Professional Liar Resumes His Wicked Lying Ways (or: Carl Sells Another Short Story)

Illustration by Ed Catto

The good folks at AHOY Comics have purchased yet another one of my short stories, "Flight Of The Copperhead." The story will appear as a prose piece in a future issue of one of AHOY's many fine comic book titles.

Illustration by Shane White

"Flight Of The Copperhead" is the seventh short story I've sold to AHOY. Five of these stories are set in a connected Copperhead continuity at different points in time: the Western "The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid" in the 1880s, the masked vigilante story "The Copperhead Strikes!" in 1939, the secret agent adventure "The Copperhead Affair" on December 31st of 1965, the punk rock girl antics of "Chaos At The Copperhead Club" in the summer of 1983 (and not yet available to share here), and now the present-day "Flight Of The Copperhead." 

Illustration by Ed Catto

It's my hope to continue writing Copperhead stories, and eventually collect them in book form. It's something my Mom wanted me to do, and it's certainly something I want to do both for myself and in her memory. I have begun another Copperhead story, "The Copperhead Kid's New York Adventure" (set in 1920), and I'm looking to develop a few more members of this distinguished family line. I know who the Copperhead Kid's bride was. I know who the Copperhead's brother (the Copperhead Kid's son) was, and I know a little bit about the brother of the protagonist in "Flight Of The Copperhead," even though he's only mentioned in passing; he'll get his own story, as well. 

Illustration by Ed Catto

I'm a perfect five-for-five in selling Copperhead stories to AHOY. But my biggest success there was a non-Copperhead story, a foul-mouthed rock 'n' roll sci-fi farce called "Guitars Vs. Rayguns." I wanna get back to that world, too. AHOY has one more of my non-Copperhead stories in inventory; "The Picture Of Amontillado" was written and purchased in 2019, and it's scheduled to see print later this month in Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter Of Death # 6.

I recently finished "Rain-Hat Sam," another non-Copperhead story I haven't shown to anyone yet. Over this 2019-2022 span of returning to (and finally succeeding in) writing fiction, AHOY passed on a couple of stories--"Home Of The Hits" and "Pop Friction"--that I really like, and a few that weren't quite as good. "Rain-Hat Sam" is the fourteenth short story I've written in this time frame; the sale of "Flight Of The Copperhead" brings my batting average above .500, with "Rain-Hat Sam" on deck.

I'm working on nonfiction today, continuing an edit of my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I've already signed the contract for my first book, also nonfiction, which I hope to tell you more about soon. There's a lot of work to do. I'm enjoying the process immensely.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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