MESSAGE FROM M.A.C. -- March 18, 2005

A quick update.

You'll see here info about my new documentary, CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP. This one's been in the works for several years, and will start making a few select festival appearances. We have not begun shopping it to TV and/or DVD yet.

My anthology feature, SHADES OF NOIR -- which includes the short films "Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life," "A Matter of Principal" (Quarry) and "Three Women," PLUS the documentary "Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane" -- is finished and will be delivered to Troma Entertainment as soon as editor/D.P. Phil Dingeldein and I can find time to do the commentary track.

Troma also plans a boxed set including SHADES, the two MOMMYs and REAL TIME. New commentaries on the MOMMYs need to be done, too, which has held us up.

What is probably the final "disaster" novel for Berkley Prime Crime will be out in June -- THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER. It's out just in time to take advantage of the Spielberg movie, though my book focuses on the radio "invasion" and teams Shadow creator (and magician) Walter Gibson with Orson Welles himself. You will have fun.

I just completed ROAD TO PARADISE, the final book in the trilogy (although the door remains open for more books in the saga). It's been delivered to my editor at Morrow and the response has been wonderful. Very proud of this one -- look for it late this year or early next.

Just yesterday (March 17), I delivered the new CSI novel, IMPERFECT CRIMES. The previous CSI novel, BINDING TIES, hits the stands any day now. Also, I'm doing a CSI: NY comic-book mini-series for IDW called "Bloody Murder." And my CSI assistant Matt Clemens has been helping me on all of that, plus two CSI: NY jigsaw puzzles. (No, I'm not doing the CSI: NY novels -- Pocket wants me to concentrate on Vegas).

Breaking news -- I've just signed with HardCase to do a movie tie-in edition to promote SHADES OF NOIR. I'll be expanding the Quarry story, "A Matter of Principal" (the award-winning film of which appears in SHADES) into the full-length THE LAST QUARRY. It will utilize the screenplay I've written for director Jeffrey Goodman, who seems close to get the Quarry movie up and running. This is the first Quarry novel in twenty years. And it probably will be the last, as the title indicates.

I've also done a very fun movie novelization -- my first in several years -- but I'm not sure I can mention what it is yet. Let's just say it's about an incompetant French detective and a famous jewel named after a feline.

Finally, it looks like we'll be mounting my play ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE (greatly expanding the short film of the same name) in a few months at a terrific venue in Des Moines. We did a one-night only presentation in Des Moines last year. NESS has been nominated for a Best Play Edgar. Michael Cornelison, the John Wayne to my John Ford, will star. If we get the venue that I think we'll get...it'll be worth a trip for any Ness or Collins or Cornelsion fans.

And, yes, Phil Dingeldein and I will be shooting the production.

Stay tuned.

Comic Strip Documentary by Collins

CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP is a new documentary from Iowa novelist/filmmaker Max Allan Collins, best known as the writer of the graphic novel, ROAD TO PERDITION, which became an Academy Award-winning 2002 film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

CAVEMAN, written and directed by Collins and produced by the University of Iowa Video Center, tells the story of Vincent T. Hamlin, the innovative cartoonist who created the dinosaur-laden, long-running comic strip, ALLEY OOP, from which the popular '50s song derived. The strip has been credited with inspiring everything from THE FLINTSTONES to JURASSIC PARK. Hamlin was born and raised in Perry, Iowa.

"My father grew up around Perry," Collins said, "and as a kid fascinated by comics, I was excited when I learned that OOP's creator had been brought up within a stone's throw of my dad."

The filmmaker began his work in 2001, travelling to the San Diego Comics convention to interview nationally prominent cartoonists.

"It did take almost four years," Collins said with a laugh, "in and around all of my own committments, and the Video Center's heavy workload at the U of I. But we made it happen. I'm particularly pleased that we were able to interview comics innovator, Will Eisner."

Eisner died early this year. Another cartoonist key to the project -- Dave Graue, Hamlin's longtime assistant who worked on ALLEY OOP for over fifty years -- was killed in an automobile accident just weeks after his trip to Iowa City to be interviewed for the documentary.

"The film is as much Dave's story as Hamlin's," Collins said. "I was intrigued by how much the story of Hamlin and Graue resembled that of DICK TRACY artist Chester Gould and his assistant Rick Fletcher, who drew TRACY for me when I took over that strip in 1977. I came to see that through the Hamlin/Graue story, viewers could understand the way comic strips in the 20th century were produced -- not just the mechanics of that process, but the personal story, the grueling work hours, the obsessive dedication, the daily struggle."

Collins's independent films include the Lifetime movie MOMMY, and the innovative made-for-DVD thriller, REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET MARKET. His previous award-winning documentary, MIKE HAMMER'S MICKEY SPILLANE, is included in Collins's recent anthology film, SHADES OF NOIR, due on DVD later this year.

CAVEMAN has already racked up several impressive honors, in April winning the Silver "Eddy" for BEST DOCUMENTARY at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival and, in May, four awards in the Iowa Motion Picture Association's annual competition, including BEST DIRECTOR for Collins and BEST VOICEOVER for narrator Michael Cornelison.