The Black Centipede is another original New Pulp character. While the stories are set in the 1930s, the author doesn’t trying to imitate the style or characteristics of that period.
This can be either good or bad depending on your tastes. Do you want something totally in a vintage style, or are you willing to accept a modern work set in that period?
Chuck Miller has for some time been working on his Black Centipede character and the world in which he lives through his blog. “Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede” is the first book-length appearance of the character.
Overall, the Black Centipede is a mixture of crime/pulp heroics/weird menace. Real people from the period (including H.P. Lovecraft, Amelia Earhart and Lizzie Borden) are mixed in, along with fictitious characters and places. All center around the hero of the piece: the Black Centipede.
Chuck works in an interesting twist: the Centipede has a biographer who writes and publishes highly fictionalized versions of his exploits. So in the stories there is a fictional Black Centipede and a real one.
The occult plays a part in this series; something that was not true for most original pulp heroes.
“Creeping Dawn” serves as the origin and beginning exploits of the Black Centipede.
I hope we get further volumes of this character and his world.
So, have you read this, Michael? Or just other works by Mr. Miller?
Yes, I’ve read this and Miller’s second Centipede book. I don’t review stuff I haven’t read.