Maurice Broaddus, who is bringing together two Black pulp characters, Ace Harlem, created by John Terrell in 1947’s All-Negro Comics, and the Conjure-Man, created by Rudolph Fisher for his 1932 novel The Conjure-Man Dies.
A community organizer, teacher, and Afrofuturist, Maurice Broaddus‘s short stories have appeared in such places as Lightspeed Magazine, Black Panther: Tales from Wakanda, Weird Tales, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny Magazine. His novels include Sweep of Stars, Unfadeable, Pimp My Airship, and The Usual Suspects.
What led you to choose the characters you’re using for your Double Trouble story?
I’ve been reading a book called Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow by Brooks E. Hefner. In it, Hefner uncovers a trove of African-American genre fiction from the 1920s through the 1950s. Romance, adventure, Westerns, crime stories in an era that hasn’t been documented well in terms of what we read and what we wrote. It stirred my curiosity, which led me to All-Negro Comics #1 (Ace Harlem) and The Conjure Man Dies (the Conjure Man). Hopefully, I’ll help shed light on these two properties, drawing modern attention to them.
What do you enjoy most about writing tie-in fiction?
It’s another way for me to tell my stories, except by playing in someone else’s sandbox. Look, I’m living my teenage geek best life right now being able to write some of the properties that I either grew up watching or being influenced by.
What’s your favorite licensed universe that you’ve written in during your career as a tie-in writer?
Marvel. Especially Black Panther.
What do you have that’s now out or coming out soon?
My space opera, Sweep of Stars, just came out this past spring, quickly followed by my middle-grade detective novel, Unfadeable. Speaking of tie-in writing, I have a story in AvP: Ultimate Prey (“Night Doctors”), an essay in Dreams of Wakanda (“Daring to Dream of a Black Utopia”), and a re-imagining of a Hollywood staple in Classic Monsters Unleashed (“The Invisible Man: The Fire This Time”).
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