He Wants to be in the Movies
He wants to be in the movies. He want to be Errol Flynn or Montgomery Clift of Dick Tracy. A swashbuckler, a lady’s man, a comic-strip character come to life, frowning down at his Dick Tracy watch. What he’s frowning about is how far he’s slipped from the cutting edge of technology.
It’s happening to all his friends–internally young, externally dated. The Green Hornet puts the pedal to the metal when the light turns green and a kid in a fusion car glides by him without a sound. Little Orphan Annie flies off to Cambodia for an eye transplant, paid for by Daddy Warbucks. Captain Marvel says shazam in the basement of the tallest building in the world and it comes crashing down around his ears. Clark Kent wanders the Lower East Side of Metropolis, his suit in disarray, glasses fogged, needing a shave and desperate for a phone booth. Spider Man, attacked by killer bees.
He’d like to be in the movies and make someone’s dreams come true. He’d like to star in both films of a double feature with Bugs Bunny cartoons sandwiched in between. He’s talking Talkies before Dolby Sound and Panoramic Vision. He’s talking the days of the happy ending when the biggest gun on screen was in a gangster’s pocket and the good guy always got the girl. He’s talking Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Bells of St. Mary’s and Gone with the Wind, back before Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause where James Dean pleads with his father, “Talk to me! Why don’t you ever talk to me?” and his father looks away.
HCOLOM PRESS is the heir to Vagabond Press, which began as a main player in the Mimeo Revolution of the Sixties and continued publishing right into the jaws of the new millennium. HCOLOM PRESS embodies the spirit of Vagabond Press, retooled for the times we live in.
Hcolom is Moloch spelled backwards. Moloch is an Old Testament deity to which children were sacrificed, a practice society still engages in with increased enthusiasm. Consumerism is the new Moloch, manifesting itself like cancer in war, politics, the arts and religion, in every nook and cranny of human endeavor, draining the intrinsic beauty out of life and mutilating the innocence and magic of childhood with its commercial meat hook. HCOLOM PRESS intends to publish books that by their nature repudiate this pernicious force–novels, poetry, children’s books and books that transcend genre.
Our launch book, in June of 2006, was John Bennett’s novel, Tire Grabbers, a fable of sorts, a reality book rooted in the fantasy of our times, the story of the coming of Moloch and the children who rise up in rebellion against it.
Books of kindred spirit will follow close on its heels. Go for it by clicking here… or hit the Hcolom logo above…