Your Monday Moment of Noir

"One day Bell said, 'I can stand it no longer,' and he rushed me like a famished tiger, at the same time attempting to strike me with his gun. I parried the blow and killed him with a hatchet. I then cut his flesh into strips which I carried with me as I pursued my journey. When I espied the Agency from the top of the hill, I threw away the strips I had left, and I confess I did so reluctantly as I had grown fond of human flesh, especially that portion around the breast."

The Thin Man
by Dashiell Hammett
(Knopf, 1934)

Happy New's Eve, everybody!

You Can Have the Cover of Rolling Stone

I'm just thrilled as shit to be on the cover of Marvel Previews #53, which includes three of Ariel Olivetti's pages from Cable #1. Okay, okay, it's not the cover. The actual cover features a comic by some guy named Stephen King. But it is the back cover. Flip it over and you'd never know the difference.

If you've been craving a little sneak preview of Cable, this 99-cent mag is what you want. It's available at finer comic shops everywhere. (Bonus points to anyone who spots the funny spelling error on the Cable solicit page.)

Elsewhere in the Swierczy-verse: I'm also thrilled that Severance Package was included in Bookgasm editor Rod Lott's list of "16 Books I Can't Wait for in 2008."

And Big Action! lists The Blonde in their "Books of '07!"

A Plague Upon Our House

Sorry for the lack of a Hardboiled Friday entry. Early yesterday morning, that "24-hour puke until you want to die" sickness (I believe this is what the AMA is calling it) hit Secret Dead Blog headquarters with a vengeance. The Daughter already had it Wednesday; Friday it came for the Bride and the Boy, leaving me the last man standing, not unlike Robert Neville in I Am Legend. Thankfully, the sickness has lived up to its 24 hour promise—everyone seems to feel a lot better—and it has completely ignored me. Maybe I'm just not good enough.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...

The three of them were taken early in the year. Billy Corey was taken driving his '74 Ford LTD after tossing his girlfriend into a mirror. Teddy "Maddog" Creed knifed an old lady for her pocket change at the mall and was taken. And Kev Buckingham was taken after holding up some video store in the suburbs.

The three of them had taken the deep six. But the three of them would be back. Soon.

—from "The Posers," written December 27, 1987, the day a 15-year-old nerd realized what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

The Holidays Can Be Punishing

This Christmas, the Bride and my children gave me a 12-inch poseable Punisher action figure. Mr. Castle comes with his own machine rifle, pistol and knife. He's perched on my writing desk right now, staring at me, goading me toward my next deadline. This is perhaps the coolest gift ever.

Duane Swierczynski's "A Christmas Carol"

For holiday amusement purposes only. With photographs by Meredith Swierczynski. And profound apologies to Charles Dickens.

The London air was cold enough to freeze your balls solid. Still, the two old hard bastards were outside, trying to make the deal happen.


Neezer the Geezer was the older cunt's name. He had six kilos of coke and nowhere to move it. His usual contact, Marley, was no good. "Marley you son of a bitch," Neezer told him. "I'm going to cut you so hard you'll feel it in your bone marrow."


Marley wasted no time. He sent four double hard motherfuckers in with chains and shit to fuck up Neezer good. They were due at midnight. Sharp.


Before he knew it, Neezer was kneeling in front of Klaus the Pimp, who had some weird Santa fetish going on. Neezer didn't know. Didn't fucking care. "I need a piece," Neezer told him. "Double fast." Klaus told him to go see Bobby the Crotch. "Oh fuck me," Neezer said. He'd double-crossed Bobby the Crotch a few years back. Still, he had no choice. He needed the heavy iron.


Neezer found Bobby the Crotch at home with his usual gang of underage whores, drinking absinthe and eating delicious holiday pies spiked with ecstasy. Bobby the Crotch claimed not to have a piece that night. Scrooge called him a fucker and a liar. Bobby the Crotch said, fuck you, I'm serious. Neezer broke the leg of one of Bobby's little rent boys, some little cunt named Tim, and told him to not to let it happen again.


Out on the streets, near Beggar's Alley, Neezer ran into an old mate named Buchan. Buchan happened to be carrying an extra piece. Neezer asked him how much. Buchan told him. Neezer didn't like the price, so he sliced Buchan's throat and took the piece anyway. He changed into a nightcap and a purple robe. This was a night for killing. Oh yeah.


But then Death found Neezer. Death was one of Marley's top torpedoes. Liked to dress in black and wear a skull mask and shit. Death was so fuckin' sick, he even liked to carve the names of his targets on styrofoam headstones and then present them to his victims, just to fuck with their heads. (I know, right?) Once Neezer heard Death had taken the job, he knew didn't have a fucking chance.


Neezer flung open the windows of his overpriced condo and hurled himself to the piss-soaked streets, 10 stories down. Neezer struck the ground head first, but he didn't die right away. It took a while. A long, long while.


Marley happened by Neezer's flat, hoping to catch him while Death worked him over. Instead, he found Neezer's twitching, bleeding body on the street. He started laughing. His sweet bitch Agatha started laughing, too. Oh, how they fucking laughed. And Neezer could hear them. He could hear every word.


Tim the Rent Boy also happened by. His leg still hurt like fuck, but the strangest thing had happened: Tim realized he liked the abuse. Kind of got off on it, actually. He'd gone to Neezer's flat to see if he wouldn't mind breaking his arm. But then he saw Neezer's head, smashed open on the cold asphalt. "God fuck us," he said. "Every last fuckin' one."

The End

Your Monday Moment of Noir (Holiday Edition)

"He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

'Spirit,' he said, 'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go.'

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head."

