Domino Lady Returns!

Art by Ed Coutts

Awesome Tales #6 goes on sale today, billed as the special "Crime Issue"! The Domino Lady begins her New York adventure in "Give Them a Corpse" by Rich Harvey, the first in a series of linked stories. The notorious Black Legion returns from the original tales by Lars Anderson (all of which were collected in Compliments of the Domino Lady by Bold Venture Press, 2004) ... but this new adventure introduces The Procuress, a masked femme fatale who will prove a worthy adversary for pulp fiction's masked first lady!

The "Crime Issue" began materializing when editor R. Allen Leider saw the striking Domino lady painting by Ed Coutts. When the editor inquired about the piece, displayed at the annual Pulp Adventurecon in New Jersey, the illustrator admitted he painted it for kicks. With no previous assignment attached, editor Leider wasted no time in securing it for Awesome Tales.

Leider mused aloud he needed a Domino Lady story to accompany it. Rich Harvey quickly spoke up, "I'll write it!" and everyone was off to the races. Once the writing began, Rich realized his plot could not be squeezed into the required word count. When he broke the plot into smaller pieces, The Domino Lady's clash with The Procuress threatened to grow into a novel-length story.

So now, "Give Them a Corpse" is part one in a series of linked short stories, all forming a larger story. The Domino Lady will battle a vicious blackmail ring from one end of Manhattan to the other, with the promise of noirish excursions into Brooklyn, Long Island, and New Jersey. Flushing? Well, the year is 1939, and the World's Fair is in full swing ...

Five additional stories round out the crime issue, with a number of them illustrated by Ed Coutts. Secure your copy today!