A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens
(December 1843)

Hardboiled Fridays! (Holiday Edition)

"The bar was a Fifty-second Street dive, full of small-time narcotic hustlers, marihuana smoke, and north-side thug disciples celebrating the holiday. It was the kind of place that Rocca might visit. It was also the kind of place that Owl Eyes Eddy visited. Eddy came in like a dog smelling a fire hydrant, sorting out the crowd through his new dark glasses. Mongo came out of the marihuana smoke beside him before he could get a good look at everybody. Mongo took him by the arm and smiled into the glasses.

'Listen real good, baby,' Mongo told him. 'Walk out of here ahead of me. And if you open your mouth, I'm going to gut-shoot you.'"

Mongo's Back in Town
by E. Richard Johnson
(Harper & Row, 1969)

The Blonde Lives!

The Blonde has been out in paperback for a month now, and I've been very happy to see reviews/mentions at various blogs over the past few weeks, including this stunner from Ed Gorman, a cool second look from Wally Conger, and this very nice mini-review from Gerald So. Huge thanks to all three of you gentlemen.

(Remember, if you've read The Blonde and want to check out "Redhead," it's yours for the asking. Email me proof that you've read the original novel, and I'll send you a pdf of the novella sequel. This offer expires... um, never.)

Swierczy Illustrated

I can't believe I didn't notice this until—well, just today—but here is Jeff Kilpatrick's illustration of me reading from The Crimes of Dr. Watson at the Port Richmond Bookstore about a month ago. It's from Jeff's weekly series, "Meet Your Neighbors," which runs in The Philadelphia Turkey and comes highly recommended.

I look kind of drunk in this illustration, but I swear, I only had a half a beer in me at the time.

(Belated thanks, Jeff!)

WGA Strike Hits Philly

Screenwriters aren't just walking the picket lines in L.A. and New York. They're here in Philly, too. So City Paper sent star intern Aly Semigran out to the King of Prussia Mall to hang with WGA scribes Joe Cohen (Minority Report), Joe Gangemi (Wind Chill) and Mark Rosenthal (Eragon) as they passed out leaflets to unsuspecting suburban moviegoers. You can read Aly's report (and check out her on-the-scene photos) right here.

Your Monday Moment of Noir

"All day the rain poured down on the Bronx without mercy. The sewers overflowed and the waters rose over the curbs of the street. The tenement at No. 55 Dropsie Avenue seemed ready to rise and float away on the swirling tide. "Like the ark of Noah," it seemed to Frimme Hersh as he sloshed homeward. Only the tears of ten thousand weeping angels could cause such a deluge And, come to think of it, maybe that is exactly what it was... after all, this was the day Frimme Hersh buried Rachele, his daughter."

A Contract With God
by Will Eisner
(Baronet Press, 1978)

Punished

Whoah... what happened? Did anybody catch the license plate of that van? Where am I? What have I been doing the last seven days? Why are my clothes covered in blood and dirt?

Yep, that's what it feels like to have deadlines run all the hell over you. Sorry for the lack of blog posts this past week; your Moments of Noir and Hardboiled Fridays and everything else will return next week.

But if you've missed the sound of me blabbering on about stuff, you could check out this Q&A I did with Steve Ekstrom over at Newsarama yesterday.

Or, read my editor's letter in this week's City Paper, in which I realize I've outlived my biological usefulness.

Hardboiled Fridays!

"Instinctively Bolan was rolling for shadow and blindly returning fire, very much aware that he was bleeding from two places but also strongly aware that he'd cut the odds down to a much more manageable two-to-one. Some men die easily, passively, passing back through the gateway of life with a gentle sigh or despairing moan. Some die with great reluctance, angrily, snatching at everything within reach to block that narrow passageway and to seal themselves into the Life side. Bolan was one of those latter."

Panic in Philly
by Don Pendleton
(Pinnacle Books, March 1973)

So Much Me, Even I'm Tired of Me

I've been enjoying a weird media blitz today. (As a newspaper guy, it's still kind of strange to be on the other end of this.) So if you're coming to this site from CBR.com, or Publishers Weekly, or maybe even Marvel.com... hello, and welcome.
As for everybody else: Now that Cable has been revealed as alive and well (and with child) at the end of X-Men #205, I'm free to gab a bit more about the Cable series I'm writing, which kicks off next March. And gab I have. First up today was a story by Dave Richards at Comic Book Resources. Then came a Q&A at Marvel.com. Finally, Laura Hudson interviewed me for her comics column at Publishers Weekly. (And there might be another Q&A or two in the pipeline.) Check them out if you're curious to know more...

Update (12/5): Steve Ekstrom's Newsarama.com Q&A with me is now live. Boy, are those guys up early!

Your Monday Moment of Noir

"He lived alone in this deteriorating, blind building of a thousand uninhabited apartments, which like all its counterparts, fell, day by day, into greater entropic ruin. Eventually everything within the building would merge, would be faceless and identical, mere pudding-like kipple piled to the ceiling of each apartment. And, after that, the uncared-for building itself would settle into shapelessness, buried under the ubiquity of the dust. By then, naturally, he himself would be dead, another interesting event to anticipate as he stood here in his stricken living room alone with the lungless, all-penetrating, masterful world-silence.

Better, perhaps, to turn the TV back on."

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
a.k.a. Blade Runner
by Philip K. Dick
(Doubleday, 1968)

I Love the Chronic(le)!

This weekend, nothing made happier than Eddie Muller's review of The Blonde, which appeared in his San Francisco Chronicle. I'm a huge fan of Muller's crime fiction column, as well as his film noir guides (Dark City is absolutely essential), and his two Billy Nichols novels of newspaper noir. I would say this even if he savaged me. Of course, I'm damn glad he didn't.

Muller also had great things to say about Derek Nikitas' Pyres, which I was lucky enough to read in advance (and blurb) earlier this year.

Check out the whole column right here.